Can there be such a thing as nothing?

[QED]

If we try to clear our minds and use them to conceive of nothingness it almost hurts. It's as if it's an impossible feat for the imagination. Logic and language fully support this notion. How can there be such a thing as nothing? Is this logical contradiction just a play on words or could it be the reason why everything exists?

[ST88]

My original point with this is that there could have been innumerable other universe bubbles, whose numberlesse infinities would have satisfied the probability of your Royal Flush (1 in 2,598,960). In such a view, this universe, though not inevitable, had just enough of the right stuff to cause us to come into being.

This is using the strong anthropic principle argument.

I'll take your word for that.

Luck is not a valid assumption. "Luck" is the perception of a probability function... We may look at all the variables there are in the universe and say, if one of those things was just off just a little bit, nothing would have been the same. And I suppose that's true. But there are a couple of problems with this: 1) it may be that there are other universe bubbles out there that have some of those things just off just a little bit, and there are no anthropoids in them.

Would you agree that in order for there to be other universe bubbles that this is a more complex structure than if there were nothing at all? If you agree, then are we lucky that there were nothing at all?

If you're talking about the vast foam that creates the universe bubbles, then what the heck are we debating about? "Lucky" here doesn't even begin to describe the difference between existence and non-existence.

In the multiple-universe-bubble view, there is no "right off the bat".

Sure there is. If there is a state of nothingness, then there is no "right off the bat." However, anything more than a state of nothingness requires a structure that has to be "right off the bat" by the fact that there is something.

This is just wrong. In a vast foam machine, every bubble is different. So we could be the 15th bubble or the 1,567,456,257th. Or they could all be simultaneous without a time function. In a state of nothingness, there would be a "right off the bat" because the first something that came from nothing would determine the properties of the subsequent somethings.

You're asking the why question again. Why is there something other than nothing? Because there is something.

But, you're asking us to be atheists because atheism explains the universe better. In other words, it has a better answer for the why question than theism. When we look at the atheist answer and it is "because there is," that would be no different than the theist saying there is a God because there is. However, atheists don't like that answer. Okay, I'm giving you an answer and I'm now asking the atheist to respond to the same question. It is not good enough for you to say because there is. That's a statement of faith. I want a possibility that is reasonable so that I can consider atheism to be a valid way of looking at things. If the answer is that atheism cannot provide a reasonable answer, then it should be dumped as a reasonable possibility. At the barest minimum, theism should be given equal weight as a reasonable possibility. Atheists won't do that, which only leads one to believe that atheists just won't be open-minded. This is the reason why so many theists believe that atheism is an emotional rejection of God and not based on reasons.

Here is where you assign Atheism a characteristic that it just does not have. Personally, I don't care if the God explanation seems like a better explanation to you. So much the better for your well-being. But the Atheist explanation does not require that everything be worked out ahead of time. Let me say that again: The Atheist explanation does not require that everything be worked out ahead of time. You've been tilting at Atheism because it doesn't have all the answers. Well, duh! We don't know all the answers. You have to be comfortable with the fact that these answers are not required in order for us to live our lives. You have to be able to hold this idea in your head that some answers we may never know. The God model surely gives some good explanations, explains the way things work and how people behave very nicely, I'm sure. I'm sure it all seems to fit into place. But the God model comes with other assumptions that are unacceptable. For example, there are numerous God models, many of them mutually exclusive, all of them with adherents that are just as fervent.

You say that atheism should be dumped because it cannot provide answers, but I say it should be promoted exactly because it hasn't provided answers. As humans throughout history we have been confronted by questions. As David Byrne says, "Seems like the world has a load of questions/ Seems like the world knows nothing at all." Some of these questions we have answered -- and many of these are in direct opposition to the God model. But many more questions await us. Isn't it exciting to be a part of this historical progression towards answering these questions? Some we may never know the answers to, and others we may discover only after decades or even centuries of research and experimentation. We don't even know which questions can be answered by us and which will never be answered. This may be my Agnosticism coming out, and I apologize for making the Atheist argument from such a position. I am really really really really confused by the attitude that a model that has more answers is a better model simply for having those answers. History is littered with failed civilizations who thought they had more answers than other societies. This is another reason why the Why question is so seductive and destructive.

You answer Why with Because. I answer Why with Why not?

Your "luck" goes only so far. It sounds completely bizarre to me that Atheism could be dismissed because of a probability function whose variables and odds we know nothing about.

Ah, but we do know about conceivable other possibilities. Ultimately, this is all we can deal with when addressing the issue of whether there is a God or not. We have to base our beliefs on the best known information at our hands.

That's a very nice pipe dream. But we both know that faith is not based on cold, hard data. It is based on personal, anecdotal observation. If faith were based on data, it wouldn't be faith.

