Where did the laws of physics come from?

Hello John,

@MarkD

I didn’t say the problem (that we exist, interesting problem) is solved, only that, in my opinion, the evidence points to a creator. The universe hasn’t been here forever, we know that. Your only option for an eternal physical existence is the multiverse, of which of course there is no evidence of.

So an unintelligent multiverse predated intelligence. Then how did the multiverse get to run on elegant math. There’s already a sign of intelligence. And how did it get fine-tuned to produce different universes with different laws of physics (the only way you get an intelligent life-producing multiverse)?

To something beyond the physical, literally every culture in history has seen this.

We only get to God when He introduced himself to Abraham around 4000 years ago.

What God is like has been revealed to humans in the bible. You, for whatever your reasons, refuse to accept it, along with even acknowledging God. In my opinion, you’ve been affected by the many logical fallacies about God promoted by Dawkins and Hitchens, such as:

  1. The fact that God doesn’t show up in the sky or on our phones daily means he doesn’t exist.

  2. Evolution disproves God.

The God of the bible is spiritual and not physical but we were made in his image, having the ability to recognize right from wrong, for instance.

The evidence has been revealed to us. Of course you have the option not to accept that God exists but Paul wrote in Romans 1 that, “men are without excuse” to believe in God. I’ll summarize below why I believe we are without excuse to believe in God:

  1. As far was we understand and can intuit, the physical can’t come out of ontological nothingness, so there must be a creator, or a cause.

  2. There is intelligence in the world.

  3. There is evil in the world, as well as good, purpose, order, justice, morality, etc.

Of course you can not agree that these facts lead to God, but we all have faith in something, as Mark pointed out previously. Theists believe that it makes more sense to have faith in God as creator rather than unscientific notions of causation and blind luck somehow, “creating” love, intelligence, etc.

Howdy!

You imply that the existence of the universe needs an explanation when you say “I would include pointers in the scientific realm as the appearance of a physical entity, be it a universe or multiverse, somehow popping into existence from ontological nothingness.” And indeed it hasn’t been here forever. Hence, its existence is an unanswered question or problem.

Your only option for an eternal physical existence is the multiverse

Oh, I hardly think so. That’s just one idea some people have now. Who knows what other possibilities there could be?

So an unintelligent multiverse predated intelligence. Then how did the multiverse get to run on elegant math. There’s already a sign of intelligence. And how did it get fine-tuned to produce different universes with different laws of physics (the only way you get an intelligent life-producing multiverse)?

Again, I’m not talking about a multiverse. You sound like you think that that and the Christian God are the only possibilities.

To something beyond the physical, literally every culture in history has seen this.

But “something” could be anything. Even I tend to believe there must be something.

According to some people, but many people in the world think otherwise, and many have different interpretations of even that event.

Ditto. You’ve gone from “most people in the world accept this” to “bible”, two things that don’t go together. I am hardly alone even among theists in not accepting it.

Well, I’ve been an atheist a lot longer than those guys have been on the stage, so I don’t think so. It’s more that God doesn’t show up anywhere, that I can perceive, though I know many people do perceive the presence of gods. As far as evolution, I was brought up Catholic and this has never been an issue for me. Many, many people accept evolution and believe in gods, and I don’t see the problem. It seems to be a problem for certain specific religious doctrines and not theism in general.

We’ll, I’ve addressed the first two. As for the third, I don’t see why those things can’t exist without gods, at all. Ultimately they are based on the facts of our physical reality.

I consider myself to have ample excuse :slight_smile: But I accept that people believe in gods for many reasons, and even if I am not convinced, I would not be so strident as to say that no one has an excuse for not agreeing with me :open_mouth:

Of course you can not agree that these facts lead to God, but we all have faith in something, as Mark pointed out previously.

I’ve never quite got this concept. I hold certain beliefs certainly, and there are a lot of things I accept that I don’t know, but I’m not sure what exactly it is that I am supposed to have “faith” in (or what faith is exactly supposed to be).

Theists believe that it makes more sense to have faith in God as creator rather than unscientific notions of causation and blind luck somehow, “creating” love, intelligence, etc.

Fair enough!

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Philosophical discussions begin with agreed upon basic statements, a prioris or bare assertions as you call them and move from there.

The problem with discussing with you is that we have been unable to find common agreement. It is almost like living in different universes. This there is no basic for discussion.

The alternative would be for you to present your point of view for discussion, which you have failed to do. other than day that you think that the universe is not rational, which also cuts off discussion.

Actually we know that the universe has not been in its present form forever and we can see that it won’t remain as it is forever going forward either. I don’t know of anyone who expects the universe to entirely go out of existence in the future either. Perhaps change is eternal?

