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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Okay, Werner has stepped up and answered. He says he doesn't know anything, but asserts with authority that he knows that god is proven scientifically. That doesn't make any sense to me, and doesn't address my question at all, but at least he said something.
So Ed? How about you?
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WBraun
climber
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Thus who is the real holder of knowledge.
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TripL7
Trad climber
'dago
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Ghost!
God states that He has always been. From eternity past. How He created matter is beyond our capacity to know. Genesis says He created by speaking it into being. At least He hasn't at this time felt it necessary for us to know everything.
Just like our finite minds, limited to time and space, cannot grasp eternity past. We can only look at the future and can imagine time possibly going on for ever. But we can't look back and imagine it going back in time for ever.
Like I mentioned earlier, with God there is no time. "A day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day". They are the same to Him. Time was created with the fall of man and the slow decaying(death of all living things) including the earth and the universe, and of course man. Our time here on Earth(compared to eternity) is even less than one drop of water compared to all the drops of water in all the seas. If you could remove it one drop at a year, eventually(trillions of years) it would be all gone.
He describes our lives by comparing them to a whif of smoke"There one second and then it is gone". Eventually there will be no longer any time as we know it.
I feel as if I just used allot of words to say nothing, but that is about the best I can do right know. Obviously there are many that have much better knowledge/insight of this subject than I do.
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jstan
climber
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It would seem the moment when we realize we do not know something, is a turning point. And where we turn depends entirely upon whether we consider that lack of knowledge to be a crisis or on the other hand consider it to be an opportunity. It seems some people have a need for "certainty" that others do not. These are quite simply two different psychological states.
The data we have right now is very suggestive that a big bang (however that can be modelled) did happen. The question has been asked, what came before that moment. If lack of certainty is thought to make one vulnerable you have to dream up something to plug that hole. If you say what you have dreamed up assertively enough, no one will know the difference. As long as no one thinks to question.
On the other hand lack of knowledge can be seen as an opportunity to exercise the mind. Based upon present day models dating back just over a hundred years of thought, I believe some are arguing that with the mass/energy concentrations extant at that moment, space and time actually began with the big bang. Other theorists are arguing for a beer model. We actually have an infinite number of parallel universes that cannot see each other. Each one like one of the bubbles in the head on a glass of beer. Imagine for a moment, if you will, you are a person who likes to think. What might you say when this problem is posed to you? Possibly,
"Whoa dude! You can't get any further out than this!"
I don't have first hand knowledge of what the people in the time of Abraham were like. Surely the rapidly advancing production of food via agriculture was giving people more time to think. Perhaps we need only look to today to see what might have been true then. People then surely would have been just as interested as are we to argue endlessly, even pointlessly, over the internet. And they, just like ourselves, each had past experiences and the need to make themselves a place in the world. Did Moses once stand up after his morning ablutions exclaiming, "You know that approach might just work!. I think I shall give it a try today. We'll just see where it goes."
It all may have been just an experiment.
David's statement below that he is not comfortable with some answers, is a fairly common fact of life. This is a central part of life. Learning to sort through things, none of which make one comfortable.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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TripL7, I'm familiar with the Christian answer. Grew up listening to it. That's why I didn't ask you (not that I mind hearing your thoughts). But Werner comes to this subject from a different perspective, and I wondered what he might have to say.
And just as I find the standard Christian answer (God created it all, but God himself simply "always was") to be unsatisfactory, so also do I find the insistence of some scientists that "The Big Bang created it all" to be unsatisfactory. Although in a different way. Hence my question to Ed asking about what came before the big bang.
Edit: Damn! Stannard nailed it while I was writing this. It's all about BEER! And since, as a brewer, I create beer...
Well, I'll leave the conclusion of that thought up to you all. I'm off to crack a cold one.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Now, for the second group: Given that the scientific evidence of a Big Bang, and the evidence of evolution are correct -- and again, I'm not saying it's not -- What happened before the Big Bang? If all the matter in the universe exploded out of some super-compact mass, where was it before that?
