Your first paragraph doesn't work, because the distance between them is constantly changing, and so the actual period of the heartbeats is distorted by the varying travel times of the messages — Mike Fontenot

But distorted in a predicable / pre-calculable manner?

Your second paragraph doesn't work, because special relativity and quantum mechanics are mutually inconsistent ... neither theory recognizes the legitimacy of the other. — Mike Fontenot

Well it might be a chance to shed light on the inconsistency?

I want to know what you and other philosophers think of my intuitive philosophical reasoning about the question of whether simultaneity at a distance is meaningful or meaningless. — Mike Fontenot

I would agree that her heartbeats continually in his absence, so she must always have a well defined biological age.

I think that these two questions are quite distinct:

1. 'Is there a God?'
2. 'Was the universe created by an intelligent agent?'

The first, bearing mind the received/traditional definition of God, cannot be said to be subject of science. The second, however, does seem to fall within the remit of science. But science (cosmology) seems to ignore the 2nd possibility... the models and theories I read about are purely mechanistic. That seems a mistake on the part of science. On the face of it, there is quite a high probability that the answer to the 2nd question is yes so it would seem prudent for science to invest quite a high percentage of its efforts in developing models that are compatible with an affirmative answer to the 2nd question.

I wonder if anything could be deduced by a constant, mutual, radio broadcast of each other's heartbeats to each other. That would allow verification of the existence of the other twin and also act as sort of body clock by which they might be able to judge each others relative speeds of ageing.

Maybe even quantum entanglement could be used to transmit, instantaneously this time, the beat of each other's hearts.

Exactly. General physics laws can be used to show how a meta-universe might work. They are speculation, but show an alternative to theism or deism — Gregory

The only meta-universe / multiuniverse theory I have any familiarity with is ‘Eternal Inflation’ - the current favoured model amongst cosmologists. It’s a sort of misleading name, because it sounds like it’s been going on forever - it should actually be called ‘Future Eternal Inflation’ - all the models they have come up with so far have a definite start to them (pre Big Bang obviously) I believe.

The theory starts off with no universes at all, just a small amount of repulsive gravity material which expands very rapidly due to its own gravitational repulsion whilst retaining a constant density. Conservation of energy is respected as the increasing negative energy of the gravitational field is exactly offset by the increase in mass (=positive energy). This expanding patch generates all of the universes in the multiverse.

But Eternal Inflation theory does not explain how the initial patch of anti-gravity material comes about. Speculative ideas about this are that quantum fluctuations somehow created the anti-gravity material. Most of the leading theorists like Guth also believe that time has no start.

To my mind this is not satisfactory - if natural mechanisms like quantum fluctuations can be the cause of eternal inflation and past time is infinite then we should expect an infinite number of instances of eternal inflation - an infinite number of overlapping multiverses - and an infinite matter density to go with that - which is not what is observed.

I think my marble example applies to a meta universe and the Hawking stuff doesnt. — Gregory

What makes you believe:

- Gravity applies to a meta universe / multiverse
- Hawking radiation does not

The 2nd is an inevitable result of the first? Besides, even if there is no such thing as Hawking radiation, infinite time + gravity = gravitational equilibrium, which we are not experiencing, so my argument above still seems to hold.

Michio kaku says you can't prove from the universe there is a god — Gregory

"My point of view is different. My own point of view is that you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. Science is based on what is testable, reproducible, and falsifiable. That’s called science. However, there are certain things that are not testable, not reproducible, and not falsifiable. And that would include the existence of God ... I don’t think there’s any one experiment that you can create to prove or disprove the existence of God. Therefore, it’s not a falsifiable statement. You cannot create an experiment that disproves the existence of God. Therefore, it’s a non-falsifiable statement." - Michio Kaku

https://innotechtoday.com/michio-kaku-clears-god-discovery/

I would agree with the above that belief in God is a non-scientific belief if you use the traditional definition of God (infinite, omnipotent, omniscience, etc...). I personally use a more limited, deist, definition of God - just some form of intelligent agent that was responsible for the creation of the universe - no wild claims of infinite powers.

Is it possible to ever formulate an experiment that would prove or disprove the existence of such an entity? Maybe you can do so at home: take a hamster cage, note that with a hamster in it, the cage stays out of equilibrium. Remove the hamster from the cage, the cage enters equilibrium. The cage is of course a metaphor for the universe and the hamster a metaphor for God. But I doubt this meets scientific standards of rigour so I'd agree the existence of even a deist God is likely to remain a non-scientific question.

