The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[1robin]

I know its probably been asked 100 times before but where does the theory say before the big bang there was nothing?

You are correct. It has. I have answered it at least a dozen times in this thread. I gave a very brief response to this question in the first part of my response to Flame in Post #1118 please see it for your answer.

 

[Willamena]

This is not a biological thread. I am not debating evolution in it's own context. The only relevance it has in a theological forum is a counter argument against God's existence. I evaluating it on that background. That may be why my claims seem a little out of the ordinary.

So let's start at the beginning and see if evolution WITHOUT God is a sustainable theory.

1. How do you get a universe to have evolution in out of nothing without God?

Once you answer that we will move on to how do we get the type of universe we need. Then cover the other trillion things that must have happened without God to get the genetic reality we have.

That's what I'm saying, though: the term evolution only has the one significant context in regards to the ToE, the biological. It's not really a counter-argument against God at all. Evolution is a sustainable theory without God because it just looks at the pattern of generational changes. You don't get to have evolution "out of nothing," you get to have it out of the faculty consciousness, specifically the ability to recognize the pattern of changes.

As someone said earlier, we don't get the type of universe we need so much as the type of universe that we have got us.

I am only asking for what MUST have had to occur to get life without God. You need a universe.

We have a universe. Check.

You have nothing how do you get one?

We can just use the one we already have.

I'm avoiding your questions, but only because they are unnecessary. Evolution is a pattern detectable within the existing universe.

 

[1robin]

So, you're saying that there is only a very specific kind (or kinds) of Universe which could have formed in which life could have a evolved? That still has the same problems as I pointed out. How can you demonstrate that life could not have evolved (albeit in an entirely different form) in a Universe with entirely different laws and structure? How can you demonstrate, in your words, that life wouldn't have existed throughout the entire pie, regardless?

Secular science not me or a theologian claims that life (any type they can even theorize as possible) requires an almost inexhaustible range of very improbable parameters. I have given a few in a previous post. I have even given secular scientist quotes reflecting the intuitive nature of this claim.

Can you provide a source for this?

I have read it a hundred times but could not find it when I looked. let me look again. I did supply a similar improbability and gave it's source so there is no reason to doubt the veracity of another one similar to it. So far all I have found is the number. It is one part in .0000000 X 122 decimal places. There are 20 more tuned to 32 decimal places. Here is another: Well, it turns out that if we change gravity by even a tiny fraction of a percent—enough so that you would be, say, one billionth of a gram heavier or lighter—the universe becomes so different that there are no stars, galaxies, or planets. And without planets, there would be no life.
What is the “fine-tuning” of the universe, and how does it serve as a “pointer to God”? | BioLogos

Here is more:

Besides the BBC video, the scientific establishment's most prestigious journals, and its most famous physicists and cosmologists, have all gone on record as recognizing the objective truth of the fine-tuning. The August '97 issue of "Science" (the most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal in the United States) featured an article entitled "Science and God: A Warming Trend?" Here is an excerpt:

The fact that the universe exhibits many features that foster organic life -- such as precisely those physical constants that result in planets and long-lived stars -- also has led some scientists to speculate that some divine influence may be present.

In his best-selling book, "A Brief History of Time", Stephen Hawking (perhaps the world's most famous cosmologist) refers to the phenomenon as "remarkable."

The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life". "For example," Hawking writes, "if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, stars would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium, or else they would not have exploded. It seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the numbers (for the constants) that would allow for development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

Hawking then goes on to say that he can appreciate taking this as possible evidence of "a divine purpose in Creation and the choice of the laws of science (by God)" (ibid. p. 125).


Dr. Gerald Schroeder, author of "Genesis and the Big Bang" and "The Science of Life" was formerly with the M.I.T. physics department. He adds the following examples:

• Professor Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in high energy physics (a field of science that deals with the very early universe), writing in the journal "Scientific American", reflects on:

how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values.

