Which existed first "something" or "nothing"?

[Frank Merton]

But Frank.....existence can never be made to cease existing.....so to have a beginning, there needs to be some way of making what we know is real disappear (become unreal) to have had that beginning. If that is impossible, which it is, logic dictates that there was never a beginning....existence is eternal. Now let's be clear...all cosmic forms are finite and have beginnings and endings...but the essence that these forms are made never had a beginning for the reason given...there is no nothing that doesn't exist.

As to time...it is merely a concept of the mind..an abstraction from eternal duration to represent an observed or measured finite period of duration of existence...and is relative to moving aspects of universal existence within universal space... Time is not real as a rock is real...it's a mind thing...

I think your statement that existence can never cease existing is just your intuitive feel; I see no necessary reason for it. Time is a good deal more than a concept of the mind; otherwise the relativity (time dilation in a gravitational field) corrections needed for GPS would be just concepts of the mind, and the are real and have to be done.

I would agree there can be no such thing as non-existence, but existence does not necessarily have to always exist. It is just that there is no meaning to saying before existence.

It reminds me of "Through the Looking Glass" where the white night asks Alice if anyone is coming down the road. She says, "There is no one coming." The white night says, "Ah, the wonders of life -- to be able to see 'no one' -- and at such a distance!

 

[viole]

The big bang may have been the beginning, or may not have. We have little evidence -- certainly not enough to resolve the question. I tend to think the probable reality is an inflating universe where bubbles of more like normal space-time appear here and there (but because the speed of the expansion is superluminal, they are necessarily so far apart as to be completely out of range). The really interesting speculation to me is that some of these bubbles could themselves be unlimited in size and hence truly flat and like what we seem to see about our universe.

My point is that even if the Big happened and this is the only Universe and there "was nothing before", then we cannot talk of a beginning, either.

My view of the Universe is that of a 4-dimensional surface with a certain metric field on it (forgetting for the moment quantum things) which is immutable. Did not begin, nor it is expanding or things like that. Dynamics is meaningless for the context only within which it makes sense. A block Universe, as it is called. Which is pretty compatible with the geometrization of spacetime we inherited from relativity.

The Big Bang is just a region on it. It is its beginning as the north pole is the beginning of the earth. That entails also that we should not use tensed verbs when we talk of the Universe and the events that punctate it. Because it is not the case that the past ceased to exist and the future has yet to exist. They exist. Simply not in the neighborhood of our space time location.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Thief]

All i can do is to create an environment conducive to healing.
The healing takes place apart from me.

not sure which healing we are now discussing.....your own unto yourself....
or you will unto others...as did the Carpenter.


we digress

 

[allfoak]

not sure which healing we are now discussing.....your own unto yourself....
or you will unto others...as did the Carpenter.


we digress

I do not yet have the grace of the Carpenter.

 

[Thief]

This is an issue that is probably never to be resolved. Logically time had to have a beginning, and since since we now know that space and time are the same thing, and energy may be too, they all began at the same time.

But there was never a time when nothing existed. If there is nothing there is no time so no time for it to exist. Things just began, end of story.

We need to leave it to physics to work out the details, if it can, and if it can't, then we need to just let it be. Inserting deities is not rationally honest and inserting deities from ancient speculation is stupid.

There seems to be a tendency to say maybe something always existed. This is to treat infinity as though it were a number, a common error in thinking. One does not get to here from infinitely far away, even if one travels faster than light. One must travel infinitely fast to achieve such a thing. What would that mean? Again, giving it a meaning is to treat infinity as a number, and it is not a number.

saw a theoretical physicist demonstrate an equation that resulted with...... infinity....plus.....infinity...............infinitely.

he then struck a thoughtful pose for the camera as he narrated......
physicists have a 'problem' with infinity.

and time is not a force or a substance....it's just a cognitive device of measure.
it's not real

 

[Thief]

I do not yet have the grace of the Carpenter.

I've had an event or two that has made me stop and wonder.....
but like you....I can't lay claim to the power of healing

 

[allfoak]

I've had an event or two that has made me stop and wonder.....
but like you....I can't lay claim to the power of healing

I am learning that these events can be orchestrated.

 

[Thief]

I am learning that these events can be orchestrated.

yeah.....
the events of healing as per gospel are varied in application
but there does seem a scheme to it

can't help but wonder....what triggers the flow

would yo like to start a thread?.....send me a pm if you do

 

[allfoak]

Spontaneous healing is possible.
However, a more likely scenario is this:
A child practices hard to get on the little league team and it pays off, he gets picked.
He is so overjoyed that he gets to play that his first time up he spontaneously hits a home run.

I am practicing good health in all areas of my life and occasionally i hit a home run.
I study the home runs to learn how to keep doing it.

 

[Frank Merton]

The body usually heals itself anyway, and if it doesn't the patient can be blamed for not believing strongly enough. That is the problem with healers. At least with a medical doctor you have someone who is using methods that have been tested scientifically.

 

[Thief]

The body usually heals itself anyway, and if it doesn't the patient can be blamed for not believing strongly enough. That is the problem with healers. At least with a medical doctor you have someone who is using methods that have been tested scientifically.

I haven't met a competent doctor

 

[Ben Dhyan]

One of the unsolved problems. However hard we may try, we cannot get the answer. The answer will be available only in future.

For a true beginning even the essence has to go, otherwise we are confronted with the question - when and how did the essence arise, and why should it be eternal?

So, at some point - time, space and energy made their first appearance, at least for our universe (if there are many)..

