Absurdity of the universe without a creator

[EarthScienceguy]

How is the universe not absurd (or possible) without a creator in light of the following?

1. The universe without a creator breaks the law of conservation of mass and energy.

The question that needs to be answered: Where did all of the energy come from? I am using space and energy as synonymous terms because energy comes from space.

2. The universe without a creator breaks the second law of thermodynamics.

The question that needs to be answered is: Why we are individuals and not a Boltzmann brain?

3. The universe without a creator breaks all laws of probability.

The question that needs to be answered is: Why do the constants of nature have the values that they do? Or why do we have laws of nature?

There are more but we will stop at three.

[Sherlock Holmes]

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #105]

You cannot escape infinite regress, this is no longer physics either it is metaphysics, philosophy, like I said science can't help us here, science can't be used to explain science.

Let's boil this down.

My argument is that we don't yet know the exact mechanism for origin of the universe.

That's true, I don't disagree. My argument is that we can never identify a material mechanism for the origin of the universe because there cannot be any material mechanism until the universe exists, until something material exists.

By "universe" I mean a typical definition from a science authority, here's one from the ESA:

The Universe is everything we can touch, feel, sense, measure or detect. It includes living things, planets, stars, galaxies, dust clouds, light, and even time. Before the birth of the Universe, time, space and matter did not exist.

So there is clearly nothing "outside" or "beyond" the universe because the term is defined to mean all, everything that exists - mass, fields, laws, everything material or that has material, measurable properties.

Therefore we cannot rule out a scientific explanation. Simple as that.

Yes you can! We can rule out a scientific explanation because we can rule that which is necessary for a scientific explanation, until the universe (in some form or other) exists there can be no material processes and if there can be no material processes there can be no results of such processes.

We have stasis, nothing and unless there's something, nothing will remain because nothing has no properties!

You are countering that with an infinite regress argument as if that somehow negates a scientific explanation, when it cannot because there may well be new physics that we have no knowledge of yet.

New in what way? not based on laws? not based on causality? able to yield mass where there was non before? able to yield energy when there was none before?

Think about it, think about what kind of equation one would need, just the type, general class, what kind of equation could describe matter and energy coming to exist from nothing?

All the laws of physics that we can write down express relationships between things that already exist, that's it, all we have learned in physics so far is deep patterns and relationships between things that already exist.

Do you really not grasp the magnitude of what we're dealing with? science only describes how the state of the universe changes over time, it does nothing else. Science is restricted, limited to describing how an already existing material system, develops over time.

You cannot start with no matter, no energy, no fields and no laws and somehow manipulate all those things that you don't have to generate something, to generate a universe.

Your philosophical argument that "science can't explain itself" seems to me to be analogous to the ontological argument for god ... it makes assumptions that are not valid and then reaches a (faulty) desired conclusion.

Do you believe that virtual particles exist, and that they can spontaneously produce photons?

Yes, anything that exists does exist.

Or that the dynamical Casimir effect exists (it has been demonstrated). How do you define "nothing"? A scientific explanation for origin of the universe cannot be ruled out until we know a lot more about physics than we currently do. An infinite regression argument also applies to gods of course ... and a big thread on this website is still going (although it long ago took an off ramp away from a god existing focus).

I'd bet on a scientific explanation for origin of the present universe before I'd bet on any god being ever being shown to actually exist.

How do I define nothing? No mass, no fields, no energy, no laws, no mechanism for state, no mechanism for state change.

Nothing basically means the absence of all those things that we require for science.

The only rational explanation for the presence of the universe is to postulate a non-material cause, an agency that does not require causality, laws, that is not subject to laws, that is the source of laws, is the source of material, it is not scientific, it is not mechanistic because that requires that something material already exists.

You logically cannot explain the presence of material by a process that requires material!

[Purple Knight]

My argument is that we don't yet know the exact mechanism for origin of the universe.

My argument is that we can never identify a material mechanism for the origin of the universe because there cannot be any material mechanism until the universe exists, until something material exists.

Why are we assuming that the universe - the allstuff I'll call it, that everything is made up of - originated at all?

We don't see things originate, we see them change. If I obtain a litter of kittens, there is not more allstuff than there was yesterday, it's just, more of it is making up things we call kittens. Causality is needed for why there are more kittens. It doesn't apply to the allstuff.

[William]

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #111]

How do I define nothing? No mass, no fields, no energy, no laws, no mechanism for state, no mechanism for state change.

Nothing basically means the absence of all those things that we require for science.

There seems to be some type of contradiction here. Are you saying that the universe is the result of a creation by something which is actually nothing?

Or are you saying that the creator is something, but is nothing which can be observed through use of any material scientific means?

[William]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #112]

Why are we assuming that the universe - the allstuff I'll call it, that everything is made up of - originated at all?