At the present time, the best we can say is that there is a real possibility that our universe could pop into existence from nothing. This is established based on a consistency in what we know about virtual particles in current quantum theory, observation of what appear to be quantum fluctuations in the COBE observations, and theories such as string theory.

There is also the real possibility that the world sprouted whole from the forehead of Kronos.

Now picture 3,000,000 people with 3,000,000 coins. Does anyone get the Royal Flush?

Sure, if you want me to give you that much leeway to get a Royal Flush, then you could possibly get a Royal Flush. But, I don't give you this much leeway. In order to justify your atheism you have to show why it is that there exists this high order of structure to make the universe a likely outcome (i.e., why we get a Royal Flush right from the get go). If you can't do that, then why consider atheism as a reasonable possibility? I don't think there is such a reason, and if others cannot produce it, then we should all be theists. That includes you, Spetey, QED, and everyone else. Why everyone here hasn't already changed their position over to theism is really beyond me to explain. The only thing I can think of is the emotional attachment that people have to atheism.

I don't have to justify my stance. I don't have to describe the mechanism by which our universe was created. I don't even have to give you a good alternative to your God model theory. Atheism is not a defined set of implacable theories the way theism is. Atheism is messy. It's chaotic. It's not a warm and fuzzy world view. It's the denial of the assertion that there is a God. That's it. That's the only thing there is about it. This denial may have come about through years of observation, or through an epiphany in a single moment. The God model has numerous problems with it, and it is rejected.

Is that so? You know this? how many lines of code would we need for a unified field theory?

Well, people have been writing cellular automata programs for quite some time, and no universe bubbles vaguely close to the ones that inflationary models require have been produced. This should be enough evidence to show that atheism is wishful thinking.

Now THAT's funny. Why would you expect our current means of programming to have a few lines of code for this when we don't even know what the unifying force is? This only points to a failure of the programming language and the measurement devices.

Einstein also denied quantum physics.

That's not correct. Einstein is largely responsible for quantum physics. What Einstein held was that local realism was valid and therefore any interpretation of quantum physics that denied local realism was incorrect. That doesn't mean he denied quantum physics. There's still a few quantum physicists who believe Einstein was right.

To-may-to, to-mah-to. The point was that one person does not decide what happens and what doesn't.

Your version of God is simply not necessary for these systems to work. Why do you apply the superfluous function to these systems?

God is necessary for science to work. If there are no physical laws, then there is no order to study in the universe.

Those two sentences have nothing to do with one another.

You're assuming that "meaning" must have a pejorative connotation. Naturally, all views are equal in the sense that they are all views. But since humans have general common characteristics -- self-preservation, pleasure seeking/pain avoidance, etc. -- we can all give either validation or invalidation to specific views when we encounter them. If enough people choose to invalidate a view, then it becomes socially undesirable.

So, if you eliminate the races that oppose your view, then the surviving race has found meaning? If you take a subjective stance on an issue, then you must accept the subjective consequences of that position. If meaning is subjective, then the winners decide what meaning is.

Quite a diversion from the topic. But I have to say that the "winners" write the histories. "Meaning" can be found anywhere, even in the evil acts that men do to one another. Again, "Meaning" is not pejorative in the same way that "having a Temperature" doesn't point to someone having a fever, it is merely a measurement conceit.

If Christianity wins, then it will decide what the meanings are. Whether or not they correpond with reality is another matter entirely, but it is possible to build entire civilizations on lies.

[QED]

We both know, QED, that Hawking is a pantheist and believes in the existence of God. Hawking has no problem in a multiverse because he believes that a mathematical order exists which instantiates that multiverse

I'm not so sure. Steven Weinberg has commented that God traditionally means "an interested personality". He has said that Hawking's god is really just "an abstract principle of order and harmony". As do I, Weinberg questions the use the word 'god' saying that "if language is to be of any use to us, then we ought to try and preserve the meaning of words, and 'god' historically has not meant the laws of nature."

You are basically saying that atheism might possibly be correct, but this is not what the atheist is in fact saying. The atheist is saying that it is unreasonable not to believe in this fantasy. That's the heart of the problem as far as I see it. There's a good reason to believe like Hawking that the Universe has a mathematical order behind it, and atheists are unfairly and unjustifiably saying it is unreasonable to believe this.

Agreed, mathematics is the language we use to describe the universe. But you take it much further saying that mathematics is what the universe is made of. This allows you to confuse two important issues that should be kept separate.

In terms of what we can conceive, there is no reason to expect a multiverse over nothing at all. So, on what basis does the atheist ask us to take for granted that a multiverse is more primitive than Hawking's mathematical order?

