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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Diploid]
#13142400 - 09/03/10 11:00 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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In the beginning dere was de lime and de coconut and God said, "Let dere be rum."
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Freedom
Pigment of your imagination



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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: musicosm] 1
#13142403 - 09/03/10 11:01 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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You're discussion of Hawking's reference to 'god's mind' in his book A Brief History of Time is just a strawman.
Hawking's argument in his new book does not depend on that silly metaphor he used in his last book. His argument is that the universe could have been created just with the laws of physics. I don't think he is even arguing if there is or isn't a god, just that the laws of physics alone are enough to create the universe.
So Hawking's argument depends on the laws of physics.
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Freedom]
#13142409 - 09/03/10 11:02 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Silversoul
Rhizome


Registered: 01/01/05
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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Diploid]
#13145132 - 09/03/10 11:06 PM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said: So then this chaos was created ex nihilo. Unless you use hypocrisy and make an exception for god. Sounds self-serving to me.
No, the chaos was not created out of nothing because nothing was ever created out of nothing. Nothing doesn't exist without something. Something always existed.
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Diploid
Cuban



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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Silversoul]
#13145156 - 09/03/10 11:18 PM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Something always existed.
Well, the available evidence suggests this isn't true, but even if it is, why can't the universe have always existed without the extra complication of a creator?
Any rationale you can give for the creator always existing can be given for a universe that always existed, sans creator, and the latter is the simpler of the two explanations.
But again, the currently available (and mounting) evidence suggests the universe didn't always exist and also didn't have a first instant of existence... it didn't have a birthday so to speak.
It's a contradiction, I know, but physicists have had to come to terms with that sort of thing ever since quantum mechanics and wave-particle duality were discovered. The evidence is what it is no matter how weird it might seems to the human psyche.
BTW, some of this will be tested soon at the LHC. Interesting times...
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Silversoul
Rhizome


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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Diploid]
#13145174 - 09/03/10 11:23 PM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said: Well, the available evidence suggests this isn't true
A singularity is still something.
Quote:
but even if it is, why can't the universe have always existed without the extra complication of a creator?
I'm not saying it couldn't. I've never tried to appeal the the cosmological argument as proof of God. If God creates anything, it's not so much the universe itself so much as the novelty by which the universe is able to evolve. And even this would not be created from nothing, but an organization of chaos into order.
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Brainstem
_@_y



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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Silversoul]
#13145232 - 09/03/10 11:41 PM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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It's like trying to find Bill gates by analyzing Windows seven intensivly. The creation and the external creator, nothing in the software bares any semblance to Bill Gates.
-------------------- The arrogant cat stalks the humble mouse, the self important dog chases away the cat and is in turn unable to stand it's ground against the Proud lion. Then the lion is almost trampled underfoot of the enlightened elephant, who surprisingly and paradoxically yields to the humble mouse.
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Diploid
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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Silversoul]
#13145279 - 09/03/10 11:55 PM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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A singularity is still something.
So what? That doesn't change what the evidence points to. The singularity didn't always exist and it didn't have a birth instant either. So says the available evidence.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Kickle
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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Diploid]
#13145293 - 09/03/10 11:59 PM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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I didn't understand that. If it hasn't always been and yet it doesn't have a beginning, how are we ever supposed to describe it? Mathematically?
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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Silversoul
Rhizome


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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Diploid]
#13145295 - 09/03/10 11:59 PM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said: A singularity is still something.
So what? That doesn't change what the evidence points to. The singularity didn't always exist and it didn't have a birth instant either. So says the available evidence.
What exactly do you mean by that? If you're referring to the fact time didn't exist before the singularity, that means that there was no "nothing" to exist before the "something." And what evidence are you referring to, anyway? So far as I know, our models of the Big Bang are basically a matter of measuring the doppler effect and winding it back in reverse. They can figure out what the universe was like fractions of a second after the Big Bang, but anything going back to the singularity itself is highly speculative.
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Silversoul]
#13145329 - 09/04/10 12:17 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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*IN A DEEP, BOOMING VOICE*
Before you were, I was.
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Brainstem
_@_y



Registered: 07/31/10
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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Silversoul]
#13145342 - 09/04/10 12:22 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Would a vacuum be considered as nothing ? Could there be a vacuum of space-time ? If a vacuum of space-time was even in a small way connected to space-time wouldn't the absence of ST in the vacuum cause ST to be drawn into the vacuum to fill the void ? I know a space-time vacuum would have no duration and it would not occupy physical space, but could it suck in space-time to create something ?
-------------------- The arrogant cat stalks the humble mouse, the self important dog chases away the cat and is in turn unable to stand it's ground against the Proud lion. Then the lion is almost trampled underfoot of the enlightened elephant, who surprisingly and paradoxically yields to the humble mouse.
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Silversoul
Rhizome


