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.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Diagoras in post #25]

What evidence do you have for this, and when did it happen?

The Big Bang Theory states that spacetime had a very sudden beginning with very high entropy. Now the big bang theory does not describe why there would be high entropy but Creation does.

[Gracchus]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #30]

You are missing the point. Spacetime is part of this universe...

That was my point. The universe is all that exists. That is the definition of the universe Spacetime is only a projection of that p-dimensional manifold. (p > 3) onto three dimensional spacetime. Time is just another way of measuring distance between distinct points of spacetime. t (time temporal distance ) = s (spatial distance) / c (the speed of light, which is invariant in all reference frames). Whether the distance is perceived as s or t depends on the reference frame of the observer. Spacetime, as the projection of a finite but unbounded n-manifold is a Hilbert space so that the distance between distinct points is indefinitely large, greater than zero but less than infinity. Thus, gravity is the scaling of spacetime that preserves the invariant speed of light. Like all manifolds, spacetime is locally Euclidian.

Your p-dimensional manifold has to be infinite, not finite.

No, it can be indefinitely large but unbounded.

The only place where c has to equal s/t is in our n-dimensional manifold. In your p-dimensional manifold, the laws of nature have infinite values in the infinite number of universes that your infinite p-dimensional manifold universe spawned. It could be that c is infinite which means that the spatial displacement would be infinite.

Think of the polar projection of the globe on a map. Every point of the globe is projected on the map. The globe is finite but unbounded. It's projection is also finite but unbounded. At the pole, the curvature approaches PI, that is it is locally Euclidean. At the opposite pole, the curvature also approaches PI, but the normal to both poles map to either zero or infinity on the planar projection. Thus, the distance between any distinct points is greater than zero and less than infinity. Moreover the projections of distinct non-polar points onto the 2-dimensional manifold is always greater than zero and less than infinity. On a standard polar projection of the globe the north pole is projected as a single point, but the south pole is projected as a circle containing infinite points. Thus, north maps to zero and south maps to infinity, but if you switch the poles, south maps to zero and north maps to infinity.

Once you understand the map you understand how spacetime is bounded by zero and infinity but includes neither boundary.

Then, bear in mind that the properties of unbounded manifolds and projected sub-manifolds, and it is apparent that the singularity (big bang or black hole depending on the choice of coordinates) is an artifact of scaling.

[Gracchus]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #31]

The Big Bang Theory states that spacetime had a very sudden beginning with very high entropy. Now the big bang theory does not describe why there would be high entropy but Creation does.

Entropy is an artifact of time. What it actually demonstrates is the inverse-square law: the strength of a gravitational or electromagnetic field decreases with the square of the distance. Of course where fields intersect they are summed. And any disturbance of spacetime will resonate, and thus order will inevitably arise from disorder. Assume a four-dimensional vector at each point of spacetime representing the weak force, the strong force and the gravitational force. At any point the magnitude of that vector will be the sum of all the other force vectors at the spacetime distance ||s,t|| (the magnitude of the Fourier sum of the force vectors at spatial distance (t/c) or temporal distance (sc).

Notice that the Fourier sums are the sums of periodic functions. The magnitude of cosine (or the sine) like probability varies between zero and one. As a "particle", the sum of vector forces approaches light speed, its position becomes indeterminate, because the maximum probability of the bell curve broadens. That is, it becomes more wave like. When it is more relative to the observer, it becomes more particle-like.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Gracchus in post #32]

That was my point. The universe is all that exists. That is the definition of the universe Spacetime is only a projection of that p-dimensional manifold. (p > 3) onto three dimensional spacetime. Time is just another way of measuring distance between distinct points of spacetime. t (time temporal distance ) = s (spatial distance) / c (the speed of light, which is invariant in all reference frames). Whether the distance is perceived as s or t depends on the reference frame of the observer. Spacetime, as the projection of a finite but unbounded n-manifold is a Hilbert space so that the distance between distinct points is indefinitely large, greater than zero but less than infinity. Thus, gravity is the scaling of spacetime that preserves the invariant speed of light. Like all manifolds, spacetime is locally Euclidian.

