YouTube

[Scrybe]

I think it is a great question.  I don't think anyone knows enough to answer this question yet, although I certainly hope that scientific research may one day find an answer.  Because we don't know enough to answer this question now hardly means we won't one day

See, the problem I see with this idea that we may find this answer within a scientific framework presupposes a purely materialistic universe.  I may be wrong, but it seems to me that no matter what answer you plug into this problem it is going to be outside the jurisdiction of science.  Maybe we could concoct a theory of how physical phenomena could create something from nothing.  But what 'nothing' is, and what 'something' is, are philosophical questions, not scientific ones.  Philosophy has to reside above and beyond science because it provides our definitions.  Every decision and categorization that occurs in science is driven by a philosophy.  So it becomes circular to propose that science can answer a philosophical question.  That's not to say that science can't inform and influence philosophy, it obviously does a great deal.  I'll get more into this in a sec.  

One thing we're sure about: as scientific knowledge increases, we find that reality is far stranger that we originally realized...
With weirdness like this describing reality, how can we just write off the big bang as impossible physically?

We can't.  And I'm not proposing that we do.  But if the origin of the universe has a material explanation it just pushes the ultimate question back a step.  "Where did the material come from?" will always be a question that can not be answered with a material answer because it requires an immaterial component and concept.  

And if we say it has a "non-physical" origin, what the heck is that?  Honestly, that's even weirder than the above wiki.  How do we even describe the non-physical?

Um… not very well?  I think this may highlight a difference in psychological disposition between us.  I'm ok with unsure, less-concrete guesses about things that can only be unsure and less-concrete.  You atheists seem to just want to discard any idea that can not be concrete.  But when you are dealing with the big questions you have to build on premises that are unsure.  But life usually does a great job of showing you when you are wrong about many of these kinds of issues.  If there is a God, we have to guess about His attributes based on the evidence we have.  We can find sources of revelation that explain God, nature, and mankind well, and see if that source remains stable when you apply the pressures of the real world to it.  But you will never be sure, and you can't quantify it with hard data, so you don't even want to try.    

This is why I'm having such a hard time with our conversation.  I don't know what non-physical reality is.

Neither do I.  We don't have to know.  We can guess.  And that's ok.  If our guesses are wrong then they will eventually crumble under the weight of conflicting evidence.  Then we can move on to another theory, and so on.  But I get the distinct sense that atheists are perfectionists when it comes to knowledge.  You don't want to move from point A to point B until A has been thoroughly proven to be true.  And what I'm trying to convince you of is that you can never prove any points to be true.  Physical, metaphysical, it doesn't make a difference.  Our perceptive faculties can never be proven accurate.  Our perceptions of physical reality are unsure.  We are just more comfortable with claiming that we are because we have a larger consensus.    

Anything attributed to non-physical causes (whatever they are) seems to have an alternate explanation that is plausible and physical (seems to me, I should qualify).

I would be interested in hearing those qualifications.  And again, your statement is true for you.  There seems to be and alternate explanation.  Especially when you compartmentalize those phenomena and cleanly separate the material (planets, bodies, chemicals, etc.) from the non-material. (love, memory, infinity, mind, self, etc.)  You can chisel away at all these things with your material hammer all you like.  But the aggregate weight of their existence creates a landslide around you.  It's like a court case where reasonable doubt has to be established.  It's very subjective what reasonable means.  Look at the O.J. case.  Every bit of evidence could be explained away in some fashion or another.  (Just like you can find supposedly material explanations for every non-material thing.)   Does that mean O.J. is innocent?  When you look at the big picture you can see the sheer number of coincidences and brilliance required to set him up, and it would have been staggering.  So to me, the doubt that he may not have done it is not reasonable.  I don't think atheists are looking at the big picture.  I think they are so busy dissecting the physical world they assume everything that exists must be dissectable.  And when they find something they can't dissect they pretend it's something else, reduce it to the physical, and get back to work butchering it.  (Beauty?  Pshaw!  It's all in your brain.  It's chemical secretions and electrical signals.) At least that's my perception.    

A final thought on this, we can describe physical reality fairly well.  Non-physical seems like a negative definition.  What is it, anything we can conceptualize that is not currently described physically?

I don't know.  But that seems like a pretty good start.  Though I think we can conclude that things like memory and God are separate types of things.  From that point we must use the tools of philosophy to investigate further.  