Once we decouple the language of maths from that which it describes, the multiverse is freed of your unwarranted confines of mind. The faith of mine that you sneer at is a faith in there being a simpler precursor to everything. This seems perfectly logical to me. What doesn't make sense to me is the "first thing on the scene" being far greater than it's own creation. To make a multiverse would require what? At least a working knowledge of everything.

I'm curious as to how you go about squaring this. What is this thing that suddenly comes into existence and has as a tiny subset of its knowledge-base everything written in our college textbooks to date? Because I suspect the answer is really much closer to what I've been trying to get across here all along -- that the beginning state is incredibly simple by all our standards. And that this simple state develops into something that requires a lot of maths to describe, through a process that evolves all the complexity required for universes like ours. This is something I've failed to argue effectively but I'm sure it's a very valid point. I'm thinking about something like evolution now...

...How much mathematics would it take to properly describe the process of evolution by natural selection? I expect the answer is an awful lot. But does this mean the process is complex? It's easy enough to grasp as a concept, and I think that's because the underlying metaphysical component is very simple. I think It's only the roundabout methods we have to employ to describe such things mathematically that give rise to the sort of incredulity that leads you to talk about luck so much

I often read that it will probably take a revolution in maths in order to arrive at a GUT. I can readily believe this because with few exceptions, maths struggles to encapsulate the leading edge of research in this field. It wouldn't surprise me therefore if we turn a corner one day and have at our disposal a branch of maths that can render things like evolution and other disarmingly simple processes into equally simple formal descriptions.

[harvey1]

Would you agree that in order for there to be other universe bubbles that this is a more complex structure than if there were nothing at all? If you agree, then are we lucky that there were nothing at all?

If you're talking about the vast foam that creates the universe bubbles, then what the heck are we debating about? "Lucky" here doesn't even begin to describe the difference between existence and non-existence.

No, I'm not talking about a ZPE field or quantum foam. What I'm talking about is that modern physics is already at the point to where it can conceive of the universe as having zero radius at t=0. Now, take that as our starting point with one exception: there is never a universe having a geometry with a radius greater (or smaller) than zero. This is certainly a conceivable scenario. If you disagree, then tell me why you disagree.

If there is zero radius for all spacetime(s), then that means there is nothing. Since we have something other than this situation, are we lucky that this wasn't the way things happened to be?
So, as a theist, I would like to know why an atheist feels justified in saying that we have any structure at all (other than the fact that we are here).

If there is a state of nothingness, then there is no "right off the bat." However, anything more than a state of nothingness requires a structure that has to be "right off the bat" by the fact that there is something.

This is just wrong. In a vast foam machine, every bubble is different. So we could be the 15th bubble or the 1,567,456,257th. Or they could all be simultaneous without a time function. In a state of nothingness, there would be a "right off the bat" because the first something that came from nothing would determine the properties of the subsequent somethings.

You're misunderstanding me, ST. Of course if the Universe had an inherent function to produce something from nothing, then it could keep on producing somethings over and over like a machine. But, this function must exist "right off the bat." What if this function didn't exist? What if the zero radius Universe just didn't do anything beyond stay at zero radius? In this case, the state of nothingness would mean no 15th bubble or 1,567,456,257th bubble either. It would just be "no bubble," "no bubble," "no bubble," and still "no bubble."

If "right off the bat" the Universe possessed this spit function that you described earlier, then consequentially there would be bubbles. However, why was there this spit function? Why did it spit out inflationary universes instead of monads that by brute fact do nothing else but be a land of monads with no inflationary universes? If you cannot answer these questions, then why should someone be an atheist? Why not be an agnostic or even a theist?

But the Atheist explanation does not require that everything be worked out ahead of time. Let me say that again: The Atheist explanation does not require that everything be worked out ahead of time. You've been tilting at Atheism because it doesn't have all the answers. Well, duh! We don't know all the answers.

Then why make the claim that it is right and the other view is unreasonable? It would be like if I said that string theory is unreasonable even though I say that quantum loop theory is correct even though I can provide far fewer answers than string theorists.

You have to be comfortable with the fact that these answers are not required in order for us to live our lives. You have to be able to hold this idea in your head that some answers we may never know. The God model surely gives some good explanations, explains the way things work and how people behave very nicely, I'm sure. I'm sure it all seems to fit into place. But the God model comes with other assumptions that are unacceptable. For example, there are numerous God models, many of them mutually exclusive, all of them with adherents that are just as fervent.

