Absurdity of the universe without a creator

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EarthScienceguy
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Absurdity of the universe without a creator

Post #1

Post by 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.

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Re: Absurdity of the universe without a creator

Post #2

Post by Purple Knight »

The way I see it, the only point you have is #3, because as I see it, the universe with a creator is the one breaking the laws you mention.

If someone created matter and energy, there not having been any before, then the first law of thermodynamics is broken, but it wouldn't be broken if something simply always was.

I don't believe in the second law of thermodynamics. This is going to make everyone think I'm a tinfoil hat nutcase, but I don't. I think we happen to be at a point in our universe where order is naturally destroyed and disorder created, but I think there must be some point where it turns back and starts flowing in the opposite direction. If there was perfect disorder, the slightest disturbance in it would create more order.

The universe was either created, or it (in some form) always was.

Even if you decide to believe in a creator you're not getting out of this problem. You still have to wonder whether the creator always was or whether something or someone created it.

The natural tendency is to believe things are created. That's how our world makes us think. If you want a pile of kittens, they're not going to abiogenesis themselves into being; you need a female cat to create them. If you want a house, it needs a builder. If you want a tree, you need a seed. If you want food, a chef must prepare it. Most things we interact with are effectively created, because we're a complex species that operates at very low levels of entropy; we need a lot of order to survive, we need food and houses and trees and cats, and someone has to put in energy and push back against disorder to make these things happen. I'm not opposed to a creator that does something like that, but it leaves a huge question of where the energy came from.

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Re: Absurdity of the universe without a creator

Post #3

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #2]
Even if you decide to believe in a creator you're not getting out of this problem. You still have to wonder whether the creator always was or whether something or someone created it.
The law of conservation of energy demands that something is eternal. What that something is, depends on what you believe. I am saying if the object of eternality is not a Creator God then the rational universe that we observe is not possible.

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Re: Absurdity of the universe without a creator

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Post by Difflugia »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 4:11 pmThe law of conservation of energy demands that something is eternal.
No. It demands that net energy of a closed system never changes. Various modern cosmologies address this in different ways. If the net energy of the universe is zero, then there's nothing that needs to be eternal. If the universe is part of a larger brane system, then the physical universe as we experience it with its inflationary beginning is not a closed system in terms of the conservation of energy.

For what it's worth, if physics were wrong in such an obvious and straightforward way as your mistaken idea of conservation would suggest, it's still just as unlikely that the answer involves a magic guy that hates ham.
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Re: Absurdity of the universe without a creator

Post #5

Post by Miles »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 2:17 pm 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.
How?
The question that needs to be answered: Where did all of the energy come from?
Don't know.


2. The universe without a creator breaks the second law of thermodynamics.
How?
The question that needs to be answered is: Why we are individuals and not a Boltzmann brain?
Don't know.


3. The universe without a creator breaks all laws of probability.
How?
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?
Don't know.


There are more but we will stop at three.
Good because, just because we don't have an answer to a question doesn't mean you can plop anything, including a "god," down in its place unless you have sufficient evidence. Do you have sufficient evidence? I highly doubt it, because if you did you'd be collecting a Nobel Prize and be featured on the cover of Time magazine.

Your argument here that god must be answer is a fallacy called Argument from Ignorance. And as for your question at the top of your thread:

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

1
2
3
The answer is: Because a sentient creator has never been found to be reasonable or much less necessary.


.

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Re: Absurdity of the universe without a creator

Post #6

Post by benchwarmer »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 2:17 pm 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.
It would also break it with a creator by your definition since the creator would be poofing the energy out of nowhere. You just shot your own argument down.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 2:17 pm 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.
If "energy comes from space" as you assert (with no support I might add), then it can't have come from a god unless this god is space. Again, you shoot your own argument down.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 2:17 pm 2. The universe without a creator breaks the second law of thermodynamics.
How? If the system that currently contains the universe and it's energy has always existed, then there is no issue. A god producing energy from nowhere and injecting it into a system that didn't exist before seems more broken.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 2:17 pm The question that needs to be answered is: Why we are individuals and not a Boltzmann brain?
Why does this need to be answered?
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 2:17 pm 3. The universe without a creator breaks all laws of probability.
How is an imagined, invisible creator more probable than something that's always existed which is now our universe? A creator just always existing seems to break more laws of probability. It has even more problems than an unthinking something that expands into our universe. Now you have to explain how a conscious being can exist nowhere and pull energy out of nothing to make stuff.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 2:17 pm 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?
One answer might be that's just the way it is. It would be like asking why a creator god exists (if one were to actually exist).
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 2:17 pm There are more but we will stop at three.
I'm guessing the rest will be no better as I assume you started with the best of the bunch.

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Re: Absurdity of the universe without a creator

Post #7

Post by Purple Knight »

Difflugia wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 5:03 pm
EarthScienceguy wrote: Tue Oct 05, 2021 4:11 pmThe law of conservation of energy demands that something is eternal.
No. It demands that net energy of a closed system never changes. Various modern cosmologies address this in different ways. If the net energy of the universe is zero, then there's nothing that needs to be eternal. If the universe is part of a larger brane system, then the physical universe as we experience it with its inflationary beginning is not a closed system in terms of the conservation of energy.