What isn’t known is that it came from nothing at all - no matter, no energy, no space, no time, no agents. Just nothing. I don’t believe that and I don’t know anyone who does except perhaps Krauss, but only if you take what he says literally. Christians will say this but they keep God around too along with this pseudo-nothing. Now I may not be the world’s most religious man but if He exists I wouldn’t call God nothing.

I enjoy a good colloquialism as much as the next person but I wonder exactly what you mean when you suggest that the multiverse “runs on elegant math”. The wonder of math is that it can be use to model the universe in so many useful ways. But I don’t think of math as instrumental in any way to its functioning. For that matter English is also pretty good at describing the way things work but I don’t think the multiverse runs on it either.

If one believes in science and the Bible then we do know that the universe come from nothing at all. Science says that E = mc squared. Before the Big Bang there was no mass, and so there was no energy, no time, and no space, that means there was no universe and no thing.

We western materialists believe that matter is superior to the spiritual, but this is not true. God is Spirit and God is the Source of the Rational and the Physical, but God is not a thing, nor are humans impersonal things. We are spiritual beings. .

So from where did the universe come? The Big Bang Theory says it come from a singularity, it started as a very small in size. very dense universe that exploded into existence on the space of a minute. It is virtually impossible to understand this because it is completely outside our experience.

We cannot bring God down to our level, but need to allow God to bring us up to God’s level as God did through Jesus Christ. the Logos.

Well I certainly believe that bibles exist and but I don’t put my faith in them, especially not as an empirical reference book.

That may be so but I wouldn’t put it that way. Certainly the “spiritual” exists as a subset of the subjective, but it is no less real - just less solid. Subjective things don’t fail at being physical objects, any more than physical objects suck at being products of the mind. Some people have the bias that subjective things are arbitrary and possibly just made up. But a little reflection will put the lie to that. Nonetheless it is harder to reach agreement about the nature of the subjective since people can conceptualize it differently and therefore need to talk about it differently. That is the biggest reason you and I continually disagree, not counting my being right and all. :wink:

Like mathematics you mean? Abstract concepts that surprisingly apply in a very real way to our reality.

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Interesting. But do you believe this internal Thou to be inside the brain or to be a fundamental part of the universe (in the same way some people regard consciousness to be)?

I see it as brain dependent, same as our conscious minds.

Let me rephrase it them. If all life was suddenly wiped out and no brains remained in the universe. In your view, would God cease to exist or would he still be there as some kind of proto consciousness?

Is that surprising? Mathematics is based on facts about reality.

Basic things like 1 rock + 2 rocks = 3 rocks, definitely not. But some very abstract and weird concepts of pure mathematics ended up applying to our world. And the fact that this is quite surprising is not really that controversial among physicists and mathematicians (even atheist ones) as far as I know.

This isn’t anything that I know with certainty of course but I would say the God of interest to humans doesn’t exist unless brains do.

ok, I feel I should jump into this - just what, in your view, is consciousness when we discuss God (or in that context?).

I think it is possible that there is more to consciousness than what we know or do directly with our conscious minds. I think some of the other things consciousness does supports our conscious perception that there is something more. While I don’t think it has anything to do with the creation of the cosmos, I think there really is something more and that it is important to people’s fulfillment. But it is a mystery and I don’t trust that any book, the bible included, can tell you just what it is or what to do about it.

But everything is based on that stuff ultimately. As far as I imagine anyway, I’m not exactly a mathematician. That being said, count me surprised it’s surprising :slight_smile:

The surprising thing is what we learned to take for granted as toddlers, and so miss its weirdness - but real mathematicians and philosophers of maths are well aware of it. And that is that there is an abstract thing called “1” or “2” or “3” that does the same things whether you’re talking about rocks or Jewish festivals.

Take away the universe altogether and, so it would appear, “1”, “2” and “3” would still exist… or would necessarily come into being again if another universe formed. Where did numbers come from?

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For us, I’d argue that the physical facts came first, and numbers were a description of them. They do have an abstract existence, I agree. Take away the universe, however, and it would seem that they no longer had any application (assuming the universe is the totality of physical reality). Perhaps there are even contexts outside of the physical reality of our universe where they would no longer apply.

In Trintarian theology, 1+1+1=1. So there’s one example.

The question then becomes, if the relationship of numbers (as opposed to objects) is a feature of this universe alone, and not all possible ones, how does such a universdal arise (and we’re back to those other universals, the so-called laws of nature?)

If they are merely a desription, then we don’t have to destroy the universe, but only remove the people, and the numbers no would no longer exist. Interesting if DNA only has two strands in most living beings because we are around to make that judgement.

I’d say “how many” is simply a necessary category and the number of elements in one set can coincide with that of another leading to the emergence of concepts of “twoness”, “threeness” and so on. It is analogous to how large vs small, or near vs far, an essential category there to be noticed by any organism capable of it. I don’t think the numbers are out there, free floating, until matter and creatures with sufficiently capable cognition emerge.