Who said there is a dimension of time outside of this universe?

Your equation speed equation v = d/t is only relevant in this universe.

In your theology, there has to be some sort of space outside of our universe to create our universe. My theology says that all that exists is God, and the two places He created heaven and this universe. And before God created heaven and this universe the only thing that existed is/was God. God is a spirit being. John 4:24 "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” Before God created heaven and this universe there was nothing, no time, no space. God does not have a physical form. This is why the second commandment is "do make for yourself any graven image" because God does not have an image.

You are correct in stating that whatever created this universe has to exist outside of this universe. The discussion is what existed before this universe. Your theology says that there has to be some sort of physical reality outside of this universe. My theology says that there was no physical reality outside of this universe there was only God.

Think of the polar projection of the globe on a map. Every point of the globe is projected on the map. The globe is finite but unbounded. It's projection is also finite but unbounded. At the pole, the curvature approaches PI, that is it is locally Euclidean. At the opposite pole, the curvature also approaches PI, but the normal to both poles map to either zero or infinity on the planar projection. Thus, the distance between any distinct points is greater than zero and less than infinity. Moreover the projections of distinct non-polar points onto the 2-dimensional manifold is always greater than zero and less than infinity. On a standard polar projection of the globe the north pole is projected as a single point, but the south pole is projected as a circle containing infinite points. Thus, north maps to zero and south maps to infinity, but if you switch the poles, south maps to zero and north maps to infinity.

You are confusing math with physics they are not always the same. There are mathematical concepts that have no place in reality. Negative time has no place in reality, time does not flow backward. Negative space has no place in reality. An unbounded circle has no place in reality. Back to your example, the earth has boundaries a circle has boundaries. This universe has boundaries. If your p-universe/manifold or whatever it is you want to call is it is eternal and has been eternally expanding and creating universes then it is infinite and unbounded.




Once you understand the map you understand how spacetime is bounded by zero and infinity but includes neither boundary.

Then, bear in mind that the properties of unbounded manifolds and projected sub-manifolds, and it is apparent that the singularity (big bang or black hole depending on the choice of coordinates) is an artifact of scaling.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Gracchus in post #0]

What it actually demonstrates is the inverse-square law: the strength of a gravitational or electromagnetic field decreases with the square of the distance. Of course, where fields intersect they are summed. And any disturbance of spacetime will resonate, and thus order will inevitably arise from disorder.

What? Whose theory is this? Yours. Are you trying to express Penrose's gravitational entropy theory?

The current Big Bang theory states that the universe began as a singularity. The entropy of a singularity is given by the equation

S = c^3 A/4Gh (S = entropy; c = speed of light; A = area; G=gravitational constant; h=planks constant)

The important part of the equation is A because all the other variables are constants

The surface area of a black hole is given by the equation A= m^2 x 8pi(G^2/c^4)

Combining these two equations gives S = m^2 x 2pi (kG/hc) So the mass and entropy are directly related.

Penrose the physicist who founded gravitational entropy theory said the following:

He (Penrose) has also argued that new physical principles are required to explain the low-entropy paradox – the fact that, according to Penrose, the universe began in a state of extraordinary low entropy, requiring fine-tuning to an accuracy of one part in 10 to the power 10131.

The CMB shows that the entropy of the early universe was close to maximum entropy. So how did the universe start at low entropy?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #0]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #24]

"Shot down?" When and by whom? Remember that your initial set of goal posts was that the universe necessarily violates the conservation of energy. To show that, you need to demonstrate that all otherwise valid cosmologies do so and the whole reason to propose zero energy cosmology in the first place is to avoid violating the conservation of energy. From Tyron's paper:

Cosmologist and theoretical physicist Alexander Vilenkin, Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University, said:

Now, what Tryon was suggesting was that our entire universe, with its vast amount of matter, was a huge quantum fluctuation, which somehow failed to disappear for more than 10 billion years. Everybody thought that was a very funny joke. But Tryon was not joking. He was devastated by the reaction of his colleagues…

Writing in the Skeptical Inquirer in 1994, Ralph Estling voiced strong disapproval of the idea that the Universe could create itself out of nothing. He wrote:

