New Big Bang Research – Part III

I wanted to add my final note and my sources that I cited here as well.

Another note:

In another Science Friday interview with Dr. Krauss (Jan 13, 2012 – Science Friday), ba4e05ceabab7a41e3d21649f205e1f9.jpgKrauss confronts the question of “Why there is something rather than nothing.”

Krauss makes the claim that the question of “ ‘Why is there something rather than nothing’ is a scientific question, not a religious or philosophical one…”

I think this largely stems from Krauss’s obvious continued confusion about what “nothing” is. Dr. William Lane Craig has been driven to pulling hair out about Krauss’s confusion here. After listening to this interview, I began to understand.

Clearly nothing means “not anything.” But Krauss still equates empty space and nothing 0.jpegas the same thing.   In essence, Krauss does not believe in “nothing.” And he also seems to be unable to understand this simple definition.

As a therapist (and a pastor too), I have known many men who seem unable to assimilate new information. Maybe the rational definition of “nothing” is too new a way of thinking for him.

He talks about how empty space and “nothing” are the same thing and then he will talk in detail about how empty space is not truly empty – but is full of all kinds of stuff.
Wouldn’t that mean that it is not empty? By what possible standard could that be considered “nothing”?

With his definition of “nothing”, you can understand why he would say things like, “nothing can create something all the time…”

Further, at one point, one of the scientists made the claim that “When people ask “why” what they really mean is “how”, and went on to clarify that “If you say ‘why does the sun shine?’ you really mean ‘how does the sun shine’.”

No, it isn’t.

At least it isn’t when I ask it. I ask why, and am interested in “why”.  I am asking “why” as in “what explains the source – what explains the fact that it does shine rather than not exist. I am asking for source and motivation. I am NOT asking “how.”

blog-right-as-rain-the-water-cycle.jpgI understand the process of HOW rain falls. The water cycle is pretty evident. I want to know WHY that cycle exists in the first place.

I understand the HOW of evolution, to the degree it can be understood with all the gaps… but I want to understand WHY the mutations happened, WHY life exists. WHY is there anything rather than nothing.

Resources:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/cosmic-inflation-evidence-of-post-big-bang-expansion-discovered-1.2575998

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/17/cosmic-inflation-theory-early-universe-expansion_n_4979486.html

“Science Friday”… on March 21, 2014, hosted by Ira Flatow

“Science Friday”… on Jan 13, 2012, hosted by Ira Flatow

Achenbach, Joel. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-big-bang-theory-gets-a-big-boost-evidence-that-vast-cosmos-were-created-in-split-second/2014/03/17/d6c21850-adfc-11e3-9627-c65021d6d572_story.html

Peplow, Mark. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-view-of-primordial-universe-confirms-sudden-inflation-after-big-bang/

5 thoughts on “New Big Bang Research – Part III

  1. Thanks for the “philosophical musings.” It seems that the farther we go
    philosophically and from what I understand to be the present view of “matter” (physics) to be, the closer we may come to truths we Christians have believed and do believe.

  2. Recently a tribe of people was discovered in South America that had no concept of numbers in their language. They could think in terms of 2’s and 3’s but anything above this and not even their language could be used to describe it.
    Of course some humans can assimilate mathematics and logic without embracing formal rules, but if they want to communicate in this “language” to other humans, they have to learn the rules and learn them well.
    For example, the law of non-contradiction is simple – I am not you, and you are not me. X is not Y and Y is not X. Humans inherently understand this basic concept but the actual rule has to be articulated and agreed upon. Humans do not inherently understand higher rules and fallacies such as reification. These have to be taight.
    A reification case in point: How many times have your heard or read a phrase similar to:
    The evidence suggests
    you are disagreeing with the evidence
    that flies in the face of all evidence
    The evidence says
    What does the evidence tell us?
    In each of these cases the “evidience” is inanimate matter. It cannot tell, suggest, argue, agree, disagree or say anything. People do that. Scientists agree, or argue or tell – only a human mind can interpret evidence and give it a voice.
    This is what is meant by the human mind does not naturally think in logical terms – more often than not, the human mind finds itself running into a fallacy-ditch without even realizing it.
    As for mathematics – there is no such thing as “2” in the natural world. Or that “2+2=4”. We may have four things or two things, but these are abtract representations of the natural world. The number “2” is only in the human mind. And yet we can use mathematical symbols and numbers to accurately describe and predict the behaviors of the natural world. These rules work on the Moon, and on Rigel and the surface of the Sun, So they describe the natural world but exist only in the human mind. Yet nobody would argue their reality.

  3. The secularist unfortunately cannot but borrow from the creation model and then deny he has done so.
    The simple fact is that the laws of logic and mathematics are knowable by the human mind, and they intersect the physical world, yet are not part of the physical world. All human minds are able to grasp these laws, and they are grasped the same way. Human minds do not however, think in logical or math terms. These have to be trained. Once trained, human minds use them all the same way.
    And “the same way” means that the laws apply on the Moon as well as Earth. The laws transcend language, timeframe, history, nationality etc. In fact, if the language does not properly describe the law, we use language that works, we don’t shoe-horn the law into the language.
    This capacity for all human minds to understand these laws, which clearly “exist” and “apply” to places other than Earth, is evidence that the human mind is a product of creation.
    Moreover, the secularist depends on these laws to be in place to do science. The consistency of the universe drives scientific endeavors. Why does the secularist believe that the laws will remain the same? He has no justification to believe that they will remain, and may have no reason to believe that they will cease. Still, if the laws ceased, the science as we know it would stop.
    The secualrist has no justification to accept that the laws will continue, so likewise has no justification to depend upon them to do science. In Genesis 8:22 we are promised by God that the universe will behave in a consistent manner. We now have a reason to believe that the laws will stay-in-place – God has promised it so. God claims that his “word stands forever” so when God makes a promise, it is eternal and it is trustworthy.
    What a strange existence for the secularist. He can only borrow from the creation model (the consistency of the cosmos) but will never offer credit for what he has been given.
    Science is possible because creation is true. If creation weren’t true, we could not presume to depend on the physical world at all.

    1. I do not know if I agree that minds do not naturally (without training) think in terms of logic or mathematics… I have noticed in many of your comments you make claims like that with a certain level of certainty. I would wonder where you come by your certainty of statements like that.
      That being said I agree that the presumptions of the theistic view are also those that make scientific thinking possible… or are at least the underlying philosophies that make it possible. Remember the old “Get your own dirt” joke?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.