What is the Ultimate Source of Energy in the Universe?

[moving finger]

So basically, things are the way they are because that's the way they are. It seems a bit lame to me and an absolutely pointless thing to say.

You misunderstand, that's why it seems pointless to you. I suggest you read up about the anthropic cosmological principle.

 

[metacristi]

For a cause to effectively be examined, there must be a way to find its cause and its effects. A 'first cause' has no prior cause, thus logic can only deal with its effects, and not the first cause itself, as there is nothing before it to derive its attributes from. Evolutionary theory has prior species to derive base attributes that can be modified through mutations from. Abiogenesis has prior energy to derive the base attributes of life from. What does energy derive its attributes from? Logic cannot help us answer this question unless we discover something to have existed before energy; then it can be posed as to what that effect was caused by.

You can attempt inductive logic to figure out the attributes of some initial cause...but the chances of you being right, even if you've put every last piece of existence into consideration, is less than worthwhile.

This idea is akin to 'The tao that is named is not the eternal tao'. Nobody can ever know what started it all, as there is nothing before it to set the stage for examination through logic. It's very much a, 'Alright, something started this ****heap called existence, but we can never know just what it was' sort of deal.

This is a stance I often encounter at religious people and (too) strong empiricists, there are some 'mysteries' which will remain forever beyond science or, in other versions, we should not try to answer questions situated too far from the phenomenological experience. Not the best of options in my view.

I remember talking once on the net (during the 'glory days' of askme.com, some may remember that forum) with a Zen follower who, when asked questions considered metaphysical, always retorted 'why do you want to know this?', 'what is the sound of one hand clapping?' etc instead of trying a philosophical answer...Knowing even at that time some philosophy I recognized immediately a strong positivist doctrine which, while very helpful for finding inner peace, represent rather an antithesis of the scientific spirit...

Indeed one of the basic (heuristic) tenets of science is that nature can be explained (in principle), basically never give up (even going beyond methodological naturalism if very very strong evidence for supernatural is found; or beyond methodological reductionism if there are very good reasons to prefer strong emergence). And scientists have strong reasons to avoid renunciation stances, the 'positivist period' in the history of science, beginning with Comte and Mach and finishing with logical positivism, proved rather harmful for the scientific quest (which does not amount to say that philosophy itself is responsible for the long lasting legacy of positivism in science as the widespread myth goes, especially in the physics circles - beginning with Weinberg and Feynman...). As Popper said once ‘even the most obvious connections remain unseen if we are constantly brainwashed that they are impossible or meaningless’…it is better to deal with ‘metaphysical research programs’ (of course being fully aware of their limits by avoiding too strong ontological commitments) than with nothing at all.

Thus the problem you raise falls, for a scientist, in the same category with questions situated very close to everyday facts, there is no good reason yet to put it in another category. Sure the answers here (more generally in the parts of science situated at the border) are not on equal footing with let’s say Newton’s second law but they are still the best we managed to find at this time, based on existing evidence and reliabilism (anyway all of science is considered fallible). In spite of the fact that our best existing physical theories ‘break down’ at extremely high energies we can still use them to construct hypotheses which are the most coherent with all we know at the moment (though of course we cannot confirm them as we can confirm GR for example). The time when a scientist (a cosmologist anyway) would have said that ‘it is meaningless to talk of what happened before big bang’ seems, happily, to have gone…

The infinite inflationary hypothesis of Guth is one of the best answers we have to this problem, there is no need to think of Big Bang as a Beginning of spacetime in absolute (see http://www.pbs.org/wnet/hawking/mysteries/html/uns_guth_1.html for a short intro). It runs of course in the problem of being (it seems) impossible to be confirmed but the same claimed Comte in the 19th century in the problem of the composition of stars (he claimed that we can never know their composition)…so beware of too strong conclusions.

Guth talks of this criticism in his book ‘The Inflationary Universe’ and his conclusion is: “Given the plausibility of eternal inflation, I believe that soon any cosmological theory that does not lead to the eternal reproduction of the universes will be considered as unimaginable as a species of bacteria that cannot reproduce.” While he may be too optimistic here it is clear that his solution is one of the most coherent with the main corpus of the actually accepted scientific theories and methodologies (including methodological naturalism) and could become one day a full part of accepted scientific theories.

And this is not the only serious alternative; recently even the cyclical hypothesis has been ‘resuscitated’ (so far it drew little attention; not because it was proved in any way as impossible but because no one had a clue of how to reconcile it with the accepted laws of physics, especially with the second law of thermodynamics):

No Big Bang? Endless Universe Made Possible by New Model

Still early days indeed but the boldness of scientific quest is preferable to renunciation…I think one can always find a state of inner peace and still be characterized by the strive to ponder upon answers to seemingly 'forever metaphysical' questions - as much as too strong ontological commitments are carefully avoided…Finally, while indeed some [very important] things may be forever above science (no one denies this possibility), there is still no good reason to adopt this stance at this moment; in science at least.

 

[moving finger]

So basically, things are the way they are because that's the way they are. It seems a bit lame to me and an absolutely pointless thing to say.

actually, I just thought of a better answer : 42.

Does that make any more sense?

The fundamental problem is that it is meaningless to seek any "ultimate meaning" or "ultimate explanation" for anything - apart from the explanations provided by consistency, coherency and rationality themselves.

Just imagine that you had an explanation "Z" which is "why the universe is the way it is" - what is to then stop you from asking "why Z"?

The theists at least realize that their "ultimate explanation" is beyond further rational enquiry - it makes no sense (ie we are not allowed) to ask "why God?"

 

[Rade]

... it makes no sense (ie we are not allowed) to ask "why God?"

Perhaps the "why" of god is to allow you to ask "why" ? So I find some sense in the question. And since god provides humans free will, you are then free to do anything, including ask (e.g., think about) "why god", but you are not free to find an answer unless god wills that you know.

 

[moving finger]

Perhaps the "why" of god is to allow you to ask "why" ? So I find some sense in the question. And since god provides humans free will, you are then free to do anything, including ask (e.g., think about) "why god", but you are not free to find an answer unless god wills that you know.

To a theist, God is the ultimate creator of all things, but God was not in turn created (or if He was created, then He created Himself). Therefore (to a theist) it makes no sense to ask "why God?" - the question is meaningless (ie senseless) to a theist.

 

[Rade]

OK, great, then it is to the non-theist that the question "why god" makes sense, since the non-theist may question the validity that there be existence without first cause, and/or that a first cause is cause of itself... and since your statement initially claimed nothing about theist or non-theist, then as you see, at least some humans are allowed to ask " why god" and that is all I was trying to claim. All humans have free will to ask, "why god", but because some decide not to ask, that does not mean the question is meaningless. For me, god = existence and both are outside the law of causality, but that does not stop me from asking "why existence". You see, it is only by asking "why god" or "why existence" that we find the root of all philosophy, the primary axiom that links ontology and epistemology, the axiom for the non-theist of "existence exists" or for the theist "god exists"--for what is ultimate must always be outside explanation itself.

 

[sd01g]

To a theist, God is the ultimate creator of all things, but God was not in turn created (or if He was created, then He created Himself). Therefore (to a theist) it makes no sense to ask "why God?" - the question is meaningless (ie senseless) to a theist.

I am having difficulty comprehending how something could create itself. Perhaps you could clarify something that seems to me to be close to 100 percent impossible.

 

[-I-]

In the beginning there was -I-