It really comes down to two choices. Every answer to the universe derives from these two philosophies. Either the ultimate structure that explains our universe is a consequence of a random function which provides enough possibilities that by shear number happens to fall on the "right" combination to eventually produce an inflationary universe like our own, or this ultimate structure is a consequence of some logical mechanism which conforms to some axioms that must be true. The first choice is part of the atheist family of beliefs, and the second choice is part of the theist/pantheist family of beliefs. The first choice is nonsense because we should depend so much on luck, the second choice is almost a foregone conclusion because it matches with our observations on how the universe naturally follows mathematical laws. The first choice involves no intent to the world, the other has intent for the world because everything that exists must somehow cohere with the whole mathematical order that exists.

You say that atheism should be dumped because it cannot provide answers, but I say it should be promoted exactly because it hasn't provided answers.

That's an odd reason to adopt a belief system. Why not adopt any ole' belief that doesn't provide answers. Here, let me get you started. A new theory that I would like to catch on is zigzagology. Zigzagology is a philosophy that says that every proported answer is actually the wrong answer, even zigzagology is the wrong answer!

Isn't it exciting to be a part of this historical progression towards answering these questions? Some we may never know the answers to, and others we may discover only after decades or even centuries of research and experimentation. We don't even know which questions can be answered by us and which will never be answered. This may be my Agnosticism coming out, and I apologize for making the Atheist argument from such a position.

You're experiencing the excitement of there being a cause-effect relationship in our world that is ultimately due to there being a logical order (or God) to the world. Ultimately the world conforms to logical laws, and this conformance is judged by a Mind as being in conformance to those law or it is not in conformance. The excitement of finding things out is a natural consequence of attaching meaning to those laws. It is what makes explanation possible.

I am really really really really confused by the attitude that a model that has more answers is a better model simply for having those answers.

Well, it's better than the alternative! If a model doesn't provide answers then what the heck purpose does it serve other than being wrong??

History is littered with failed civilizations who thought they had more answers than other societies. This is another reason why the Why question is so seductive and destructive.

And, so very necessary. It is when people stop asking why is when they get into trouble. The push for an answer to the why question is the reason that civilizations continue to progress with new and better theories.

You answer Why with Because. I answer Why with Why not?

What you miss in this exercise is that my "Because" brings up 5 more why questions that now must be answered. Your "why not?" just leaves people standing into the abyss saying "why, why not? hmm... why? why not?..." eventually the Hun come over the hill and obliterates the civilization. In my society, the Hun come over the hill but find themselves facing a society that has developed F-18's and the like. A society that tries to answer the why question puts the Hun at a slight disadvantage.

That's a very nice pipe dream. But we both know that faith is not based on cold, hard data. It is based on personal, anecdotal observation. If faith were based on data, it wouldn't be faith.

But, atheism isn't based on data. It is based on an unjustified prejudice toward a random function producing enough landscapes to solve any problem. This is an anti-scientific approach which seeks to understand the world through algorithms which explain the world. Theism is a belief system that says that ultimately every thing is explainable in these terms. This naturally moves toward a simple core of algorithms that explain everything in a unifying manner. Atheism is a view that ultimately every thing is a consequence of even more things that reaches to the point of absurdity that the world is infinitely complex to explain a much lower level of complexity we see in our world.

There is also the real possibility that the world sprouted whole from the forehead of Kronos.

Do you really believe that?

I don't have to justify my stance. I don't have to describe the mechanism by which our universe was created.

Now, in all honesty, couldn't that be the quote from a creationist in reply to a paleontologist asking for their alternate explanation of a fossil find?

I don't even have to give you a good alternative to your God model theory. Atheism is not a defined set of implacable theories the way theism is. Atheism is messy. It's chaotic. It's not a warm and fuzzy world view. It's the denial of the assertion that there is a God. That's it.

Geez, ST. If I said I didn't believe the universe is infinitely old, wouldn't that mean by default that I believed the universe is finitely old? This is what the atheist is doing. By saying that there is no God they are saying the world is a random structure. Now, it is strange that someone would insist on saying what the world is not without giving good reason, but it is even more strange to say the world is a certain way without giving a good reason too. I want to know the reason for the belief system. I understand that you may not feel that you should give a reason to support your belief, but I'm the poor sap who believes in something that you think is wrong. Tell me why I am wrong. Give me a good reason to believe you are right. Of course, you don't have to convince anybody of squat, but this looks like a compromise on your part to feel okay about basing your views on some kind of blind faith rather than believing beliefs based on good reason.

That's the only thing there is about it. This denial may have come about through years of observation, or through an epiphany in a single moment. The God model has numerous problems with it, and it is rejected.

