An ‘unmoved mover’ also violates the most basic laws of physics that we know about. And let’s not even talk about information theory…
The Big Bang does not. (Well, it may mark the boundaries of causality, which is kinda at the very edge of violating those laws…)
No, I wouldn’t say that at all.
I fear you’ve missed the entire point of this thread. It is not required for matter to have “come about”. Matter is the universe, and the Big Bang is matter (it’s just “squished” up into a single point). Time, dimension, matter, and energy make up the universe. They are characteristics of the universe. They were not injected into the universe; they are the universe.
Take a rubber band and squish it down as small as you can. Now stretch it out so it gets longer. Now that it’s longer, you might ask yourself where all that “rubber band” came from? It didn’t “come from” anywhere, it was always part of the rubber band. The rubber band is still the same thing it always was, only stretched out.
blowero, I just stumbled upon the words “simply another …” and “for whatever reason” - and though I might have given the impression (well, I did) I didn’t want to tell you that you were wrong with your description I wanted to make it more precise.
No problem.
Not unlike any number of monistic ideas. Perhaps I don’t understand the point of this thread at all.
But it’s not a monistic idea. Other universes are not ruled out, they just can’t be linked to our universe by a chain of events. If there are other universes, there would be a temporal disconnect between them. Science does not interest itself with sheer speculation, so until some evidence becomes available, the question, “Do things exist outside of the universe?” must remain unanswered. It’s not ruled out; it’s just not related in the way that some people assert that it is. Another universe cannot be “before” our universe, because time does not transcend our universe. Asking what was “before” the Big Bang is like asking what’s North of the North Pole.
erislover, your questions show great insight. If I may put my own slant on what blowero has already said:
Singularities are known to exist. They have observable characteristics (“black holes ain’t so black” -Hawking) and can be subject to a consistent mathematical treatment yielding genuinely useful results and testable consequences. I would suggest that the same cannot be said of a “mover”.
The phrase “come about” suggests that you might still be stuck in everyday temporality. The matter we see about us is the leftover of annihilation between matter and antimatter near the timeless singularity - in blow’s bedroom/kitchen analogy it might be the smell of the kitchen, carried on our clothes. That annihilation is a characteristic of this universe. Elsewhere in the Universe either it or its “smell” might not be found. The annihilation is what the Universe is at that “place”.
But the Universe, including as it does the timeless singularity, is the ultimate pluralist concept: we merely inhabit a region having these characteristics - they might be different elsewhere.
Reading through this again, I realise my post is so similar to blow’s I needn’t really have bothered.
Link away, friend, and many thanks for you kind praise (you too Nocturne!).
Given the definition in the OP, there is no “elsewhere”, unless you mean ‘other times in the universe’s history’. We surely cannot mean “other universes” by the framework we have.
Yes, and quite like asking what came before an all-powerful, eternal being. I have no stake in theology or science, so to me the fact that answers to questions seem to overlap is not just coincidence.
God and “the universe” are the beginning of definition. It doesn’t make sense to ask what came before them because there’s nothing to say there. It is like asking what axiom comes before the first axiom in set theory.
Ah, I think I can see the trouble here, and the fault is all mine. We have crossed into a “third list” discussion without making it clear we had done so.
Note the OP beginning with the word “universe” and developing into the generalised “Universe”. This is necessary to divest the reader of the notion of “next to the edge of the universe”. Those new to cosmology might imagine travelling in a spaceship out past the very furthest stars, past some metaphorical sign saying “here lieth The Edge” and on into infinite nothingness. You would continue forever, but you are still in the universe. The universe is all the space one can travel in. This is the content of the first two lists. It is intended simply as an introduction to basic cosmology.
Now, as I foresaw, one can easily read the third list and see contradictions. In this case the problem is the word “outside”. The timeless singularity might have other “lines of time” than ours attached to it. Saying these universes are outside our universe is an altogether different proposition (I would suggest a better word is orthogonal). Travel anywhere on a pool table and you will not find “outside the pool table”. This is the meaning of “outside” I attempted to describe in the first list. However, if I pick you up vertically and dangle you around, you could be said to be “outside” the pool table in the manner I alluded to in the third list.
