Okay, I have wierd idea of fun.
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/26755
But, you know, it comes up, sometimes. Might as well be ready to handle all of the objections.
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Interesting, we are not living in a simulation, because a simulation would be simpler than the universe it simulates and we are in-understandably complex.
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In the follow-up to the blog on the first premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, Richard goes into detail about a universe from nothing. I never liked the Kalam start, that everything that exists must have a cause. Itâs too easy, too much about my point of view, and limited awareness of universes, since I only exist for a short time in one of them.
But, Iâm also not comfortable with nothing becoming something. Krauss had his speech about it, but it seemed like he was redefining ânothingâ. Carrier talks about some necessary law of physics in nothing that would allow for something to happen. Thatâs better, but then itâs not nothing, is it?
Richard breaks into my tiny brain and says,
As I subsequently noted in Koons Cosmology vs. The Problem with Nothing, this conclusion cannot be avoided by appeals to âI cannot imagine or conceive of how that would happen,â because what you can imagine or conceive no longer has any relevance to what is logically necessarily the case. Your imagination is fallible in precisely all the ways logic is not. Which is why we rely on logic now.
The problem is not with logic, or even a lack of imagination, itâs applying the right tool to the question. I will be tempted to say âthatâs why we rely on logic nowâ in many cases in the near future, when Iâm talking to someone about global warming or does God exist or can the Lions win a Superbowl. Whoever Iâm talking to will probably think I just called them âstupidâ, but itâs a risk worth taking.
What If We Reimagine âNothingâ as a Field-State? ⢠Richard Carrier Blogs
The problem is that everyone looks at what humans experience. We can observe only a fraction of reality in all its properties.
And even then we can appreciate the enormous complexity of the âWholenessâ .
But from a scientific perspective, the beginning was a âsingularityâ that produced our current universe.
Reality is not miraculous, it is based on very simple principles that combine to allow reality to evolve by following fundamental logical functional mechanics (maths).
Except thatâs not scientific. At least you put the word in quotes. Itâs one of those place-holder terms they use, like Dark Matter, because they know something is there, but the math falls apart, so they make up a name for that point.
From Google
A gravitational singularity , spacetime singularity or simply singularity is a condition in which gravity is predicted to be so intense that spacetime itself would break down catastrophically. As such, a singularity is by definition no longer part of the regular spacetime and cannot be determined by âwhereâ or âwhenâ. Gravitational singularities exist at a junction between general relativity and quantum mechanics; therefore, the properties of the singularity cannot be described without an established theory of quantum gravity. Trying to find a complete and precise definition of singularities in the theory of general relativity, the current best theory of gravity, remains a difficult problem.[1][2] A singularity in general relativity can be defined by the scalar invariant curvature becoming infinite[3] or, better, by a geodesic being incomplete.[4]
The concept of an original singularity rests on the observation that space is expanding and did not begin with an âirreducible complexityâ.
Thus, reversing the process to its inception , you can only arrive at a singularity as a starting point. And logically, the beginning had to be a a singularity, because there was not yet an environment allowing for complex patterns. That came later after the inflationary epoch.
Even today, the physical mechanics of the universe are not complicated. Itâs the fact that the total numbers are uncountably large.
I think Iâm going to stick with the people who know the math.
Itâs the math that predicts the singularity. What came before then is still a mystery.
Show me what you think a singularity is. You keep saying the math predicts it, so, show me the math. What I found is, that itâs where the math breaks down, where neither Newton nor Quantum works. A black hole was predicted by math, and we found one. A singularity is a name for something that we canât describe mathematically. It is the mystery that came âbeforeâ. The word âbeforeâ doesnât apply to its existence.
A singularity is a mathematical object .
And unless you propose that an irreducibly complex object can exist before the BB, there can only be a singularity, the simplest object that can mathematically exist as a vacuum.
What was there before the universe?
The universe materialized literally out of nothing, at a tiny but finite size, and expanded thereafter. There were no moments before the moment of smallest size because there was no âbefore.â Likewise, there was no âcreationâ of the universe, since that concept implies action in time.
And before the BB, there was no time.
Singularity was not mentioned in the Lightman article. Differing theories on the origin of the universe were. One of them included God.
One might think that adding the hypothesis that the world (all that exists) includes God would make the theory for the entire world more complex, but it is not obvious that is the case, since it might be that God is even simpler than the universe, so that one would get a simpler explanation starting with God than starting with just the universe.
Iâm interested in why you stick to a statement that you have no evidence for. Did you think I wouldnât read past the headline? Do you think Iâm unfamiliar with Sean Caroll and Hawking?
Where did you get that? Itâs definitely not that.
And that qualifies only as a belief system, with no roots in science or philosophy, except for the false assumption of the existence of "irreducible complexity " which necessitates a prior Intelligent Designer.
However,
The philosophy of naturally occurring quasi-intelligent mathematical âfunctionsâ, which do not require a designer, leads back to the singularity, the mainstream scientific standard.
IMO, the physical manifestation of mathematical patterns is not founded on the properties of matter (stuff) alone, but on the dynamics of the interaction.
Note that life is a result and expression of dynamics, not of stasis.
[quote=âlausten, post:11, topic:10715â]
One might think that adding the hypothesis that the world (all that exists) includes God would make the theory for the entire world more complex, but it is not obvious that is the case, since it might be that God is even simpler than the universe, so that one would get a simpler explanation starting with God than starting with just the universe. >
And what started God before He (IT?) started the Universe?