This just isn't the case, ST. The reason why it is rejected is because most people have not gone to the beginning and thoroughly thought it out. Of course you can use a random function to produce enough worlds to rule out a God, but you can use that same thought process to rule out science as well. We have to be reasonable if we want to progress in a better world view. It seems that many A&A's have just made up their minds as to what is true and darn it, they aren't going to listen to theists, pantheists, deists, or anyone for that matter. That's a shame in my book. Atheists are so dead-locked on their belief system and they just rule out whatever they just don't want to believe. I find that to be a closed-minded outlook to the world. I'm sorry, but that's how it looks from the view where I sit.

Now THAT's funny. Why would you expect our current means of programming to have a few lines of code for this when we don't even know what the unifying force is? This only points to a failure of the programming language and the measurement devices.

Listen to yourself, ST. Here we have a means by which phenomena in the universe are being explained. And, what is your answer? Atheism must be right and we just haven't worked at it enough. That's faith! Why not consider all the conceivable possibilities that fail to produce inflationary models?? You can't just consider the ones that make it. And, as I said, the correct model would have to be correct "right off the bat" otherwise you'd be sitting there with a zero radius universe and that's your brute fact atheist world.

[harvey1]

I'm not so sure. Steven Weinberg has commented that God traditionally means "an interested personality". He has said that Hawking's god is really just "an abstract principle of order and harmony". As do I, Weinberg questions the use the word 'god' saying that "if language is to be of any use to us, then we ought to try and preserve the meaning of words, and 'god' historically has not meant the laws of nature."

As you know, Weinberg is not a philosopher, he's a particle physicist. He doesn't like the term God because of how he thinks many people interpret the meaning of that term. However, pantheism is old, QED. It is so old in fact that it might pre-date monotheistic theism. You just can't arbitrarily tell the world that the term "God" should be defined according to personal theism when there are a large number of Taoists in China who have been saying for thousands of years that they believe in God--a non-personal and very pantheistic God. Hawking, Davies, and Einstein and many other scientists today are justified in labelling the laws of physics as God given the pantheistic roots going back all the way to Heraclitus in the 5th century B.C..

Agreed, mathematics is the language we use to describe the universe. But you take it much further saying that mathematics is what the universe is made of. This allows you to confuse two important issues that should be kept separate.

I have good reason for saying that the universe is a result of mathematical laws. Heck, in one of our first discussions you even posted a link that showed that even atheistic philosophers are having to admit this much about the nature of the physical laws:

This requires a sort of "platonic realism," but such a realism is required by quantum-gravity cosmologies in any case (as most popular books by physicists on these cosmologies have recognized). Further, Michael Tooley31 has given good arguments that a Platonic-realist theory of laws of nature is required by science in general; Tooley's natural laws are relations among universals and these universals need not be instantiated by anything. Our first axiom is thus that there are possible worlds in the above-specified sense and our second axiom is that there are Tooley-like laws of nature. (I do not mean to commit myself to all the specifics of Tooley's, Plantinga's, Adams's, etc., theories.) (Quentin Smith, 1998)

Once we decouple the language of maths from that which it describes, the multiverse is freed of your unwarranted confines of mind. The faith of mine that you sneer at is a faith in there being a simpler precursor to everything. This seems perfectly logical to me. What doesn't make sense to me is the "first thing on the scene" being far greater than it's own creation. To make a multiverse would require what? At least a working knowledge of everything.

QED, QED, QED. Your sentence, "[w]hat doesn't make sense to me is the "first thing on the scene" being far greater than it's own creation" is very much in conflict with the multiverse beginning. The multiverse would have to encompass many universes and so you would be asking us to believe in a World where there is no explanation and which is a greater mystery than the one we are trying to explain--the only one we know for certain must exist.

And, as I've mentioned numerous times, there is a mechanism that explains why there is a God. There is no mechanism that explains why there is a multiverse if you reject that mechanism as feasible.

I'm curious as to how you go about squaring this. What is this thing that suddenly comes into existence and has as a tiny subset of its knowledge-base everything written in our college textbooks to date? Because I suspect the answer is really much closer to what I've been trying to get across here all along -- that the beginning state is incredibly simple by all our standards.

I've stated the beginning state in its ultimate simplicty: the nature of causality itself. From that principle of causality, the existence of God and hence the universe make perfect sense.

And that this simple state develops into something that requires a lot of maths to describe, through a process that evolves all the complexity required for universes like ours. This is something I've failed to argue effectively but I'm sure it's a very valid point. I'm thinking about something like evolution now...

I guess it's time to start on this line of thought. Okay, QED, let's take the time element in this atheistic scenario. If we slow down time to the point of a basic interval of time lasting to the shortest increment possible (planck interval, infinitesimal, etc.), then here's my question. What connects one interval of time to the next? In other words, t=0, t=1, t=2, represent the shortest intervals of time that are possible. Now, tell me, what connects the causal flow of the events that happened at t=1 to t=2 to t=3, etc.? Is it a quantum jump? If so, then are you saying there are laws that causal relations that exist? If it is one continuous flow, then are you saying that the entire spacetime structure is random?

