Peanut Gallery Comments on Great Debate

Isn't it? And we get to watch and comment/argue about everything going on in this ever-so-public church in which a man searches for his soul while another man is hunting for it.

Comprehensive and very well said, sir!If I wasn't such a heathen I might convert.(nah)

Oh god no.Just a little love for a well structured post.Merry Christmas to you as well.

Well, let's see.In the USA we do have a school lunch program but the nation is in the midsts of trying to curtail it so I guess this nation feeds at least some of our hungry kids even if it isn't all that well. (Ketchup as vegetable anyone?) This nation couldn't care less about providing drink to our own citizens as evidenced by Flint. As for strangers, we throw them out as we catch em and are talking about building a wall to keep other strangers out. The only time the nation clothes the naked is when we throw them in jail for indecent exposure and, though sometimes this nation tries to help the sick at other times we take away as many public health care programs as we can. And, unless you have a public defender, no one from this nation ever visits you in prison except the guards and the warden and I doubt that counts in this case.The big thing about the good ol USofA is that we insist on sending our troops around the world to kill brown people, take their food, their water, make them sick and naked and throw them in prison to be alone.That's got to be pretty goaty in the eyes of scripture.Which means that you, ICANT, and your whole congregation are doomed to the lake of fire for being citizens of this goat nation regardless of your personal beliefs.

OK so i'm only 3 hours late.

So there are two judgement days? One for individuals and one for nations? How about one for atheists, one for Iowa alumni and one for rotarians? Can we have these too?

Because it's interesting.

So let it be written.So let it be done.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

I should imagine that with that number of doors one is bound to come across someone from a rival cult who thinks you're a heretic. Better to shoot first and turn the other cheek later.

But not far enough to understand how/why science limits mathematics. Not far enough to understand why the models (math) science uses are productive to an exceptional degree of confidence. No, our visible universe is telling us it had an earlier state. The math is just a tool we use to follow where the evidence the universe shows us leads.The "singularity" is not a real thing. It is what we call that area of our ignorance where our models cannot yet follow where the universe is pointing. Entropy as we know it applies only to this, our visible, universe. This is not, as far as we know, an "eternally existing" universe. We have no idea what "universe" came before or if there are others in existence right now. Entropy was exceptionally low in *our* big bang and has been increasing ever since.Our experience of entropy applies *only* to this universe. You can not use entropy to deny the beginning of this, our visible, universe. In fact, the laws of thermodynamics are strong lines of evidence in favor of an inflationary big bang state in both our standard Lambda-CDM model and Penrose's CCC (conformal cyclic cosmology) model of this universe.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

This has nothing to do with this discussion.Science limits the mathematics that can be used. The "numbers" I refer to are the formulae. The equations of physics. The models physics builds from observation.You say you know enough math to make the numbers say anything you want. But, science limits the mathematics. No matter how much you may fiddle your numbers and want there to be 12 eggs you are strictly limited to 4 if the science says there are only 4. That is right. And that includes entropy. And that is limited, as are all the laws of this universe as far as we can tell, to operating in this our visible universe.And all that means that this our visible universe had a beginning some 13.8 billion years ago and no amount of misapplication of those laws is going to change that fact.No one knows what happened or what systems operated prior to the planck time (10^-44)Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Heavy on the facts. That is what "the science" refers to. That is what the science is.The science limits the mathematics that can be used in our models. Correction ... according to their observations.Assumptions are very rarely used and then only logically justifyable assumptions are used that are consistent with the observations and do not violate known laws or facts. Even then the discipline will scrutinize those assumptions for weaknesses or self-serving biases in peer review. Hypothesis: There are 12 eggs in the basket.
Test and observation: Collect data. Count the eggs.
Facts determined: There are 4 eggs in the basket.
Conclusion: The hypothesis is disproved. There are 4 eggs in the basket.Science. Yes, Read his statement. The beginning of the universe will be controlled by the Physics. Not by majik. And not even the great Dr. Hawking can tell us what that physics was because *our* laws of physics apply *ONLY* inside this universe.No one can say that an enormous concentration of energy prior to 10^-44 can not have been achieved. No one knows how the physics prior to 10^-44 operated. What "facts" would those be? That restriction applies only to our universe, not prior.Energy can not be created or destroyed in our universe. All bets are off when speaking otherwise.Despite the usual catechism you and I both can reasonably speculate there had to have been a "before" 10^-44. But no one, Reverend, no one can put any embellishment or restriction on what physics operated then and how. Any of the laws of physics we have devised can only be said to operate in this universe, not "before". Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

I take exception to ringo on this one.At the time, the only evidence available, all the scientific evidence, led to the conclusion that our universe was static, eternal and was the size of what we would later call our galaxy.Einstein's blunder was not in adding a cosmological constant to GR but was in ignoring what his equations were telling him. The universe was not static and eternal but was dynamic and bounded. He gave in to his bias for a static universe instead of following what the new science was telling him. There isn't any. There never was. The only thing we have are speculations.As you keep pointing out thermodynamics requires entropy to be very low and energy to be exceptionally high at the beginning in order for this universe to operate as we see it today.How that was achieved has not been, and may never be, adequately explained.Your contention that *our* physics extends back before 10^-44 and precludes such high energy at the beginning is obviously false since the big bang inflationary state stems from precisely this condition. Are you saying extensions of physical timelines and conditions based on our demonstrably reliable equations and simulations are assumptions and not observations?I'm sure your religious sensibilities believe that, like assumptions of dinosaurs and a young Earth, anything we didn't see didn't happen, but the rest of society, especially the scientific community, strenuously rejects such an absurd contention. You're the one who put the eggs in the basket. I'm the scientist trying to figure out the reality.The point remains that the science limits the math we can use. You are not allowed to just pull equations from your ass. Your misunderstanding of Dr. Hawking's lecture seems intractable. So be it.Your contention that he claims our physics transcends the point where they cease to function is ludicrous. This has become another doctrine of your personal religious catechism, hasn't it.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Or it would require a physics beyond and (maybe) prior to our experience in this universe.Or it would require the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster touching our brane-world with his noodley appendage.Or it would require a cyclic universe effect which would become clear to us when we solve quantum gravity.Or ...Or ...Or ...

As I said in Message 124 there is no evidence of any kind for the beginning, how t=0 came about. All there are, all there may ever be, are speculations. Our physics is not sufficient enough to even hypothesize if there was anything prior to t=0 or what physics may have operated then.What I do know is that ancient peoples all over the world sought to explain the world in the face of their ignorance and invented deities and creation stories based on nothing but the visions and insistences of what we today would call religious zealots. I also know that what we see in the operations of this universe does not require any deities thus continuing to invoke a deity because of ancient stories or to cover our continued ignorance is intellectually repugnant.But since you askedYes, we know a lot, very accurately, about how this universe operates. We know how the forces and the quarks condensed out of the intense energies that existed after the inflationary epoch. We know how matter and stars and planets and people came to be. There are still holes in our knowledge but for the most part the history and operations of this universe are very well understood.But, I know our present physics is woefully inadequate to understand the origins and full operations of this universe.My hope, my speculation, is that as human intellect and technology progress we will uncover the physics that answers the origins questions. And when we find those answers I believe they will be totally surprising, totally unforeseen and will lead to even bigger greater questions we didn’t even know to ask.Unfortunately, I won’t be around to see this play out and I have grave concerns whether humanity will survive long enough to do this.