Philosophy Discussion Forums

Wizard wrote:Or, a better option, do philosophy.

The universe is infinite; it neither has beginning nor end. The universe is eternal. Common sense, Reason.

Such ipse dixit is less philosophical than either religion or science. Claiming a so-called conclusion is based on reason is different than actually providing reasons, i.e. evidence or logical argument, to support it.

What evidence or argument do you have that the "universe is infinite" and what does that even mean? What evidence or argument do you have that the universe neither has beginning nor end?

Scott wrote:

Wizard wrote:Or, a better option, do philosophy.

The universe is infinite; it neither has beginning nor end. The universe is eternal. Common sense, Reason.

Such ipse dixit is less philosophical than either religion or science. Claiming a so-called conclusion is based on reason is different than actually providing reasons, i.e. evidence or logical argument, to support it.

What evidence or argument do you have that the "universe is infinite" and what does that even mean? What evidence or argument do you have that the universe neither has beginning nor end?

I think your answer is right on Scott. Common sense or reason, isn't proof of anything. Theories are just that, theories. To try to prove a theory is not so much the point of philosophy. The discussion of fascinating ideas and the different ways of viewing the universe, is what I feel is more to the point of philosophy.

Scott wrote:What evidence or argument do you have that the "universe is infinite" and what does that even mean?

Let's begin with two supposedly, equally valid premises:

1. The universe is finite ("Big Bang Theory" + "Big Crunch Theory"). 2. The universe is infinite (no theories).

You immediately see problems. The presumption of our society, civilization, christianity, science, religion, is premise #1. Almost all people believe this preposition. This is faith. People believe the universe has a beginning & end, and perhaps they have no reason not to, or to think otherwise. This precisely is when & where I bring "philosophy" into the discussion. Philosophy is about doubt, refutation, disbelief. So doubt this premise, apply doubt to these theories.

Now that you doubt these theories (BBT, BCT, Genesis/Creationism) — what remains? What is the "theory" of premise #2?

Let me move onto an analogy before my next reasoning & argument. Some people believe God exists (Faith). Others disbelieve God exists (Doubt). Some claim the existence of gods. Some claim the non-existence of gods. But what is the proper comparison. What does a "not god" universe look like? Here people must offer an alternative, say, humanity. I theorize, I believe, I have faith in the preposition that, humans exist. And this is a proper alternative to the presupposition of divinity. There are the gods on one hand, humanity on the other. Claiming humanity exists seems self-evident. And so too does godly existence seem self-evident to deists. So these two theses have reasonable comparisons. Can you then claim they are equally valid? Maybe, there is some remote possibility.

But at least anybody can compare these premises & theses. At least you can correlate the 'existence' of gods with humanity. You can ask: "Does god exist?" in the same way you can ask: "Does humanity exist?".

So now I offer the "alternative" to a finite universe. Existence is infinite. And if I can prove that anything exists, taking yourself or myself as immediate examples, or anything imaginable as an example, then I subsequently can prove that existence is infinite. The presumption is existence; finitude comes afterward.

Because you presume the universe exists, with beginning & end. This is what you must doubt. Without your doubt, then there is no valid argument that anybody can offer. Because you reduce your preposition, your premise, to an article of complete faith. I can then conclude that any "beginning of the universe", any possibility of such, is a religious notion, not scientific, and certainly not philosophical.

I believe existence exists, and at least one existent thing is infinite in nature. What is this thing? It can be anything. A rock, a planet. Are planets "made and destroyed"? Prove it. Prove that planets are made and destroyed. Reproduce this claim in a laboratory. If you cannot then "science" does not back you. Then what you are doing/believing/thinking is not "science". It's something else. It's complete, perhaps fantastical, theory & imagination.

Maybe planets can be "made" and destroyed, maybe matter can be made and destroyed, maybe it's possible.

But the onus is not on me. My onus, and burden of proof, is understanding what existence is, how existence exists, and 'what' existence is. Anybody must at least know this, before claiming any "beginning & ending" of such a thing.

Scott wrote:What evidence or argument do you have that the universe neither has beginning nor end?