Although Weinberg is a self-described agnostic, he cannot but be astounded by the extent of the fine-tuning. He goes on to describe how a beryllium isotope having the minuscule half life of 0.0000000000000001 seconds must find and absorb a helium nucleus in that split of time before decaying. This occurs only because of a totally unexpected, exquisitely precise, energy match between the two nuclei. If this did not occur there would be none of the heavier elements. No carbon, no nitrogen, no life. Our universe would be composed of hydrogen and helium. But this is not the end of Professor Weinberg's wonder at our well-tuned universe. He continues:

One constant does seem to require an incredible fine-tuning -- The existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places.

This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not:
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000,
but instead:
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000001,
there would be no life of any sort in the entire universe because as Weinberg states:

the universe either would go through a complete cycle of expansion and contraction before life could arise, or would expand so rapidly that no galaxies or stars could form.


• Michael Turner, the widely quoted astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and Fermilab, describes the fine-tuning of the universe with a simile:

The precision is as if one could throw a dart across the entire universe and hit a bulls eye one millimeter in diameter on the other side.


• Roger Penrose, the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, discovers that the likelihood of the universe having usable energy (low entropy) at the creation is even more astounding,

namely, an accuracy of one part out of ten to the power of ten to the power of 123. This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down in full, in our ordinary denary (power of ten) notation: it would be one followed by ten to the power of 123 successive zeros! (That is a million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion zeros.)

Penrose continues,

Even if we were to write a zero on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe -- and we could throw in all the other particles as well for good measure -- we should fall far short of writing down the figure needed. The precision needed to set the universe on its course is to be in no way inferior to all that extraordinary precision that we have already become accustomed to in the superb dynamical equations (Newton's, Maxwell's, Einstein's) which govern the behavior of things from moment to moment.

Cosmologists debate whether the space-time continuum is finite or infinite, bounded or unbounded. In all scenarios, the fine-tuning remains the same.

It is appropriate to complete this section on "fine tuning" with the eloquent words of Professor John Wheeler:

To my mind, there must be at the bottom of it all, not an utterly simple equation, but an utterly simple IDEA. And to me that idea, when we finally discover it, will be so compelling, and so inevitable, so beautiful, we will all say to each other, "How could it have ever been otherwise?"
Gerald Schroeder - Articles - Fine Tuning of the Universe

I see why I could not find it now. It was Penrose (Hawking's old partner) who said it not Hawking. Anyway you still have the problem even if another source provided it.

But these things don't happen "randomly", they are a result of natural, physical laws. So the calculation is meaningless.

There were no laws present to dictate any of these initial conditions. This reminds me of something. Whether you agree or not this universe's improbability is a given fact among most scientists. However what do we make of it. It's fine tuning must be explained by something.

1. Was it as you suggest dictated by it's own nature. No because "nothing" has no nature. Nothing is the absence of being. There were no laws. I have never even seen anyone attempt to explain the initial conditions by self necessity. In fact they consider the first 10^-47 of a second completely inaccessible to science, and where all known law breaks down.
2. Was there a necessary abstract concept that dictated it? No, abstract concepts have no causal relationship to anything. Numbers never create stuff.
3. A disembodied mind? Well there is much evidence to suggest this exists. Maybe billions of claims to having experienced it. It is also capable in theory of doing just what we need here, and it is the only viable option left at this point.

That doesn't even remotely address the objection. That entire article is based on the assumption that the Universe is "fine-tuned" for life, rather than the other way around. Again, all of its assertions evaporate when you look at the problem the correct way around: life developed as a consequence, and within the laws, of the Universe that exists. If those laws would have been different, there is nothing to say that life wouldn't have simply developed differently, nor is there any means by which an individual can claim that there is a specific set of laws or events that have to exist in order for life to exist, because we are currently unaware of any specific set parameters required for "life" to exist in ANY form, nor are we currently aware of what limits the forms life can take. It is therefore fallacious to assert that life cannot occur given specific parameters, and it is utterly groundless to attach a mathematical probability to the event of life forming.

I think you just completely blanked out everything I have recently said about probability. I just can't go over it all again.

