Heusdens
Posts: 3
Joined: Feb. 2007
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| Quote (bigfish24 @ May 06 2006,15:21) | Got a question that I would like to see how evolutionist/anti-creationist respond...
**I will fully state that I believe in creation and I am a pre-medical student**
What ponders me is if evolution, primarily macroevolution is correct then tracing time back we get to the Big Bang. Now the Big Bang inherently seems to point to creation--what caused it? Where did space, time, and energy arise from?
However, new theories have been formulated attempting to solve this question. I recall one stating that our universe is in a cyclical repetition of Big Bangs, however the energy required to reverse the universe expansion is no where to be found. Lately the String Theory is the front-runner--it proposes that everything is made up of strings of energy within a 10 dimensional or even more world. The Big Bang would have been a result of a 3 dimensional world forming on top or within the other dimensions. This has far reaching implications however the big question is still never answered....
With any of these theories the where, what, why is never answered. Where did the strings of energy come from? Why do they exist? What caused the existence?
As I ponder these questions science seems to fall short, frankly the only answers seem to come with faith....
Please respond and God Bless,
Adam |
Seems you are pondering the inponderable.
Please note your question is not a scientific question (although science can partly answer it) but more a philosophical question.
It can be stated in different forms, but the question drops down to "where does everything come from"?
Does the world (all things that exist in total) somehow have a cause (outside of itself?) and/or begin?
Philosophically speaking, the answer is of course, you can't introduce a cause or begin to the universe, since such would be baseless. You can not introduce a cause (say cause X) that supposedly caused everything to come into existence, because you need to include your postulated cause X also (since that would be part of "everything").
If the world (universe) would have supposed to have begun it would need to have begin in or from nothing.
Yet at the same time such a begin is already made impossible, since nothing is only nothing, and not a begin of any something.
Which means: the world / universe does not have an (outside) cause and does not have a begin.
Scientifically speaking, and on the field of cosmology, the issue then perhaps arrises: what about the Big Bang?
Well, there is this persistent popular misunderstanding that the Big Bang explains that the universe began some 14 billion years ago in a singularity.
This is however wrong for two reasons:
1.) The Big bang theory does not state anything about the origin of the universe, but only that it since some 14 bilion years ago expanded and cooled down.
2.) The very theory that comes up with this singularity - general relativity - is known to break down at the singularity.
This means that general relativity is incomplete. And that is because quantum mechanical effects need to be taken into account.
The most accurate theory we have of the universe currently is a theory in which the Big Bang was the result of a process called cosmological inflation (very rapid expansion of spacetime due to some field potential rolling down to it's minimum), which is conjectured to have happened in a an eternal/infinite background spacetime.
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And for some more background, your question is basically the question as to what adequately explains the world, and is the issue of the (philosophical) ground.
Materialism will explain this at the basis of matter in motion which itself is indestructable and uncreatable and infinite. This concept of matter in eternal motion brings forth the concepts of space and time.
Matter does not have nor need a ground or reason for it's existence outside if itself (after all, matter is the ground for all being and all phenomena which we observe). All things are based on matter and material interactions and transformations of matter in one form to another form (like for example: E=Mc2 which is energy turned into mass and vice versa).
This holds also true for consciousness, which is according to materialism a material phenomena. Thought/consciousness is a product of the brain as a material organ of a human being.
Materialism is not a scientific theory, but a philosophy (one that is opposed to idealism, which takes as it ground the existence of consciousness/mind, and in which the material world is a secondary feature).
What matter is, and how it behaves is not explained by materialism but by scientific theories and disciplines like physics, chemics, biology, etc. Materialism does not abide to any specific such scientific theories, but acknowledges their approximate correctness.
In physical terms, matter can be thought of as energy, fields, particles, quantum mechanical effects, etc.
Please note that the current state of theory development in the scientific fields are in good accordance with materialism, in that the indestructability and uncreatability of matter and also the infinity of matter can be hold correct.
In the context of general relativity for instance the intimate connection between mass and spacetime (in Newtonian physics an absolute spacetime was postulated apart and independent of matter) in which mass "causes" spacetime (geometry) and spacetime "causes" the motion of matter (gravity).
Note also that due to quantum mechanics & Heizenberg uncertainty principle, matter is everywhere and in motion always. An absolute empty space without matter is not a viable concept in physics. Motionless matter is an impossibility.
Another philosophical point of view worth mentioning in this respect is dialectics. It stands apart from materialism (matter is primary) and idealism (mind is primary), since it does not deal with the philosophical question of what the primary ground is for the world, but how to reason about the world.
Perhaps worth reading on this issue is the works of Hegel in the Science of Logic, the Doctrine of Being, which deals with the Incomprehensibility of the Beginning.
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