Is there genuinely good evidence that the universe could have been eternal/infinite into the past?

[Deidre]

How can infinity be a limit if it's literally defined as something unlimited? And I don't understand how there's not a contradiction in saying that the universe is eternal yet also had a beginning since eternal means always existing with no beginning or end.

I'm not sure we can comprehend infinity, we as humans, tend to need a beginning and an end. Perhaps, that is the man made part of the whole thing.

 

[Jos]

Yes, only this is about a finite past. And you know something is weird when you can't have a finite past and can't have an infinite past. The existence of the universe is a paradox either way.
If there was a beginning, what was there before the beginning?
If there was no beginning, then why was there the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago (and not at any time before)?
I have yet to find someone who can get out of the paradox. Those who pretend to have found a way, just stopped thinking at a convenient point.
We need an intuitive way to divide one infinity by another and come out with a sensible answer. We solved Zeno's paradoxa (more or less) and the existence of the universe is a Zeno type paradoxon.

Hm, I hadn't quite thought about it like that but yeah, the universe is a paradox. It seems like Zeno's dichotomy paradox can be applied to the universe such that the universe can't be 13.8 billion years old because it would have to have an infinite amount of time exist between 0 and 13.8 billion such that you could never get to a 13.8 billion year universe.

 

[Jos]

Personally I find it fascinating to contemplate, just don't go expecting any definitive answers anytime soon.

Yeah I guess so.

 

[Jos]

1. The Copenhagen model of quantum theory describes how a quantum state is indeterminant; "reality" exists in superposition, as a sort of field of potentiality, which only collapses into an observable state when actually observed. So when you wake in the morning and open your eyes, the world collapses into an observable reality

So the world is basically an illusion? If so that seems paradoxical because it seems like there needs to be an objective world that already exists for us to be able to exist not one that's generated by our minds.

2. In another sense, your senses are both very limited, and very abstract. What you see when you observe something in no way represents the actual thing (if there even is a thing). It's an abstraction created in your mind from identical electrochemical neural impulses sorted into a workable representation that enables you to navigate the world.

Well, if that's true, then people have different views of reality and thus if they believe things that aren't true eg. The world being flat then they can't be blamed for it cause their mind created a version of reality where such a thing is true and we can't even be sure of anything we believe or think is true.

 

[Jos]

Our minds create a scene, not reality.

So what is reality then?

 

[Jos]

As dewdrops on a lotus leaf

I don't understand what you mean here.

 

[Jos]

I am on a camping trip right now, but I can type this up on my phone: by local state, I mean the visible universe. The state of what we see can be said to have began, but that doesn’t mean that “existence began” if that makes sense. There could have been stuff existing before all of this. (In metatime, for instance, other universes in inflation as one example. There are other examples. In LQG, loop quantum gravity, and others, it is possible that universes are created as special solutions in black holes. So there is another possibility where a universe “begins” but isn’t an ontological beginning. Etc.)

That's interesting, thanks for clearing up the difference. Philosophically, I think it's impossible for existence to have begun since it would be impossible for nothing to exist, therefore existence would always have to have existed. I don't know what that means for the universe, maybe that demonstrates that it could be eternal since existence wouldn't have a beginning or end. It sounds tautological and circular but it makes sense to me.

 

[Jos]

There are good reasons to believe that, for the Universe as whole, time does not flow. And therefore, it has not a past.

Ciao

- viole

What are those reasons?

 

[Jos]

Doesn’t seem likely, because of shared realities. Likely mind is the only reality. It would seem to create the light that we share. It also seems that we are able to walk in that light and have a reasonable ability to filter and shape it. Kind of interesting and fun.

So reality is what that supermind subjectively makes it out to be?

 

[Jos]

In Scripture God is eternal-infinite according to Psalms 90:2
When God sends forth His spirit things are created - Psalms 104:30
The God of the Bible is also Creator - Revelation 4:11
So, in that sense God created both the invisible realm and the visible realm.
As to how really far back, we'd have to wait until those new scrolls (books) become available - Revelation 20:12

I'm not a Christian anymore so I don't really trust what it says about the universe, in fact, I don't think it should be used as a science textbook.