Those who try to prove the existence of God are weak in faith. Edward feser comes to mind — Gregory

I have no faith; I'm agnostic leaning towards deist.

The arguments that apply to this universe apply equally to any containing universe or multiverse.

Like I say the first term is gravity, which is outside the series — Gregory

The marble is the series. The infinite slide is the gravity. — Gregory

If we imagine a universe with no start of time and just gravity, then though the mechanism of gravity (and orbital decay), a huge black hole is the only possible result - gravitational equilibrium - leading to thermodynamic equilibrium eventually due to the working of Hawking Radiation. We do not live in such a universe, so we can conclude that one of the following must hold for our universe:

- There is a start of time
or
- Some permanent, self-driven entity has always existed that has kept us out of equilibrium.

Both are IMO indicative of an intelligent, timeless, prime mover.

Aquinas, as Bertrand Russell pointed out, never tired of writing arguments for every aspects of his Catholic God, no matter how weak — Gregory

Russell's counter argument against Aquinas was surprisingly weak for such a clever guy, he said the five ways:

"depend on the supposed impossibility of a series having no first term. Every mathematician knows that there is no such impossibility: the series of negative integers ending with minus one is an instance to the contrary.” (Russell 1969, 453)

That's lame. Aquinas was talking about cause and effect and as everyone know, the effect depends on its cause to give it existence. If we look at the series of negative integers:

{ ..., -5, -4, -3, -2, -1 }

We can see it is possible to write these out if we start at -1 and work backwards. It is however impossible to start writing at '...' and generate the rest of the series - that is because there is no first term in the series and the following terms depend upon the previous terms in the same way the effects are dependant on the causes. If there is no first term, there is nothing.

Thanks Athena! I am afraid I'm not much of a physicist and photons are a mighty mysterious particle, but below are my thoughts.

I understand that photons are tiny packets of energy that are emitted by energised atoms when an election in a high energy orbit falls back into a normal orbit. This happens during various sorts of reactions (chemical, nuclear, etc).

A photon is a massless particle so is not effected by gravity according to Newton. Einstein's work however indicates that gravity is actually due to distortions in spacetime and as such photons are effected by gravity as well. This is why a black hole is possible, the curvature of spacetime is so extreme that not even photons can escape. But under less extreme scenarios, photons appear to be unaffected by gravity and travel in straight lines.

Photons are strange because they travel at the speed of light because they have no mass and so do not experience the passage of time. They also experience another relativistic effect call length contraction - at the speed of light distances are compressed down to zero. Photons appear to have motion from our perspective but if it were possible to see things from a photon's perspective, it might seem as if it can travel anywhere in the universe in no time whilst covering no distance.

The prime mover argument is all about massive objects so how do photons fit in? Well they do have some momentum so they can interact with massive objects to cause their motion. And their production is caused some sort of reaction involving matter. Einstein says E=mc^2 so energy is equivalent to matter, so maybe we could think of the prime mover argument as being about matter and energy rather than just matter only and being about momentum rather than movement.

So maybe the prime mover argument could be restated so as to include photons:

We look around us, we see matter/energy with momentum, but matter/energy must have a source of its momentum and the source must itself have another source of its momentum. But these chains of sources cannot proceed out to infinity else there would be no first/ultimate source of momentum in the universe and all would be still, so there must be a prime momentum that is the ultimate cause of all momentum in the universe.

The Big Bang obviously is a candidate for this ‘prime momentum’.

The past is constantly increasing in size so the amount of historical knowledge we can accumulate is constantly increasing.

But there is only one set of facts to learn about the origin of all things - it is a closed set of facts that does not grow with time - so I hope you can see the argument that we will get successively more certain but never reach absolute certainty on these sorts of questions.

I believe that absolute knowledge is possible in some instances, but I would agree that absolute knowledge on the question of the origin of things, can never be obtained - even if time travel is invented and we travel back to the start of everything and observe what happens, we must still trust the evidence of our own senses and some are loathed to even do this.

