There is a continuous PBS TV collection (likewise numerous publications and also a site) called “Closer to Fact”. It is hosted by neuroscientist Robert Lawrence Kuhn. He’s featured in one-on-one interviews as well as panel discussions with the cream of the cream of today’s cosmologists, physicists, theorists, theologians, psycho therapists, etc on all of the Huge Inquiries bordering a trilogy of wide topics – Cosmos; Consciousness; Significance. The trilogy jointly dealt with truth, area and also time, mind and also consciousness, aliens, faith et cetera and on. Below are yet more of my discuss one of the basic albeit diverse topics covered, physics as well as physical fact.
God vs. Physics
So here we have this supreme entity, this Maximally Biggest Being (i.e. – God), who is non-physical, that has actually existed for all infinity (however not considerably so), and also in a timeless state too. After that for some totally unexplained reason this entity crossed over the Rubicon right into time by developing a physical cosmos, however not an unlimited universes, out of definitely nothing for no obviously good reason apart from “what the heck; why not; I’m burnt out” (my quotes). Do you, the reader, have any type of understanding of how absolutely outrageous that sounds? If you found that circumstance or idea for the really very first time in a novel, you ‘d be right to doubt the author’s sanity or substance abuse.
Eternity is an outrageous impossibility because that would call for an operating temperature level of absolute zero (negating any type of possible modification occurring for that reason making the principle of time meaningless). A state of absolute zero is not actually achievable. If you have also the smallest amount of adjustment you have time. I want those advocating pockets of timelessness might, using their powers of philosophical reduction, explain a place( s) in the universes that presently exist( s) in a state of timelessness.
The shift from a state of eternity to a state of time by any person is difficult considering that a change (a psychological idea at the minimum is required) would of had to have taken place while still in a classic state which can not be. You need to consider going from your classic state to a state of time before you actually do it.
Even more, it’s an unfeasibility to develop an absolute something from an outright absolutely nothing, especially if you are non-physical to begin with.
A real non-physical thing is nonsense. A “thing” is an actual something with compound and also structure. Non-physical ‘points’ are just psychological ideas without linked substance and also framework. One can imagine a Santa Claus naturally, and that Santa is non-physical, yet that Santa can not make a change from that psychological non-physical reality to a physical fact. That similarly relates to the psychological idea of a non-physical Maximally Greatest Being. As in the case of Santa, even if you can imagine a Maximally Best Being doesn’t of necessity make it so as a physical reality.
Regarding Something from Nothing
True believers specify that God produced life, deep space and also whatever from outright scrape, out of absolute nothing. Bull!
Something from nothing is difficult on the grounds that 1) there has actually never been an observation or experiment made that implies or in fact demonstrates that my assertion is not real; 2) there is definitely no academic premises where such a state of events could be the situation. Faced with a selection of thinking based upon actual evidence and also on theoretical grounds that you can not create something from nothing, OR taking the word of true believers for it that such a thing is feasible as well as has happened, I’ll select the previous for they have actually still not responded to the question concerning something from nothing with a real explanation or demo. Their word is NOT good enough.
No more philosophical waffle. Evidence that something can be produced out of definitely nothing is now the name of the game. Now it is time for the proof that will stand in a law court or be acceptable in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
If I tell you that there’s a flying dish in my driveway with little green men from Mars standing around with ray-guns, you are NOT mosting likely to think me. If I state Santa comes down my smokeshaft Christmas Eve but does not leave me any kind of goodies simply drinks my milk as well as eats my cookies (bad Santa) you’re NOT going to believe me. If I say my house is haunted or that my felines can understand calculus, you are NOT going to believe me and you ‘d be right NOT to think me based upon just my say-so. You would certainly call for bona-fide hardcore proof.
Therefore we turn the tables – the various other shoe is on your foot now. I do NOT think the true believers. I intend to see their hardcore bona-fide proof.
Physics of Free Will
I just might dispute that idea of those who might suggest that there is no link in between your brain and your hair. The mind rules the biochemical roost and also bio-chemicals manage your hair growth. If you are brain dead after that your hair will discontinue growing. There is a connection. Primary my dear Watson! In any event, suppose you have a frustration. Probabilities are you will certainly take an aspirin or 2 rather that attempting to free choice your frustration away. If you have a brain tumour will you free choice the tumour away or see a doctor?