Existence is evidence of infinity.

Alternatively, what evidence/argument do you have that things have "beginnings & ends"?

Tell me about the "beginning" of life. When does life begin? Birth? Conception? Your 10th birthday? The day your first child is born? Is this a subjective or objective answer? Can you provide an objective answer for "all life"?

Finally, can you provide an objective answer for "the universe"?

Mere existence isn't proof of infinity - it takes more than that. Clouds appear and disappear, we know that things live and die. I can produce many more examples. I believe the closest we can get to infinity in this universe is the law of conservation for matter and energy, but even this isn't enough. There are competing theories for how the universe began.

Belief in science shouldn't be confused with belief in religion. They're different from each other which this website recognizes by having separate categories for each one.

So again let me ask. What proof exists that the universe is infinite in time?

I believe that long before we made our appearance on this planet as human beings, we must have been here already in potential. How else would it be possible for us to be here now, unless you believe that something could be created out of nothing, or perhaps something else created everything. This does not prove that the universe has always here, but it is a good case example as to why it might be assumed that the universe has always been here.

Wizard, thank you for laying out your reasoning. Let me respond and excuse the ad hoc manner.

Wizard wrote:Let's begin with two supposedly, equally valid premises:

1. The universe is finite ("Big Bang Theory" + "Big Crunch Theory").

2. The universe is infinite (no theories).

I'm not convinced that the Big Bang declares that the universe is finite, per se. I think this illusion can come up from the common practice of measuring the so-called age of 'the universe' by the time (from Earth's current perspective) since the Big Bang, which is tainted by the relativity of time. And it's also influenced by the fact that the Big Bang and the black-hole-like singularity that it points to acts as a sort of 'horizon' beyond which we can't observe, such that it is inherently unknowable, and thus is easily referred to as a starting point even if such isn't meant in a philosophically literal way.

Wizard wrote:You immediately see problems. The presumption of our society, civilization, christianity, science, religion, is premise #1. Almost all people believe this preposition.

Where do you get this statistic? What's the source? What do you mean by almost all, i.e. what percentage of people believe the universe is finite?

Wizard wrote:This is faith.

The definition of faith I use is that of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, which is "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence." For some, such as most creationists who believe god poofed the world into existence, but can't offer science/evidence to backup such claims, it probably is based on faith. However, for others surely it is a theory based on observations and evidence, namely on the scientific method, as opposed to just faith. The Big Bang is a theory that ties together many hypotheses that are based on observations and that have made predictions that have been confirmed.

Wizard wrote:Let me move onto an analogy before my next reasoning & argument. Some people believe God exists (Faith). Others disbelieve God exists (Doubt). Some claim the existence of gods. Some claim the non-existence of gods. But what is the proper comparison. What does a "not god" universe look like? Here people must offer an alternative, say, humanity. I theorize, I believe, I have faith in the preposition that, humans exist. And this is a proper alternative to the presupposition of divinity. There are the gods on one hand, humanity on the other. Claiming humanity exists seems self-evident.

This analogy makes no sense to me. Those who believe that god exists don't doubt that humanity exists. This seems like a false dichotomy. Both atheists and theists generally agree that humans exist.

Wizard wrote:And so too does godly existence seem self-evident to deists. So these two theses have reasonable comparisons. Can you then claim they are equally valid? Maybe, there is some remote possibility.

I don't think they are equally valid. I don't think it is equally valid to believe unicorns actually exist on Earth as to believe they don't. I don't think it is equally valid to believe Santa Claus is real as to think he is not. I don't think it is equally valid to think the existence of Kangaroos is a big hoax a la conspiracy theories but Big Foot actually exists as opposed to think Kangaroos are real and Big Foot is not. I think it is not equally valid to believe things on faith and disregard the evidence as opposed to derive one's beliefs based on evidence, reason and the scientific method. And no offense to theists, but as an atheist who has considered the evidence available to me, I don't believe god exists and I don't think atheism and theism are equally valid, particularly if we agree explicitly to go by evidence and reason not mere faith.