The development of human knowledge is interesting to consider. If we travel back a few 1000 years, maybe we could guess that 50% of what we then thought was wrong. Today, thanks largely to science, maybe only 25% (?) of what we believe is wrong. Step forward in time a few 1000 years and maybe only 10% of what we will then know will be wrong. The trend of improving accuracy of our knowledge is clear, but at no point in the future will we ever be able to say 100% of what we know is correct... our knowledge tends to but never reaches perfection, so ultimately we will be frustrated in our quest for absolute knowledge.

If you like strategy / RPG games and have an interest in learning about world religions an mythology, I can highly recommend:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/722060/Dominions_5__Warriors_of_the_Faith/

It includes something like 60 different nations you can play, most of which are modelled on actual world religions / mythology.

I guess we have to distinguish between:

1. Past Eternity
2. Future Eternity

[2] is, under the presentist model of time anyway, a form a potential infinity, so maybe it is possible, but I still doubt it.

[1] however is a a form actual infinity, which causes me to choke intellectually for several different reasons. For example:

An event that has occurred (for example, you reading this post) must have had a non-zero probability per calendar year of occurring. If we imagine time going back forever, then we have:

(a non-zero probability of the event occurring) X (∞ years) = (event occurs an infinite number of times)

So a belief in an infinite past equates to a belief that:

- Someone exactly like you
- On a planet exactly like earth
- Has been reading a post exactly like this
- And this event has occurred an infinite number of times in the past.

This has always struck me as an absurdum reductio argument for the impossibility of infinite past time.

Indeed, but to answer the OP question about the existence of Hell, one has to first make the assumption that the soul exists - I should have probably stated that in my initial response - sorry.

I'm not sure I have any. Do you?

As far as extended longevity goes, it seems to me the only possibility is some form of circular, eternal, time, which is not as far fetched as it sounds (see Closed Timeline Curves from General Relativity). But that would be a form of bodily immortality; it says nothing about the existence or immortality of the soul.

If we were living in a simulation (which I don't believe), we would be pure information and that information I suppose could be regarded as a sort of soul. It would be transferable on death to another simulation. So it's sort of like a transmigration of the soul.

1. If God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, then all his children would be well behaved children and there would be no need for Hell - he would simply ensure his children do not commit sin (note that free will is not compromised any more by this approach than it is by living under the threat of eternal damnation)

2. But from the evidence around us (of mis-behaving children) we have to assume that God cannot be both omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

3. In order to create a mechanism such as Hell, omnipotence is likely required.

4. So that means the only chance that Hell exists is if we have an omnipotent but not omnibenevolent God

5. There are good arguments to say God must be benevolent even if he is not omnibenevolent

6. But if he is benevolent and omnipotent, then argument [1] surely still applies - some other mechanism rather than eternal damnation could be employed to ensure the greater good - like making all his children non-sinners

7. So I think it can be concluded that Hell does not exist

This point is false. Something can exist since all eternity, and can exist into infinite future. There is no logical or other limitation that prevents something from being such. The limitation Aquinas put on this is false, arbitrary, and does not stand up to even intuitive reason. — god must be atheist

Something existing for an eternity of past time is an impossibility. To see this you can for example imagine a 24h clock that has exist forever and has been keeping time forever. What time does it read currently?

I think that your interpretation is probably a minority view - I am no expert but I understand that different sects of Christianity interpret the bible differently. Everyone is entitled to their own view.

"They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might" - 2 Thessalonians 1:9

I'd interpret this as the punishment will be everlasting - whereas death is a process that last for a short amount of time - once it is over there is no more punishment.

Does progressive taxation count as a "natural" model of wealth redistribution? It worked in America in the 1940s and 1950s. I doubt that is what you mean, but all I can think of when it comes to natural is survival of the fittest where the winners take what they want — ZhouBoTong

I think evolution is about survival of the fittest species rather than the fittest individual. So we have socially evolved such that we are superior to other species specifically by moderating the 'winners take what they want' element - we recognise that each individual in society is a contributor and we must therefore take care of the weaker members of society. At the same time though, our system recognises and rewards the success of individuals.

I am a believer in progressive taxation but it has to be imposed globally else it just leads to economic refugees. That would require some form of world government... which we are quite a way from achieving.

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” - Matthew 25:46

I cannot personally believe that any entity would consign another to eternal hell fire, but it seems to be what the Bible indicates. Maybe your street preachers can't quite believe it either.