 

[1robin]

It doesn't. It just creationists continually don't understand the theory...or worse still, make up something they don't understand.

1robin is in the later group. He is pulling magical number out of thin air or from the top of his head: eg "0.00%" and "a trillion hurdles".

I would ask 1robin where he is getting these numbers (like cite his "scientific" sources), but I know from experiences that answers will not be forthcoming from any creationist; I won't get any valid or satisfactory answer, or just get evasive ramblings about something else.

I have already done everything you ask over and over again.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

The design is not complex.

I would be curious as to why anyone would even assume design. The universe doesn't appear designed from where I'm sitting. Unintelligent design seems more compatible with the actual reality than anything intelligent.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Assuming the existence of some kind of ghost in the machine (spirit) with no evidence and calling on us to accept that is pre-suppositionalism.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Secular science not me or a theologian claims that life (any type they can even theorize as possible) requires an almost inexhaustible range of very improbable parameters. I have given a few in a previous post. I have even given secular scientist quotes reflecting the intuitive nature of this claim.

No, what you have given is claims made by people about the probability of life on earth forming by those parameters. They do not say, nor can they say, that life cannot exist under any other conditions, because they don't know what other forms life is capable of taking. There is absolutely no reason to assume that whatever happened under earth's conditions that lead to the formation of life couldn't happen on an entirely different planet to our own, and result in life which is entirely different to the forms we see on our planet. There is no reason whatsoever to assume that our planet's conditions are the only conditions under which any form of life can emerge.

There were no laws present to dictate any of these initial conditions. This reminds me of something. Whether you agree or not this universe's improbability is a given fact among most scientists. However what do we make of it. It's fine tuning must be explained by something.

1. Was it as you suggest dictated by it's own nature. No because "nothing" has no nature. Nothing is the absence of being. There were no laws. I have never even seen anyone attempt to explain the initial conditions by self necessity. In fact they consider the first 10^-47 of a second completely inaccessible to science, and where all known law breaks down.
2. Was there a necessary abstract concept that dictated it? No, abstract concepts have no causal relationship to anything. Numbers never create stuff.
3. A disembodied mind? Well there is much evidence to suggest this exists. Maybe billions of claims to having experienced it. It is also capable in theory of doing just what we need here, and it is the only viable option left at this point.

This is a baseless assertion on your part. You cannot claim that people have "experienced a disembodied mind" any more than I can claim that people have "experienced aliens". You can't justify a scientific hypothesis on the basis of arbitrarily linking billions of largely unrelated human experiences - that could easily be attributable to anything - and asserting that they all must be experiencing the same thing, and that this thing must be the disembodied mind that created the Universe. You have no evidence to support any of those assertions.

I think you just completely blanked out everything I have recently said about probability. I just can't go over it all again.

You don't have to. I've dismissed the calculation as meaningless for the reasons I've already described.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Ok picking up where I left off. I am very surprised at this question since I must have gone over models and the philosophy that supports this a dozen times just in this thread. I cannot resupply all that stuff every week so I will only mention 1 model and a little philosophy.

Beyond the BBT the next most prevalent and dominant model in cosmology is the BGVT. It agrees with the BBT but goes on to establish some things it does not. I will let one of it's originators speak for it.

Vilenkin’s verdict: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”
Vilenkin’s verdict: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” | Uncommon Descent
Before you try to get out of that with questions about context or meaning please see the sight. That statement is not nearly as strong as the context it is found in. He actually goes on to declare impossible all other major alternatives and even more emphatically deny anything beyond one universe that began to exist a finite time ago.

The opinion of a single physicist, quoted on an Intelligent Design website, is insufficient to demonstrate your claim. What else can you offer?

What is the universe? The totality of known or supposed objects and phenomena throughout space; the cosmos; macrocosm.
Universe | Define Universe at Dictionary.com
Basically everything. So if everything had a beginning a finite time ago then nothing existed prior to it.