 

[Jos]

If universe basically means the "one thing", then it boils down to the idea that there could never have been absolutely nothing -as absolute nothing can not become anything.
Otherwise, time really doesn't apply in the same way at a point where the one thing is a simple as possible.
The one thing never did not exist (sometimes a double negative is best) -so it has "always" been -it's just different now.

Yeah that's what I think too, it makes too much sense. It really does seem as though the universe is eternal since nothing couldn't exist and thus existence always had to existence. Maybe it just continually repackages itself and exists in different forms.

 

[Jos]

I'm not sure we can comprehend infinity, we as humans, tend to need a beginning and an end. Perhaps, that is the man made part of the whole thing.

The man made part of what thing?

 

[URAVIP2ME]

I'm not a Christian anymore so I don't really trust what it says about the universe, in fact, I don't think it should be used as a science textbook.

Thank you fir your reply.
I don't think the Bible is meant to be a science textbook. To me it is just in harmony with known science.
I could think of it as a spiritual textbook for spiritual guidance and a guide to what is going to happen.
When the powers that be will be saying. " Peace and Security..." that is really going to be the 'final signal', so to speak, before the political surprisingly turns on the religious world, starting with 'Christendom' (so-called Christian)

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Yeah that's what I think too, it makes too much sense. It really does seem as though the universe is eternal since nothing couldn't exist and thus existence always had to existence. Maybe it just continually repackages itself and exists in different forms.

... and the Bible tells us God always existed and always will.
In other words, God is from everlasting as in God had No beginning. (God was 'before' the beginning of creation)
Eternity is in our hearts because for each day we can count we can count both forwards and backwards forever and ever.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

.......Philosophically, I think it's impossible for existence to have begun since it would be impossible for nothing to exist, therefore existence would always have to have existed. I don't know what that means for the universe, maybe that demonstrates that it could be eternal since existence wouldn't have a beginning or end. It sounds tautological and circular but it makes sense to me.

To me, 'what it means for the universe' is what Psalms 104:30 says that when God sends forth His spirit things are created.
Created by His 'Power and Strength' or, in other words, everlasting God (of no beginning) supplied the abundantly needed dynamic energy to create the material/ visible realm of creation aka universe.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

I'm not sure we can comprehend infinity, we as humans, tend to need a beginning and an end. Perhaps, that is the man made part of the whole thing.

Or, also the 'Bible made part' because eternity is in our hearts - Ecclesiastes 3:11.
For each day we can think of we can think of a next day.
We can count both forwards and backwards forever and ever.
And as Ecclesiastes 1:4 B says that 'Earth abides forever', so God has an eternal purpose.

 

[WalterTrull]

So reality is what that supermind subjectively makes it out to be?

I don't know that 'supermind' and 'subjectively' apply, at least to my thinking. I think our reasonings are slightly askew.

 

[Aupmanyav]

So what is reality then?

Atoms and sub-atomic particles or you can say 'physical energy'. That alone is the reality and that creates all things that perceive and also things which we do not perceive.

 

[rational experiences]

If science said change bursting of. Same equal force. Then in the beginning the point would be a hole the same as the end.

Mr know it all would prove that law by taking energy converting said energy and then leaving a hole.

Proof energy is not infinite it is only present and constant in held presence.

So when he is conscious bio and his life body leaves a living bacterial residue he says it is energy he left behind as his themed I am created then he proved we are not a hole. And he proved bacteria did not begin energy.

His thesis fake. Energy is infinite or eternal.

A hole is infinite as it owns no measure is a scientific quote ...
owns no measure as only energy was given a number.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I don't understand what you mean here.

it’s a trope familiar to Haiku poets. The universe contained in a dewdrop.

Here’s Percy Shelley;

I am the daughter of Earth and Water, the nurseling of the sky;
I pass through the pores of oceans and shores,
I change but I cannot die.

Everything is fleeting; everything is infinite.

Here’s William Blake;

To see a World in a grain of sand,
Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.


Poets and artists are the true visionaries of this world, I find. Not hidebound either by dogma or by logic, they are free to imagine the world as, perhaps, it really is.