(Social) Evolution is an ongoing process. It is to be hoped that it will come up with a better model than capitalism in due course. Particularly a model with a more natural wealth distribution is required. The marginal utility of disposable wealth is a strong argument that what we have today is not yet optimal.

You have a different version of the bible to the one I'm familiar with:

"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." - Revelation 21:8

This site also quotes many more biblical references to Hell:

https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/hell-bible-verses/

There seems to me to be no other argument that explains the origin of things.

To paraphrase Aquinas's 3rd way:

1. Can't get something from nothing
2. So something must have permanent existence else there would be nothing now / no universe
3. (because if there was ever a state of nothingness, nothing would persist till today)
4. Nothing can permanently exist inside of time - it would have no start to its existence and if it never started existing it does not exist.
5. That leaves a timeless 'something' as the only possible root cause of everything.

If the creator deity has permanent timeless existence - then it does not need explaining - it just 'IS' in a tenseless way - it is beyond time so beyond the requirement to have a cause - there is nothing that logically or sequentially precedes a timeless entity - so it does not need to be caused or explained.

So it would be the 'brute fact' that is required to explain why is there something rather than nothing... brute facts must be timeless... everything in time has a cause so at least one timeless brute fact must exist else there would be no universe, no nothing.

I don't believe that past time is infinite - I was just pointing out that infinite past time and a natural origin of the Big Bang seem to be incompatible. Logically it seems to follow that one of the following must be true:

- Time has a start
or
- The Big Bang is supernatural event

Both are indicate of the presence of some sort of creator deity IMO.

If past time is infinite and the Big Bang is a natural event then it seems an infinite number of big bangs must have occurred:

(non-zero chance of Big Bang occurring per year) * (∞ past years) = (infinite number of big bangs)

With an infinite number of big bangs, the CMBR should be infinite in intensity too - which it is not.

Note that the dubious maths of infinity also imply that an infinite number of big bangs should have occurred at each possible point in space in the universe/multiverse (if big bangs are indeed natural events).

I imagine all 'parallel' universes to be connected to our universe via time and space so stray radiation from the infinite number of big bangs would find its way to us and contribute to an infinite CMBR. I suppose you could envisage parallel universes as islands of space-time separated by nothingness, but they would be expanding islands and eventually overlapping islands - leading to an infinite CMBR.

Under the Christian belief system there is the spectre of Hell which seems to undermine the free will argument against the problem of evil. Excepting idiots, there is no difference between removing someone's ability to do evil and allowing them to do evil but telling them they will face eternal damnation if they do.

However, I think tim wood has a point in that your answer suggests the greater good ALWAYS takes priority...which would be problematic — ZhouBoTong

We are the dominant species on the planet and we are social / communal animals, not lone predators. So the selfishness approach has lost the evolutionary war - the mechanism of evolution should ensure that the most efficient societal model wins and our winning model is based on the hybrid approach of 'co-opertition' - even the selfish elements of human behaviour contribute to the furtherment greater good through the mechanism of competition. Capitalism, a product of social evolution, is an expression of this hybrid model - individuals behave in a selfish manner yet still end up contributing to the greater good.

True. The creation of the Universe and Life are still miracles. — ovdtogt

I find these definitions helpful:

Natural event = something with a non-zero probability of occurring naturally over time.
Supernatural event (a miracle) = something with a zero probability of occurring naturally over time.

Now if something has a non-zero probability of occurring naturally over time, then we expect multiple instances of it to occur, so the definitions can be also written as:

Natural event = things that occurs in a plurality
Supernatural event (a miracle) = a singleton event (across time and space)

Then the Big Bang is obviously a supernatural event. The same cannot be said for life though - it may have occurred on other planets at different times in the past - we do not know for sure.

Yes I'm not claiming we live in a 'well functioning society', merely that such is possible if all people were right thinking people.

Capitalism seems to me a mechanism to make people think they are working for themselves when they are actually working for the community. Unfortunately the lone predator mind set that capitalism fosters can be counter productive to the greater good - capitalism is not a perfect system in this regard.

I think there is a natural feedback mechanism - if you perform an action that is against the greater good but seemingly in your own personal interest, your community chastises you - meaning the action against the greater good also turns out to be an action against your own personal interests. So your personal interests and your communities interests are aligned in a well functioning community.

So I would subscribe to the belief that individual rights should be such that their exercisement should not impact the greater good.