Ghost, what's the matter with your reading comprehension? you can't go out and learn this yourself? You are posting to a climber's forum...
...and I will answer this, but Skip may want to weigh in on whether or not I'm being dogmatic and not being "fair and balanced" in my presentation of science, after all, some of his best friends are demonstrably better scientists than I am.
But I will post here a reply... (Karl, I'm already sufficiently worn out that I'll let your enticing question pass, after all, you wouldn't really believe, or understand what I have to say on the subject)...
Cosmology today is different, very different, than it was 10 years ago, and it will probably be very different in 10 years.
The Cosmological Principle which is where everything begins states that the universe is spatially isotropic and homogenous. With Einstein's equations, any universe in which the Cosmological Principle is true "must have started with a singularity of infinite density." (See S. Weinberg, Gravitation and Cosmology ©1972 page 469). This formed the basis of the "standard model of cosmology."
Add to this, however, the existence of dark energy and dark matter and many of the puzzles pieces provided by observation that didn't fit, now do. The dark energy and the dark matter dominate our current universe, the material that we are made of is sum small fraction of the gravitational mass in the universe, about 4%.
Further, at the very beginning there was an era of "inflation," rapid expansion. While this is not entirely understood, what it does is relieve the "fine tuning" problem. That means that what ever the starting conditions are of this universe, things end up pretty much like they are now...
Given all this, the total energy of the universe is zero... add it all up, all the potential energy, all the kinetic energy, everything... it sums to zero. And not approximately zero, but really zero. Which means the universe lasts forever... how odd.
So what came before? Which is Ghost's question...
...but we might consider first what is space and time, and where does that come from?
One can view the big bang as the "beginning of time" in an operational sense, emerging from the other dimensions, let's call them space. So the dimensionality of the universe prior to the big bang may have been quite different with very different physics. I have been lately intrigued with these ideas of "pre-geometry" and have taken it up as a hobby. If we have occasion to sit around a real campfire sometime in the future I'll torture you with a discussion... the Vedauwoo 09 crew suffered through my confused mumblings.
Other ideas are that there are a lot of universes out there, that our universe is just a part of a vast set of them...
Other ideas are that we are just on one of the bounces of the current universe, it expands and contracts crunching in on itself to expand again...
All of these ideas are built to explain various aspects of the current cosmology that are not fully understood. Part of the answer will come when we understand the quantum theory of gravity, what ever it will be... and a necessary ingredient for knowing about the time of the big bang when quantum gravity is operating.
I guess the bottom line is that as we tease apart these little puzzles, arcane little puzzles that are of no real direct consequence to our daily life, we assemble the building blocks of knowledge that will let us understand this someday, whatever the answer.
Perhaps its a luxury our country no longer wishes to indulge in... let's put our collective noses to the grindstone and solve the really important problems.
Like Skip said, why does any of this matter to a starving kid somewhere in the heartland of America?
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WBraun
climber
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why does any of this matter to a starving kid somewhere in the heartland of America?
It does matter.
Once the cause if all causes is understood correctly then all other problems can be correctly and intelligently dealt with.
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jstan
climber
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Me! Me! Let me answer Skip's question!
If I were a starving kid in New Jersey( poke poke) what would I want more than anything else? To feel that I was becoming more powerful and more able to get food.
Thomas Edison had been so traumatized by his passage through childhood he continued sleeping on his desk long after he was wealthy.
Nothing contributes more to a sense of adequacy and power over one's fate than the willingness to confront big questions. The bigger the better.
Edit:
Skip:
The bigger the better,
Base104
"Drink a cup of coffee to answer a couple of stupid questions. To me, Cosmology is IT. The study of everything."
Quid est demonstrandum
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WBraun
climber
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Once the cause of all causes is understood then knowledge can expand infinitely.
