The universe caused itself?

DaveC426913

Context. This has not been a discussion about intent. You are broadening the scope of the discussion. In fact, you are the only one so far who has fallen victim to the apparent ambiguity that you warn against.

Chalnoth

I think you need to review the discussion again.

DevilsAvocado

Gentlemen DaveC426913 & Chalnoth, couldn’t we settle all by (this layman logic):

DaveC426913

OK, granted. In the larger discussion, there is talk about Creation.

However, the three of us (including you an newai) had been discussing creation as an effect of time, starting in post 72, which really had nothing at all to do with intent, nor had either of us used the "creation" word until you introduced it.

Dmitry67

This is impossible
To prove that any mathematical theory is self-consistent, you always need to use more powerful/more complicated theory.
So the whole mathematics is based on the pure belief.

The self-consistency of Peano arithmetics is proven in ZF set theory. And I believe there are no proofs that ZF (or other set theory, there are many different :) ) are self-consistent.

DevilsAvocado

Thanks Dmitry67, I realize this now and that we already know that the universe is fully consistent, otherwise lot of weird stuff would happen to us... and the math describing this must therefore be fully consistent.

celebrei

Well, we shouldn't be too dismissive of Chronos' view or the "God Hypothesis" since "God" is more of a metaphysical assertion rather than a scientific theory, others who have a naturalistic world view would think God and most metaphysical statements are meaningless, yet as Karl Popper said, they are not meaningless but rather not falsifiable, hence metaphysical statements implies something about the universe that are not empirically testable, but remain epistemically plausible.

DevilsAvocado

I don’t agree, because scientifically this statement:
Has the exactly the same significance as this statement:
For those who believe in Santa Claus, even if not empirically testable, Santa remains epistemically plausible.
For science, and those who don’t believe in Santa Claus, this means absolutely nothing.

marcus

I believe that statement is out of line with current expert opinion. There is no scientific reason to believe that the universe did not exist before, say, 13.7 billion years ago, according to the relevant research community.

For example, according to Einstein-Online, a Max Planck Institute public outreach site, most scientists would be surprised if it actually turned out that there was a singularity at the start of expansion. By a singularity I mean a point where time stops as you work back, where there is no "before". The expectation is that time and existence go back before the start of expansion. If you want a non-technical pubic outreach discussion as of 2006, try the E-O essay called "A tale of two big bangs". It is the top google hit if you say "tale of two big bangs". Or use this link:
http://www.aei.mpg.de/einsteinOnline...ngs/index.html

If you want a technical sample of what the research community is actually studying these days ( non-singular models of conditions leading up to the start of expansion) just do a spires search with keyword "quantum cosmology" for papers from 2006 and later.
You can use this link:
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/...tecount%28d%29
or just go to Spires and ask for keyword "quantum cosmology" and date > 2005.

You will see 374 papers, after 2005, studying several different non-singular models of what can have led up to the start of expansion, pursuing several ideas. Some papers proposing ways to test nonsingular models by astrophysical observation--primarily features of the microwave background.

Roger Penrose pointed out in 2005 that there had been a change in conventional scientific opinion, among the relevant expert community. According to a talk he gave at Cambridge, before 2005 it was generally considered meaningless to talk about before-BB (like "what is north of the north pole?") but according to him 2005 was a watershed year when the prevailing scientific opinion changed. Of course some had been working on nonsingular models already for quite some time, but he picked out 2005 as the year that dominant opinion shifted. For what it's worth---just one person's take on a change of fashion in scientific thought.

I set up the Spires search to list in order of citation-count so you get the most cited papers first. All or virtually all of the first hundred or so treat non-singular models----where time and existence go back before the start of expansion.

cristo

This thread's really slipped under the radar: theological or philosophical discussions are not permitted in the cosmology forum. Thus, this thread is closed.