Quote from Lightman:
The universe materialized literally out of nothing, at a tiny but finite size,
Where did you get that? Itâs definitely not that.
It is definitely that. The term âsingularityâ is a mathematical term.
In mathematics, a singularity is a point at which a given mathematical object is not defined, or a point where the mathematical object ceases to be well-behaved in some particular way, such as by lacking differentiability or analyticity. , since it is not differentiable there.
Singularity (mathematics) - Wikipedia
This is the fundamental plasma state before it cooled and produced the fundamental mathematically ordered elements that today make up the spacetime of this universe.
The concept of an âinfinitely powerful Godâ as being intentionally causal to the beginning because He (IT?) is by definition âirreducibly complexâ, and we know this is not what the science of dynamic âinflationâ from a infinitely small singularity predicts.
You finally found the definition, but you donât acknowledge that the definition is that it is undefined. That means you have nothing to work with, you canât use the math to get any further, to find any other properties, to say anything about it. Yet, you do, like plasma state, or exist as vacuum, where did you get that?
Iâm more interested in why you keep doing that. There are a handful of people who can make real arguments about this, and they are telling us they donât agree. Why do you think they are telling us they have an answer?
[quote=âlausten, post:14, topic:10715â]
You finally found the definition, but you donât acknowledge that the definition is that it is undefined.
Donât say that! No, I found that a long time ago. A single something is a mathematical object.
I think that I have established my understanding of the mathematical nature of functional interactions of relational values.
That means you have nothing to work with, you canât use the math to get any further, to find any other properties, to say anything about it. Yet, you do, like plasma state, or exist as vacuum, where did you get that?
Mathematics cannot be used to prove itself, but that is irrelevant to unavoidable observed mathematical behaviors (axioms) throughout the universe.
When humans copy universal mathematics properly we can imitate universal functions to a very high degree of accuracy. Witness the artificially created Higgs boson via application of the correct mathematics.
Any local mathematical deviations such as exist inside black holes, are due to the dynamic environment that the maths must navigate to produce a testable output.
Iâm more interested in why you keep doing that. There are a handful of people who can make real arguments about this, and they are telling us they donât agree. Why do you think they are telling us they have an answer?
I am somewhat familiar with the various mainstream models and have a special interest in a few models that stress the mathematical nature of the universe.
As all human inventions rest on properly applied mathematics, I see no reason why the universe should not follow the same natural laws as those used by humans in codified symbolical form.
It is the very abstract logical permissible and restrictive nature of mathematics that makes it eminently suitable for universal application without reliance on human observation or manipulation.
I believe that the term âDivinityâ can be better applied to the defined concept of âImpersonal Logicâ (mathematics), better than the concept of an undefined âCreative Demiurgeâ (subordinate to the undefined âSupreme Beingâ).
dem¡i¡urge
/ËdemÄËÉrj/
noun
a being responsible for the creation of the universe.
(in Platonic philosophy) the Maker or Creator of the world.
(in Gnosticism and other theological systems) a heavenly being, subordinate to the Supreme Being, that is considered to be the controller of the material world and antagonistic to all that is purely spiritual.
Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not necessarily the same as the creator figure in the monotheistic sense, because the demiurge itself and the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are both considered consequences of something else.
Depending on the system, they may be considered either uncreated and eternal or the product of some other entity.
Demiurge - Wikipedia
Note that my own term âMathematical Quasi-Intelligenceâ meets the functional requirements of âsome other controlling entityâ.
Okay. You finally quoted the definition of singularity that I agree with. It doesnât say anything about plasmas or vacuums. It does not talk about Gods. I just quoted Page so you could see that some people who know this math also say God could exist. I donât care about Page. My point was and still is, that the math breaks down at the âsingularityâ, thatâs what the term means. We found Higgs because the math predicted it and allowed us to design experiments to find it. We donât have that with a âsingularityâ.
Iâm not refuting that. Itâs also true that we have not figured out what all of those natural laws are. We have not solved the ânothingâ problem. We have good theories for it, but there is disagreement and the people who disagree understand that they canât prove their theories.
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter, being a conductive assembly of charged particles, neutrals, and fields that exhibit collective effects.
The study of plasma dynamics focuses on the properties of classical, collective, and many-body systems and finds applications in plasma processing, fusion, intense particle beams, and fluid dynamics.
In complex systems, and thus in plasma, deterministic chaos arises in association with the emergence of spatiotemporal structures. Plasma is a nonlinear system very favorable for developing of spatial, temporal, or spatio-temporal structures such as double layers, multiple double layer, solitons. The successive double layers are located precisely at the abrupt changes of luminosity between two adjacent plasma shells. The ion-acoustic instability is very sensitive to the background plasma parameters.
All the physical quantities that describe the dynamics will be normalized with respect to the quantities characteristic of the electronic component of plasma.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1201/b20232-19/chaos-plasma-physics-dan-gheorghe-dimitriu-maricel-agop
what does that have to do with singularities?
Considering that a singularity was causal to the creation of the universe, we need to get back to the beginning and what potential energy might be encountered during inflation and in what form.
Ultimately it is all connected, no?
Of course, but that doesnât answer the question of what is meant by the term. Science is not a matter of just throwing fancy words around. You might as well be saying that the gravitational pull of Pluto has an effect on your emotional state.