...How much mathematics would it take to properly describe the process of evolution by natural selection? I expect the answer is an awful lot. But does this mean the process is complex? It's easy enough to grasp as a concept, and I think that's because the underlying metaphysical component is very simple. I think It's only the roundabout methods we have to employ to describe such things mathematically that give rise to the sort of incredulity that leads you to talk about luck so much

Okay, so why does the universe conform to mathematical processes? Why doesn't the universe do something completely insane such as have Bugs Bunny pop out of the hole and say, "What's Up Doc?" You see, if you're gonna say the universe follows a path that mathematics is just useful to describe, then you have to explain what forbids the universe from following a different path. Afterall, either the universe is restricted or its not. If not, then why does it act as though it is restricted? When's the last time you saw Bugs pop out of the ground?

I often read that it will probably take a revolution in maths in order to arrive at a GUT. I can readily believe this because with few exceptions, maths struggles to encapsulate the leading edge of research in this field. It wouldn't surprise me therefore if we turn a corner one day and have at our disposal a branch of maths that can render things like evolution and other disarmingly simple processes into equally simple formal descriptions.

Why look to math? Afterall, if all it is is a useful fiction, then why not use LooneyTune math to descibe the universe?

[QED]

As you know, Weinberg is not a philosopher, he's a particle physicist. He doesn't like the term God because of how he thinks many people interpret the meaning of that term. However, pantheism is old, QED. It is so old in fact that it might pre-date monotheistic theism. You just can't arbitrarily tell the world that the term "God" should be defined according to personal theism when there are a large number of Taoists in China who have been saying for thousands of years that they believe in God--a non-personal and very pantheistic God. Hawking, Davies, and Einstein and many other scientists today are justified in labelling the laws of physics as God given the pantheistic roots going back all the way to Heraclitus in the 5th century B.C.

Isn't this just equivocation between a personal god with a purposeful will to create and the unwarranted personification of the the irrepressible logic responsible for everything?

I have good reason for saying that the universe is a result of mathematical laws. Heck, in one of our first discussions you even posted a link that showed that even atheistic philosophers are having to admit this much about the nature of the physical laws

And Platonic Realism is incompatible with Atheism because?

QED, QED, QED. Your sentence, "[w]hat doesn't make sense to me is the "first thing on the scene" being far greater than it's own creation" is very much in conflict with the multiverse beginning. The multiverse would have to encompass many universes and so you would be asking us to believe in a World where there is no explanation and which is a greater mystery than the one we are trying to explain--the only one we know for certain must exist.

I'm suggesting that we compare the evolution of the multiverse with the evolution of life on Earth. We don't talk about Phytoplankton encompassing every living form on the planet today any more than you should be protesting about the multiverse encompassing many universes .

Okay, so why does the universe conform to mathematical processes? Why doesn't the universe do something completely insane such as have Bugs Bunny pop out of the hole and say, "What's Up Doc?" You see, if you're gonna say the universe follows a path that mathematics is just useful to describe, then you have to explain what forbids the universe from following a different path. Afterall, either the universe is restricted or its not. If not, then why does it act as though it is restricted? When's the last time you saw Bugs pop out of the ground?

If current mathematics is an accurate but sometimes clumsy description of the universe (as I believe it to be) rather than the final cause of the universe then it's no wonder that it is similarly restricted. Why is it so obvious to you that it isn't a LooneyTune variety when applied to Quantum Cosmology today? After all, before Newton invented Calculus mathematics was too poor to describe orbital mechanics.

[Curious]

However, pantheism is old, QED. It is so old in fact that it might pre-date monotheistic theism. You just can't arbitrarily tell the world that the term "God" should be defined according to personal theism when there are a large number of Taoists in China who have been saying for thousands of years that they believe in God--a non-personal and very pantheistic God.

How, if the first man was Adam, who knew God to be the only God, can you say that pantheism might pre-date monotheism without accepting that the biblical account of creation might itself be incorrect? If the biblical version is correct then monotheism must predate all other forms of religion(which by all evidence, it does not).

[harvey1]

How, if the first man was Adam, who knew God to be the only God, can you say that pantheism might pre-date monotheism without accepting that the biblical account of creation might itself be incorrect? If the biblical version is correct then monotheism must predate all other forms of religion(which by all evidence, it does not).

I assume you know that I'm not a fundamentalist...

In any case, Genesis was probably written around the time of Heraclitus. Although, I don't think you can say from just reading Genesis that monotheism is needed to understand the context of Yahweh's creation.