The first hit on Bing is a scholarly work that agrees with Aquinas’s, Leibniz, et all, that infinite regressions are not possible:

https://philpapers.org/archive/COHTMB.pdf

Perhaps you mean that Aquinas contradicted himself by holding beliefs in both of:

- the impossibility of an infinite regression
- that God is infinite

If so, I would agree - infinity is impossible so God cannot be infinite. The bible says God is infinite - without any justification - and Aquinas ties himself in a logical knot trying to justify that claim. Aquinas’s justification for God being infinite is given as:

1. Matter is made finite by form. Form is made finite by matter.
2. Matter is first potential to many forms, but when it receives a form it is made finite by that form.
3. Form is common to many, but when it is received by a particular matter it is then made finite.
4. Infinite matter, before it is made finite by form, is imperfect because matter without form is formless matter.
5. Form is contracted, and not made perfect, by matter. Form is infinite when not contracted by matter and thus has the nature of something perfect.
6. Being is the most formal of all things.
7. God is a divine being not received in anything, but is his own subsistent being. Therefore, God is infinite and perfect.

On [1] matter cannot exist without form so it is not made finite by form, it is finite period.
On [4] no justification for the existence of infinite formless matter is given
On [5] an infinite form is only possible in mathematics, not in reality
On [7] infinity is by definition unmeasurable, but any being can always measure itself - it is basic self awareness, so 'being' and 'infinite' are incompatible.

I'm not sure what you mean - believing that the world is not eternal because of a believe in God and a belief in the impossibility of eternal infinite regressions in not contradicting oneself.

I know all about Aquinas. He said the world was not eternal because the bible says so but that reason can't prove it — Gregory

I think he gave a specific reason why he thought the world was not eternal - I have highlighted it above in the quote I gave from the first way - infinite regresses are just not logically possible. Many philosophers down the years have agreed with Aquinas, for example, Leibniz:

’Suppose the book of the elements of geometry to have been eternal, one copy having been written down from an earlier one. It is evident that even though a reason can be given for the present book out, we should never come to a full reason. What is true of the books is also true of the states of the world. If you suppose the world eternal, you will suppose nothing but a succession of states and will not find in any of them a sufficient reason.’ - Leibniz, Theodicy

I believe Aquinas thought God was eternal and timeless, but that the universe was not. If you read his prime mover argument (see below), he explicitly rules out the kind of eternal infinite descent you are referring to with your domino argument.

‘The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.’
- Thomas Aquinas, Question 2, Article 3, Summa Theologica

An eternal descending series of dominoe like effects feels intellectually unsastifying . But just because you don't like it, that don't make it false, as rationality rules says — Gregory

If the series of dominos is eternal, it has no first member (if it had a first member, it would have a start, so not be eternal). If it has no first member then there is nothing to cause the rest of the dominos to topple, so an eternal series of toppling dominos is a logical impossibility.

We can logically deduce there must have been a ‘time’ when time cannot have existed:

1. There must have been a first event within time. The first event causes the 2nd and so on. If there was no first event, there is no second event, no third and therefore by induction, the universe does not exist.
2. What caused the first event? There cannot be an empty stretch of infinite time before the first event else there is nothing to cause the first event.
3. The first event must therefore be caused / be co-incidental with the start of time. There is no other possibility.

Imagine the prime mover as a marble that has always been sliding down a slide — Gregory

Our experience with reality suggests that all things eventually arrive at equilibrium unless there is some form of intelligent agent to prevent that happening. Even ‘stable’ orbits decay slowly due to gravitational radiation - nature, if left to itself, results in gravitational equilibrium - one big black hole - complete stillness is the only form of indefinite length steady-state existence possible - hence a prime mover seems to be required.

The existence of a ‘Prime Mover’ points to the limitations of language structure, not to reality. We cannot have a verb, an action, without something to perform that action. This does not necessarily correspond to reality. — Possibility

In nature, at the macroscopic level, all things that happen are caused by some agent. At the microscopic level, conservation of energy is respected by the tiny natural fluctuations that occur so nothing of any note can result. So I think that the english language reflects reality - actions require an agent to accomplish them.

Consider the possibility that this ‘intelligence’ is simply a fundamental capacity to relate: to be aware, to connect and collaborate. — Possibility

To be aware, to connect and collaborate are all signs of intelligence.

If that's what you believe then please provide counter arguments to the OP.