Why did our universe begin? (Split from Atheist wins Nobel Prize thread)

[GenesisNemesis]

Jesus fucking christ. The person who thinks logically fallacious reasoning leads to truth is now trying to teach logic to others.

To paraphrase a well known quote from Jaws (1975) - We're gonna need a bigger facepalm emoji.

Lion: "I believe Jesus is both his Father and his Son. Also I believe Jesus fed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish! I am quite the expert in logic, yes."

 

[Swammerdami]

Did I start all this by linking to that Penrose interview with its provocative title?

@ Mods — Will you please delete post #6.

 

[Rhea]

Bilby, your disbelief in alternative number 3 is still a form of belief.

So is your 'leaning towards' option number 2.

Me : disbelief is a form of belief.
Me : you're using the phrase "leaning towards" as a proxy for the word you really mean - belief.

Translation:

• Whoever ‘leans toward’ me, though he die, yet shall he live,
• Jesus said unto him, If thou canst ‘lean toward’, all things are possible to him that ‘leaneth towardeth’.
• 1. “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may ‘lean toward’ that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by ‘leaning toward,’ you may have life in his name.” (Jn 20:30–31)

Well, this could go on all day. Seems like a bad fit.

 

[DBT]

As it stands, we don't know whether the universe had a beginning or not, it may be cyclic, a part of a greater system, etc...nobody knows. Not knowing how it began or if it began, there is no way of determining why the universe exists. But we should know that 'we don't know, therefore God' is a fallacy

 

[bilby]

Bilby, your disbelief in alternative number 3 is still a form of belief.

So is your 'leaning towards' option number 2.

Me : disbelief is a form of belief.
Me : you're using the phrase "leaning towards" as a proxy for the word you really mean - belief.

Translation:

• Whoever ‘leans toward’ me, though he die, yet shall he live,
• Jesus said unto him, If thou canst ‘lean toward’, all things are possible to him that ‘leaneth towardeth’.
• 1. “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may ‘lean toward’ that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by ‘leaning toward,’ you may have life in his name.” (Jn 20:30–31)

Well, this could go on all day. Seems like a bad fit.

Yeah. That's an equivalence that truly beggars leaning towards. It's practically un-lean towardsably stupid.

 

[Treedbear]

As it stands, we don't know whether the universe had a beginning or not, it may be cyclic, a part of a greater system, etc...nobody knows. Not knowing how it began or if it began, there is no way of determining why the universe exists. But we should know that 'we don't know, therefore God' is a fallacy

So true. I remember the day during a discussion in Philosophy 101 class when I raised my hand and stated that the most important reason that there must be a God was that all of "this" (waving my hands above my head) needs to be understood by something. Professor Grippe just said "Why?" and my reality split wide open. Maybe it's a residual effect of the Enlightenment era. We still try to understand the world in terms of absolutes. We see ourselves as sapient beings, so sapience is now a thing and needs to have an ideal form in order to obtain meaning. Regarding the OP, I think there are things that may just be beyond our ability to understand scientifically because the required information is just not available to us. Why the universe began might be one of those questions. Or not.

 

[Learner]

Jesus fucking christ. The person who thinks logically fallacious reasoning leads to truth is now trying to teach logic to others.

To paraphrase a well known quote from Jaws (1975) - We're gonna need a bigger facepalm emoji.

Lion: "I believe Jesus is both his Father and his Son. Also I believe Jesus fed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish! I am quite the expert in logic, yes."

I doubt Lion is actually saying the underlined above, which isn't correct anway as you see it (through your "logic"), but I gather at least with the feeding of the 5,000, you understand the concept that Jesus would be able to do such things, being that He is of course ... the Son of God.

 

[Learner]

Why did our universe begin?

I see two baseless assumptions in that leading question.
1. That the universe had a beginning.
2. That there was a reason for a beginning.

ETA:
If you watch the video, you will see that the point of Penrose's cosmological theory is that the question is a nonsense question.

Looking at the video, it seems to me, Penrose is trying to find explanations to those questions. One could suggest all sorts of imaginative wonders with mathematical statements.