The point is that, for all intents and purposes, these other universes may as well not exist: Our universe and the timeless singularity attached to it comprises the Universe, as far as we are concerned. But yes, if I define the Universe to be (universe + timeless singularity), the yes I am allowing the timeless singularity to contain something which is “outside” our universe. Well spotted, eris, and apologies for the confusion.
As for a pantheistic interpretation of all this stuff, I really have no problem with those who find some measure of happiness by doing so - this thread is merely intended to be educational.
[deep breath]
Allow me to restate your list how I’m reading it, maybe that will help.
First list:[ol][li]Original statement: There is no such thing as “outside the universe”. Restated erl-style: Universe, def’n: the basis of all things.[]Original statement: There is no such thing as “before the universe”. Restated erl-style: addendum to definition of “Universe”: this includes time.[]Original statement: There has never been no universe. Rephrased erl-style: Axiom: “Universe” exists.[/ol]Given that “Universe” exists, and that time is a part of the universe, time cannot be said to describe the universe and so the universe must have always existed (“always” only makes sense once we have accepted a universe). Our ability to describe things begins with “Universe”: that is the beginning of a framework for exploration of knowledge and existence. Because time is a part of the universe, nothing comes “before” it; we couldn’t have a “before” without a “universe” to (sort of) hold time. Because space is a part of the universe, there is nothing “outside” it; we couldn’t have space without the universe. Analogy-wise it is the ultimate superset. I think Libertarian’s oft-referenced “ontological proof of god comma modal comma Tisthammer” could be said to at least motivate this discussion given a less restrictive definition of G. In fact we did once reach a point in that discussion which focused on the idea that “the superset exists”. There are those of us who don’t appreciate the argument, finding it possibly circular or uninterestingly trivial, but at any rate that’s a seperate discussion.[/li]
What I want to get at here is that, whether or not this is how current scientific theories discuss “the universe”, this is a metaphysical series of statements. While some theistic apologists create a god of the gaps, science has moved to plug all gaps in the same way other theists have: by making the largest thing that is be everything. Sure, this is basic pantheism when you cut away all the extra goodies but leave teleology. Cosmology then wants to back up even more and reject teleology, perhaps through a rejection of determinism, perhaps by a rejection of fatalism, perhaps by a rejection of any larger consciousness, perhaps by just ignoring the issue entirely as outside the scope of science.
We’re at a point here where the difference between asserting “that which is” and answering “why this is” starts to blur because we’re reaching the beginning of analysis. In order to make a test of a proposition [of science, or otherwise] one needs to enumerate the requisite definitions and assumptions. For cosmology, these definitions and assumptions are indistinguishable from pure metaphysics. If we call [logical] positivism such because it hinges on the verification principle, then we should largely call Popperian science [logical] negativism, or use other terms like eliminative materialism (which, alas, comes with other assumptions not necessary for a scientific framework, but will largely work fine because science is usually considered realist in nature). But we’re still going to get to a point where we require certain axioms and definitions for tests we use to have meaning, and again, for cosmology, that’s a metaphysic.
We can avoid answering “why” by appealing to the limitations of human understanding, but refusing to answer a question doesn’t make it go away, and answering “why” is not a necessary condition for asserting a metaphysic.
We don’t need to reject determinism to eliminate teleolgy. All we need is basic logic.
What is the purpose of the purpose? And the purpose’s purpose’s purpose?
I’m not sure I’m following you. Are you saying that by limiting itself to that which is observable, science is somehow asserting that that’s all there is? Assuming that things exist with which we currently have absolutely no way of interacting, wouldn’t you agree that such things as far as we are concerned do not exist? But I don’t see that as saying we can never have knowledge of currently unobservable things; it’s just saying that everything we currently know is what is known to us - a tautology. To assume any more than that enters the realm of fantasy, not knowledge.
I don’t see any difference between asserting characteristics of entities for which we currently have no means of knowing, and simply making things up. And not making unwarranted assumptions about such things is simply a prudent application of Occam’s Razor. I’m not seeing how it could be considered as any kind of metaphysical statement. Such is indeed outside the scope of cosmology. As for the “whys” of the universe, what’s wrong with the answer “We don’t know”? Or if you want to get more “zen” about it, how about the answer “Why not?”