[Curious]

No, I'm not talking about a ZPE field or quantum foam. What I'm talking about is that modern physics is already at the point to where it can conceive of the universe as having zero radius at t=0. Now, take that as our starting point with one exception: there is never a universe having a geometry with a radius greater (or smaller) than zero. This is certainly a conceivable scenario. If you disagree, then tell me why you disagree.

If there is zero radius for all spacetime(s), then that means there is nothing. Since we have something other than this situation, are we lucky that this wasn't the way things happened to be?
So, as a theist, I would like to know why an atheist feels justified in saying that we have any structure at all (other than the fact that we are here).

The thing here is that by backtracking we can never come to the answer that t=0 and r=0. We can get smaller and smaller values but never get to 0. Even if a particle did miraculously exist from nothing then the moment it was created, it would have a radius even though this would be at t=0. Of course if you are to assume that it is not a particle but a point, then you would be correct that it has no radius but it still has position. To have position however there must also be a frame of reference for the position to relate to. If there is no frame of reference then this r=0 could just as easily mean r=infinity. If we assume that the original impetus input the total energy that we see in the universe today(not that we should, but it does solve the problem of conservation), then it is also conceivable that the "singularity" was not at t=0 but at t(end)-t(beginning)=0 which when we factor in r could give the same answer at any time throughout the life of the universe, this might also lead us to question whether time is in fact linear at all or whether the observed chronology of the universe might in fact be just one particular perception of the variations within the singular point at any time ranging from t(beginning) to t(end). This again might lead to the question whether it is the universe itself that is evolving or whether it is our perception that is evolving which allows us to view the universe in different ways.(please read below before replying to this argument as it may save you some time)

Listen to yourself, ST. Here we have a means by which phenomena in the universe are being explained. And, what is your answer? Atheism must be right and we just haven't worked at it enough. That's faith! Why not consider all the conceivable possibilities that fail to produce inflationary models?? You can't just consider the ones that make it. And, as I said, the correct model would have to be correct "right off the bat" otherwise you'd be sitting there with a zero radius universe and that's your brute fact atheist world.

I think it a little unfair to suggest that this is what the atheist believes. Many atheists have no knowledge or interest in the origin of the universe but they do not believe that God created it either. Just because the main obstacle to the creationist argument is the BBT does not mean that all who do not believe in God must believe in the BBT. While you may believe that the BBT is the only reasonable alternative to the creationist theory, proponents of the BBT might suggest that the creationist version is not even resonable as an alternative but may give some credence to any other theory that has empirical evidence supporting it.
If by the use of logic it could be proven that God must exist for the universe to exist then this would have been done and would be beyond refutation. The problem with this reasoning is that it is not logic but pseudo logic that is used due to the incorporation of the false premise. The conclusion is not arrived at through logic but is driven along one line and when it hits a block, a further assumption is made. You will have noticed that I used this method in the reply to the previous quote, especially with the use of the term "then it is also conceivable" which does in fact prove nothing. Many things are conceivable but this does not make them factually accurate especially when the whole thread is arrived at from the false premise.
Congratulations on your fine debating skills though. I am aware that it is not always the correct argument that wins the debate, just the most believable one.

[harvey1]

Isn't this just equivocation between a personal god with a purposeful will to create and the unwarranted personification of the the irrepressible logic responsible for everything?

For a discussion of how philosophers distinguish pantheism from atheism, I suggest this fine Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article:

There is no reason to suppose the idea of "divinity" relevant to pantheism should be modelled after a specific tradition's concept of divinity-like Christianity. At best, this tradition-dependent concept would be relevant to Christian/pantheist and other theist/pantheist hybrids (e.g. panentheism). It is too specific for any general analysis of pantheism, and it refers to the theistic variants of pantheism which are most inconsequential for pantheistic practice. Whatever criteria are decided upon as necessary for attributing divinity to something, one cannot decide a priori that the possession of divinity requires personhood without ruling out the possibility of the most typical types of pantheism (i.e. non-personal types).

The view that there exists guiding principles that actually exist in their own merit (to unify nature) is pantheism. These guiding principles are what unifies nature, and are part of nature. Hence, the phrase, "God is nature."

Attributing Unity simply on the basis of all-inclusiveness is irrelevant to pantheism. Formal unity can always be attributed to the world on this basis alone. To understand the world as "everything" is to attribute a sense of unity to the world, but there is no reason to suppose this sense of all-inclusiveness is the pantheistically relevant Unity. Similarly, unity as mere numerical, class or categorical unity is irrelevant, since just about anything (and everything) can be "one" or a "unity" in these senses. Suppose "formal unity" to be "the sense in which things are one in virtue of the fact that they are members of one and the same class ... the same universal" (Demos 1945-6: 538). Then clearly formal unity is not pantheistic Unity. Furthermore, formal unity neither entails or is entailed by types of unity (e.g. substantial unity) sometimes taken to be Unity. Hegel's Geist, Lao Tzu's Tao, Plotinus' "One," and arguably Spinoza's "substance," are independent of this kind of formal unity.

