Jon Rowe has stepped into the religious ring to ask a question. It's a question all of us have probably asked. It is:
If there is no "Creator" and only the material world is true, how did time-space, matter and energy come into existence? Would it not follow that if there is no Creator then nothing -- no reality -- would exist?
It's a reasonable question because of the absurdity of an infinitely old universe. Our minds can't really get around the idea that matter/time/existence has really existed for all eternity. Everything must have a starting point, right? If time extends infinitely into the past, then how did it get to be now? And of course, there is an equally obvious answer, which two people supplied to Jon by email:
It seems that if you approach the problem this way, by focusing on the need for a Creator to have made anything that exists, that the Creator would need a creator. It then appears that you would need an infinite chain of creators, because how did the Creator come to be? Would the Creator be exempt for the need to be created? If so, why?
Makes perfect sense to me. Positing that the universe was created by something only pushes back the question one level, it doesn't really answer it. If the universe could not be infinitely old and without a beginning, then why could a creator be infinitely old and without a beginning? It seems we are at an impasse, and indeed I believe we are. We are in a situation where the question of ultimate origins - the origin of existence itself - not only cannot be answered, it can't even be asked coherently. The question "What preceeded existence?" is a nonsense question, because anything that preceeded existence had to be existing, hence existence hasn't really been preceeded. So we are, I think, truly stuck.
Personally, I resolve the issue by believing that something started it all, but I fully understand that this is not really a satisfactory and complete answer, that it only purports to be an answer. It's a bit like searching for the beginning of the equator. We go round and round and then some of us get tired, plant a flag and call it "god" (or God). But while we might be right, we really don't know. And you know what? I'm okay with that. In fact, I even kind of like the idea that with all of our brainpower and all of our ability to understand the world, which I regard as really quite extraordinary and wonderful, there is at the core a mystery that will likely never be solved. It amuses me. And, I suspect, it probably amuses god (or God) as well.
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I've never really understood this sort of question, but then I'm a filthy godless communist. I find it easier to cope with the concept if the universe having existed forever (either "statically" or in repeated bang/crunch cycles) than with the Einsteinian concept of spacetime beginning with the big bang. But I don't really have a serious problem with that either. I've read the arguments for it and I find them convincing. It's hard to conceptualise, but so is consciousness and I accept that.
Sometimes you hear, "Ah, God is the First Cause, and so He doesn't need a cause." But of course this doesn't help, as all you've done is to show that the original statement is false and that something can exist without a creator. Therefore, why can't this something be the universe itself, in some form or another?
I think its a thoroughly intractable problem.
Like determining why Ashlee Simpson is famous.
I don't know. What's wrong with an infinitely old universe? As you point out, it's pretty hard to imagine that there was some point at which existence itself began to exist -- even with the Big Bang, there had to be something that went bang in the first place.
The idea might be hard to wrap our heads around, but I don't see anything illogical about it. In fact, it might be the only logical answer to this question. The idea of an infinitely long number line is hard for me to wrap my head around too, but I know you can always add one to any number, no matter how large.
I prefer to withhold judgement until I have some concrete experience with universe creation.
Plus the question seems to assume that time has always existed; it doesn't seem possible to have cause and effect without time. I won't pretend to fully comprehend modern physics, but I believe that our common sense perception of time as a constant outside of space and relative motion is incorrect, and I assume that time, along with space, was created at the Big Bang or at whatever beginning. To talk about cause and effect before time has even been created doesn't seem to be possible, but it's definitely interesting to contemplate.
I think its a thoroughly intractable problem. Like determining why Ashlee Simpson is famous.
LOL. Good line.
Well, "time" as we understand it, did not exist before the Big Bang, because the entire space-time continuum is a product of whatever caused the "bang" to begin with. So to ask what happened "before" the Big Bang is nonsensical.
