Yeah, like the geodesics that we find ourselves living within, which is why the theorem applies to this universe and any universe like it.
It applies to the geodesics within the universe.
Like what? These are hocus pocus scenarios that have no scientific backing whatsoever.
False. As near as we can tell, the universe is spatially flat. That would imply that it is spatially infinite.
Even though I give you props for the acronym, you are WRONG in stating that SLOT is not a fundamental law.
Have you ever taken a statistical mechanics course? if you had, you would know better. The SLOT (standard acronym, by the way) is a *statistical law*. it happens because we can accurately use the probabilities at lower levels and average them out to get reliable *macroscopic* descriptions. But we *have* noted violations in the SLOT in small systems (where statistical variations are more likely).
Again, when you see any organism decay, you are observing the SLOT in action. It never fails.
Go look up Poincare recurrence time.
Poincaré recurrence theorem - Wikipedia
Any dynamical system under very broad constraints will eventually return to be close to its original state. For example, if you release a gas from a corner of a room, it will expand to fill the room. But *at some point*, that gas will collapse again to that corner of the room. The entropy, which increased originally, will eventually decrease.
The point is that SLOT is a statistical description but there will always eventually be low probability events that happen.
The universe is a closed system, and is slowly decaying and will eventually find itself in a "heat death". The energy to do work is winding down, and if it is winding down, it must have been wound up.
Under a classical system, this is correct. But from what we understand, it seems likely that when the density gets low enough, it can trigger the quantum nucleation of a new universe (or universes).
And the chance of it being wound up (find tuned) by random chance is a 1 chance in 10^10^123...which is ugly...for your side of things.
And that would depend on the probability distribution used, wouldn't it?
It is simple. You cannot traverse an infinite amount of points in order to arrive at a single point.
Sure you can. If you have an infinite amount of time to do it and there is no start to the process.
If time is infinite, then that would mean that in order to arrive at today, an infinite amount of preceding days were traversed to get here.
I'm not sure about the word 'traversed'. But, yes, there were an infinite number of previous days to today. And that is true for *every* day in the list.
So, if each day that preceded today had a natural number attached, what would be the highest number in the bunch?
Each day would have a *negative* integer associated with it. The highest so far would be the number of today. There would be no smallest integer.
So, if the number for today is 4. Then yesterday was 3, the day before that would be 2, then 1, then 0, then -1, then -2, then -3, etc.
There can be no answer to this, because there is no such thing as the "highest" number in an infinite set.
The largest *integer* (which includes both positive and negative integers) that is less than 100 is 99 even though there are infinitely many integers smaller than 99 (including all the negative ones).
Your statement that there cannot be a largest in an infinite set of (positive and negative) integers is simply false.
I don't see how your conclusion follows.
And there is really no way out of it, so you can save yourself the time in trying to come up with some miraculous way to escape the inescapable.
Sorry, but I find your argument incoherent.
Again, Vilenkin said that the theorem is independent of there even being a singularity.
And the Standard Model of the big bang has a singularity, and in that model, the universe certainly began to exist.
No, it means that the universe is finite into the past in the Standard Model. That is NOT the same as 'having a beginning', which implies a time before the event.
Did I? What have I ignored or misunderstood?
That time is part of the universe.
That causality requires time and is therefore part of the universe.
That this means that the universe *cannot* be caused.
And we "know" that philosophical arguments, such as that of infinite regression, is independent of physics.
But based on very bad misunderstandings of what can happen with infinite sets and how such could impact physics.
There is no logical issue with an infinite regression.
We "know" that quantum physics can't get you things like married bachelors, or squared circles, or two-sided sticks.
Bachelors are, by definition, not married. I know of geometries where the circles (points equidistant from a center) are squares (four sided figures with equal sides and right angles). I can easily give you a two-sided stick.
But quantum mechanics *can* lead to particles being in two places at one time. it *can* lead a breakdown of causality. And it *does* lead to a number of facts about the universe that violate what classical philosophy would claim.
We "know" those things, too.
The ones that are true by definition we know because they are simply our conventions.
But, we do NOT know about causality by definition. That has to be investigated and tested.
We do NOT know about time by definition. That has to be investigated and tested.
The number of actual a priori truths is very limited.
Well, when you get that full theory, let me know.
Well, we have several candidates, but we need to get better technology to test them.
A single cell is more complex than a space shuttle. Yet, the space shuttle was designed, but the cell wasn't?
Correct. The cell evolved and the shuttle didn't.
Complex things can happen naturally when certain types of feedback loops exist.
But the type of complexity of the shuttle is not the type that can be produced in this way.
This is the taxi cab fallacy.
10^10^123 <---the initial fine-tuned parameters which needed to be set from very beginning of the universe beginning.
Yawn. According to Penrose. Does anyone else agree that this is the case?
How do you begin with such precision? Those low entropy conditions were placed there by an intelligent mind.
How can you jump to that conclusion? The mind itself would require something like entropy and natural laws to even function.
I understand that is hard for you to deal with, but hey...you will be aight.
I don't find it hard to deal with. I simply find it to be wrong.
This is false. The universe (or nature) cannot be used to explain the origins of its own domain...and when you attempt to do so, you are arguing in a circle and thus using fallacious reasoning.
My basic position is that the universe 'just is'. I claim that there is not and cannot be an explanation for reality.
Nothing within the device can be used to explain the origins of the device as a whole.
And if that device is all there is, then there can be no explanation at all.
That is the point that you missed/ignored...and it isn't going away.
External causes are needed for anything which begins to exist...and if you think otherwise, I will leave you to your absurdities (no offense).
And what is the cause of that 'eternal cause'? What explains the existence of *that*? All you get is yet another infinite regress.
I stop the regress by simply noting that the universe cannot be caused because all causes are within the universe.