Before the universe, before reality

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thebestofenergy
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Before the universe, before reality

Post by thebestofenergy »

One of the most pressing questions is how our universe 'popped' into existence, or how does our universe exist.
But I think the more correct question is how does reality exist.
Time and space are linked togheter. One cannot exist if the other one isn't there. There can't be space without time, and there can't be time without space.
'Before' the existence of time and space, there was nothing. But I think that nothing is the wrong term to use, since nothingness is already something.
Imagine nothing but only black color, and that'd be a wrong representation. Imagine nothing but only white color, and that'd be incorrect aswell. Imgine anything, and that'd be incorrect.
I can't find a term to describe it, but the most appropriate phrase I can use is that 'there was no reality'.
It's futile to try to imagine what was before, since there was no time, and there's no such a thing as before. We require this reality to use our imagination, an we can only use it for and in this reality, and there was not this reality.
So, how did this reality started existing, and how is it existing? Am I wrong in any of these concepts?
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Before the universe, before reality

Post by brimstoneSalad »

It's unimaginable in the sense there is nothing there to imagine- and you're right, imagining blackness is imagining something.
It's a grand misconception to think we can imagine nothing- you imagine nothing by not thinking or imagining anything at all, which is to say you don't.

Any claim that god is in this domain of nothingness is in some sense correct -- which is to say, god doesn't exist, and this is the domain of things that are not.

God is outside reality, and outside existence -- and that is, god is not real, and doesn't exist.

In that regards, theism is not just dying, but committing suicide. And the Christian who claims this is on the face of it saying nothing different from the claims of the most staunch positive atheist.
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Re: Before the universe, before reality

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brimstoneSalad wrote:Any claim that god is in this domain of nothingness is in some sense correct -- which is to say, god doesn't exist, and this is the domain of things that are not.
Very interesting, I never tought of it this way.

However, you claimed to know how the universe started existing as a whole. Can you explain? Or tell me the best place where I can read about it.
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Re: Before the universe, before reality

Post by brimstoneSalad »

thebestofenergy wrote: However, you claimed to know how the universe started existing as a whole. Can you explain? Or tell me the best place where I can read about it.
Read about the Many Worlds Interpretation (more precisely, universe as a wave function).

In Quantum Physics, there have classically been three interpretations:

1. Hidden variable - which is just flat out wrong (it conflicts with relativity).

2. The Copenhagen interpretation - which takes collapse to be a real phenomenon, among other things.
While mathematically Copenhagen is fine, when you look at the implications of it, it's... well, it takes some going into.
The more you look at the implications, the more wrong it obviously becomes, and the more questions it creates. But it's also unfalsifiably so, in a sense (that is, it can't be differentiated from MWI by experiment).

3. The MWI, which is the simplest interpretation that takes the math literally (obeys Occam's razor), and moreover the implications of it are similar to relativity in that it has no privileged reference frames. ALL manifestations of the wave function are equally true, and there's nothing magically deciding which one becomes "real".
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Re: Before the universe, before reality

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brimstoneSalad wrote:Read about the Many Worlds Interpretation (more precisely, universe as a wave function).
Thanks a lot. Paradigm shifting stuff.
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Re: Before the universe, before reality

Post by brimstoneSalad »

It's interesting to note that theism (and even deism) basically rely on "hidden variable" being true, since it's the only way that the universe could not be inherently self explanatory (as opposed to MWI) -- I'm not sure that Copenhagen really benefits anybody but Deepak Chopra's bank account, by making quantum physics more confusing than it needs to be.

That is not to say that hidden variable would prove the god of classical theism, but it would make deism or some iteration of it look very compelling.

Without that, theism and even deism are pretty much fully refuted to anybody who presumes them to explain origins of things, or requires that they include the 'event' of creation from nothing.

However, it must be noted that a more primitive approach to theism- e.g. some naturalistic Jehovah's witnesses-like interpretations who view Jehovah as a powerful but limited cosmic being with some very human qualities- potentially avoids this pitfall, with the assumption that Jehovah and other gods are more primordial products of the early universe rather than its ultimate creator(s). Although you'd be hard pressed to even find a Jehovah's witness who would admit to that.

But that is aside from the assertions of classical theism.

If hidden variable is wrong, then the god of classical theism not only does not exist, but can not exist.