My point was that in the case of origin it's hard to feel we have a firm foundation from which to make any "reasonable" assumptions, leaving any assumptions that we do make unfounded.  Ideally, we don't make unfounded assumptions because we can find ourselves working down a line of reason (or expensive/time-consuming research) that is doomed because the original premise was false.

You are right that ideally we don't make unfounded assumptions.  However, we are forced to do just that when it comes to philosophical matters.  Though it's not as grim as you paint it.  When philosophizing we are using our reason that is rooted in the natural world.  We are comparing what we think with what we experience.  And those two things refine each other as they grow.  So I wouldn't say we are working with completely unfounded assumptions.  There is just a lot more wiggle room in there since we don't have adequate tools for measuring the accuracy of metaphysical concepts and so there is more room for interpretation and bias.  Please note the same issues exist in the physical sciences, but to a lesser degree.

But your argument seems to be a utilitarian one.  The expense and time required to follow a path that could lead to a dead end seems to be too great for you.  That's simply a matter of personality.  Is the risk worth it?  Is throwing everything I think I know up in the air and admitting I could be wrong about everything worth the trouble?  For most people it's not.  

What are the ramifications of ignoring the question?  Easy: ignorance.  I don't actually propose we ignore it.  I propose we "keep on keepin' on" until we get to some further understanding from which we can launch an attack on the answer, or at least "speculate" or "assume" from some more reasonable position.

And I wonder what position that would be.  I'm assuming you mean a position from materialism.  You will be happy to re-open the case once it looks like there can be an answer that suits your specifications.  I'm saying you can't answer a philosophical question with a natural answer.  Natural data may be involved in the process of discovery, but that does not change the fundamental nature of the question.  How something came from nothing is not possible to answer scientifically because science can not know 'nothing'.  And what 'something' is is also a philosophical distinction.  (Is beauty something?)  

This is why there are more issues involved with ignoring the question than simple ignorance.  Ignorance is not a neutral position on the topic.  You either believe that there was a Being or thing that caused all to be, or you don't.  And that watershed answer informs everything you believe from interpersonal relationships to politics.  You can claim neutrality on the subject of origins, but your beliefs and actions will bear the fruit of one of those interpretations.

I only claim that spiritual reality has not been demonstrated to be true.  I don't deny the possibility.  But give me something I can sink my teeth into, something we can hold onto, something beyond personal experiences that we have to accept simply on somebody's say so.

I'm telling you that you are never going to get something to sink your teeth into or hold on to.  You still want to sense and measure before you validate.  That's not going to happen.  But you do have more to work with than simply somebody's say so.  Reason and logic hold up just as well in the metaphysical as in the physical.  There are many people who do abandon reason when it comes to these matters, but that's not at all a requirement.  Most people just choose what authority suits them the best and stick with it without examination.  But you don't need to do that.  

I don't want you to have the impression I just write-off all possibility of spiritual reality.  I don't, but I do require that its existence stands to rigorous proof.  So far, to say it doesn't seems like an understatement to me.

Again, it depends on the kind of proof you require.  The fact that matter and time exist is enough proof for me.  Has it always existed?  There is no scientific explanation for that nor can there ever be.  Did it come from nothing?  There is no scientific explanation for that, nor can there ever be.

Side note: it's funny when I read this I find how sensitive I am to the word "deny".  Like the dictionary says, an atheist is a person who denies the existence of god.  Then why does it define innocent as "free of guilt", instead of as "denying guilt"?  It seems like a prejudice to me.

Hmmm… yeah, funny how certain words can set us off like that.  Personally, I hate the word 'meal'.  I have no idea why.  

the problem I have with this is that love and beauty in the above sense are abstract concepts.  If spiritual experiences are "real" as abstract concepts, well, that's certainly true because here we are conceptualizing them.  But all human thought, abstract, conceptual, whatever, seems ultimately physical to me because it seems reasonable to conclude that all human thought is electrical (or chemical) activity in our brains.

One quick note first: I am not claiming that all spiritual experiences are real.  I think most are brain anomalies.  