That does not mean it is ridiculous to ask where our universe, its matter, and its unique construction of space time (in which the parameters of the universe are calibrated perfectly to allow for matter to exist, to form stars and then galaxies and planets) came from, or in what sort of overall structure it may be.
String theory posits the existence of a "multi-verse," with a number of different universe-like creations, each with their own central parameters, all existing on a "brane" (envision a two-dimensional universe on a three-dimensional rubber membrane, and that's the idea). Bangs and crunches occur when these "branes" get near enough to collide, so our universe would simply be the latest incantation.
However, that still begs the question (hope I'm using that correctly) as to where and what this structure is.
I've never come across that before in my readings on string theory (OK, just the Brian Greene book). Have you got a cite for it?
I think you are all flirting with cosmology when you really are just looking for a way to ground your moral theory.
My 3 cents:
1. Theists and atheists, alike, are wrong, and few of either approach reality with the melancholy wonder that Schelling characterized as "joyful mourning." Theists concoct a Big Fairy Man up there making stuff (substance into thingness). Atheists consider the universe sufficient in its own substance. How absurd, both ideas! Deists seem to be intuiting something closer to the truth (though the notion of "truth," itself, may have to give way to the ineffable, since logic can't ground itself). Deists seem to instinctively realize that Nature can't provide the necessary non-contigency and insubstantialness to ground its own substance.
2. I think a category mistake is too often made. Concerning a God, it is a mistake to entrap "Him" in reason's cage, making a thing (substance) or object of Him, which would necessarily require further Causes into an infinite regress. Concerning a self-sufficient universe, it is a mistake to grant essence as a property belonging to any existent. Our universe (all that *is*) requires an abyssal Ground of freedom - the essence that flows into existents and allows for spontaneity. In other words, reality requires a Source, but it is not *something* and "it" doesn't *exist.* It must remain sovereign, beyond reason, contigency, existence, and nothingness...yet a nagging presence for us in the mystery of its absence. The high spiritual art involves finding and maintaining psychological equilibrium within the paradox of Being.
3.Decidedly, self-aware humans are in a strange orientation to the abyssal Source. A bitter-sweet orientation. At least when we realize that freedom -- play, spontaneity -- is the underlying "truth," the lie is put to withholding the right of marriage for gays. They, as everyone else, already come into the world steeped in the freedom of "God" to express their will in concrete relational forms and acts that bring no harm to others.
A less-tortuous phrasing of all the above could probably be found in any good How-To manual on Taoism or Zen. Just my personal assertions, open to public ridicule.
I think you are all flirting with cosmology when you really are just looking for a way to ground your moral theory.
Not in my case. One has nothing whatsoever to do with the other, nor has morality or moral theory been mentioned here at all.
I've never come across that before in my readings on string theory (OK, just the Brian Greene book). Have you got a cite for it?
I am pretty sure the Brian Greene book (which I loved, but then loaned out to someone who didn't return it) discussed the multiverse idea. However, the part about the branes interacting to cause bangs and crunches was something I remembered from the PBS two-parter on string theory, so I assume it is a more recent advance of the theory.
2 more questions; who's Ashlee Simpson and what the hell did Tim B say?
It's unclear why Jon Rowe's question is necessarily a religious one, unless one assumes that the "creator" is in any way related to the god or gods that humans have referenced or worshipped. That assumption isn't necessarily accurate. Indeed, even if a creator existed at one time, the creator would have only needed to exist at the time of the creation. Even if a creator existed at the time of the creation, there is no necessity for it to have continued to exist.
