Unless I am mistaken that is not empirically apparent
You could’ve raised that objection 20 posts ago. I’ll be glad to answer it tomorrow if I have time and energy, but at the moment it’s a deflection.
Meanwhile, do you have anything to say about putting words into my mouth? I think I laid out that case pretty clearly. (I’ll let @pevaquark speak for himself.)
Would be so interested in hearing how this will impact the Christian theology and view. I’m curiosly excited for all the possible thoughts about this. Multiple Jesuses?(ie Jesus beign sacrificed over and over again. One Jesus sacrificed for all?God revealing himself differently ? And so on. Countless possibilities. A very much interesting topic indeed.
That is if something like that is proven and not speculated
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It’s not a deflection it’s what I read into your view about the possibility of an eternally old universe
Through a hall of mirrors dimly? It’s not something I take seriously when the scientists theorizing about this can’t understand there cannot be an infinite number of universes.
Life on other planets is a possibility, and I look forward to learning about how that one plays out in history. I’m open to all kinds of surprises. Something to consider on this planet, is how remarkable God given religion is. For example you may want to see this explanation given for what I think is one of the most important verses in the Bible:
It sure isn’t about “accumulating points to have a better afterlife” or “winning the afterlife lottery” as some mockers have it!
I like how ChatGPT summarizes this concept James Smith often talks about:
James K.A. Smith uses the Room of Desires in the film Stalker as an illustration of how our deepest desires are often hidden or veiled from us. He argues that, like the characters in the film, we are on a journey to discover our true desires and to learn how to properly order them.
Smith suggests that the liturgy plays a crucial role in helping us to uncover our true desires and to orient them towards God. Just as the Room of Desires in the film is only accessible to those who are pure of heart and truly worthy, so too must our desires be purified and properly ordered in order to lead us towards the ultimate end of our spiritual journey, which is communion with God.
Overall, Smith uses the Room of Desires in the film as a way to illustrate how our desires are often hidden from us and how the liturgy can help us to uncover and properly order them, leading us towards a deeper relationship with God.
Exactly. You read that into my view and acted as if it was what I actually said. Maybe you should try asking a question instead of just assuming the worst and arguing against your own imagined straw men.
There is at least one discussion that was started here:
and continued a bit more over here:
https://forums.shipoffools.com/discussion/4691/the-nature-of-the-son-of-god/p1
Fairly speculative, but speaks to your question.
If you want the article klax had mentioned, I will find that for you. i think I deleted it a while back, but can get to it again. It is a discussion of multiverse concepts in relation to Christian theology.
I’m not even close to being a scientist. I recognize that I am in no way qualified to evaluate physicists’, mathematicians’, cosmologists’, biologists’, etc theories, certainly not on philosophical or apologetic bases entirely unrelated to their fields of expertise.
I did ask a question and it wasn’t taken seriously
Actually, I misunderstood eternal inflation as @pevaquark was writing about it here,
Some models of inflation, deemed eternal inflation, keep going to produce other bubble universes amidst the multiverse landscape.
and figured it could also apply to an infinitely old universe that is in an eternal state of becoming.
So, putting that aside, what I read into your comment about those apparent natural causes, is they too as natural events will also apparently have a cause.
I’m not talking about asking a question to the group. I’m saying to ask a simple question like, “Is this what you mean?” before jumping to conclusions. I come here to learn a bit, pass on my little bit of learning to others, and maybe have a stimulating conversation. This constant game of “gotcha” that it’s turning into is not appealing to me in the least.
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There’s the question. I then poked at the non-response and tried to make a response in the hope of having a real discussion about this topic. You then chimed in with your comment to poke at me, while ignoring the topic.
If you want to discuss this, I would like to hear the possible forthcoming explanation you referred to yesterday.
The question wasn’t directed to me, and if Matthew, who has a PhD in physics, says the question is beyond his paygrade, I’m certainly not going to weigh in with my uninformed opinion. Now, to say you “poked” in hopes of having a discussion is a mischaracterization, at best. “That’s a whiff” isn’t an invitation to dialogue. It was a condescending remark. I didn’t “chime in” to poke at you. I spoke up for Matthew because he has more expertise in the subject than either of us. Intellectual humility is a good thing.
Is this the question you want to discuss?
I’d be glad to do so with two caveats: You can’t reply with snappy one-liners or ChatGPT replies. That’s not a discussion (or even interesting).
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There was this, which I mistakenly did not address to you. We can start there, or with your comment about natural causes that are apparently prior.
No, that wasn’t your fault. Matthew quoted me in reply to my tag, so that showed up in my notifications. I jumped straight to that and never saw your earlier reply. Sorry. If it happens again, feel free to give me a shout-out later in the thread. Just be warned that I don’t always reply immediately.
We can start here. The opening paragraphs of the article alternate between “a Universe” and “the Universe” that preceded the hot Big Bang. Of course that invites confusion. You seem to have understood it as referring to “a universe” previous to our own. I understood “the Universe” to mean “the early (present) Universe,” which I think the rest of the article makes clear was the author’s intended scope. For example, nowhere does he mention a multiverse or previous universes. Chalk that up to a misunderstanding.
What the article says is the exponentially rapid inflation that preceded the hot Big Bang somehow preserved the signature of the QM fluctuation that preceded (caused?) the event. That tells me a couple of things. Rapid inflation had to happen in less than a nanosecond to retain the signature of the quantum fluctuation that preceded it, and the “signal” of that event in our present universe is empirical evidence that something, rather than nothing, existed prior to the Big Bang. (@pevaquark correct me if I’ve misunderstood any of this.) The existence of that prior state, whatever its exact nature, makes it impossible to say “God did it” as opposed to natural causes. (It’s similar to the origin of life in that respect.) So one can’t point to the Big Bang as proof of an “absolute” beginning of the Universe (this universe) ex nihilo.
Likewise, some version of our early Universe preceded the QM fluctuation. I say it “apparently” caused the rapid inflation that preceded the Big Bang because we can’t presently measure anything beyond that horizon, but it seems obvious some type of “natural” Quantum state existed prior to the fluctuation that eventually gave rise to the hot Big Bang. Logic can get us that far, at least. Beyond that, logic and evidence are lacking. Perhaps there was an absolute beginning when something sprang from nothing (or a singularity, as we used to think), but I don’t think it’s possible to point to a “first cause” in the physical realm.
Absolute proof of God is denied us, as Pascal said long ago.
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Not really a direct answer to the comment or question, but here is how one Quora user pinned down an AI interface on part of that question…
At least two of us agreed that the article title was misleading, one of those being @pevaquark.
Unlike what the title might lead readers to believe.
It does.
No, a poorly worded and misleading title.
No warning necessary. Sometimes I reply immediately, and sometimes I may add an additional reply if some new idea occurs to me while I am about my daily business, but this doesn’t mean I expect a reply immediately.
I totally agree, but this doesn’t mean a convenient agnosticism is a reasonable choice. As an irrational choice, like believing your friend’s dad was a married bachelor because he said so, is a choice I guess.
There is what reason can tell us about a QM fluctuation and there is what it cannot. And whether it concerns previous universes or causes matters very little.
This QM event was either caused or it was uncaused. Right? This question is genuinely irrespective of the static “stuff” that eternally preceded the event.
Sidenote: When I was talking about the ontological argument with Draper, and telling him about how the version I was using originated with Jonathan Edwards. He found it all quite engaging. At one point as he thought of picturing an eternal being or “stuff” he leaned back in his chair and tried to form an object with his hands in the space before him.