Wizard wrote:But at least anybody can compare these premises & theses. At least you can correlate the 'existence' of gods with humanity. You can ask: "Does god exist?" in the same way you can ask: "Does humanity exist?".

Yes, I suppose so.

Wizard wrote:So now I offer the "alternative" to a finite universe. Existence is infinite.

This is twisting the words, I think. The alternative to a finite universe is an infinite universe. I'm not sure we can say 'existence' is necessarily synonymous with 'universe'.

Wizard wrote:And if I can prove that anything exists, taking yourself or myself as immediate examples, or anything imaginable as an example, then I subsequently can prove that existence is infinite.

This seems to me to be a non-sequitur. I exist now, but I am not convinced I will exist forever.

Wizard wrote:The presumption is existence; finitude comes afterward.

Correction: infinitude OR finitude comes after.

Wizard wrote:Because you presume the universe exists, with beginning & end.

I don't presume that. In fact, I think I clearly explained in an earlier post that I think the question of when the universe began doesn't make sense.

Wizard wrote:This is what you must doubt. Without your doubt, then there is no valid argument that anybody can offer. Because you reduce your preposition, your premise, to an article of complete faith. I can then conclude that any "beginning of the universe", any possibility of such, is a religious notion, not scientific, and certainly not philosophical.

This is a hasty generalization fallacy. Just because one person can believe a certain thing out out of unscientific faith doesn't mean the idea itself is inherently unscientific or that everybody who believes in it does so merely out of faith and not admittedly fallible science.

Wizard wrote:I believe existence exists,

What does this mean? What does it mean to say something exists as you are using the term above?

Wizard wrote: at least one existent thing is infinite in nature.

Why? Why not believe it is finite in nature? Why not answer the question is it finite or not in nature with "I don't know"? Why not leave it at 50/50 per Occam's razor? Why add a proposition about the finitude or finitude of this existing thing to our conjecture that it exists? Unless we have evidence to support adding such to the conjecture/theory, then per Occam's razor doesn't it make more sense to leave it out?

Wizard wrote:What is this thing? It can be anything. A rock, a planet. Are planets "made and destroyed"? Prove it. Prove that planets are made and destroyed. Reproduce this claim in a laboratory.

Firstly, this seems to be shifting the burden of proof. The inability to prove those things are made and destroyed doesn't prove that everything is infinite. Nonetheless, it is quite easy to make and destroy something in a lab. My son drew a picture on his magnetic board the other day, then swiped it erasing the picture. Now the picture is gone. Made and destroyed right in the lab of my living room. Then I watched a movie. I enjoyed the beginning of the movie, but I didn't like the end.

Of course, maybe none of that happened. Maybe it's a dream. Maybe we live in the Matrix. But I believe those things happened because that is what the observations and evidence available to me indicates. And one can be nihilist and believe nothing (or something of a near-nihilist solipsist who only believes cogito ergo sum), or believe things on faith, or believes things on albeit fallible observation, evidence and science

Wizard wrote:But the onus is not on me.

The onus is on you to provide evidence for that which you claim is true, in my book. Otherwise, without evidence, I think we either believe the negative (where clearly an ontologically positive claim is present) or believe it 50/50 where the ontological default isn't clear.

Wizard wrote:My onus, and burden of proof, is understanding what existence is, how existence exists, and 'what' existence is. Anybody must at least know this, before claiming any "beginning & ending" of such a thing.

How existence exists?

Scott wrote:What evidence or argument do you have that the universe neither has beginning nor end?

Wizard wrote:Existence is evidence of infinity.

How so? Just saying one thing is evidence of another doesn't make it so. What if I say existence is evidence of finitude?

Wizard wrote:Alternatively, what evidence/argument do you have that things have "beginnings & ends"?

A source: http://sentence.yourdictionary.com/beginning

Also, I watched a movie the other night. I enjoyed the beginning but I didn't like the end.

Wizard wrote:Tell me about the "beginning" of life. When does life begin? Birth? Conception? Your 10th birthday? The day your first child is born? Is this a subjective or objective answer? Can you provide an objective answer for "all life"?