I do not think that what these cosmologists, these quantum theorists, these universe-makers, are doing is science. I can’t help feeling that universes are notoriously disinclined to spring into being, ready-made, out of nothing, even if Edward Tryon (ah, a name at last!) has written that “our universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time....” Perhaps, although we have the word of many famous scientists for it, our universe is not simply one of those things that happen from time to time

Alan Guth, professor of physics at M.I.T., wrote in response to Tryon:
“In this context, a proposal that the universe was created from empty space is no more fundamental than a proposal that the universe was
spawned by a piece of rubber. It might be true, but one would still want to ask where the piece of rubber came from

Physicist Richard Morris wrote:

In modern physics, there is no such
thing as “nothing.” Even in a perfect vacuum, pairs of virtual particles are constantly being create briefly “borrowing” energy already in existence—JM] and destroyed. The existence of these particles is no mathematical fiction. Though they cannot be directly observed, the effects they create are quite real. The assumption that they exist leads to predictions that have been confirmed by experiment to a high degree of accuracy

Vilenkin, while explaining the problems inherent in Tryon’s work, said:
A more fundamental problem is that Tryon’s scenario does not really explain the origin of the universe. A quantum fluctuation of the vacuum assumes that there was a vacuum of some pre-existing space. And we now know that “vacuum” is very different from “nothing.” Vacuum, or empty space, has energy and tension, it can bend and warp, so it is unquestionably something

The preceding remarks indicate that our Universe may have zero net values for all conserved quantities. If this be the case, then our Universe could have appeared from nowhere without violating any conservation laws.

As far as I'm aware, no peer-reviewed article has shown (or even suggested) that zero energy cosmology is invalid in principle. Feel free to correct me, though. Since any such article would be pretty much required to cite Tyron, exactly that set might be a good place to start.

The entire point of the problem is that Universe from nothing does not solve the problem because there has to be something. Like Alan Guth said the founder of inflation theory.

It might be true, but one would still want to ask where the piece of rubber came from

The universe from nothing does not answer the question of where the energy comes from to form the bubbles.

David Alberts
What on earth, then, can Krauss have been thinking? Well, there is, as it happens, an interesting difference between relativistic quantum field theories and every previous serious candidate for a fundamental physical theory of the world. Every previous such theory counted material particles among the concrete, fundamental, eternally persisting elementary physical stuff of the world — and relativistic quantum field theories, interestingly and emphatically and unprecedentedly, do not. According to relativistic quantum field theories, particles are to be understood, rather, as specific arrangements of the fields. Certain ­arrangements of the fields, for instance, correspond to there being 14 particles in the universe, and certain other arrangements correspond to there being 276 particles, and certain other arrangements correspond to there being an infinite number of particles, and certain other arrangements correspond to there being no particles at all. And those last arrangements are referred to, in the jargon of quantum field theories, for obvious reasons, as “vacuum” states. Krauss seems to be thinking that these vacuum states amount to the relativistic-­quantum-field-theoretical version of there not being any physical stuff at all. And he has an argument — or thinks he does — that the laws of relativistic quantum field theories entail that vacuum states are unstable. And that, in a nutshell, is the account he proposes of why there should be something rather than nothing.

Dig deeper into the moment.

But that’s just not right. Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems — are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff. The true relativistic-quantum-field-­theoretical equivalent to there not being any physical stuff at all isn’t this or that particular arrangement of the fields — what it is (obviously, and ineluctably, and on the contrary) is the simple absence of the fields! The fact that some arrangements of fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some don’t is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers happen to correspond to the existence of a fist and some don’t. And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings — if you look at them aright — amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/book ... rauss.html

If the positive and negative energies balance out and the net is zero, then the conservation of energy holds even if the fluctuation came literally from nowhere. Whether or not that fits your gut feeling about how the universe should operate, it doesn't offend the conservation of energy. Your thesis is wrong.

I am in some very distinguished company if I am wrong.