Sorry, but if the majority of bodily features and movements are either independent (food digestion), subconscious (gag reflex), or instinctive (like sportspersons and females that have no time to believe, just respond), after that maybe all bodily functions as well as movements, actions and also reactions, are reducible down to that trilogy as well as no free will require apply for the job.
What is Time?
There are those that recommend that time is whatever somebody says it is. I state that 8 hours have passed; my employer says that 3 hours have actually passed. That someone, that in this case is the one in charge, has his definition of time void my interpretation since he is, well, the one in charge. So, I think for that reason that every entity with sufficient knowledge to be knowledgeable about an idea we call time, that has actually ever before lived and who is currently alive, has actually made up their very own meaning of “what is time” and also how to gauge it. Over the course of human background, constraining this to just human beings, which would total up to some 100 billion specific people, each that have generated their very own version of “what is time” as well as just how to determine it, as well as impose it on a couple of others throughout that they are boss. Wow! Since there has actually never ever been the outright only one human who has been as well as permanently shall be king-of-the-mountain, the king who has from above ruled definitely specifically what time is and also how it is measured, after that I assume that there is no last and also conclusive version of “what is time”. It’s all a case of different strokes for different folks.
Did God Produce Time?
” Time” as a something with framework as well as compound does not exist, so God did not develop “time”. “Time” is a created word, an idea word, a word that human beings make use of to come to terms with modification or price of adjustment or simply put movement. If there were no change, no motion, it would certainly be meaningless to speak about the principle of “time”. Currently, if you believe there is a superordinary God (which I do not) that developed something from absolutely nothing (highly not logical if not totally difficult even for a deity) which something has movement, as a result modifications, after that by that intricate chain, one can state that God produced cyclic or quasi-cyclic patterns of activity which people have actually designated the principle word of “time” to. Now, as some recommend, if God created stuff, then God already existed within “time” since if God were in a timeless state He couldn’t do anything, even move or wiggle a Godly finger. But if God already existed in “time”, then He couldn’t have created “time”. So no matter how you slice and dice things, God didn’t create “time”.
Is Time Travel Possible?
Anybody from the future time travelling to their past couldn’t avoid interacting with or changing that past even if only altering the local air currents and thus producing the “butterfly effect”. However, all that assumes that our time travelling visitor arrives up-close and personal. What if they just observed from afar – say from high earth orbit? Or from the lunar surface? If our time travelling tourist just did some remote viewing say from orbit, say several thousands of years ago, that probably wouldn’t result in any actual interaction or alteration of any possible consequence. It could be that time travellers from the future have to abide by a “Star Trek” Prime Directive not to actually interact with the locals and the local environment.
If you went back in time and killed the person who invented time travel before the fact, well who’s to say that invention wasn’t then or wouldn’t then be independently made by someone else later on?
The timeline you are originally from wouldn’t cease to be if you didn’t do anything to interact with the past, as per those observations from high earth orbit. Your timeline would still presumably still exist for all those who stayed behind in your time-frame and didn’t time travel back.
There’s also the circular argument that events set in motion in the past by a time traveller from the future were essential to produce the sort of timeline the time traveller came from in the first place.
Some point to various anomalous archaeological discoveries, like human remains in coal seams, as evidence that time travel from the future to the past has been achieved. I ‘d be more impressed with human remains in coal if they had been associated with some sort of high-tech gizmo’s that hadn’t yet existed at the time the human remains were discovered. A mobile phone found in a coal seam by humans living in the mid-1800’s would set the cat among the pigeons.
Finally, what if it were extraterrestrial time travellers that came to Earth. We in the here and now might be none the wiser about any interactions/ alterations they made way back when here on Earth and of course any such interactions/ alterations wouldn’t have any repercussions on the alien’s home planet or to the alien’s timeline. ET might not be overly interested in what to us are historically significant events, thus no UFOs over The Alamo. Perhaps ET just time travelled back to the terrestrial Age of Reptiles because they liked dinosaurs! Now if one were to find a skeleton of one of those ET “Greys” in a 200 million year old coal seam that would be interesting to say the least.
Why Not Nothing?
Why is there something rather than nothing? The Nothing/ Something question is not an either/ or issue. There is BOTH something AND nothing! If everything in the cosmos (all that is or ever will be) is something with structure and substance (i.e. – the standard model of particle physics) then motion, hence change hence the existence of the concept of time, could not happen. In order for something to move (i.e. – change) there has to be some nothingness in which to be able to shift into. If you move you have to push something else aside which in turn pushes something else aside which in turn pushes something else aside but the pushing can only happen if ultimately there is some unoccupied nothingness you can push into.