However even if cosmology did not exist it is logically impossible for anything natural to be eternal. You cannot cross a infinite expanse of anything in nature. You can't have an infinite regress of causation, you cannot cross an infinite number of quantum fluctuations, physical changes, information state changes to arrive at the current one. Any kind of natural infinite is incoherent. So everything natural is finite. That means at one time it did not exist.

I see a lot of assertions, but as of yet no actual evidence.

Lets see if God is a fantasy in the way multiple universe are.

1. There is the potentiality to experience God. There is not currently and maybe forever any way to experience other universes. These are not equalities.

Wrong and wrong. Firstly, the experiences you attribute to being experiences of God are not necessarily experiences of God - they can be explained by any number of social or cognitive phenomena. No demonstrable experience of God exists. Secondly, we can directly observe the potential effect of multiple Universes by observing subatomic particles in quantum states, and their ability to exist in multiple states simultaneously. One theory proposed to explain this phenomena is the multiple Universe theory. So, it can be said, that every time we observe an particle existing in a quantum superstate, we are directly observing multiple Universes. At least, we can say that with just as much (if not more) certainty that you can say that a claimed experience of God is an actual experience of God. If that is so, then I see no reason that we cannot attribute the observation of quantum phenomena to the existence of multiple Universes. If you can cut out any other potential explanations, so can we.

2. Not only that there are hundreds of millions of claims to having experienced God. There is no one who has or should claim to have experienced other universes. These are not equalities.

An unevidenced claim is still unevidenced, regardless of how many people claim it. Reality is not dependent on the popular vote.

3. There is evidence which can be evaluated to determine the veracity of God's existence.

Where?

There is none so far for multiple universes. These are not equivalent. Don't bother giving me a paper that suggests there is evidence for multiple universes, I have tracked down dozens of them and never found anything beyond theory in any of them and have given up the effort.

And yet you consider "experiences" of God to be factual without any recourse to any other potential explanation?

So no they are not both fantasy. God is on the same grounding as dark matter. Can't be tested for exactly but has enough evidence of it's existence as to consider it likely, actually God has more but I will leave it here.

Garbage.

I was not asking for you to tell me how it came to be. I was asking you to tell me how it is possible that anything came to be from nothingness. This is not a biological forum. It is a theological one. The only relevance evolution has is a counter argument to God's existence. So you need to show that you can still get a universe to have evolution is without God or the argument is null and void in the cradle.

This paragraph is just a massive collection of nonsense. I never said it was possible for anything to come from nothing, and it's ridiculous to assert that evolution is a counter argument to God's existence - it isn't. God could exist regardless of whether evolution is true or not. What I said was a very simple fact: evolution only requires that a Universe exists - not that the Universe have a very specific origin.

Because life, any kind of life science can dream up requires certain things.

Again, no. You cannot possibly assert that unless you can identify exactly every single form that life could ever possibly take. Can you empirically demonstrate that?

You need gravity, structures on which life can arise, densities and energy that allow for chemical evolution, and etc....... That type of universe is very improbable. BTW I get all of these what any type of life would require parameters straight from secular science.

These are assertions you simply cannot support. You're just re-stating your opinion, not addressing my argument. My argument is how can you possibly know that there are only very specific conditions under which life can form, if we are currently unaware of every possible form that life can take? We are currently incapable of assessing whether or not life could form under entirely different conditions to earth - or even entirely different laws in an entirely different Universe - so it is groundless to assert that life can only arise given a very specific set of conditions. All you are doing is looking at the life that developed on earth and asserting that the conditions in which it arose must be the conditions under which life forms. In other words, you're asserting that the specific kind of life we see on earth is the only kind of life that could even potentially exist. You have to demonstrate that this is so before you can make any assertions whatsoever about the likelihood of life forming under any conditions.

This is not what I am saying. This is another misguided attempt to set up a sharpshooter fallacy claim. My argument is a probabilistic argument. The type of universe that can support life of any kind compared against the almost infinite range of possible universes is astronomically improbable.

