Atheists: Question on your views of the nature of the universe?

Question

So you've probably heard these questions before but just wondering what you think about these two points.

1. Where did the universe come from? Has it always existed? How do you get over the problem that the universe appears to be slowing down and shutting down like everything else in existence--this seems to point towards a beginning. If the universe had a beginning, what put it there? The causes can't just go on forever, don't you concede that you need to eventually come to an uncaused cause?

2. How do you deal with the appearance of order in the universe? If the universe is random (I know this is a simplification) why should there be any laws that things follow at all. Shouldn't it all just be a hodge-podge of matter and energy slapped together. If there are "rules" that the universe follows, shouldn't there be someone or something that set these rules up?

3. Why is there something rather than nothing? (If there is no purpose beyond what you can invent for yourself) It seems like everything we experience and know has a cause and reason. Why not existence?

Answer 1

1. I'm OK with admitting I don't know. Heck, there's zillions of things I don't know.

2. Laws of nature are not like laws of a judicial system. They exist because of the nature of matter and energy.

3. If there was nothing, there would be nobody to ask the question. So clearly there is something.

Answer 2

1/3: If the big bang was the beginning of time itself, then any discussion about what happened before the big bang, or what caused it-in the usual sense of physical causation-is simply meaningless. Unfortunately, many children, and adults, too, regard this answer as disingenuous. There must be more to it than that, they object.





Indeed there is. After all, why should time suddenly "switch on"? What explanation can be given for such a singular event? Until recently, it seemed that any explanation of the initial "singularity" that marked the origin of time would have to lie beyond the scope of science. However, it all depends on what is meant by explanation. It turns out, however, that there are physical events which do not have well-defined causes in the manner of the everyday world. These events belong to a weird branch of scientific inquiry called quantum physics.



Mostly, quantum events occur at the atomic level; we don't experience them in daily life. On the scale of atoms and molecules, the usual commonsense rules of cause and effect are suspended. The rule of law is replaced by a sort of anarchy or chaos, and things happen spontaneously-for no particular reason. Particles of matter may simply pop into existence without warning, and then equally abruptly disappear again. Or a particle in one place may suddenly materialize in another place, or reverse its direction of motion. Again, these are real effects occurring on an atomic scale, and they can be demonstrated experimentally.





A typical quantum process is the decay of a radioactive nucleus. If you ask why a given nucleus decayed at one particular moment rather than some other, there is no answer. The event "just happened" at that moment, that's all. You cannot predict these occurrences. All you can do is give the probability-there is a fifty-fifty chance that a given nucleus will decay in, say, one hour. This uncertainty is not simply a result of our ignorance of all the little forces and influences that try to make the nucleus decay; it is inherent in nature itself, a basic part of quantum reality.



The lesson of quantum physics is this: Something that "just happens" need not actually violate the laws of physics. The abrupt and uncaused appearance of something can occur within the scope of scientific law, once quantum laws have been taken into account. Nature apparently has the capacity for genuine spontaneity.



It is, of course, a big step from the spontaneous and uncaused appearance of a subatomic particle-something that is routinely observed in particle accelerators-to the spontaneous and uncaused appearance of the universe. But the loophole is there. If, as astronomers believe, the primeval universe was compressed to a very small size, then quantum effects must have once been important on a cosmic scale. Even if we don't have a precise idea of exactly what took place at the beginning, we can at least see that the origin of the universe from nothing need not be unlawful or unnatural or unscientific. In short, it need not have been a supernatural event.



2: What order?

Answer 3

1) First law of the conservation of energy: energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

Therefore, the law precluded the possibility that the matter/energy of the universe was created from absolutely nothing.

Matter/energy of the universe has always existed. It existed yesterday, the day before and at 10^-37 seconds of the occurrence of the Big Bang, in the form of high energy density field known as Higgs Field.

Prior to that, nobody knows for sure all those energy existed in what state/phase/form or it could be in the state of singularity. However, to assume that something, some being, god, caused the singularity to "Big Bang" is a wrong assumption, because the singularity could be in a state of FLUX and at the momentous tipping point, it just happened.



2) The universe cannot be considered to be orderly as it is still quite chaotic. Stars are born and died, and supernovas and blackholes still occurred at random rate and periods. Because these stars/planets are in motion, they overcome the gravitational attraction of nearby bodies and account for the fact that they do not slap together "hotch-potchly".



3) Why should there be something? Because you exist, the question becomes irrelevant. Unless you assume that you and the rest of everything you consciously know to exist DOES NOT EXIST.*



*Take note that even if god exists, god can't answer the question of "why I exist instead of not existing". If there was a purpose for god to exist, then some greater entity than god put god into existence, don't you agree?