Ginger, the likelihood that universe is static is fairly small. Astronomical observations beginning with Edwin Hubble's in the late 1920s have it fairly clear that the universe is expanding. Until the early 1960s there were two competing theories, the so-called "steady state" theory that posited an expanding universe that existed forever, and the "big-bang" theory that posited--roughly speaking--that the universe originated from an expansion/explosion of infinitely--or almost infinitely--dense matter. Both theories explained the expansion that was observed. But the BB theory predicted one thing that the SS theory did not, namely, that the explosion resulted in the creation of extremely energetic photons, and that remnants of the photons should still exist and be detectable. In 1963-4 the remnants--so-called cosmic background microwave radiation--were detected with the correct spectral pattern, which pretty much killed the SS theory. The BB theory does not negate the possibility that expansion might not reverse and the universe might not collapse and then "bang" again. That would, however, require the universe to contain more matter/energy than astromers have heretofore been able to locate, but who knows? Dark matter/dark energy may come to the rescue.
Steve
Actually, since time and space are inseparable (which is why physicists refer to it as spacetime), both space and time began with the BB. According to Einstein's theory, that is. What went bang in the first place is currently an unanswered question in physics. I guess we need to have something for the next generation of physicists to do ;-)
CPT_Doom
One interpretation of quantum mechanics posits something similar, and just just at "the beginning." The primary problem with string theory is that the string theorists are making a number of elegant conjectures (I hesitate to even use the term "hypotheses") but without any evidence to support them--and without any expectation of obtaining evidence any time in the near future. I look at several physics blogs and am amazed at how defensive string theorists can get when other string theory doubters--there are more than a few among physicists--point that out to them.
Oops, mistake. "One interpretation of quantum mechanics posits something similar, and just just at "the beginning." should be "One interpretation of quantum mechanics posits something similar, and not just at "the beginning."
I'm well aware of all that Raj. My point was that I find it easier to get my head around infinity than a "time" before time. That doesn't mean I don't accept the latter. I find it hard to get my head around quantum entanglement, but it's real.
You're right about the near-future impossibility of testing string theory, but to his credit Greene is perfectly up-front about that. And at least it is in principle testable, unlike ID, say.
Maybe we go round and round and round and round...
2 more questions; who's Ashlee Simpson and what the hell did Tim B say?
Ashlee is the less talented (and who knew that was even possible) sister to American pop/reality-tv star Jessica Simpson. And just like big sister she has her own album and her own reality tv series.
raj, I wasn't trying to argue that string theorists have it right, but simply that it is possible our universe is part of a larger and more complicated structure, which currently we can only propose, because we cannot directly observe it.
Of course, if there is a larger structure that could account for the big bang, that simply pushes Rowe's question back further - what is the larger structure and who/what is responsible for its existence?
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to talk about an infinity of time, as I understand it time is a dimension of the universe just like the 3 spatial dimensions. Before the big bang time didn't exist, but if something came before the big bang then our normal eveyday physics doesn't apply.
If the creator has always existed (since the beginning of time), then why would one need a preexisting creator to create it?
I just don't get this "turtles all the way down" thingie.
Bill,
If you have no problem imagining a creator who always existed, then why is it so hard to skip a step and imagine a universe that always existed?
As noted above, if the universe REQUIRES a force to get it started, then why doesn't this creator ALSO need the same starting force? (i.e. a creator of the creator) Or are there just 2 different sets of arbitrary rules so that god can find a way into the picture?
Gen Zod,
I believe the Big Bang theory has merit and the universe is about 15 billion years old. I understand from Einstein's theory that time is also a dimension and time cannot exist without the others. So when I say that the creator has existed from the beginning of time, I'm referring to when time started at the singularity. Therefore, the universe and the creator came into existence simultaneously. No second force or set of rules are necessary.
Therefore, the universe and the creator came into existence simultaneously.
The obvious question is, if the universe and the creator came into existence simultaneously, what did the creator create?
raj,
I am an avid reader of your posts on this blog and others and appreciate your generous comments.
The creator created the universe as we are able to know it, and things that are unknowable to us during our lifetimes.
In a freaky coincidence, the current issue of Prospect magazine (the UK one) has an article on string theory and parallel universes. It's a tad sensationalist and obviously speculative, but interesting nonetheless: http://prospectmagazine.co.uk/article_details.php.6701.html