And Platonic Realism is incompatible with Atheism because?

It need not be incompatible with atheism. It depends on how you interpret platonism. If an atheist believes that platonic ideas exist "out there," this can be perfectly in line with atheism. However, if an atheist believes that there are platonic principles or laws that exist "out there" and these laws are what unifies nature in terms of platonic laws, then this is pantheism (or panentheism depending on how exactly they interpret this view). This is why Plotinus cannot be considered an atheist. He certainly didn't believe in a personal God like Christianity.

I'm suggesting that we compare the evolution of the multiverse with the evolution of life on Earth. We don't talk about Phytoplankton encompassing every living form on the planet today any more than you should be protesting about the multiverse encompassing many universes.

I should protest a multiverse that is more complex than the universe it is proposed to explain.

If current mathematics is an accurate but sometimes clumsy description of the universe (as I believe it to be) rather than the final cause of the universe then it's no wonder that it is similarly restricted. Why is it so obvious to you that it isn't a LooneyTune variety when applied to Quantum Cosmology today? After all, before Newton invented Calculus mathematics was too poor to describe orbital mechanics.

QED, mathematics might be much more complex than the time of Newton, but only a handful of axioms have been added since his time. However, humanity has made hundreds of thousands of important observations since Newton. Nevertheless, mathematics has largely provided grounded explanation in seeing the observations that we have made. If the universe were not exactly mathematical in its structure, you wouldn't see this. What you would see is what we see in physics. The axioms of classical physics are dumped, and replacing those axioms are new ones based on quantum physics and relativity theory. Similarly, mathematical axioms would become obsolete as the former observations that made that math useful would gradually become inept in offering help in the new phenomena being described. By and by, the math would gradually become old after a couple of decades, and mathematicians would need to offer new axioms to create math that is helpful for the new era of observations. As another analogy to this, all we have to do is consider psychology. Each paradigm of psychology has a different set of axioms by which to "explain" human behavior, and each paradigm eventually gets replaced with totally new concepts.

The only explainable reason that this doesn't happen with physics is because the universe is itself guided by mathematical principles. The axioms of the past stay consistent with the axioms of the past. Even major transitions in mathematics, such as Reimannian geometry, etc., are still consistent with Euclid geometry. All that happens is that Euclidean geometry becomes a special case within geometry. Likewise, even the stuff that physicists study are often special cases of a much wider field of mathematical exploration.

So, I cannot see how you could chalk mathematics up to a "clumsy description of the universe." The special cases of our math, or physics if you wish, tell us why the phenomena is restricted. Knowing the why of something is the same in human experience as knowing the full description of a thing. Of course, the universe is a very complex system of systems, and therefore our knowledge is approximations. But, these approximations should not mislead us into thinking that mathematics is at fault. It is not the problem, the complexity is the problem. One in which future mathematicians and physicists will likewise address, God willing.

[harvey1]

The thing here is that by backtracking we can never come to the answer that t=0 and r=0. We can get smaller and smaller values but never get to 0.

That's not necessarily true. There is quantum tunneling, for example. In this scenario, t=0 means that the wavefunction has not tunneled through the potential barrier. Perhaps t=1 is the potential barrier being breached by the big bang...

Even if a particle did miraculously exist from nothing then the moment it was created, it would have a radius even though this would be at t=0.

Not necessarily. T=0 only means that there is a quantum potential. Of course, a potential doesn't exist in that there are no fields there, it just means that there will be tunneling at t=1.

Many things are conceivable but this does not make them factually accurate especially when the whole thread is arrived at from the false premise.

What is the false premise? In any case, we can only deal with what is conceivable. If an atheist wishes me to believe something that is not conceivable, then why don't they believe in God even though they think God is not conceivable? We are all on equal playing grounds. If you want to argue your position, you must show how your argument is more convincing by its conceivability. We are talking about things that happened before we were born, and there's no way to visit those times to know what happened. So, the only way to encounter these issues is by their conceivability. If something is not conceivable, then we can accept those things on faith, however atheists don't like that kind of reasoning. I'm asking them to show me how to conceive of a universe that doesn't happen as a result of luck which doesn't involve a pantheistic/theistic belief.

Congratulations on your fine debating skills though. I am aware that it is not always the correct argument that wins the debate, just the most believable one.

Well, maybe we're all in the Matrix. I don't find that argument convincing, so the only way to address a belief is based on the arguments that support it or deny it.