Answer 4

Oh yes. I'll acknowledge the possibility, or even probability of an "uncaused cause" (though not in the traditional chronological sense, given the odd behaviour of space-time under singularity conditions). What I won't do is pretend to know what it is. See, it's somewhere on the other side of the origin point of the Big Bang, and so far that territory is a great big question mark. But, I have no reason to assume that it's sapient, omniscient, omnipotent, or interested in morally judging humanity. Indeed, given the grand scope of the cosmos and all of the possibilities for life, it's astronomically impossible that all of this was set up here for us. For that matter, I have no reason to assume that this uncaused cause even still exists, and wasn't consumed in the birth of the universe. Maybe one day we'll be able to peer through that wall; maybe it will stay locked away until our species perishes from the cosmos. But, one way to guarantee that we will NEVER know, is to look for that answer in creation myths of the past.



Sorry. That's the only part of your question that I'm going to answer right now. Maybe I'll come back to it, but no promises.

Answer 5

I'm not an astrophysicist, but I'll give it my best shot.



1. I think the answer lies in quantum physics. Particles have been observed to spontaneously blink in and out of existence at the quantum level. It's possible that the spontaneous appearance of such a particle eventually gave rise to the singularity that in turn gave rise to the big bang. That, or the stuff in the singularity came from a previous universe that collapsed in on itself.



2. What order there is, is mostly a result of gravitational pulls on smaller bodies by larger ones. But for the most part, the universe is chaotic and random. Our own galaxy is on a slow collision course with the Andromeda galaxy. The Earth itself is in a constant shooting gallery of comets and asteroids, and if it survives all that, it'll eventually get swallowed up by the sun when it becomes a red giant.



As for the "rules," the laws of physics were set in motion with the big bang.



3. Why not?

Answer 6

Your first question:



Claim CE440:

Cosmologists cannot explain where space, time, energy, and the laws of physics came from.

Source:

Brown, Walt, 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling evidence for creation and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, p. 20.

Response:



1. Some questions are harder to answer than others. But although we do not have a full understanding of the origin of the universe, we are not completely in the dark. We know, for example, that space comes from the expansion of the universe. The total energy of the universe may be zero. Cosmologists have hypotheses for the other questions that are consistent with observations (Hawking 2001). For example, it is possible that there is more than one dimension of time, the other dimension being unbounded, so there is no overall origin of time. Another possibility is that the universe is in an eternal cycle without beginning or end. Each big bang might end in a big crunch to start a new cycle (Steinhardt and Turok 2002) or at long intervals, our universe collides with a mirror universe, creating the universe anew (Seife 2002).



One should keep in mind that our experiences in everyday life are poor preparation for the extreme and bizarre conditions one encounters in cosmology. The stuff cosmologists deal with is very hard to understand. To reject it because of that, though, would be to retreat into the argument from incredulity.



2. Creationists cannot explain origins at all. Saying "God did it" is not an explanation, because it is not tied to any objective evidence. It does not rule out any possibility or even any impossibility. It does not address questions of "how" and "why," and it raises questions such as "which God?" and "how did God originate?" In the explaining game, cosmologists are far out in front.



References:



1. Hawking, Stephen, 2001. The Universe in a Nutshell. New York: Bantam.

2. Seife, Charles, 2002. Eternal-universe idea comes full circle. Science 296: 639.

3. Steinhardt, P. J. and N. Turok, 2002. A cyclic model of the universe. Science 296: 1436-1439.





Your second question:



The universe was supposedly formed in the big bang, but explosions do not produce order or information.

Source:

Big-Bang-Theory, 2002. http://www.big-bang-theory.com

Response:



1. The total entropy of the universe at the start of the big bang was minimal, perhaps almost zero. Because it was so compact, it had considerably more order than the universe we are in now. The complexity we observe around us today can be produced from the ultimate order of the hot but cooling gas of the big bang.



2. The big bang was not an explosion. It was an expansion. Besides the fact that it got bigger over time, the big bang has almost nothing in common with an explosion.



3. Explosions do produce some order amidst their other effects:



* Large surface explosions, such as nuclear bombs, produce the familiar mushroom clouds. There are not very highly ordered, but they are not purely random, either.

* Supernovae produce heavy elements, and the shock waves from them compress interstellar gases, which begins the formation of new stars.

* Powerful explosions can compress carbon into diamond crystals, the most ordered arrangement.

* Explosions of atomized gasoline produce compressed gas, which is harnessed in internal combustion engines to power automobiles and other equipment.



Your third question/comment:

Sounds like you are asking what's the purpose of life. Answer is no one knows.

Answer 7

1. I don't know, and I honestly do not care much. I am here, that is what matters.

2. What order? Popularly, the big bang created these "laws."

3. There is no answer to that, it is a paradox unless there is something that exists without explanation. That or an effect preceded the cause.