But that's the point...there can't be a beginning....it is not rational or logical given that there can not be a nothing before the essence for nothing does not exist... Now the creations are forever being dissolved into their essence, and simultaneously creations are forever coming into manifestation from the essence, while others again are being kept in a state of preservation by the essence....but there was never a beginning of the essence... Where are you suggesting the essence can be put for it is indestructible....it is eternal in nature...

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I think your statement that existence can never cease existing is just your intuitive feel; I see no necessary reason for it. Time is a good deal more than a concept of the mind; otherwise the relativity (time dilation in a gravitational field) corrections needed for GPS would be just concepts of the mind, and the are real and have to be done.

I would agree there can be no such thing as non-existence, but existence does not necessarily have to always exist. It is just that there is no meaning to saying before existence.

It reminds me of "Through the Looking Glass" where the white night asks Alice if anyone is coming down the road. She says, "There is no one coming." The white night says, "Ah, the wonders of life -- to be able to see 'no one' -- and at such a distance!

Frank...it is pure logic....where are you going to put the essential indestructible nature of existence in order to have the prerequisite state on non-existence in order for existence to replace this nothingness so that you can have a beginning.. I am dealing with the real....existence is real....non-existence is not real yet you want to believe that existence has it's genesis in non-existence which is absurd and unreal.... Now if science can make one iota of the essence of existence revert to nothing...you willl have my attention...but it is impossible and you know it!

You had a beginning and everything you know had a beginning because everything you know is a temporary manifestation, be it a bacteria, a man, or a galaxy....so you project your finite thinking onto the infinite and expect it also is like other temporary manifested forms.... Reality is real Frank...if something can disappear, it is not real in the sense of real being something that is unchanging...not a phantom here one moment and gone the next...time being relative in this context...

 

[Milton Platt]

Nothing doesnt just appear into something; something disapear. Something always existed. In combination of some sort like creating a baby, more "somethings" evolved. Its all one continuum. Nothing special.

How do you claim to know these things???

 

[Unveiled Artist]

How do you claim to know these things???

Its like the Monkey argument. Then that one person says, "why do we see monkey evolution now"? Just because we do not know it by experience today, we can pick up what the laws of nature are by observing where we are now. If we are from monkeys (no Ps and Qs. Not my point) then that evolution shouldnt stop.

Likewise, if something came from nothing, that process of "magic" should still be going on.

If anything, something from nothing is not a fact, we just say it that way because that something that was always there just came into our awareness of its existence.

Something from nothing is more an oxymoron.

All the somethings we heard of came from a combination of other somethings until we cant go further back to claim there was nothing to begin with.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Now Im tongue tied

 

[Milton Platt]

Its like the Monkey argument. Then that one person says, "why do we see monkey evolution now"? Just because we do not know it by experience today, we can pick up what the laws of nature are by observing where we are now. If we are from monkeys (no Ps and Qs. Not my point) then that evolution shouldnt stop.

Likewise, if something came from nothing, that process of "magic" should still be going on.

If anything, something from nothing is not a fact, we just say it that way because that something that was always there just came into our awareness of its existence.

Something from nothing is more an oxymoron.

All the somethings we heard of came from a combination of other somethings until we cant go further back to claim there was nothing to begin with.

Sure.....I get all that. My point is that we might make assumptions about what happened before there was a universe as we know it, but we can never truly know. As far as something coming from nothing, we cannot even examine "nothing" as a thing, so we cannot really say much about that state, whatever it is. We cannot even point to empty space as nothing because it is still something....it is space, which has qualities which are related to time and energy. So I am not saying something can come from nothing, I'm saying we cannot possible know that in any meaningful way.

 

[Thief]

But that's the point...there can't be a beginning....it is not rational or logical given that there can not be a nothing before the essence for nothing does not exist... Now the creations are forever being dissolved into their essence, and simultaneously creations are forever coming into manifestation from the essence, while others again are being kept in a state of preservation by the essence....but there was never a beginning of the essence... Where are you suggesting the essence can be put for it is indestructible....it is eternal in nature...

essence=God?

 

[Frank Merton]

We believe in causation -- that is, that everything that happens has a cause, or to put it the negative way, nothing that happens can happen without a cause. People this is just a belief. In our world it seems to be the case, but we can't prove it. All sorts of things happen that are mysteries to us. We assume they had a cause but maybe they didn't.

We do know, at least the scientists know and we are wise to accept their long-held consensus, that at the atomic and sub-atomic level this is not quite the case. Given a single uranium atom, we know that at some point it will decay, but without cause. It will just happen. We can't say it is random either because if we have a large collection of uranium atoms, we can predict very exactly how many will decay each second -- just not which ones.

 

[Aupmanyav]

.. but there was never a beginning of the essence .. Where are you suggesting the essence can be put for it is indestructible .. it is eternal in nature ..

The universe has surprised us many times. At one time, we took time as linear, now we know it is not like that. And we know only 5% of the universe, 95% is still hidden from us. How can we say that physical energy with which we began at the time of Big Bang is indestructible? For all we know, there may be a relationship between existence and non-existence as mentioned in RigVeda 'Nasadiya Sukta". So, let us not make categorical statements. There is a whole lot more to know in future.

I am dealing with the real .. but it is impossible and you know it! .. so you project your finite thinking onto the infinite ..

That declaration always amuses me. Do we know what is real and what is unreal? I, sincerely, do not know it. I also do not know who is projecting a finite thinking onto the infinite.