hummer7979
Slut
I don't see how the existence of a god reconciles the seemingly causal nature of the universe, unless you axiomatically define god as no more than the beginning of time, in which case, it's more a philosophical construct than a religious one. Somehow I get the impression that people are arguing over semantics.
Here's some food for thought. One of my high school teachers once said (quoting someone else, I think) something to the extent of "if you take nothing and separate it into two groups, you've got something."
"Nothing" can be defined as something if you consider the quantum mechanical phenomenon of vacuum fluctuation, which Stephen Hawking used to explain black hole evaporation. Essentially, the explanation is that according to quantum mechanical models, vacuum space (i.e., nothing) becomes chaotic at smaller and smaller scales. This chaos comes from the spontaneous particle pair production, specifically particles and their antiparticles forming and recombining chaotically (the existence of this phenomenon is predicted by mathematical models). The energy needed for these pairs to form is the same amount as they release upon recombination, so the average is zero. This particle production happening at the event horizon of a black hole can lead to one in a pair of those spontaneously produced particles to get sucked in, leaving the other in the pair to escape, thus prolonging the life of that particle that essentially came from nothing. But then again, how does its prolonged existence make it any more "something" than the particles that chaotically form and recombine at infinitesimal time scales?
We understand the world through causality and time, but these concepts present problems because even defining an origin of time or "god" begs the question of the origin of its existence. However, if "nothing" can separate into meaningful "somethings" to us, than perhaps causality is not the driving force of the universe, but is rather an emergent consequence of our perception of existence.
Sorry if I'm not making sense. It's 3AM.
Here's some food for thought. One of my high school teachers once said (quoting someone else, I think) something to the extent of "if you take nothing and separate it into two groups, you've got something."
"Nothing" can be defined as something if you consider the quantum mechanical phenomenon of vacuum fluctuation, which Stephen Hawking used to explain black hole evaporation. Essentially, the explanation is that according to quantum mechanical models, vacuum space (i.e., nothing) becomes chaotic at smaller and smaller scales. This chaos comes from the spontaneous particle pair production, specifically particles and their antiparticles forming and recombining chaotically (the existence of this phenomenon is predicted by mathematical models). The energy needed for these pairs to form is the same amount as they release upon recombination, so the average is zero. This particle production happening at the event horizon of a black hole can lead to one in a pair of those spontaneously produced particles to get sucked in, leaving the other in the pair to escape, thus prolonging the life of that particle that essentially came from nothing. But then again, how does its prolonged existence make it any more "something" than the particles that chaotically form and recombine at infinitesimal time scales?
We understand the world through causality and time, but these concepts present problems because even defining an origin of time or "god" begs the question of the origin of its existence. However, if "nothing" can separate into meaningful "somethings" to us, than perhaps causality is not the driving force of the universe, but is rather an emergent consequence of our perception of existence.
Sorry if I'm not making sense. It's 3AM.