Now, regarding the possibility that all experiential concepts could be manifestations of physical brain activity…  Two problems present themselves to me.  First, we can't get around the origin problem without appealing to the non-physical.  Second, if all experiential concepts can be the product of physical brain activity then we have to lump our perception of physical reality in there too.  As I've said many times before, you can't prove that what you see is really there.  And without that proof your physical reality is in the same category as your existential reality.  Both are subject to doubt and are inadequate to inform your decisions.  I don't find this a reasonable place to work from.  I'd rather accept that there is a physical reality that we all perceive with reasonable accuracy, and there is a supernatural reality that we all perceive with widely different accuracy.  That way there is a place to put things like God, memory, love, beauty, etc.  I'm not forced to automatically dismiss a large portion of my experience as a human.  I'm not forced to dismiss the question of origins.  I'm not forced to dismiss our human interconnectedness that occurs in art, love, culture, philosophy, aesthetics, religion, etc. as merely mechanical impulses.  I think the way you categorize a thing plays a great role in your attitude towards it.  And viewing all these things as ancillary vestiges of a random occurrence simply flattens them, and destroys incentive to pursue them and do them well.  (Or maybe it just would for me.)        

"Scientific" tools are really just methods to investigate reality.  They are the best methods we have.  Don't you think if you tried to explain quantum tunneling to Newton he may have been awfully confounded at first?  It would seem like using science to explain magic.  Science has progressed to a realm where we have knowledge of things that even now seem very, very bizarre.  I don't know why science is an invalid method for determining the truth or nature of anything.

I assume you mean, "the nature of everything." As I've already emphatically stated that science is a valid method for determining the truth of a great many things.  Just not everything.  But this get's into the philosophy of science.  What is science and what it is not.  Today, we have defined science as limited to the material universe.  And excluded all that exists outside of it.  So working with that definition, I'm saying that science can't determine everything.  Now if we were to redefine science to mean, "The pursuit of every kind of truth" then I would say we could determine most things scientifically. But as it is, "Is there a God?" can not be measured or quantified using our 5 senses and the tools available to us in the scientific arena.  

But, let's get back to the question - the presumption is that the universe came from nothing.  This is a topic that really gets my gears grinding.  It's hard to know if this presumption is correct, or even makes sense.  It seems to me to be an unfounded assumption that there ever was a nothing.

You are right.  Either there was nothing, or physical reality always existed.

The simple answer would be if reality is broader than our universe - then the big bang didn't necessarily come from nothing.  But, what if not.

Right.  I don't care about the big bang.  It's simply a handy reference point for people.  I care about the beginning of the existence of anything.

Then, how do we know that the idea of "nothing existing" beyond the big bang is sensible?

We don't.  But fortunately there are only two options. (that I can think of!)
 

If time started with the big bang, then the statement that "nothing existed before the big bang" is clearly meaningless because "before the big bang" is a meaningless phrase - there was no "before the big bang", because that's like saying "before time".  Nonsense.  

I wouldn't say "before time" is nonsense.  It is the best way a time-bound creature can articulate a concept that we have no way of experiencing.  Just because we can't experience it does not make it nonsense.  Atheists of all people should be the first to say that man is not the measure of anything.  

This is what I mean about finding it hard to know if any of our questions about the origin of the universe even make sense, and finding it safer to make no assumptions at all.  

But such a position is impossible.  You have made an assumption by calling yourself an atheist, and I've made an assumption by calling myself a Christian.  There is no middle ground when there are only two options.  Time and matter came from nothing or else it always existed.

The universe has existed as long as time; in other words, for all time there was a universe.  So, has the universe existed forever?  If not, what's the difference?

Our current understanding is that time and matter are inextricably linked, right?  I don't know, I'm not a physicist either.  But I think it's safe to say that matter has existed as long as time has.  But both had to come from nothing or had to always exist, right?

If there is no space outside the universe (because the universe is space), where did "nothing" exist?  In other words, what is "nothing", and how is it different then empty space?  These are really hard questions, and they might be nonsensical.  Seems to me they say more about our lack of understanding than they do about reality (if this makes sense).

Yes, we have a huge lack of understanding.  As "the" Bible says, "We see through a glass, darkly."

Humanity is far more atheistic now than it ever has been and the world is no more or less dark than it ever has been.

I can't agree with this.  We can manipulate our environment far better.  We go to doctors when we are sick, instead of witch-doctors (or at least most of us do).  We know far more about our existence, the cosmos, life itself.  Almost all of this came from the relentless pursuit of knowledge, with built in error correction, that is science.

I guess I wasn't specific enough.  I was referring to the heart of man, and our propensity for slaughtering each other.  That has not diminished at all.  Just look at all the millions killed over the last century in the name of progress.