For what it's worth, if physics were wrong in such an obvious and straightforward way as your mistaken idea of conservation would suggest, it's still just as unlikely that the answer involves a magic guy that hates ham.
I don't think it's all that terrible a misinterpretation unless there are just open systems all the way up. If, at some level, the system is closed, then within that greater universe, if something is, then something has always been. I don't know if I buy the possibility of a net-zero universe, perhaps with equal amounts of matter and antimatter. If it's possible for opposing existences to cancel each other out and produce nothing from something, then the reverse should be possible and people really should be able to pull rabbits out of hats, provided they do it two at a time and they pull one positive rabbit and one negative rabbit. Maybe this really can happen (not with rabbits perhaps, but with subatomic particles) but I'll believe it when I see it.

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Re: Absurdity of the universe without a creator

Post #8

Post by Difflugia »

Purple Knight wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 12:11 am...the reverse should be possible and people really should be able to pull rabbits out of hats, provided they do it two at a time and they pull one positive rabbit and one negative rabbit. Maybe this really can happen (not with rabbits perhaps, but with subatomic particles) but I'll believe it when I see it.
Unless I'm missing something about what you're saying, that's what quantum fluctuations are.
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Re: Absurdity of the universe without a creator

Post #9

Post by EarthScienceguy »

[Replying to Difflugia in post #4]
No. It demands that net energy of a closed system never changes. Various modern cosmologies address this in different ways. If the net energy of the universe is zero, then there's nothing that needs to be eternal.
Oh! Good old Dr. Krauss and book "A Universe from Nothing". Not peer-reviewed paper but book. You might ask Earthscience guy why did Dr. Krauss write a book and not a peer-reviewed paper? Because this is the third time that this bubble universe idea has been tried. The first two times crashed and burned and Dr. Krauss's third time did also. But because he is going around promoting his book his idea has lingered around because of uninformed people who wish for a way for the Universe to pop into existence from nothing at all.

The reason why the Universe from nothing was rejected was that this theory does not answer any of the questions that it set out to answer. Where did this quantum fluctuation take place? Space is a characteristic of this universe. Where did the energy come from to create the quantum fields that created the quantum fluctuations that created the Bubble that we live in?

The evidence does indicate that the universe popped into existence but the energy to create the universe had to come from somewhere.
If the universe is part of a larger brane system, then the physical universe as we experience it with its inflationary beginning is not a closed system in terms of the conservation of energy.
If the universe was part of a larger brane system, then where did the energy come from to form the brane? Is the idea of a brane eternal? For the universe to exist something has to be eternal.
For what it's worth, if physics were wrong in such an obvious and straightforward way as your mistaken idea of conservation would suggest, it's still just as unlikely that the answer involves a magic guy that hates ham.
This is like saying if our idea of mathematics is incorrect, in which Dr. Brian Greene did suggest in an interview. This is a clear indication that the evidence points to a Creator God. When scientists have to start throwing out the ideas that make our universe a rational universe. To throw out mathematics and our laws of physics is to say we live in a nonsensical universe which observation says we do not live in a nonsensical universe.

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Re: Absurdity of the universe without a creator

Post #10

Post by Difflugia »

EarthScienceguy wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:35 amOh! Good old Dr. Krauss and book "A Universe from Nothing". Not peer-reviewed paper but book.
It's interesting that you're projecting onto me a reliance on popular works, but then criticizing my presumed reliance on popular works. Or did you actually think that the only treatment of the subject is Krauss' book?
EarthScienceguy wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:35 amThe evidence does indicate that the universe popped into existence but the energy to create the universe had to come from somewhere.
All zero joules of it? I bet I have that much in my wallet right now.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:35 am
If the universe is part of a larger brane system, then the physical universe as we experience it with its inflationary beginning is not a closed system in terms of the conservation of energy.
Is the idea of a brane eternal? For the universe to exist something has to be eternal.
Let's say that's true. If it is, then it trivially renders your original argument moot. The creationist argument is that since most modern cosmologies claim that our universe had a beginning, something else must have been eternal and that something is Jesus. If the brane system is eternal, then Jesus is superfluous and no longer required. Like the old advertisements for breakfast cereals, you're telling us that a bowl of sugar-frosted Jesus is part of this complete breakfast while ignoring the bacon, eggs, and six mimosas behind Him.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:35 amThis is like saying if our idea of mathematics is incorrect, in which Dr. Brian Greene did suggest in an interview.
I hope you'll forgive me for suspecting you've eliminated some important context.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:35 amThis is a clear indication that the evidence points to a Creator God.
Your syllogism here is the most literal form that "god of the gaps" takes. I'm pretty sure the rest of us knew that was your argument all along, but it's nice to see it presented so concisely.
EarthScienceguy wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 10:35 amWhen scientists have to start throwing out the ideas that make our universe a rational universe. To throw out mathematics and our laws of physics is to say we live in a nonsensical universe which observation says we do not live in a nonsensical universe.
Even if we were to accept that's what physicists are doing, your conclusion of "therefore Jesus" is a non sequitur and invalid.
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