First, that's what I meant about "intentional irony." You brought up Krauss' book to complain about its lack of peer review despite the presence of hundreds of peer-reviewed sources about the subject. Then when challenged to discuss other sources, you linked an article from the popular press and a blog post, of all things, that also just diss Krauss. Now you're doubling down with the critique that I didn't read them? Do you not know what I find ironic about that or are you just beating your gag to death, subtle though it is?

From a 2014 paper, Krauss's book was published in 2012.

An interesting idea is that the universe could be spontaneously created from nothing, but no rigorous proof has been given.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1404.1207

Krauss did not write a paper he wrote a book.

[William]

I can’t help feeling that universes are notoriously disinclined to spring into being, ready-made, out of nothing

An interesting observation is that many theists also think that the universe was created 'out of nothing'.

I also do not see how one can argue that the universe is 'ready-made' as this suggests some sort of completion, whereas clearly the universe is not complete, since it is still in the early stages of its current development.

[Gracchus]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #34]
Let's start from the beginning, one step at a time.
When we look out into spacetime, we are looking into the past. What we see as four light-years away happened four years ago. This is true in whatever direction we look. If the spacetime, is expanding, then we are looking out in all directions into a smaller universe. It was smaller in the past, but we see it whichever way we look.

Do you dispute this, or have you some explanation for this?

[Difflugia]

"Shot down?" When and by whom? Remember that your initial set of goal posts was that the universe necessarily violates the conservation of energy. To show that, you need to demonstrate that all otherwise valid cosmologies do so and the whole reason to propose zero energy cosmology in the first place is to avoid violating the conservation of energy. From Tyron's paper:

Cosmologist and theoretical physicist Alexander Vilenkin, Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University, said:

Now, what Tryon was suggesting was that our entire universe, with its vast amount of matter, was a huge quantum fluctuation, which somehow failed to disappear for more than 10 billion years. Everybody thought that was a very funny joke. But Tryon was not joking. He was devastated by the reaction of his colleagues…

Oh, no! Have Creationists stooped to quote-mining to support their arguments? Apparently the one you plagiarized has.

That's what intentional irony looks like, by the way. While a separate irony (also intentional, no doubt) lies in your double-standard of supporting your position with a book that wasn't peer-reviewed, it's also doesn't quite say what Jeff Miller wants (and presumably you want) it to say. Vilenkin does later identify some deficiencies in Tryon's proposal, but here he's simply reporting the initial reaction to Tryon's idea, spoken extemporaneously three years before he fleshed it out into a paper.

Vilenkin's critiques of Tryon aren't fatal (like violating energy conservation, the claim you're supposed to be supporting), but simply ones that Vilenkin found problematic (smaller universes than this one being more probable and the necessity of some sort of vacuum prior to fluctuation and inflation). Vilenkin himself corrects these perceived defects with his own, arguably better cosmology. That's what the book being quoted is explaining, in fact, and that is the essence of the quote mine: one finds a quote that seems to offer support for the miner's position, but is instead from a larger context that is actually counter to the miner's position. Vilenkin adapts Tryon's propsal to a different interpretation of quantum mechanics and an origin in a quantum tunnelling event rather than a vacuum fluctuation. That one, for the record, doesn't violate the conservation of energy, either. Vilenkin explained it more fully in a peer-reviewed 1982 paper.

Writing in the Skeptical Inquirer in 1994, Ralph Estling voiced strong disapproval of the idea that the Universe could create itself out of nothing. He wrote: "Perhaps, although we have the word of many famous scientists for it, our universe is not simply one of those things that happen from time to time."

I don't have access to that article and the only online references are creationist repetitions with no context, so it's possible that this quote is presented honestly. Even if it is, though, the incredulity of a skeptic is still just incredulity. This doesn't support either your assertion that the universe violates the conservation of energy or that Tryon's idea was "shot down" in any meaningful way.

Alan Guth, professor of physics at M.I.T., wrote in response to Tryon:

You mean this Alan Guth? The one that helped refined inflationary models of the early universe? A a paper he co-wrote in 1987 includes this gem:

It seems clear that no conservation laws are violated in this hypothetical process. The possibility of such tunneling remains for now a matter of speculation, but perhaps further work can clarify the situation.

