A polite clarification regarding singularities and the common mistake repeated by creationists.....

Afternoon ATS...

I spend a lot of my time trawling through various threads and web sites that support debate between creationists and people that support Evolution and Abiogenesis... I must admit I don't often get involved as I find these debates often, in fact 99% of the time, descend into pointless arguments between people that actually know very little about the subjects they are supporting/arguing against.... All the same, I find these conversations fascinating....

I notice common patterns in these dabates, some of which are commonly held opinions, some of which are just based on pure ignorance or conjecture... the following being prime examples:-

"How can life come from just dirt, water and air?"
"Everything is just so complicated and beautifully designed, how could it all have happened by chance?"
"There is simply no evidence for evolution"

To name a few...

But the single most frustrating statement made by creationists in my opinion is the following:-

"How can everything come from absolutely nothing?"

This tends to be the creationists stock theory/question for atheists, and is in fact a question based on a lack of information and knowledge of the processes involved in big bang theory...

I do find it interesting however, and slightly ironic, that creationists resort to stating that "energy does not cease to exist, it merely changes form" argument..."So how could anything come from nothing?".

The statement is wholly correct and testable to our current abilities... and is a central tenant to the underlying principles of physics.



Anyway, I digress.. the purpose of this post is to highlight the error made in the first statement..

A SINGULARITY IS NOT "NOTHING", IN FACT, IT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF NOTHING, IT IS EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING THAT EVER EXISTED AND EVER WILL EXIST, COMPRESSED TO AN INFINTELY SMALL SIZE, WITH INFINTE VALUES FOR GRAVITY, PRESSURE, MASS, VOLUME ETC... IT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF NOTHING....

In fact, a singularity is defined as a point in space/time where one of these measurable values has reached infinite proportions...

The question/rhetorical statement "How could everything come from nothing?" is therefore once again a question based on a lack o f understanding and an ignorance of the subject matter.... or maybe just another form of people ignoring evidence or creating straw men to support their own wild opinions/beliefs....

Ok...

Rant over....

PA

reply to post by PerfectAnomoly


What existed before the Singularity?

No one can answer that.

Your definition of singularity is a bit off

In mathematics, a singularity is in general a point at which a given mathematical object is not defined

singularity = unknown

Where did the singularity come from?
I think that there are too many unessessary items in this universe for natural selection to erupt out of compressed everything- nothingness. And besides, compresses everything is still everything, compressed or not, everything would still have to originate from somewhere. It would have to be caused.

If the universe can pull off all of these tricks that Atheists believe that it does, I don't see why a belief in a designer, creator ( with morals) is so hard to accept.

Human beings are here in the world, by extension he universe, and we are thinking, acting creatures with creative abilities. I don't think these characteristics are completely unique to us. They are possibilities and potential, and I think that these characteristics are part of a pattern of perfection that existed before humans.
And I think that these characteristics are some of the keys to understanding why we are here- the characteristics being virtue.

reply to post by swanne


Everything that the singularity was comprised of.

Assumptions are not science
Lots of words and allegations and you base it all on faith that you are right.

I see no evidence, no data, nothing to validate your belief

Slightly religious?

I am not saying you are wrong or going to argue, just pointing out the gigantic hole in your statement\faith affirmation

Its curious you mention straw man in your op as you are using one to base your argument you see a singularity is nothing more that saying something happened, you don't know what happen at time 0 but you assume that it was all there, as you approach 0 you see all in the universe, as all in the universe exist after 0, but in any case you don't know what 0 is.

is like saying 0 = infinite as the lim of log(x) when x tends toward 0 is infinite, see a fallacy.

What took you so long to make this thread? I have been waiting for you to post for YEARS!!

PerfectAnomoly
"How can life come from just dirt, water and air?"

No man living today can currently claim to have seen this happen! During my internship I operated an electron microscope. We're talking scale here. You would not believe the distance that device has to cover to image a single organism that is a virus on a slide.

"How can everything come from absolutely nothing?"

God? ... An atheist might say, "Chance?"

A SINGULARITY IS

A word, supplied by a man, to define something he could otherwise not articulate.

The question/rhetorical statement "How could everything come from nothing?"

Better yet ... how could 'anything' come from nothing? A: It CAN'T.
That leads to ... How can nothing come from something? A: It CAN'T.

If science was honest, it would simply say, "I don't know ... yet."

reply to post by swanne


Well... logic would suggest that another universe existed prior to the forming of the singularity that spewed forth our own universe...



PA

reply to post by Indigent


I believe you are talking about "mathematical singularities", not "Gravitational/spacetime singularities"... which is what my thread refers to.... similar principles...but entirely different animals....

"A gravitational singularity or spacetime singularity is a location where the quantities that are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system. These quantities are the scalar invariant curvatures of spacetime, which includes a measure of the density of matter"

PA

Incorrect...

Science says "I think this"

Science never ever claims to fully understand, even areas that are extremely well known, depending on the depth you go, there is only models. There is no lie or dishonesty, just a perceived one by people who do not understand or are outside of the house looking in, in sometimes a very bitter way.

Example, A kid told me that he was going to go straight from GCSE Science, to a masters program because he was so smart. I told him it was perhaps not a wise move because such a jump was so large, and what he knew, or thought he knew, was only a surface layer, that reality is more complicated.... 'its turtles all the way down and all that.'

He accused me of being an idiot and that he knew better than me despite me having 5 years more experience in physics than him. What happened to him? Well, he is a bitter and unfortunately twisted individual who I would see in the pub, always talking about conspiracy and how science doesn't know anything.