Interesting nevetheless - reminding me of the notion that Evolution is supposedly going one direction <<< Natural Selection, and the Entropic Universe >>> is going the other. (Prof. James Tour highlights this well)

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

We would all be unable to ask "Why" questions if Whyness didn't exist. So a better question is to ask why is there whyness? And obviously whyness exists so we can ask why questions. We should be worshipping Why.

 

[Stephen T-B]

In the Christian era, only when people began to realise that the Bible didn't tell them everything they needed to know about everything they needed to know about, did true learning start.

Acknowledging ignorance was the first step- and we still need to acknowledge ignorance.

Pride in ignorance is shameful.
Admitting ignorance is noble.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Pride in ignorance is shameful.
Admitting ignorance is noble.

Agreed. The OP title isn't a question, it's a statement.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

As it stands, we don't know whether the universe had a beginning or not

Fundies will still claim "you believe the Universe came from nothing!" even though saying "we don't know whether the Universe had a beginning or not" is not the same thing as saying "the Universe came from nothing", because fundies are idiots.

 

[abaddon]

People tend to imagine the universe like a box or ball floating in emptiness. How did nothingness just squeeze out this ball floating around out there? An abstruse mathematics-based answer isn't intuitive enough to understand - they need images or it's beyond understanding. And it has to be understandable and relatable, since they think their life's meaningfulness depends on whether they're lives are intended to happen - which depends on if the universe is intended.

 

[Lion IRC]

Why do you think the title is provocative?

 

[Lion IRC]

Jesus fucking christ. The person who thinks logically fallacious reasoning leads to truth is now trying to teach logic to others.

To paraphrase a well known quote from Jaws (1975) - We're gonna need a bigger facepalm emoji.

Lion: "I believe Jesus is both his Father and his Son. Also I believe Jesus fed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish! I am quite the expert in logic, yes."

WUT?
Miracles are not a violation of logic.
Your lack of understanding of a thing doesn't make that thing illogical.

 

[skepticalbip]

Why do you think the title is provocative?

That derail can be found here:
https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?23446-Why-did-our-universe-begin-(Split-from-Atheist-wins-Nobel-Prize-thread)

 

[Jarhyn]

And again we find ourselves here.

It doesn't matter "why" a universe exists. UNIVERSES ARE PURE TEXT. THEY HAVE NO CONTEXT! As such, they are best treated as math treats identities: they are the product of all operations that produce the result.

Just asking "why is there a universe" is not a sane question, any more than "what single operation is 5?"

There are a lot of operations that evaluate to 5, and I assume an equally infinite number of operations result in "universe".

Our universe can be a deterministic simulation, best we can tell. Until such a time as something exposes the text inside to context from outside, the context will not matter. And even then, for those of us inside, the event will only be pure text still: it will be only indicative of the extent of information that event transmits.

As an example, using a video game: if I spin up a copy of Super Mario Brothers, hit start at exactly 5 frames in, jump once exactly 2 frames in, get hit by the goomba, and then five frames later save the state, and then repeat this process on a different emulator across the world, I have played the same game. I can compare their binaries and they will contain the same data. If I am mario, I cannot say that the buttons even exist. I only know that I am signaled five frames in to jump. I don't know who spun up a game or that this is even a game. I know (things started happening), (signal at five frames).

 

[Elixir]

Why don't you go back to TR?

Evidence that he didn't, please.

Your lack of understanding of a thing doesn't make that thing illogical.

Your lack of understanding that the moon is made of green cheese doesn't make it illogical.
Why do they call them miracles, instead of simply "events" Lion? How are they distinguished?

 

[Stephen T-B]

Miracles violate whatever it is which is violated by whatever is unnatural.

If they didn't, they wouldn't be miracles.

Believing they happen is the same as believing magic (not the sort performed by magicians) happens.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Jesus fucking christ. The person who thinks logically fallacious reasoning leads to truth is now trying to teach logic to others.

To paraphrase a well known quote from Jaws (1975) - We're gonna need a bigger facepalm emoji.

Lion: "I believe Jesus is both his Father and his Son. Also I believe Jesus fed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish! I am quite the expert in logic, yes."

WUT?
Miracles are not a violation of logic.
Your lack of understanding of a thing doesn't make that thing illogical.

Ah yes. The fundie can simply say "it wuz a miracle" to get out of the logical conundrums miracles entail. No thought involved whatsoever.