An electron can whiz around an atomic nucleus unimpeded because there is literally nothing in the pathway of the electron. If there was something in the way of the electron its velocity/motion would be retarded and it would lose energy ultimately impacting the nucleus. This is akin to how a orbiting satellite will have its orbit decay as it bites into something (our atmosphere) ultimately losing enough velocity and energy of motion to re-enter the atmosphere and probably burning up on re-entry.
Regarding Physical Laws
Are physical laws of the absolute no correspondence will be entered into laws? Actually, upon reflection, there are probably at least three absolute physical laws. The first is the speed of light. Thou shall not go faster than the speed of light. That seems to be a really hard and fast and absolute physical law. The second absolute law that’s been absolutely documented are those conservation laws. Thou shall not create from nothing nor destroy into nothingness anything of substance and structure. Matter and energy can only change costume. The third law is that of cause-and-effect. Nothing happens for absolutely no reason at all. Thou shall not have an effect without a cause; though shall not have a cause without an effect.
Could Our Universe Be a Fake?
Some say the universe is infinite and therefore it could not be simulated. In other words, any computer simulating the universe would have to be as large as the universe. An infinite simulated universe requires an infinitely sized computer. However a finite simulation could simulate a seemingly infinite universe. Your ordinary planetarium does a pretty good job of this. You have no way of absolutely knowing for sure that the universe is infinite in size or in duration, so it could be all a virtual reality simulation. Finite computer/software crunch power creates a finite simulation.
What does a Fine-Tuned Universe Mean?
The apparent fine-tuning of the cosmos can be readily explained by the simulation hypothesis. Are we ‘living’ in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe that has been fine-tuned via its software programming to allow us to survive and thrive in the virtual landscape? This is just analogous to our video games being fine-tuned to allow the characters and the players to strut their stuff in a reasonably logical landscape. That being the case, there is no need to postulate a supernatural deity, no need to imagine a Multiverse, and no requirement to rely on the luck of the draw; on against-an-all-the-odds coincidence that all the knobs required for life were set just so. So, what does a fine-tuned universe mean? It could mean a deity, a Multiverse or a coincidence, but then again, it could mean that we just don’t exist in the sort of reality we think we do. We dance to the beat of a computer programmer!
What does a Fine-Tuned Universe Mean?
One can just as easily imagine a universe that is not finely-tuned for life but is broadly-tuned for life. That universe would be full of life forms not-as-we-know-it, with silicon-rock life forms (like “Star Trek: The Original Series” concept of the Horta) to silicon-steel life forms as in Gort-the-robot (” The Day the Earth Stood Still”) to Fred Hoyle’s concept in his sci-fi novel “The Black Cloud” to plasma life forms to life forms surviving and thriving in liquid helium. You could cull out all these possibilities from sci-fi and they could collectively inhabit a broadly-tuned for life universe. Since we have no idea what extraterrestrial life forms are actually out there in our cosmos, perhaps our Universe is broadly-tuned for life in general, but only finely-tuned for us.
Something from Nothing: Coda
The very mention of “the creation of the universe” immediately implies that the universe has been kick-started from scratch, from nothing at all, hence created and thus now exists where previously it didn’t exist. Only a before-the-creation-of-the-universe could there be a universe that doesn’t yet exist which is pretty nonsensical since the term universe implies a something. It’s like saying that only a before-the-conception-of-a-baby could there be a baby that doesn’t yet exist. A baby can’t exist prior to conception. In that nanosecond of conception, a baby now exists. So the very act of creation implies a something. Before that act there was nothing. There was no transition from nothing to something since in that nanosecond of a nanosecond of a nanosecond when creation began, there was now a something. There was never an association with a nothing and then a something. It’s silly to say that before your conception you didn’t exist since before your conception there was no you that existed in anyone’s philosophy. You only became you, you only became a something, at conception. You were never a nothing since there was no you existing yet in which you could exist as a nothing.
The upshot of this is that I have absolutely no intention of entertaining the premise of creation of something from nothing when 100% of all observational and experimental data make it clear that creation is, in fact demands, something from something. There’s not even a theoretical way to generate something from nothing, so that alone seals the fate of any premise that something can be created from nothing. As far as I’m concerned, that concept is dead and buried.
