It's settled then, since you just admitted that you don't believe that the "first cause" is possible.
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The first cause argument
- Thread starter firedragon
- Start date
firedragon
Veteran Member
If you read the post fully you will understand.
firedragon
Veteran Member
What do you mean "being of choice"?
How could that being not have a beginning?
I have never heard this type of argumentation. Thus please explain if you dont mind.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
We actually do define them in science as coordinates on one manifold. How many times do I need to repeat that? You 'definition' was of a unit of time, not how time is seen in physics.
Meaningless. We can measure time in all sorts of different ways, and they all conform to GR.
Time is dependant on frame of reference. You seem to want to just magic some over version of time into existence by simply asserting it.
No, it isn't.
No, I'm not.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Well, actually all I need to do is show that they are mere guesses (at best). Which they are.
All of this has already been done to death here already. There are clear counterexamples for premise 1, premise 2 is an open question in science, even in the sense that time is finite in the past (and misunderstanding infinity is not a supporting argument), and even if it is finite in the past that doesn't really mean that it began to exist because we treat space-time as a whole manifold, and time as a coordinate through it.
Yes. The evidence for evolution is vast and compelling. The KCA is based on guesswork and wishful thinking. It's not impossible that the universe had a cause. I can't disprove it, but there are very, very good reasons for questioning it.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
Not at all. The definition of 'time' is a convenience.
Which frame of reference do we choose for defining it?
What does it mean when we say a year is 365 days long?
How long is a piece of string?
Why do atomic clocks measure different lengths of time in different frames?
Time is not an absolute quantity, but we define it as if it is.
That's what I mean by "measured time".
We say that the speed of light is a constant. The only reason why that is so, is because we have defined time and space as if they are definitive.
Our operational definition of time says nothing about the nature of time.
It is a convenience and no more.
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
The whole point of relativity is that it is independent from the frame of reference and it allows us to move between different ones in a defined way. What is defined is the underlying manifold. The landscape of the earth is independent of whether you measure position using latitude and longitude or some other system. Likewise, the manifold in general relativity is defined regardless of what coordinates we apply to it.
For reasons that are well understood, and, in fact, predicted by, relativity.
No, we don't. Are you even reading the answers you're getting?
rational experiences
Veteran Member
O earth.
1 position science machine taken from.earths mass.
1 of O.
Then nothing.
Yet a man is bio dies not as consciousness live in nothing.
First advice number by mass versus measure 0 nothing.
0 space zero he says one plane. Empty.
So how do you count empty?
00000000000000...still empty still zero he says.
000000000 to a gas says the measure states mass gone. Emptied. One way.
As you cannot add back into by 000000000 to say as a theist I pretended I added onto gases back to position 1 earth.
As you use an earth machine you put earth mass into 0 zero to transmit out and back yourselves.
1 position science machine taken from.earths mass.
1 of O.
Then nothing.
Yet a man is bio dies not as consciousness live in nothing.
First advice number by mass versus measure 0 nothing.
0 space zero he says one plane. Empty.
So how do you count empty?
00000000000000...still empty still zero he says.
000000000 to a gas says the measure states mass gone. Emptied. One way.
As you cannot add back into by 000000000 to say as a theist I pretended I added onto gases back to position 1 earth.
As you use an earth machine you put earth mass into 0 zero to transmit out and back yourselves.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
..so you say that such-and-such happened millions of years ago..
What does that mean to you?
Is it represented by time in our frame of reference or what?
Is there such a thing as a universal frame of reference, or not?
If we didn't define time in one particular frame of reference, it would be relatively meaningless.
It is a convenience, and we naturally choose our frame of reference to define it.
You can object to this as much as you like, but that doesn't change anything.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Well, it does. Because I act differently than you. We are playing sociological schemata and this:
Thomas Theorem: If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.
That is neither Christian or Islam. That is from a different culture, which started in classical Greece. That was also a civilization.
That there is no way to extend the notion of time previous to some point (probably a limit point).
No, it would not. There would be no 'before', hence no 'coming out'.
Or in relation to later times. BTW, space *also* started at the same point as time. As did matter and energy.
Space, time, matter, and energy all starting at the same 'point', it means exactly that.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
We don't know that.
Well, in such cases, the 'proper time' of the Earth would be the most natural choice. It represents the time actually experienced by an observer on the Earth for that time period.
The Earth is moving slow enough and has a weak enough gravitational field that this is almost identical to the comoving frame in the universal expansion for our galaxy.
Proper time. In other words, the time actually experienced by something moving along with the Earth.
Proper time, by the way, is an invariant: all reference frames agree about what the proper time along a path will be.
No, there is not. But at any event, there is a naturally defined comoving frame. it's just that different points have different comoving frames.
And , like I pointed out, for any path through spacetime there is also the proper time along the path. Different paths can give different results, as in the twin paradox.
Which is why the proper time along a path is a good choice. it is invariant: all reference frames can compute it from their observations and will come up with the same answer. it is also the time actually experienced by an observer moving along that path.
It does, however, depend on the path and may not agree with any one reference frame if acceleration is happening.
Same.
Note that is both are at rest, then each is moving 10 times as fast as the other, but the distances moved are the same.
This is because 10*0=0. The above 'paradox' for infinite time is simply the fact that 10*infinity=infinity.
Why such a 'paradox' implies this cannot happen in reality is yet to be argued.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Yeah, but I am not that kind of rationalist, rather I am the correct one, because my definitions are objectively useful. And I hold the truth and authority over the world, because my opinions are not really opinions and your opinions are wrong, because my methodology is by definition the correct one.
If that is what you accept, then you must also accept an infinite universe. An infinite amount of "beginnings" must also be acceptable.
Here's what I mean by infinite beginnings:
1. The universe has a beginning.
2. The beginning of the universe has a beginning.
3. The beginning of the beginning of the universe has a beginning.
This goes on and on forever.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
I don't have to accept anything that makes no sense to me.
That, to me, is theoretical claptrap.
It's a bit like perpeutual motion, that has no specific cause or reason.
I would agree that an Eternal G-d is hard to grasp. It implies a reality which is hidden from us, which clearly causes some questions in itself.
However, it is a more satisfactory explanation to me, rather than existence being all one big coincidence. That is a meaningless concept that leaves us with nothing.
Sure, you don't have to, but you do accept things that makes no sense to you, hence your comment below.I don't have to accept anything that makes no sense to me.
That, to me, is theoretical claptrap.
You accept a mysterious reality that's hidden from you, one that you can make no sense of. So like I said, you don't have to accept things that don't make sense to you, but you do accept things that don't make sense to you.
Truth is not dependent on your feelings of satisfactory. And you just demonstrated this. You can satisfied believing that you made a reasonable objection to what I said, but the TRUTH is, you putting words in my mouth and declaring victory only demonstrate in you failing to do just that.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
I didn't say I can make no sense of it.
I just said that it is hidden from us.
There is not much point in rushing to understand something in its entirety.
If we do that, we are likely to become mentally unbalanced.
Success doesn't lie there. It lies in accepting our limitations.