Not that there becomes an end, finite, stagnate, but ever fresh, new.
Why you think you take a bath?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Ed wrote a very good post on the previous page which included
"One can view the big bang as the "beginning of time" in an operational sense, emerging from the other dimensions, let's call them space. So the dimensionality of the universe prior to the big bang may have been quite different with very different physics."
Of course, if time has a beginning, it can have an end and even begin again, which would go fine with another thing Ed wrote
"Other ideas are that we are just on one of the bounces of the current universe, it expands and contracts crunching in on itself to expand again..."
Which is what Eastern Religions have been saying for thousands of years more or less.
"Other ideas are that there are a lot of universes out there, that our universe is just a part of a vast set of them..." Another aspect of Eastern mystical thought.
Just sayin
Peace
Karl
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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It's not mystical, Karl...
what is your answer to the question: what is space? what is time?
try to give a scientific answer, not a mystical one... it doesn't have to be mathematically rigorous, just what you think these things are, physically....
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Ed, thank you very much.
If I can condense your answer to the question "What came before" it would be as "We don't know, but we're trying to find out." Which, to me at least, is pretty reasonable. Far more reasonable than the standard religious answer (of whatever religious flavor) of "God made the world, and you must not question any further." I look forward to being tormented with your own theories around a campfire. (J-Tree in January????)
Personally, my belief is that our current operating system is not capable of processing the data needed for an answer, nor even of understanding the answer if it was put in front of us. Unfortunately, upgrading that operating system will take place over a period of time long enough that none of us here now will still be around to get the upgrade.
In the meantime, we are left with the problem of dealing with the starving children. And not just in the heartland of America, but everywhere.
D
Edit: Ed, you said "Other ideas are that we are just on one of the bounces of the current universe, it expands and contracts crunching in on itself to expand again..." Somewhere (Amazon?) you might be able to find a copy of a science fiction novel from the 1950s titled "The Weapon Shops of Isher" I think you'd like it.
And you might also like an episode from Season 5 of "Red Dwarf" in which it becomes clear that Lister, the ultimate atheist, turns out in fact to be god, and whose purpose in the game of life is to jump start the second big bang.
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jstan
climber
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Karl:
There was an old argument whether it is possible for information to escape a black hole. It is a second law of thermodynamics issue according to Hawking. I am probably way out of date on this fast advancing front. But the answer might have an impact on the eastern ideas of "reborn" realities if you will.
But the data is apparently showing the most distant galaxies moving away from us faster than predicted(Einstein's cosmological constant). The bounce or "crunch" model is losing favor relative to the "cold and lonely" model. If this were more widely understood by people generally I would expect there to be serious levels of discomfort.
A fairly deep seated psychological need is probably the source of reincarnation and other such extensions.
Seems to be looking grim right now on that score.
But you never know- absolutely.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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it is in front of us, it always is...
we just have to see it, and then understand it...
January is a hope in my heart... my back is not regenerating at a rate that is compatible with that date right now... but maybe I'll be surprised
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WBraun
climber
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Well
If one takes birth again as a human being in their next life then your operating system upgrade analogy will kind of apply.
It will not be an upgrade though if your consciousness is not advanced beyond that of just plain mundane gross physical materialism.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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jstan and Ed-
Thanks for your contributions. You really outdid yourselves today. What you had to say, provides the scientific basis of my own personal belief system anyway, though you both are free to disown my conclusions, as you probably will.
I do agree with jstan that psychologically one either likes structure, or one likes ambiguity and exploration. Those who like structure want clear, once and for all answers, and just can't understand why those of us who like complexity and mystery can't interpret their one sacred scripture in the same way that they do.
Conversely, those of us who like complexity, mystery, and exploration, can't for the life of us understand why anyone would want to limit their understanding of something as great as God, man and the universe, to one interpretation of one book. Probably these two approaches to life will never be reconciled. At least not on this thread!