And, as it turns out, hidden variable is wrong. But it's practically very difficult to explain to anybody who didn't have several years of university level physics why that is. So, I'm not yet sure of the absolute utility of mentioning that.
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Re: Before the universe, before reality

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Well....I've often thought all this myself...I used to think that the universe (latin root uni- meaning one) but there was not just one but many (String theory is being used, every decision creates an alternate reality/universe). but then the question presents itself again, what created this Reality we live in today? Perhaps even within a vaccum, in nothingness, although vague and currently unprovable. Perhaps there is something that rippled? such as the stillness eventually cracked. but then that would disprove Newton's Law. for every Action there is an equal and opposite reaction. but without an action, how was there a reaction. It's all up to the imaginition. because even If God did exist....something had to have created it, and then the creator needed something to create it and so on and so forth. It's like holding two mirrors to face on another.

I do not have your answer, but the hypothesis's I can give you is endless, I have many.
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Re: Before the universe, before reality

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CryoVirus wrote:but then the question presents itself again, what created this Reality we live in today?
Nothing. Creation is a causal, temporal event; it has no meaning outside the concept of time.
CryoVirus wrote:Perhaps even within a vaccum, in nothingness, although vague and currently unprovable. Perhaps there is something that rippled? such as the stillness eventually cracked.
Within a vacuum, there are constant fluctuations.
CryoVirus wrote:but then that would disprove Newton's Law. for every Action there is an equal and opposite reaction. but without an action, how was there a reaction.
You're a few hundred years behind on physics ;)

Newtonian mechanics do not cover matters of quantum mechanics or relativity; they're only relevant in a very narrow reference frame (one which is very common for us).

However, there's no reason to believe that the universe violates conservation, and every reason to believe there's an equal and balanced amount of negative and positive energy in the universe.

As to how symmetry is broken, that's a matter of quantum physics (which has to do with the multiverse's wave function), and our asymmetrical view of said function from within it.
CryoVirus wrote:It's all up to the imaginition. because even If God did exist....something had to have created it, and then the creator needed something to create it and so on and so forth. It's like holding two mirrors to face on another.
Not really, no. The multiverse is atemporal, completely symmetrical, and self-negating. It's kind of like the "number line". For every 1, there's a -1, for every 8675309 there's a -8675309, etc.

Also, if you hold two mirrors up to each other, it takes time for the "distant" versions of "you" to be filled in as those photons bounce back and forth billions of times to reach that angle. They originated centrally, and it was a temporal process; just as is the divergence of the compositions of the multiverse apart from each other (out of symmetry) a process across many dimensions, but most notably the dimension of time, a bloom into every possibility.

Instead of seeing the universe like a film, see it like a book on a shelf. With a similar universe being the next book, and so on, filling a library, and that library filling a city of libraries, and a world of libraries, until every possible book exists there.

Now, try to give me the call number for the book of your universe. What does that involve? It's NOT an irrational number, it's finite.
But in so doing, the number would be so large as to contain all of the information in the observable universe (and within our current causal sphere); you would have gotten back only what you put in (complete conservation of information).
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Re: Before the universe, before reality

Post by CryoVirus »

I really do love learning new things, and sorry. I'm going off of what I've been taught as well as my own thought to form simple guesses. Years behind in physics, many years as You've explained. But the way I see it is that something had to happen, something had to move. 0+0 = 0 right?

As far as I could tell, What if each of us has our own book? the Universe that I see could be different than the one you see, we can point things out in sight that are the same, but ourselves as a consciousness could be a single Reality? I'm throwing questions out here that I can't answer, that I think about but can't back up and will admit that. But If string theory is in fact correct, that should mean that everyone has their own thread within the main thread spread by humanity to create a fractal of threads and seperate Realities. But the Arguement arises that one person's decision effects another person's life, the threads cross and create a domino effect but in the cross, Those involved are living within the same Reality however, once another decision is made, the thread branches again.

I'd like more Explanations and thoughts, I love to take Critisism and learn more about what I'm saying, I like to know what I have formed is right or can in fact be disproven. I like new information. So please, Explain with anything you have, some arguements on which I just explained.
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Re: Before the universe, before reality

Post by brimstoneSalad »

CryoVirus wrote:But the way I see it is that something had to happen, something had to move. 0+0 = 0 right?
0 = 1 - 1
0 = 999 - 999

As long as negative and positive balance, then no, nothing had to "move" or "happen" in an extratemporal sense.
CryoVirus wrote:As far as I could tell, What if each of us has our own book?
No. The notion that the universe is in any way formed or altered by "consciousness" in particular is absurd.
It's not even a coherent concept; like the theistic notion of free will, it doesn't really exist.
CryoVirus wrote:But If string theory is in fact correct, that should mean that everyone has their own thread within the main thread spread by humanity to create a fractal of threads and seperate Realities.
...No. That doesn't have anything to do with anything.
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