Once again, you are just re-stating your claim. You're not actually addressing my argument. How can you possibly claim to know the conditions under which ANY KIND OF LIFE can potentially form?

 

[Thief]

You mean you seldom get the answer you want...


Seems a number of people are not interested in playing your imaginary word games.

You just tend to take it to personally.

I been telling you for years you need a new song and dance....



your dislike of the situation has no bearing on the truth of the situation.
Since you offer nothing but rhetoric and word games in support of your song and dance, how can you expect anyone to take it seriously?

As if you know better!
Well....let's see it!

 

[Thief]

I would be curious as to why anyone would even assume design. The universe doesn't appear designed from where I'm sitting. Unintelligent design seems more compatible with the actual reality than anything intelligent.

The simplicity is amazing.
Four basic forces.
One basic design of structure.
All held in place with enough give and take....the possibilities are without end.

If you have something of a more complex structure....indicating intelligence....
would that structure be as functional as the one you do see?

I would contend....the intelligent design IS simple.
That it is also vast and so diverse in variation is brilliant.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Your contention of four basic forces and the universe being smple are both unscientific

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Also I'm curious what structure you see in a universe where everything is constantly breaking down and decaying. That indicates ID? Does black holes at every galaxy's center?

 

[Thief]

Try circles.
Sit still and look for them.
Almost everything is 'centered'.
Almost everything is round.
You need only one number to describe a sphere.

so forth and so on.

 

[McBell]

As if you know better!
Well....let's see it!

I am not the one here who is scared to death of saying "I Do Not Know".
That would be you.

 

[Thief]

I am not the one here who is scared to death of saying "I Do Not Know".
That would be you.

I should plead ignorance for your sake?
naw.

 

[McBell]

I should plead ignorance for your sake?
naw.

You should plead ignorance when you are ignorant instead of making it up as you go along all the while lying to yourself about how "reasonable" you are being when you toss that exact same "reason" out the window the second your favourite deity enters the picture.

 

[1robin]

That's what I'm saying, though: the term evolution only has the one significant context in regards to the ToE, the biological. It's not really a counter-argument against God at all. Evolution is a sustainable theory without God because it just looks at the pattern of generational changes. You don't get to have evolution "out of nothing," you get to have it out of the faculty consciousness, specifically the ability to recognize the pattern of changes.

If I am given a post about evolution. Which is what started this line of debate quite a ways back in a theological forum then I am logical in assuming it to be part of a naturalist's case against God. That is the context in which it has relevance and that which I evaluate it.

So since we both agree evolution has occurred, and since you are not using it as an argument against God the disagreements we might have over how much evolution has taken place is irrelevant. I have no interest in it in a purely biological context. I find it the most useless and boring of theories and only interested in it in he former context.

As someone said earlier, we don't get the type of universe we need so much as the type of universe that we have got us.

However the universe we have is vanishingly improbable if we do not posit a God the needed a universe of just his type. If you think nothing produced he universe (an unsustainable hypothesis) then you must allow that it could have created an infinite range of universes. Among these a life permitting sub range would be infinitesimally small. As I said it appears evolution has one a million lotteries starting with the specific universe we know exists.

We have a universe. Check.

We have one that should not be. Without God we should expect there to be nothing at all. Given that you could find a way to get anything to start with, why this very very fine tuned universe among the panorama of universes that were possible.

We can just use the one we already have.

Everything that exists has an explanation of it's existence. You have a very vey rare type of universe. You must explain it's existence. You have three options.

1. It's rarity and existence at all is a result of some necessity of it's own. However nothing has no necessary parameters, no causal power, no potential to do anything. So this one is out.
2. Some abstract concept that can exist without a universe and prior to one caused it. Yet these concepts do not stand in causal relationships at all. Numbers do not cause anything. So this one is out.
3. The only thing left is an intelligent agent. Now if this is the cause and it is the only viable candidate then you can easily conclude certain things about this agent. It can't be material, it can't be in time, etc....... When you get through with the list of what this agent must have you get the exact description of God as ignorant bronze age men described him in every detail.

