Big Bang Found

And again, yes it does.Do you consider the hypothesized multiverse to be part of nature or not? If I understand your arguments, you seem to consider that a multiverse would be "natural", i.e. part of nature, and that it had no beginning. Thus, you seem to be arguing that nature had no beginning. (And if you consider the multiverse to be outside of nature, then the multiverse itself becomes the supernatural cause for nature.) That's one option. The other option would be to keep our definition of nature, in which case the Andromeda galaxy is "super-nature". As I understand it, this is essentially the impersonal "god" of Einstein and Spinoza (though Einstein didn't like or accept QM, of course).{ABE: in my usage above, "nature" = "natural world". If you find my comments confusing, please try replacing "nature" with "natural world".}Edited by kbertsche, : No reason given.Edited by kbertsche, : ABE

I'm simply trying to be consistent in my use of the terms. "Nature" includes everything that is "natural" and nothing that is not. Very simple. I don't care how you define nature/natural, so long as you are consistent and use the same semantic domain for both the noun and adjective forms of the word. Otherwise we can't communicate and will get nowhere."Reality" is a poor word to use, because we will not all agree on a definition. To a naturalist, "reality" is only nature. To a theist, "reality" includes the supernatural. IF you use a restrictive definition for "nature", THEN you have automatically conveyed this same restrictive definition to the word "natural". IF you don't like this definition for "natural", THEN you need to enlarge your definition for "nature". Very simple; just be consistent in your use of the terms.{ABE: If it helps, I could use the phrase "natural world" instead of the term "nature". Would this be clearer? Do you consider a hypothesized "multiverse" to be part of the "natural world"? Would you consider a multiverse to have a beginning to its existence?}Edited by kbertsche, : ABE at end

No, I'm sure that our disagreements run deeper. But until we can agree on definitions we cannot explore this. No, I label anything outside the "natural world" as supernatural. I don't insist on any particular definition for "natural world". I'll go with whatever definition Oni wishes to use. I don't think I've equivocated at all; I'm just trying to allow for any definition of nature/natural that Oni wishes to use. Oni's answers are confusing to me and seem to flip-flop between different definitions for nature/natural, depending on whether he uses the noun or adjective form of the word.I have not tried to produce an argument for God. I have only tried to explain some claims that others have made and that seem to be misunderstood.

But I don't believe I've actually said this, have I? I believe I've said that in such situations X or Y are EFFECTIVELY that person's gods. By which I mean that the person would probably not refer to X or Y their "god", yet the person ascribes unique characteristics to X or Y, characteristics which are traditionally ascribed only to gods (externality, pre-existence, ultimate causation, uncaused existence).

If you don't like my description of the characteristics of a "god", please present an alternative. What would YOU say describes a "god"?

FYI, here's a definition of "god" from Webster which is somewhat related to the way I was using the word: But I expect that you won't like this usage any better than mine, and will consider both Webster and the Apostle Paul to be "silly and wrong" in claiming that someone's belly can be their god.

Yes, fine. And I'll try to use the term "natural world" instead of "nature" to be reduce confusion. Is there any experimental evidence for these hypothesized natural causes (m-theory, super string theory, brain theory)? Can there EVER be any direct scientific evidence of a multiverse? If not, is the multiverse even a scientific theory?

We agree that our universe has a finite age, about 13.7 billion years. Thus, it began to exist about 13.7 billion years ago. So what is your objection to the use of "beginning"? Yes, we can't extrapolate the physics backward to less than one Planck time of the beginning, but this doesn't mean that there was no beginning (this would be a variant of Zeno's paradox).IF time began at the Big Bang then I agree that there was no "before". And we could say that our universe has "always existed". But I would not call this "eternal"; our universe has only existed for a finite length of time. (When we talk of God being eternal, we mean that He has existed for an infinite length of time in the past.)If our universe began to exist, then it needs a cause for its existence. You propose a multiverse as the cause, and you say that this multiverse is part of the "natural world". This raises obvious questions: Do you believe this multiverse had a beginning to ITS existence? If so, what is the cause of the multiverse?

The immediate cause for any nuclear decay is the intrinsic instability of its nucleus. A prior cause is the creation of the nucleus in the first place.Don't confuse "predictability" with "causation". We can't predict when any individual nucleus will decay, but this doesn't mean that there is no cause for its decay.

Would you call "the law of causation" a "physical law"? I think it's more of a philosophical/logical necessity than it is a physical law. Are you trying to say that since the laws of physics break down at the Planck scale, that the laws of logic do, also? What about the laws of mathematics?I don't think there is any warrant for making the laws of metaphysics dependent on the laws of physics.

Causation is fundamentally a logical concept, not a temporal concept. IF time began at the Big Bang, the cause for our present universe cannot be temporally prior to the Big Bang (obviously), but can still be "logically prior" to it.

My question was more fundamental and philosophical. Since we can observe only our present universe, how can we ever hope to get any direct evidence of other universes or of the multiverse? Perhaps we can get some very indirect evidence and hints. But can we ever get direct evidence, like we now have for cosmic inflation? I am very skeptical. I suspect this will remain an intriguing hypothesis.

Yes, of course this is how science works.But my question is, What sort of experimental, observable evidence can possibly exist for a multiverse or for other universes? Can anyone here give any specific examples, not just general statements about how science is done? What sort of specific evidence for a multiverse could possibly rise to the level of the recent BICEP2 evidence for inflation? (which according to the PIs is "direct" evidence for inflation, but according to NoNukes is "indirect")As soon as the BICEP2 data is independently confirmed, I would call "inflation" a theory. But do current inflation theories require, or even imply, a multiverse? I don't believe Guth's original theory did, but perhaps the modifications done by Linde and others have changed this?

Nonsense. The nucleus decays because it is intrinsically unstable, because a lower potential energy state exists which it can reach by quantum tunneling. Most physicists would be comfortable with either of these statements of causation. But if you insist on having an event as the cause, there certainly is an external event that triggers the nuclear decay; the creation of the unstable nucleus itself. When the unstable nucleus is created, we can be sure that it will eventually decay. The fact that the decay is a probabilistic event does not mean that it is an uncaused event. "Causation" and "predictability" are two distinctly different concepts (though they are often conflated and confused by non-physicists).

Yes, but such things (and the high order multipoles recently seen in CMBR polarization) only tell us things about this universe. I don't see how they tell us anything about the presence or absence of other universes.