Truth be told the closer evaluation is that, his ego and simple brute force arrogance stopped him from learning. That is what i often see here on ATS. I do not mean to insult of say "Hey im better than you" because that is wholly not how i feel or think of others here or anywhere else. It is an incorrect assumption of many people here also that scientists are a bunch of rich snobs who look down on people... simply not the case.

On ATS I see a few great ideas and some free thinkers, but I also see people who are so desperate to one up someone they see as a scientist that they miss the point of the discussion entirely. It is like one poster here who as a comeback to one of my statements simply said "None of your points are valid because you haven't been to the centre of the Earth" While also not offering any words that give his own statements validity.

for a science and technology forum, there is too much the attitude of "Scientists... bah! what do they know" or "I don't understand science so it is wrong" or playing games of semantics like.... "Lets define what theory means... oh and because something is a theory, it by definition means you dont know... oh but i know..."

While this is a little bit of an aside it is something that often fight with here on the forum, and one of the reasons why i go absent, because I am an actual physicist who does research for a living, I would like to spend 100% of my time going through these theories and ideas people have... but I do not have time, and there is a limit to how much time I can give to each argument/discussion, and unfortunately I just have to give up because many attitudes and posts are borne from complete lack of understanding and knowledge and build quite often from pure arrogance and ignorance.

Sorry if that seems harsh but, its the truth. I don't do science as a armchair hobby, I live it. Every part of my life is to try and learn new things and attempt to push science forward... So when I and people in my field are quite frankly insulted by media or general attitude... It makes me feel a little annoyed and somewhat insulted.

reply to post by apydomis


"Where did the singularity come from? "

A good question.... and one that I obviously cannot provide an answer to... but I would suggest that it would adhere to the same principles that we today attribute to the formation of black holes....

" I think that there are too many unessessary items in this universe"

Hmmm.... ok.. what is un-necessary in your opinion?? I believe that every natural system is beautifully balanced.... and has come to be like this following millions of years of entropy.... The existence of everything is intrinsically linked to the existence of everything else...

" If the universe can pull off all of these tricks that Atheists believe that it does, I don't see why a belief in a designer, creator ( with morals) is so hard to accept."

What do you mean by "tricks"? These "tricks", as you see them, are actually explainable scientific processes.... Can I assume you are a man of religious persuasion? In your eyes, of course these things would seem to be tricks... because you can't explain them.. therefore you attribute them to a deity...... rather than try to understand them... for we are not worthy of understanding...

Interesting comments though.. thanks for the input..

PA

Grimpachi
reply to post by swanne

 

Everything that the singularity was comprised of.

Exactly!!!!!!!

PA

reply to post by borntowatch


My argument is based on and represents our current scientific and testable understanding of what a singularity is.... The greatest minds of human history have come to these conclusions for me... I merely share their advanced understanding of the universe with you... for your benefit...

Just enjoy....

PA

reply to post by borntowatch


We are getting slightly side tracked here anyway....

The purpose of this thread was to point out that a spacetime singularity is not "nothing"... it is in fact "everything".... in-line with our current understanding..

PA

reply to post by Snarl


But science is honest.... and in fact it does say just that.... "I don't know yet".... but it adds the caveat:- "But I have a pretty good idea based on my observations and experiments".....

The difference between science and religion is that religion does not even try to understand it.... and I cannot live in a world with a complete lack of inquiry and investigation... to understand is to be enlightened...

PA

reply to post by swanne


Who knows? That doesn't mean that God is a valid substitution, though.

reply to post by borntowatch


But the assumption "we don't know, therefore God did it" is scientific and rational? Saying "we don't know" isn't a religious statement or one of faith, no matter how hard you try and and equate science with religion.

GetHyped
reply to post by swanne

 

Who knows? That doesn't mean that God is a valid substitution, though.

reply to post by borntowatch

 

But the assumption "we don't know, therefore God did it" is scientific and rational? Saying "we don't know" isn't a religious statement or one of faith, no matter how hard you try and and equate science with religion.

Thanks for the input... both excellent points...

PA

PerfectAnomoly
reply to post by Snarl

 

But science is honest.... and in fact it does say just that.... "I don't know yet".... but it adds the caveat:- "But I have a pretty good idea based on my observations and experiments".....

The difference between science and religion is that religion does not even try to understand it.... and I cannot live in a world with a complete lack of inquiry and investigation... to understand is to be enlightened...

PA

The difference is one act on empiric evidence and the other on faith, any atheist that believe there is no god and dont have evidence is acting on faith alone, not science.

If you still fail to see this you should read a bit more and see that the theory of big bang doesn't support any of what you say, as it works as i told you from 0 onwards not considering 0 as time 0 is a unknown. (if you still want to define your singularity as a know you should see the definition of infinite)

----------------

Oh and science is mathematics doesn't matter what adjective you put in science a singularity is a unknown as in the case of gravitational singularity or you claim to know what a black hole is or how it operates?

I've always reckoned that the singularity will be repeated in 'x' billions of years.

As all the black holes in the Universe continue sucking up all the matter it surely is only a matter of time before they start absorbing each other until finally all we are left with is one monster black hole which i believe would be a singularity.
I can only assume that the entire Universe is just too big to be contained in a single singularity and therefore goes bang starting the whole process again. Rinse and repeat.

Of course this doesn't answer the question of where did everything come from in the 1st place but i do reckon it's plausible - until of course you guys shred it with you new fangled physics ideas

P.S. everything else in the Universe seems to come in waves and cycles so why not the Universe itself?