I'm avoiding your questions, but only because they are unnecessary. Evolution is a pattern detectable within the existing universe.

Your only avoiding (or attempting to avoid) the necessity the universe requires by restricting what you claim is the context to something that is not relevant and then exceeding your own mandate by talking about it in other contexts.

 

[1robin]

No, what you have given is claims made by people about the probability of life on earth forming by those parameters. They do not say, nor can they say, that life cannot exist under any other conditions, because they don't know what other forms life is capable of taking. There is absolutely no reason to assume that whatever happened under earth's conditions that lead to the formation of life couldn't happen on an entirely different planet to our own, and result in life which is entirely different to the forms we see on our planet. There is no reason whatsoever to assume that our planet's conditions are the only conditions under which any form of life can emerge.

I am NOT talking about life here on earth. I am talking about a universe that will have any structure whatever to have life evolve at all. In these lists of data I have provided I may have over looked one that only applied to life on earth but the rest apply to life of any kind being possible at all. The argument is not mine, the data was not mine. It is not the product of the Church nor of any apologist, it is straight from secular geniuses like Penrose or Hawking. At least 95% of what I have stated has been about getting any universe that could allow life to exist at all, but that was being too easy on you as it was. You need to get something (of any kind) to begin with before we even get to the former step. AS another of secular sciences geniuses so rightly asked. Why is there anything instead of nothing?

This is a baseless assertion on your part. You cannot claim that people have "experienced a disembodied mind" any more than I can claim that people have "experienced aliens". You can't justify a scientific hypothesis on the basis of arbitrarily linking billions of largely unrelated human experiences - that could easily be attributable to anything - and asserting that they all must be experiencing the same thing, and that this thing must be the disembodied mind that created the Universe. You have no evidence to support any of those assertions.

I most certainly can because I have experience it myself. On what basis am I to trust my five senses if I cannot trust experience it's self? I also did not say billions have experienced it. I said there are billions of claims to having experienced it. When 1 out of 3 people claim o have experienced X and you deny them all but concede dark matter which no one has experienced knowingly then your operating under these double standards again. I am not trying to justify a scientific hypothesis. Unlike you I do not equal science with truth, even though you do not live by that motto most of he time your self. Truth can come in many unscientific forms. Scientism is a narrow and short sided view of reality that IMO is boring and would suck all the majesty out of life, and that no one actually lives their lives as if it was true anyway. It is only a rhetorical tactic that is unsustainable.

You don't have to. I've dismissed the calculation as meaningless for the reasons I've already described.

If you can arbitrarily write off Penrose, Hawking, or Leibniz on what basis is science involved in your thinking at all? I can simply deny what I find inconvenient if I desired. Does not make for a persuasive or interesting debate though.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Try circles.
Sit still and look for them.
Almost everything is 'centered'.
Almost everything is round.
You need only one number to describe a sphere.

so forth and so on.

That makes no sense. Are you comparing the universe to a circle?

 

[idav]

However the universe we have is vanishingly improbable if we do not posit a God the needed a universe of just his type. If you think nothing produced he universe (an unsustainable hypothesis) then you must allow that it could have created an infinite range of universes. Among these a life permitting sub range would be infinitesimally small. As I said it appears evolution has one a million lotteries starting with the specific universe we know exists.

Who has improbably won the lottery is God. He gets to exist beyond plausibility without any question of faith to its veracity. That sort of logic is inexcusable. You still don't understand how probability works. Your vanishingly improbable because you could have been a billions of billions of different people but it only took one tadpole to be you otherwise you wouldn't be you, you would be one of the billion other tadpoles with a completley different genetic makeup. This probablility thing doesn't make gods case it severely hinders it.

God just is, as his creation is just so, cause he chose such and such because that is the way the improbable entity wanted it just so. Existence just being is a hell of a lot less miraculous than some super duper entity beyond all comprehension. This super omni everything god is the most improbable being in existence and nonexistence. There is nothing to make that sort of thing logically coherent, even more so than existence just being.