I would answer that it is because there is enough measured evidence to support the supposition that there was some kind of beginning point...

[Sherlock Holmes]

[Replying to Sherlock Holmes in post #111]

How do I define nothing? No mass, no fields, no energy, no laws, no mechanism for state, no mechanism for state change.

Nothing basically means the absence of all those things that we require for science.

There seems to be some type of contradiction here. Are you saying that the universe is the result of a creation by something which is actually nothing?

Or are you saying that the creator is something, but is nothing which can be observed through use of any material scientific means?

Yes, I'm saying there must be a non-material source for the material, there must be a non-causal source for causality, there must be a non-law based source for the laws.

That is not saying God is nothing, it is saying that God is not material, is not a scientifically describable thing.

The universe is a loud elephant in the room, it gives God away, it reveals that God exists, it is actually that simple, that plain but the futility of materialism prevents us from seeing this.

If God did not exist then the universe could not exist because there's no way for it to come into existence.

[Sherlock Holmes]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #112]

Why are we assuming that the universe - the allstuff I'll call it, that everything is made up of - originated at all?

I would answer that it is because there is enough measured evidence to support the supposition that there was some kind of beginning point...

But I'd like to add to that too, if there was no beginning point then we are admitting that it exists yet cannot be explained, therefore the universe is in the cold light of day meaningless, not explicable, and despite all indications of relationships, patterns, laws, structure it is all irrelevant, there is no sense to me made of it after all, it just "is" and I find that less intellectually appealing than the other obvious alternative, something did make it exist, something did create it, something not based on matter, energy or laws.

Of those two options only the latter is an explanation, the very presence of the natural reveals the supernatural.

[Purple Knight]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #112]

Why are we assuming that the universe - the allstuff I'll call it, that everything is made up of - originated at all?

I would answer that it is because there is enough measured evidence to support the supposition that there was some kind of beginning point...

Beginning of what? The laws of physics as we see now? To me that's similar to saying that each kitten had a beginning. Each one has a circulatory system and a nervous system that now work according to specific laws that did not work before because there was no kitten before.

I see no reason to believe that nothing existed before the Big Bang. Maybe it didn't, and we can't know, because the laws of physics as we know them only started just then, but when I can't know for sure I'm going to go with what I do know, which is that it probably wasn't empty.

For all we know this apparent cosmic beginning is only because we are in something that's alive and creating these laws because they're a part of the necessary function of its body.

But I'd like to add to that too, if there was no beginning point then we are admitting that it exists yet cannot be explained,

I don't really have a big problem with that. We're going to get to a place where things are fundamental. This seems intuitive. Whether that's god or not, who knows? I tend to think not even aside from my arguments that god can't exist, simply because something intelligent tends to be complex and that's at odds with the sort of fundamentality I see us reaching.

[William]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #117]

I see no reason to believe that nothing existed before the Big Bang.

I agree with this and even the big bang theory agrees with this.

What existed according to that theory, was an infinitesimal object, which I refer to as "The Seed of Origins" and that object held all the information [including about cats] which subsequently germinated and grew - which we now refer to as 'the universe'.

It is the germinating of The Seed of Origins which is called 'The Big Bang' and which I was referring to as 'the beginning' - not the seed itself...

[Purple Knight]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #117]

I see no reason to believe that nothing existed before the Big Bang.

I agree with this and even the big bang theory agrees with this.

What existed according to that theory, was an infinitesimal object, which I refer to as "The Seed of Origins" and that object held all the information [including about cats] which subsequently germinated and grew - which we now refer to as 'the universe'.

It is the germinating of The Seed of Origins which is called 'The Big Bang' and which I was referring to as 'the beginning' - not the seed itself...

Whatever you call it, the Seed of Origins, the allstuff, whatever, the fact that something has always existed and simply makes up all the things we think about as needing causes, is itself not subject to causality. I just don't think that allstuff has to be intelligent and called god.

What seems flat invalid to me is saying, because causality, the universe needs a cause, but God does not. It's invalid to assume the allstuff does need a cause unless it is shaped like God. You can't use causality to prove something and then later discard it because this one ultimate thing doesn't need to be caused. The allstuff can just be uncaused, then.

[Sherlock Holmes]

The explanation for the presence of the universe can be found in Genesis, it is there expressed as it can only be expressed. It cannot be an explanation like those we have for the weather, flowers growing, tides, because they explain change, change within something that already exists.

In the beginning God...

There it is, revealed to us, stated clearly for us.

There's more though:

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

That's particularly poignant, it states - as I've been trying to point out to some - that the stuff we observe is not what was used to make that stuff we observe.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

There is no other way to put this, that God created everything we see and hear and feel, cannot be "explained" it can only be asserted, it can only be stated, the familiar ideas and concepts that we insist must comprise the explanation cannot be used because they are the things that were created.

That which has been created cannot be used to explain that act of creation.