Answer 8

Yeah, i'm with the mathematics guy who commented earlier. The universe and nature are predictable and stick to a sequence of regulations and is consequently rational. Who is conscious why the regulations are set in this way, however--we've not got any way of understanding from our factors of view.

Answer 9

1. The current universe has expanded from a 'singularity' in a process described by the Big bang Theory, though BBT itself says nothing about the any reasons for the initial conditions. Certainly time itself is part of this universe, so the idea is that the 'Time Zero' point is the beginning of space and time. There is no 'before' that point as that is the beginning of time itself.



Now, classical physics doesn't like singularities and falls down at quantum scales, and we can only measure to within a Planck second of time zero anyway. The answer to what happens there still has gaps, but there are a number of hypotheses to explain the initial conditions.



Important to these is the fact that at quantum scales, 'virtual' particles can just form from nothing and disappear again, all uncaused. Outcomes are probabilistic, not deterministic, so lack causation. There are constraints, notably that everything sums to within a Planck unit of zero, as described by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. In simple terms, all matter is a 'separation' of nothingness into equal and opposite parts, and can similarly return to nothingness. This is evidenced by the Casimir effect.



This could describe the universe itself, especially as all the evidence increasingly points to all properties totalling zero e.g. free energy is balanced by gravitational energy, totalling zero. As particles form without cause, so could the entire universe - just a probabilistic event, cascading to a massive long lasting space-time void as distinct from a minute, short lived particle. Why such quantum rules? We don't know yet, but hypotheses like String & M theory give consistent answers to parts of the question. We're just not in any position to validate them with evidence, as we don't have the technology to do so.



2. Order follows from forces and properties, which are themselves due to quantum relationships. These relationships determine the probabilities of quantum outcomes, so e.g. two negative charges interacting would produce a high probability of repulsion and low of anything else. The 'Standard model' set of elementary particles have such relationships with each other, and these explain almost all the forces and behaviour we see at larger scales. Again there are still gaps in this understanding, e.g. we have no theory of quantum gravity or a full explanation of the Standard Model set, and these are very active areas of research.



In any case the order we see is a result of these very fundamental quantum properties and relationships. As an example, the nuclear atom with surrounding electrons is a simple idea, but explains all the complexity of chemistry we observe. Ordered complexity is based on simple relationships. Similarly the atom is based on subatomic relationships, and at the largest scales galaxies/stars/planets etc are based on gravity, atoms and electromagnetism. The ordered, large-scale universe is just a statistical averaging of very many quantum events, so its order and causation depend on the fundamental quantum nature.



Scientists are trying to combine the separate 'realms' of physics e.g. relativity, gravity and quantum theory, but haven't manged to do so yet. The trouble is that in situations like mathematical singularities and asymptotes the predictions of classical physics break down, and we need to observe what actually happens to work out the more accurate physics. That's why we build expensive particle accelerators - to allow us to gain more clues in such fields.



3. Excellent question! Well, we know that matter can form from nothing, uncaused, constrained by quantum rules. While that explains why there isn't nothing it doesn't explain why we have such rules that *allow* there to be 'not nothing'. Again this is partly covered by hypotheses like string theory, but we're just not in a position to say for sure as the ability to investigate experimentally is beyond us at present. So the simple answer is 'because quantum physics says so', but we don't yet know why we have such quantum rules. This is really still beyond the frontiers of research, but watch this space.

Answer 10

The first two questions are very good, but the third is the one I'd be pursuing right now if I were you.



Why is there anything at all?



And here's another. If nothing ceases to exist, but merely changes...why would consciousness be the sole exception to that rule...in all of existence?

Answer 11

Whatever the answers to these questions are, there is one thing they definitely are not -- a being you cannot comprehend or detect did it in a way that is incomprehensible to humans for inscrutable reasons you have no right to question.



Because that doesn't answer the question at all. It just says that we will never know the answers to these questions. And we will someday.

Answer 12

1 where did god come from? has he always existed? did god just will himself into existence?



2 how do you deal with phenomena not mentioned in the bible, or outright in contradiction to evidence? shouldn't it all have been gone over when he released his book? shouldn't it all have been correct? shouldn't god know what he did?



3 why is your god in existence at all.... to make all this.... us.... to test our faith..... then divided us into defective and worthy... so the defective can suffer eternally for the designers error (rather then making us right in the first place) and allowing the worthy ones to spend eternity worshiping god..... like a piece of machinery in a factory.

Answer 13

You can easily look up the first one, I'm not going into detail about that.



Same with the second one.



The third one: Because we put meaning to things. Just because we put meaning to our lives doesn't mean someone else put us here for a specific reason.

Answer 14

Oh boy, oh yeah..