If an inflationary universe can be created by tunneling from Minkowski space, then the process may be a key step in a solution to the cosmological constant problem.

Yeah, it sure sounds like he thinks inflationary cosmology is wrong and violates the conservation of energy.

That's intentional irony. It's sarcasm, in fact. I'm told that it's perhaps the lowest form of wit, but I feel like slumming it today.

The entire point of the problem is that Universe from nothing does not solve the problem because there has to be something.

To quote Vilenkin a couple of pages after the earlier quote mine:

The picture of quantum tunneling from nothing has none of these problems. The universe is tiny right after tunneling, but is filled with a false vacuum and immediately starts to inflate. In a fraction of a second, it blows up to a gigantic size.

Prior to the tunneling, no space or time exists, so the question of what happened before is meaningless. Nothing—a state with no matter, no space, and no time—appears to be the only satisfactory starting point for the creation.

Did you catch that? The complete lack of your "something" is, according to Vilenkin, "the only satisfactory starting point".

Like Alan Guth said the founder of inflation theory.

It might be true, but one would still want to ask where the piece of rubber came from.

He then proceeded to explain exactly where the rubber came from. That's the essence of quote-mining. It's the same thing as the classic Darwin quote claiming that natural selection leading to a functioning eye "seems absurd." The part that creationists leave out is Darwin's answer that immediately follows explaining that though it may seem absurd, his proposal offers a reasonable solution.

The universe from nothing does not answer the question of where the energy comes from to form the bubbles.

So you keep saying, as though adding enough zeroes will eventually result in a one.

I am in some very distinguished company if I am wrong.

I'm reminded of an aphorism in Robert Heinlein's Time Enough for Love:

This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother’s side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which happiness is always in short supply.

From a 2014 paper, Krauss's book was published in 2012.

An interesting idea is that the universe could be spontaneously created from nothing, but no rigorous proof has been given.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1404.1207

Let's assume that's true and accurate. It still doesn't support any of your assertions.

Krauss did not write a paper he wrote a book.

This is absolutely true. Well done.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #24]

That's right. If the universe is a closed system, then zero energy cosmology preserves the conservation of energy. If brane cosmology is true, then the universe isn't closed, so isn't bound as a whole by the conservation of energy. Whence your objection?

So if the brane is not a closed system then what is outside of the brane? The reason why the law of conservation of energy has the stipulation of a closed system is because in an open system energy can come from outside the defined system. So what is outside of the defined system of the brane? That is if the brane is not a closed system.

No, actually I was just asking where the brane was. The brane is inside of the bulk. Not the hulk that is another story that is a little more interesting. And these branes and bulk are supposed to occupy higher dimensions of space. So where did this space come from? How would this bulk not be influenced by entropy?
If this is meant as a rhetorical assertion, its only support is your personal incredulity. If it's not, look it up yourself, then tell us what you find and how it supports your assertion that the universe violates the conservation of energy.

Because at some point the system of the multiverse has to close. At that point, we have to say that is all there is. All energy is contained in that system.

But if something is eternal and created everything there is then it also has to be omnipresent and omnipotent.
I'm not even sure the statement is meaningful. How are you defining "created," "omnipresent," and "omnipotent?" Without definitions relating these theological terms to physics, it's just word salad.

I am not sure that means anything either. That is what I get for multitasking. Let me see if I can clean that statement up a bit.

Whatever is eternal and if that object or person created everything, then it has to contain all energy and it has to be everywhere. That would make it omnipresent and omnipotent. It does not matter if it is God or the mother universe of the multiverse.

"For anything to be delicious, it has to be transcendent, otherwise, it could not be delicious."

My wife has some dishes that she makes that can fit that description. MMMM!

So, do you mean that you've been referring to a god other than the Protestant Christian concept of God or are you now just being disingenuous? If you mean us to understand some other concept of "creator God," then how does it differ from even the vague and malleable, apologetic definitions of the Christian God?

The discussion of whether a creator created the universe is a very different discussion than who created the universe.
The latter is a metaphysical discussion in which Jesus would be a very important point. So in this discussion, I am simply using creator in the generic sense of the word.