Not quite, but yes. Science is, above all else, an epistemology that comes with certain assumptions. I don’t see, at least in this thread, how science avoids metaphysics at this level of discourse (mostly: cosmology and the origins of the universe, beginning of time, et cetera).
Also, I think it is pretty fair to say that inside and out of science we limit ourselves to what is observablegiven a proper definition of “observe”.
Mostly I’m concerned with the idea that science avoids metaphysics. I thought that was sort of the thrust of the OP, with a turn towards religious metaphysics in particular. In any case, I don’t find it coincidental that the god of everything and the universe of everything share descriptions.
Well I’ll let Sentient defend his own OP, but my take on it was not that he was making a positive claim that our universe is “all there is” (metaphysical statement), but was merely pointing out that characteristics of our universe cannot be applied outside of our universe, and was objecting to those who try to do so as an argument for their god (and paradoxically claiming that god is immune to the very characteristics that supposedly prove Him).
An analogy I used in another thread was this:
If the Los Angeles Philharmonic performs Pachelbel’s Canon in D at the Disney Concert Hall, would it make sense to ask if the Disney Concert Hall is in D? The obvious answer is “no” - tonality is a characteristic of musical compositions; it is meaningless to evaluate architectural structures. Similarly, time is a characteristic of the universe, so it does not apply outside of the universe. If I state that the key of the Pachelbel Canon is irrelevent in describing the Disney Concert Hall, that really says nothing one way or the other about the hall. It also does not prove one way or another whether other compositions exist with their own tonalities.
blowero, considering the definitions in the OP, we cannot form valid sentences with words like “before” or “outside” the universe. Perhaps it is just me, but to me knowledge has at least an upper bound as the limit of what can be said. If we cannot meaningfully create a sentence like, “What exists outside the universe” then I’d say science has taken a stand on whether the universe is all there is, wouldn’t you?
No.
Semantics has taken a stand on whether the universe is all there is.
The question now is this: is what we see everything that is in the universe?
Semantically I agree that we canot make a meaningful statement about ‘outside the universe’, much in the same way as we cannot ask meaningfully (to borrow from blowero) about the concert hall being in D.
Does this mean that we have an inherent barrier in the language (and perhaps the epistemology) or the physics? I am going to suggest neither.
If, as posited by the OP, the universe itself contains the boundary conditions, the terms of reference if you will, for statements about it, it follows naturally that meanig is lost outside those bounds. I am not, however, convinced that this has any ontological implications - nor how such could be shown in a meaningfull way.
BTW, I checked that site you linked earlier - about the ontological proof for god. And this is another argument entirely, but some of the premises seem to already assume the conclusion.
Well, as I said, I think knowledge has a greatest upper bound as the limit of what can be said. I’m not prepared to take the position that we can know what we cannot say. Since, as we’re going here, science limits what can be said of “the universe” it seems trivial, then, to conclude that a stand has been taken. Lines have been drawn in the proverbial sand.
UnwrittenNocturne that proof has been the subject of much discussion here, some of it downright silly and some of it quite pedantic.
Also, I find it hard to swallow a worldview that accepts that things exist that cannot be spoken of. Consider how we would describe such knowledge, test for it, and so on…
Respectfully, I must disagree.
‘Universe’ is the word-sound we use to refer to the concept of “everything that there is”. On occasion, we use it to refer to concepts like “a plane of existence”, but that’s not what we mean here.
If we then ask the question: is the universe all there is? then the answer is obvious: yes. It’s true by definition. As such, this answer doesn’t convey any meaning. It’s merely an identity assertion.
But is what we see all there is of the universe? That is an empirical question.
Can we know what we can say? If so, then we can understand the boundary between knowledge and ignorance; by examining the boundary, we can learn the shape of the unknown.
eris, sorry i do not think I expressed myself clearly. I am not trying to espouse a weltenshauung that does not allow us speaking of some of the components thereof. Indeed I would say that we can speak meaningfully of any part of it - what we cannot meaningfully make statements about the non-existent.
By definition the universe is ‘everything that exists’ - so we cannot talk about ‘outside’. To do so would be to talk about ‘things that exist outside existence’. Or trying to use a subset outside the main set