This seems like a red herring. Just because people disagree over the timeframe of the exact beginning of one particularly controversial thing isn't convincing evidence that they can't agree on the time of the beginning of other things let alone that beginnings don't exist at all. The use of such a controversial example as the main example seems to just be a red herring that will derail discussion with an age-old debate.

Nonetheless, to answer the question, I believe a human life biologically begins to exist once a sperm fertilizes an egg, and I believe it can split into two if and when that embryo splits naturally and seemingly randomly or when it is manually split by scientists such that it is then two human lives. I also believe that biologically a braindead coma patient is a human life. I have no qualms about destroying that one cell, but living, zygote nor about pulling the plug on the braindead coma patient thus killing both, much like I don't worry much about grass, which also is living, when I step on it with such force it is ripped from the ground to die. The beginning of conscious personhood that actually makes me give great value to a life/personality--that is not had by a blade of grass, a single-cell fertilized human egg, or a brain dead coma patient--is vaguer partly because of our poor understanding of consciousness and human psychological development and partly because it is not black and white, but--like the cost of an item in the store can be more or less while still not being free--can grow and fade in intensity throughout its clearly finite life starting sometime after father has sex with mother and ending sometime before the body and brain is completely destroyed, a timeframe of less than 2 centuries, usually less than 1, much less than infinity.

Wizard wrote:Finally, can you provide an objective answer for "the universe"?

Is that a question? In any case, probably not because I am so small and the universe is so big I don't have many answers when it comes to the universe. Are there blue aliens on a planet several trillion light years away? I don't know. If there are aliens on a planet several trillion light years away that are either blue or red, are they blue or red? I don't know I guess it's 50/50 from my perspective.

Wizard wrote:

Scott wrote:What evidence or argument do you have that the universe neither has beginning nor end?

Existence is evidence of infinity.

Alternatively, what evidence/argument do you have that things have "beginnings & ends"?

Tell me about the "beginning" of life. When does life begin? Birth? Conception? Your 10th birthday? The day your first child is born? Is this a subjective or objective answer? Can you provide an objective answer for "all life"?

Finally, can you provide an objective answer for "the universe"?

You seem to be equivocating infinite with indefinite. The fact that things don't have precise beginnings and endings is not the same as saying everything is infinite. It's just that things tend to have beginnings and endings that are fuzzy, approximate, or arbitrarily defined; this is not the same as have neither beginning nor end. Life begins somewhere between conception and birth; life ends somewhere between cessation of hearbeat and putrification. It is absurd to say that we are all eternal just because we can't be precise on these matters.

If you are looking for evidence of the infinite, you need look no further then the present moment. It is always the present moment and always will be. You may say, what about the things that happened in the past? They are here now in the present moment, only in a different form. Forms come and go, things change, but the present moment does not change because it is always here. The man made concept of time is a convienent way of making sense of all these changing forms by giving them a number and then saying for example, that form happened in 1980 and this form in 2014, but NOW is the only time you have ever actually experienced in your lifetime. Everything that ever happened to you, happened in the now.

Greta,

It's just science, Fan. You asked a scientific question and received a scientific answer.

If the big crunch is to seem possible we'd need to discover a contrary force that could overpower dark energy.

What are you talking about here? If we don't know what force caused the universe to begin, how has science come to the conclusion, that one force would need to "overpower" another force, in order to necessitate the universe's beginning? Can you please expound on exactly what you're talking about here? Two sentences, just doesn't justify your position.

Fanman wrote:Greta,

It's just science, Fan. You asked a scientific question and received a scientific answer.

If the big crunch is to seem possible we'd need to discover a contrary force that could overpower dark energy.

What are you talking about here? If we don't know what force caused the universe to begin, how has science come to the conclusion, that one force would need to "overpower" another force, in order to necessitate the universe's beginning? Can you please expound on exactly what you're talking about here? Two sentences, just doesn't justify your position.

In short, one hypothesis has forces pushing in, the other pushing out. The big crunch fell from favour after Hubble's redshift observations.

If you want my views on the actual thread topic (not sure why you'd want to), try reading my earlier posts.