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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Brainstem]
#13145347 - 09/04/10 12:25 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Brainstem said: Would a vacuum be considered as nothing ? Could there be a vacuum of space-time ? If a vacuum of space-time was even in a small way connected to space-time wouldn't the absence of ST in the vacuum cause ST to be drawn into the vacuum to fill the void ? I know a space-time vacuum would have no duration and it would not occupy physical space, but could it suck in space-time to create something ?
When scientists have measured the space-time vacuum using highly sensitive instruments, they've found it to be infinitely dense. It kind of makes me wonder if our whole categories of "something" and "nothing" might be simply relics of our Aristotelian cultural hypnosis.
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Diploid
Cuban



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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Silversoul]
#13145354 - 09/04/10 12:27 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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These ideas come from a branch of math called non-commutative geometry and from natural limitations that arise at the limits of physical existence. More specifically, there exist a set of natural units called the Planck units. They're based on universal constants.
Two of them, the Planck Length and the Planck Time bear on the issue. The Planck Length is the distance light travels in one Planck Time. And the Plank Time is a function of the gravitational constant (the strength of gravity), the speed of light in a vacuum, and the reduced Planck Constant which in turn is based on the size of the quanta of Quantum Mechanics. See how they're all interrelated and based on the fundamental structure of the fabric of nature?
Anyway, the Plank Time is the shortest interval of time that has any meaning. If you try to consider anything shorter, absurdities emerge from the equations used to characterize nature.
I'm grossly simplifying here but for example, you might get a diameter for the nucleus of an atom of square root of -1 meters. That is a meaningless result, but it's what happens when you try to access sub-Planck scale.
It's kind of like if I ask you what the length of the sides of a square of 9 square meters is. To determine this, you take the square root of 9, which is 3 so the square is 3 meters on each side.
The problem occurs in that 9 has two square roots, 3 and -3. It is meaningless to state that the square has sides of length -3 even though that is one of the two solutions to the equation. In this case we still have the positive root, which makes sense and turns out to be the correct answer.
But if you try to consider intervals of time shorter than the Planck Time or length shorter than the Planck Length, you get nothing but absurdities. The concept of something smaller than these limits is meaningless.
So, back to the original question. At some point the universe was one Planck Length in diameter and one Planck Time old. It is meaningless to consider the universe when it was smaller or younger and so it can't be said that it had an instant of creation. The earliest instant that has any meaning is the end of the first Plank Time.
This is why we can't talk about the universe having a moment of creation. That moment is outside the Planck bounds and so has no meaning. Speaking of the birth of the universe (time zero which is before the elapsing of the first Plank Time) is meaningless. And yet the universe didn't always exist. But it's very beginning is not a meaningful concept. Only the end of the very first Planck time and beyond has any meaning.
Hence the contradiction. The universe didn't always exist and didn't have an instant of creation.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Silversoul
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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Diploid]
#13145370 - 09/04/10 12:34 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said: Hence the contradiction. The universe didn't always exist and didn't have an instant of creation.
I get the feeling we're saying the same thing with different language. The universe prior to the Planck time doesn't make any sense, but that doesn't mean that it was nothing either.
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Diploid]
#13145378 - 09/04/10 12:37 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Hence the term: Walking the Planck.
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AlphaFalfa
imagine


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Anybody got some maple syrup for my planckakes?
x - 1 x infinity = gravity minus the volume of a fluffy one.
Jishkope
-------------------- if you ever feel lost, just remember, life is not a journey, it is entertainment, all 4 fun...
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AlphaFalfa
imagine


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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: AlphaFalfa]
#13145595 - 09/04/10 02:54 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Diploid, there is no contradiction; the universe could have not existed, iF and thus only if, the universe is bieng framed as the mechanic formation(spontanous or intentioned).
if all that existed prior to the universe was just a glob, then it would be possible for the universe to have not needed a creator(had a first instance of existence) AND the capacity to come into existence through the matter(all that existed prior to the universe...energy, etc.)
-------------------- if you ever feel lost, just remember, life is not a journey, it is entertainment, all 4 fun...
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Diploid
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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: AlphaFalfa]
#13145998 - 09/04/10 08:17 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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if all that existed prior to the universe was just
This concept is meaningless. That's the problem that makes this (and other wacky things in Quantum Mechanics) hard to grasp. You might as well be discussing what 42 smells like.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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OrgoneConclusion
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Re: Stephen Hawking on God [Re: Diploid]
#13146041 - 09/04/10 08:34 AM (13 years, 5 months ago) |
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Like fresh hay.
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