I don't get it. Why can't it exist? What is it in its supposed eternal ticking that makes it impossible to exist? — god must be atheist
Yes, ostensibly a clock that has always been ticking cannot exist. — Down The Rabbit Hole
I don't get it. Why can't it exist? What is it in its supposed eternal ticking that makes it impossible to exist? — god must be atheist
Like Al-Ghazali's orbiting planets, it's not necessarily logically impossible, just counter-intuitive — Down The Rabbit Hole
The alternative is something coming from literally nothing. — Down The Rabbit Hole
The alternative is repeated starts from zero. — Cornwell1
What seems more far-fetched:
(1) something from literally nothing
(2) an infinite past? — Down The Rabbit Hole
Yes. One after another. For example, if the current universe has accelerated away to infinity, that a new one originates behind us. And then again for that one, etc. — Cornwell1
I usually enjoy a good polling, but this question is a choice between logical absurdities, with no good reason to favour one absurdity over another. I haven't voted yet, so I don't know what the numbers are, but my guess would be about two thirds - something from nothing, and one third, an infinite past. Neither of them make any sense. I don't know what would. The universe is weird. It's like a prison with no bars; we exist, suspended between the infinitely big and the infinitely small, with no 'edge of the map' from which we might imply the nature of existence. It's bizzarre. Forced to choose, on the basis of cosmic expansion, I'll say something from nothing. The Big Bang Theory, but that's not to say I find it satisfying. — karl stone
You don't think something more basic such as a quantum field is a better explanation? — Down The Rabbit Hole
You're not impressed by the above arguments about an infinite series of big bangs? It does seem absurd that something has existed forever with no explanation. — Down The Rabbit Hole
You don't think something more basic such as a quantum field is a better explanation? — Down The Rabbit Hole
Quantum fields are exactly the reason I think this will happen. — Cornwell1
mean as an explanation for where everything came from (such as Lawrence Krauss proposes) — Down The Rabbit Hole
The view you expressed of an infinite series of big bangs has no explanation for where it came from. In fact it never came from anywhere, it has always existed. — Down The Rabbit Hole
I mean as an explanation for where everything came from (such as Lawrence Krauss proposes) — Down The Rabbit Hole
Krauss uses QFT and it's implications for the vacuum. He doesn't explain where the singularity itself, with virtual particles only comes from — Cornwell1
But it explains the mechanism of subsequent big bangs. There is no physical explanation where the infinity came from. It has been created by an extra mundane power, how else got it there. The power lives outside the domain of space and time, so even when spacetime is eternal and infinite that won't be proof of no divine beings. — Cornwell1
Aren't you just pushing the question back, to where the "extra mundane power" came from? If your answer is that it has always existed, surely it would be simpler to just say the series of big bangs have always existed? — Down The Rabbit Hole
I mean as an explanation for where everything came from (such as Lawrence Krauss proposes) — Down The Rabbit Hole
In Wikipedia he is quoted as saying, "Turtles all the way down" Has he gone beyond this view? I haven't read anything by him. — jgill
He says the question of whether there were other universes is "irrelevant". — Down The Rabbit Hole
It's a physical impossibility. The 2nd law of TD requires a beginning in time. — Cornwell1
f(x)=1/(e^x), where x is the total heat energy differential — god must be atheist
When all mass has accelerated away to infinity — Cornwell1
What's the heat differential? — Cornwell1
Indeed. I can see no heat differential in your function. — Cornwell1
In the menatime, we can continue on your claim "When all mass has accelerated away to infinity". What do you mean by this? a speed? an increase in mass? or a distance — god must be atheist
This is nice. No denying that. But that is all that it is.All mass in the universe tends towards chaos globally. As we see ordered structure time cannot have existed forever. We would see a state nowadays that will only be seen in the far future. All mass will be evaporated into photons then. Maximum entropy. This state will be the trigger for a new bang at the singularity at the origin. Two new universes will come into being. A new dawn of time. A new life... — Cornwell1
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