I believe at this point that the universe is infinite, eternal, and evolving continuously due simply to the laws of physics. This is not religion and our views may well change. In other words we are discussing arguable concepts.

1. Since light and all EMR (radiation includig all wavelengths) seem to conform to wave theories as to their nature--- Light can be redshifted to our view by several methods.

Doppler effect caused by relative motion betwixt observer and transmitter. The State Police use this effect effectively

Loss of energies due to physical obstructions, (space dust- intersteller hydrogen, smoke from blown up structures)

Losses of energies due to space time, or simply distance. Gravitys effect on light has been widely noted.

Variations in time itself, This is due mostly to variance in gravity fields.

The emergence of light from a "gravity well". There will be a loss of energies on the way up. The more massive (and brilliant) the emitter the more that light will be "red shifted" on the way up. This would result in emitters sort of self selecting for extreme red shifts. The bigger they are the better we can see them. This is probably the reason for the (observed) increase in expansion rate at greater distances. We can't see the little dim ones.

Light will be blue shifted coming down a gravity well same way as we would fall off a roof.

This is basically why I feel that any red shift observed is simply due to the nature of light itself. Kind of like a rainbow. I think it unfair that the red shift be attributed to any Big Bang, or other Creation event without determining the effect that other things may have on our observations. However there is no harm in keeping an eye out for the pot of gold while chasing rainbows.

Mechsmith, you will find some interesting information about redshift here: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html#QZ. Personally, I hope the redshift analyses are wrong because an expanding Universe has implications for the future of space discoveries.

Even if redshift is proven unreliable due to the varying nature of the elementary articles in stars, I find it difficult to go past the idea of an expanding universe - at least at some point of time, if not now. Massive objects in the Universe (including us) all start from something very small, grow and stabilise over time, and then gradually break apart. Why not the Universe itself?

I suspect the reason why so many people assume the Universe is infinite is that, no matter which way you look at it, you come to the problem of infinite regression. Even if we one day found that the cosmic web is the brain of a more massive entity with our galactic clusters acting as its neurons, that would still leave us with the problem of how that entity came about, whether it's isolated or one of many, and what existed before it.

Thanks for the link Greta. I have run into it before, some several years ago.

I do not think that the observations are in error but I think that they are generally interpreted in the light of the BB theories. I think that I could answer them one at a time if anybody is interested without recourse to a singularity.

For instance "Olbers Paradox" can be resolved with a few purely mechanical interpretations.

Light is red shifted first simply by the loss of energy in a mechanical interaction with space dust. The photon or wave just bumps into it thence transforming its energies into kinetic or inertial motion. Red skies due to dust is a fair example.

Second thing acting to red shift light is the loss of energies coming out of a "gravity well". This has been shown to occur as well as the inverse "blue shifted" simply as the result of our gravity field. This was shown by the "Harvard Tower" experiments.

Third thing acting to "red shift" light is the directions of "gravity fields". If light is coming from a more massive object to our (perhaps smaller) solar system . It will be red shifted overall to us. Red up, Blue down. Since gravity is directional there is more energy used going up than is gained going down. All bicycle enthusiasts have noted this phenomen Another way of saying this is that the photons have to swim upstream but float downstream.

Simply because of these interactions along with the observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation probe which shows that light red shifted to microwave frequencies is remarkably consistent as to direction and intensity as is necessary to resolve Olbers Paradox.

At least if it turns out to be an infinite (flat) universe you have a chance of using your tickets on the Andromeda Shuttle

When we were in our mothers womb, the food she ate was our food and the air she breathed was our oxygen. When we were born into this world, our five senses were flooded with intense sensations or taste, smell, touch, light and sound. We had not yet formed an identity of "me" yet, as that would come later from our experiences in life. So the question is, at what point in time do we suddenly realize that we are an individual being, separate from the things which we perceive? At what point do we begin thinking, and where do those thoughts come from? Before asking the question, "when did the universe begin", perhaps a better question is "when did I begin".

Present awareness asks:

"Before asking the question, 'when did the universe begin', perhaps a better question is 'when did I begin'."

Maybe an even better question may be what's the connection between the two? Can you draw the dots?