Well in this scrap of video he gives no indication that multiple bangs are any kind of logical problem that would indicate we’ve made an error. I don’t know any more about him than this but he seems to take the bunch of bangs theory seriously but without alarm.
@Dale how can pushing God’s work back to the bang cycle be any kind of problem for you? He has survived every other enlargement of his creation accomplishment I don’t see why this would be a step too far.
I don’t disagree regardless of His true nature.
I don’t know that it is. But ‘cycle’ is still just conjecture. Even if you are as ‘rational’ as Martin. 
I don’t see any reason to dress it up. All I have is speculation but my better angels are whispering in my ears that I’m right. Check mate, theist. 
Sorry, I’m not following you.
To what ‘dressing’ do you refer?
I mean by calling what is basically my best guess rational.
Ah. But it was in scare quotes. 
Sorry but I’m not keeping up. You obviously have something in mind that is getting past me.
I’m not agreeing with the Kalam if I think there is a level of existence at which singularities come and go out of existence somewhat routinely in keeping with an internal order we are in no position to understand.
I’m not quite sure what you’re basing this theory on. If it is sheer speculation, then why favour it over the Kalam? There is also an uncertainty in the way you theorize. You seem to assume this one realm of spacetime in which singularities pop in and out of existence all the time. But that simply makes us ask where this larger spacetime entity came from. Finally, I’m afraid there is no such thing as something popping into existence out of nothing. I can prove this mathematically. Let nothing be represented by 0, and let something be represented by some nonzero value. To get something out of nothing would be to start with 0 and spontaneously end up at a nonzero value. It would be tantamount to saying 0 = 1. It is mathematically invalid.
Einstein showed that space and time are two sides of the same coin. Ultimately, time has a beginning, meaning that spacetime has a beginning. As I noted in my previous response, this can be proven from the logically contradictory nature of an eternal past. Furthermore, we can also say that this beginning is not spontaneously from nothing, per the above. The further we dive, the more theistic in constraint our conclusions will have to be.
EDIT: Just saw the Weinberg multiverse video. Allow me to watch it. I will update this comment with a second edit notice after seeing it with my comments.
EDIT 2: It is interesting but, for the sake of this conversation, speculation.
Infinity is a rational fact.
Infinity can not be actualized in the real world. It is only valid as a mathematical concept. By any chance, have you taken calculus? In calculus, we learn that values, in real application, can only approach infinity but do not ever reach infinity. And the phrase “approach infinity” simply means that the value in question gets bigger forever and does not have, at some limit, some finite value.
I also don’t see any real basis for a multiverse. The only time I ever see a multiverse get supposed in when someone wants a quick escape hatchet from the idea of the universe being finely tuned - although the multiverse, as it turns out, does not save anyone from fine tuning, even if true. Which I find it is not. In any case, the logical paradoxes of an infinite past apply whether or not we’re talking about a universe or a multiverse. There is no such thing as an infinite amount of time passing, it’s obviously impossible. No matter how much time passes, the number will get bigger and all, but it … doesn’t ever reach infinity. This applies to the universe, multiverse, cosmos, or whatever you want to call it.
Agreed. But at this level of remove isn’t it all speculation? I think we just have a different sense of what is reasonable, parsimonious and likely. But I’m not representing my conclusions as more than that. I’m certainly not basing any argument for or against God on such speculation.
There is no such thing as fine tuning. Only is self tuning. Your category error calculus analogy is nothing to do with the reality, the inescapable rational reality of infinite nature from, for forever and ever. Mind lurching though that is. Whether God grounds it or not. If God then He has always created. If not God, nature grounds itself, it abhors null, or rather null is abhorred; that is nature. It lacks, wants for nothing regardless. And what logical paradoxes are in eternal nature? And read up on Cantor’s aleph numbers. He’s a tad beyond calculus. It’s utterly irrelevant how we feel about increasing infinity, here we are doing it.
‘Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw Cantor’s work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God[6] – on one occasion equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism[7] – a proposition that Cantor vigorously rejected.’.
They still do. With no warrant whatsoever.
…it is said that we only find ourselves in a universe that permits life, therefore we shouldn’t be surprised to find it having the characteristics we do.
Imagine, however, trying to explain the finely-tuned arrangements of your own home this way. “I would never consider the unique characteristics of my home unless I were living in it so of course I will notice these details.” But that is not finally an explanation for the house or the details. Why this house rather than no house at all? Saying “I’m living in it” does not offer any explanatory scope or power as to how the house came about in the first place or why the numbers behind it are the way they are.
Penrose just seems to say, “Well, I find the house very curious and convenient, but beyond that, I don’t know. It is a puzzle the plumbing is just right, or the oven works so uncannily well or that the lights are just the right brightness or the electricity is channeled throughout the house in such a remarkably useful way. Maybe some sort of science fiction story might finally provide an answer, but I don’t know.”
There is no such thing as fine tuning. Only is self tuning.
To be honest, I’m not sure what you mean by this.
