On Nothing
(My apologies to Mr. Rishel for the title of this entry....)
In both religion and science, the question often comes up as to what existed before the universe began.
The question itself is meaningless in both "fields", because the universe includes time.
Even Augustine understood this,[1] though he would have known nothing of the modern, scientific understanding that time is a dimension, just like height, width, and length.
But empty dimensions are no dimensions. While conceptually you may be able to imagine a grid with an origin and distances but nothing plotted, it is simply abstract imagination.
No, the dimensions themselves come with the things "plotted".
A lay understanding of the Big Bang is often that the universe exploded/expanded from nothing, but this is not entirely accurate. The theory is that all matter and energy were compressed into an infinitesimally small (and by definition, dimensionless) point. This is termed a singularity. In other words, the entire universe's energy was compressed into a single point.
In one of my earliest entries[2], I presented my "Third Postulate" in my hypothetical epistemological journey:Either the universe has always existed or it had a beginning.
In other words, to believe in anything at all, I think one has to believe that there was never nothing. There always has been and always will be at least something.
Whether that something is me, you, a god, or the universe or whether some of these options are one and the same is a foundational difference among the world's religions and philosophies.
Back to this singularity - there are various options: A) It is eternal. B) It is not eternal. C) It is an illusion inside my head; only I am eternal.
Most people will reject option C; I will not consider it here.
But what of A?
If the universe is eternal, what caused it to expand in the Big Bang? Here I only can see one sub-option, if it is all there is, it must have caused itself to expand, which would end up leading to a more Eastern philosophy like pantheism - god is all.
So having discussed and thought about "nothing" this morning, I am wondering why more scientists are not pantheists....
In other news, this is my 5th anniversary of blogging. So it seemed a fitting time to return to it.
As always, I'll be sure to go back and read all of your blogs to catch up. I look forward to it. If you've continued to post a lot, expect lots of comments!
I'll also get around later this week to a summary of "happenings"; there were quite a very a lot.
I may also consider doing a "week" of "Wednesday entries", because, having completed my early church history study, I've a lot to say on such topics.
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In both religion and science, the question often comes up as to what existed before the universe began.
The question itself is meaningless in both "fields", because the universe includes time.
Even Augustine understood this,[1] though he would have known nothing of the modern, scientific understanding that time is a dimension, just like height, width, and length.
But empty dimensions are no dimensions. While conceptually you may be able to imagine a grid with an origin and distances but nothing plotted, it is simply abstract imagination.
No, the dimensions themselves come with the things "plotted".
A lay understanding of the Big Bang is often that the universe exploded/expanded from nothing, but this is not entirely accurate. The theory is that all matter and energy were compressed into an infinitesimally small (and by definition, dimensionless) point. This is termed a singularity. In other words, the entire universe's energy was compressed into a single point.
In one of my earliest entries[2], I presented my "Third Postulate" in my hypothetical epistemological journey:
In other words, to believe in anything at all, I think one has to believe that there was never nothing. There always has been and always will be at least something.
Whether that something is me, you, a god, or the universe or whether some of these options are one and the same is a foundational difference among the world's religions and philosophies.
Back to this singularity - there are various options: A) It is eternal. B) It is not eternal. C) It is an illusion inside my head; only I am eternal.
Most people will reject option C; I will not consider it here.
But what of A?
If the universe is eternal, what caused it to expand in the Big Bang? Here I only can see one sub-option, if it is all there is, it must have caused itself to expand, which would end up leading to a more Eastern philosophy like pantheism - god is all.
So having discussed and thought about "nothing" this morning, I am wondering why more scientists are not pantheists....
In other news, this is my 5th anniversary of blogging. So it seemed a fitting time to return to it.
As always, I'll be sure to go back and read all of your blogs to catch up. I look forward to it. If you've continued to post a lot, expect lots of comments!
I'll also get around later this week to a summary of "happenings"; there were quite a very a lot.
I may also consider doing a "week" of "Wednesday entries", because, having completed my early church history study, I've a lot to say on such topics.
Comment link for Facebook readers