Still, I think the idea from modern cosmology that we are probably one of several parallel universes allows for not only materialist ambiguity but a spiritual understanding as well. A common thread of spiritual thinkers is that they are able to access other dimensions of reality that are as real as ours. Even Jesus said, "in my father's house are many mansions".
Meanwhile I have a wonderful little book by Lawrence LeShan called The Medium, the Mystic and the Physicist, which gives quotes from all three about the nature of reality and asks the reader to try to determine which of the three said it.
I know Ed will probably be quick to note that all of this is just a product of our own material brains, but I think there is just too much evidence that consciousness is something else - at least at this stage of our understanding. As a modern scientifically trained person, I do have to admit that the materialist explanation may be correct, based on future evidence. I just don't see that evidence now.
The strong point of science of course is that they keep on seeking and refining their answers. The strong point of seekers on the spiritual path is the same. It is the religionists with all the answers that scare both the scientists and spiritual seekers.
Edit: It seems I have just reiterated what Ghost has posted with three times more words!
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jstan wrote
"Karl:
There was an old argument whether it is possible for information to escape a black hole. It is a second law of thermodynamics issue according to Hawking. I am probably way out of date on this fast advancing front. But the answer might have an impact on the eastern ideas of "reborn" realities if you will."
Didn't Ed just post that the big bang originated from a singularity (black hole right?) So if everything in the universe can get sucked up into an infinite singularity, and then burst out, how far from a cyclical universe is that.
Ed, there are many ways to talk about time, depending on the situation of the observer. You can explain the scientific aspect of it regarding the physical.
I only have significant knowledge of the mystical, which is that time is the dimension of change in this world that makes experience possible, but that the ultimate reality is outside of time and thus, all possibilities are present in an eternal now of supreme being. My experience is that time is more fluid than anyone suspects.
Nobody can really wrap their minds around that but hey, few can wrap their minds around physics conceptions of time as well
Peace
karl
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jstan
climber
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Karl:
The argument about escape actually goes deeper. All information expressed in the incoming matter is completely lost in the black hole. So even if the crunch model does prove to be correct no one is getting reborn anyway. Everything is lost in the singularity.
Jan:
My advice is to listen most carefully to Ed.
I think our understanding of psychology is only now advancing beyond the level of "old guys with bad combovers"( see comments to nutty putty link) standing around a campfire while waving bones.
The real mystery is what is located between our ears. I wish I knew whether an advance in our understanding of that area will make things better---or worse.
I suppose though, if our present course is headed for oblivion, things can't get any worse.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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you're copping out, Karl... you aren't defining any of these things "they just are" and that's the point, maybe they actually do come from something else... but you won't bite.
Jan, yes I am convinced that consciousness is explainable based on it's material origin. That is entirely different from saying what the results of consciousness, the thoughts, could be determined. Actual thoughts are probably not describable in detail. It is the weather... we know where it comes from, we can't pin down the initial conditions precisely enough to follow it very long.
I turn it around, all those mystical things, those spiritual feelings, the awareness of universal one-ness is those thoughts, and they probably have an explanation that is not too crazy based on the evolution of consciousness.
Don't believe everything you think.
It doesn't make those things less wonderful, in some ways perhaps more so... the universe is amazing just the way it is without all that other stuff. At least the universe that I know. You can appropriate the ideas of physics and create a homology, but I always find that the physics can also exist quite separately from the spiritual, it's like recognizing faces in clouds, the clouds are fine without the faces... once again, it's the way you brain works and the model it constructs of the world.
As far as liking complexity and mystery, count me in, it's what scientists deal with... the challenge is to see what is simple in that complexity and to make it familiar. Science is an adventure, an intellectual one. It is the future... the old stories that attempted to do the same thing, to make the universe understandable, contain important elements of wisdom. But as practiced today, those old stories fall far from presenting a reasonable explanation of universe.
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