Your category error calculus analogy is nothing to do with the reality, the inescapable rational reality of infinite nature from, for forever and ever.
It’s not a category error analogy. It’s not even an analogy. It’s exactly the point of reality on discussion. Calculus is a mathematical framework by which we understand the world. Limits is one of the introductory topics of calculus. There’s no such thing as reaching infinity in application of calculus. At most, one can speak of approaching infinity. And that’s it. It is pretty obvious that infinity is a fiction when we describe the real world. There’s no infinity. There’s no infinite space, no infinite number of particles, no infinite amount of time - it’s all absurd fiction. It’s well demonstrated that infinity is a logically contradictory concept when applied in the real world, subject to countless logical paradoxes. Hilbert’s Hotel is one example. Here’s another simple example: imagine you have two spaceships, A and B, starting at the same point. Both begin moving forwards at the same velocity and in the same direction. However, let’s say that spaceship A is twice as fast as B. So, after x amount of time, A has moved twice the distance that B has moved away from the starting point. And this is true for all x amount of time. However, at infinite amount of time, A and B have moved the same distance, because they’ve both moved an infinite amount of distance. This is logically incoherent. At all finite amounts of time, A is twice as far from the starting point as B is. All of them. But suddenly, magically, at infinite time, they have moved an equal amount of distance. This doesn’t work in the real world. This is solely imagination.
EDIT: Furthermore, you did not address a simple point of mine, proving quite easily that an infinite amount of time can’t pass. No matter how much time passes by, the number simply grows and grows, but it never reaches infinity. It just gets bigger. So you can’t have an infinite amount of time.
Infinity gets bigger. There is no beginning of beginnings. Your calculus analogy does not apply as no differentiation is involved, nobody is talking about reaching infinity but you. The Hilbert (who extolled the tragically excoriated Cantor*) paradox and imaginary space ships have nothing to do with the unavoidable fact of eternity. Railing against it doesn’t make it go away. Like evolution.
If God does not exist, and there is no natural warrant for him to do so whatsoever; nothing is missing in nature, then the ‘if null, then not null’ principle has always operated, forever. That is a rational certainty. Probability = 1. And there are therefore a growing infinity of universes. p=1
If God does exist, what difference does that make? Like Cantor’s ‘Christian’ enemies, denying natural infinity because it displaces God is the same fallacy as saying that atheists disbelieve in God: as there is no natural warrant for Him, there is nothing to disbelieve.
If God exists then He is greater than, more than, growing infinite eternal nature which He grounds. Nothing about His existence requires Him to change the necessary fact of growing infinite eternal nature. No failed mathematical analogy.
Our brains are wired for once upon a time. For tell 'em what you’re gonna tell 'em, tell 'em and tell 'em what you told 'em. Beginning, middle, end. Only middle is real. Now. As always. Anything else is an irrational belief.
As for self tuning, not even gainsaid - to paraphrase Pauli - irrelevantly in the post above yours, WLC denies it even more absurdly, saying that every random configuration of being would be constantly coming in to existence in a Godless multiverse. Uniformitarian logic, mathematics, physics, order, efficiency are prevenient at all scales of the real and manifestly refute that. In God or no.
No antithetical ‘yeah but’, no failed mathematical analogy, no fundamentalist pseudo-philosophical denial disappearing up itself, dialectically touches yet alone surmounts the synthesis of fully sensed uniformitarianism.
(*) ‘The harsh criticism has been matched by later accolades. In 1904, the Royal Society awarded Cantor its Sylvester Medal, the highest honor it can confer for work in mathematics.[12] David Hilbert defended it from its critics by declaring, “No one shall expel us from the paradise that Cantor has created.”’
Differentiation? That is totally irrelevant. We’re talking about limits here. Here’s a short video that introduces you to limits, as it appears that you do not understand the concept.
If you don’t understand limits, I don’t think you understand Cantor’s aleph numbers either.
Being unable to address the fact that I proved infinity is a logically contradictory concept, you simply accuse me of “railing” and being a creationist or something. That’s pretty dishonest. I know you can’t address that evidence but you seem to want to hold on to this myth of infinity in the real world anyways. If you refuse to look at the evidence, I can’t say much more. But if you can’t address even the basic paradoxes that show that there’s no such thing as infinity in the real world, don’t be surprised when no one takes you seriously on that one.
If God exists then He is greater than, more than, growing infinite eternal nature which He grounds.
I’m sorry - how exactly do you describe God’s nature as “infinite”? I hope you mean that in a qualitative sense, rather than a quantitative sense, because there is no reality to a quantitative sense of infinity in the real world, nor would it make sense to claim that God is quantitatively infinite.
You later say that WLC denies “self tuning”. But I still don’t even know what you mean by that. Can you bother defining it?
Again, see my link. I need no introduction to calculus, which is irrelevant to the fact of eternal nature, thank you very much.
And how is the gospel dependent on any of this one way or the other?
That’s exactly what virtual particles do.
Virtual particles can actually give rise to Hawking radiation near the event horizon of a black hole.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.