Question about multiverse

Oh, how I love a former physicist who spouts off about physics and people think he talks like he knows.

1. Models in cosmology that include a multiverse were not created because atheists want to defend themselves. They were a conclusion from a set of other models in physics. Within that set of models, some are known to be true and others look promising to be true.

As a conclusion from a well-defined set of models, there are constraints on the number of universes in a multiverse that come from the models from which they were derived. There is no single number of universes shared by every multiverse model ever proposed, but I don't know of any model that involves a few hundred or thousands of universes in a multiverse. It's 10 to the power of a few tens to a few hundred universes. In some sets of models it's even more than that, 10 to the power of 10 to the power of a very large number.

2. Indeed, it weakens. In fact, this argument is weakened by a multiverse even if there were no evidence and no physical model that would make it seem realistic that a multiverse exists. Hypothesizing the existence of multiverses suggests more than something we know exists – a universe. To claim that there is a God with the attributes of a God who creates universes would be to base the explanation for the universe on something unfamiliar, foreign, and disconnected from our experience and our ability to study it. This is evidenced by the progress we have made as a society in studying the universe in the last two hundred years compared to the zero progress we have made in studying God in the last two thousand years.

I will add two points:

1. In my opinion, the argument from fine design does not stand up to scrutiny at all, so there is no need at all to offer an explanation for fine design (God, a multiverse, or something else). The argument as it is presented among theologians, and certainly as Michael Abraham constructs it, is simply one big mental confusion that boils down to the following observation from which almost nothing follows: “If things were very different, other things that depend on them would be very different” Okay, and… what follows from such an observation? Nothing about God, I argue, and nothing in general.

2. I don't buy multiverse models. As of today, they are an interesting hypothesis by cosmologists that seem promising. Maybe in the future I can say that they are probably correct. Until then, they are just a promising hypothesis. It's nice, it's interesting, and it's worth further development by researchers in the field, but it's far from established science.

I'm glad I made you happy. I also really like nerds who talk about physics models and philosophical arguments with second-grade reading comprehension. So now we've both had a good time. A draw.

Miki, why a draw? This is not a competition. Each of us rejoiced in the joy of the other and came to Zion, the Redeemer.

See? We agree that it is necessary to be happy and we have found the valley of equality amidst the mountain of disagreement.

To the Cosmologist
The reason I'm reaching out to you is first and foremost the subtle style that spoke to my heart. Beyond that, I wanted to ask a small substantive question on behalf of a mortal with no background in physics (me).
The claim that claims subtle design presents an explanation for what seems to me to be a truly philosophical and perhaps even scientific problem. Why do you claim that there is no problem?

Doron,

This paragraph also goes to Miki. I apologize for the style. Immediately after I posted it, I regretted the opening of my first response. All the talk about “brainwashing” was impolite, especially when I am a guest talking about the owner of the house.

Regarding your question, I am not sure what I can add beyond what I wrote in the previous response that would move the discussion forward. Perhaps the best way to clarify this dispute is to try to start with common concepts. What is the problem (philosophical, scientific, whatever it is in your opinion) that you think is on the discussion table here? That is, what problem does “the claim that asserts subtle design present an opinion” in your opinion?

I emphasize that I am specifically asking about things that are *a problem*. Not a neutral diagnosis of intellectual interest. What is problematic and solved by the claim that asserts subtle design, as you put it?

I don't know about you, but you've disappointed me a bit with your new fur style... Maybe I'll be able to convince you to go back to your roots.
As I understand it, the problem is very simple. Physicists agree that our universe was created out of nothing from the singular point. As far as I understand, everyone agrees that before its creation there was no space and time, and no physical laws (at least not laws in any accepted or understandable sense to us). It seems to me that everyone also agrees that this universe contains some very, very specific constants... without which life could not have developed (even if only on the fringes of this universe).
Hence the question: What is the most successful explanation for the existence of these constants?
And the answer that claims to be the most reasonable (in my opinion, it is indeed the most reasonable, as far as I understand the matter) is that an intelligent designer is required to make this possible.

In any case, the basis of the discussion is primarily philosophical and not scientific, since it is a speculation about what preceded our physical universe.

Doron,
I will summarize the main point in a sentence: almost all the claims that you claimed are agreed upon by everyone are not agreed upon by everyone, and those that are, do not amount to a problem that ”fine design” solves and alternatives to it – do not.

In detail, I will say the following. Cosmologists do not agree among themselves that our universe was created out of nothing from the singular point. I will assume for a moment that by the word universe you meant the universe of which you and I are loyal citizens, and not &#8221everything that ever was or will ever exist” or something like that. Under this assumption, there is also no consensus among cosmologists that before the formation of the universe there were no physical laws. The opposite is true. If I adopt the other interpretation of the word “universe”, then there is no consensus among cosmologists that the universe in this sense ever “began” to exist in any sense of the word “began”, including senses of “began” that take into account the absence of a timeline.

In addition, it seems fair to say that the following two claims are entirely in consensus among physicists, and not just cosmologists. They are certainly agreed upon by me, a non-cosmologist and non-physicist like myself:
1. The equations that describe how fundamental physical objects behave in our universe depend on the values of a number of constants.
2. Changing the values of these constants from their known values will lead to predictions of the behavior of these physical objects that are very different from how they behave in the universe in which we live.

Finally, it is not agreed upon by everyone, and certainly not by me, that life cannot arise in universes where these constants have different values. Here I feel free to speak for myself and not claim anything about some kind of consensus among experts in the field (although here too there is no consensus among cosmologists). I will be precise that I do not think that the converse of this claim is true, that there are non-negligible ranges of these constants of nature, such that choosing constants of nature from these ranges would describe a hypothetical universe in which life could arise. I have no opinion on the matter. I am waiting for an argument in every direction that I have never found.

Bottom line, in the absence of agreement on what is agreed upon, I do not think you have described a problem, certainly not one that ”fine design” solves and some “design-free” alternative does not.

We can move forward from here in two directions. One direction is to argue about the factual gaps between us on what is agreed upon and what is not. I would be happy to substantiate to the best of my ability everything I have written on the matter, in whatever order you choose. The second direction is to try to ignore this dispute, and try to argue about some principle that you think we disagree on. I don't know exactly what this principled matter is that we disagree on, but in light of what you wrote I hope you might have an idea on the subject. I would add that both directions can be taken simultaneously, but in my opinion it is better to take them one after the other in whatever order you prefer.

What is is and what is not is not.
And in a realistic version everything that can exist exists.
And if infinite universes are possible then they exist.

To the Cosmologist
I have difficulty understanding your arguments. Something about your writing style (or my reading style…) doesn't resonate with me. Can you simplify?

I'll say what I think I understood:
You claim that I don't know the facts, which could certainly be true.

So I'll ask again:

Isn't it true that there is a scientific consensus on the Big Bang model?
Yes/No

Isn't it true that before the formation of the universe in the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago, there was no space and time and no physical law in the conventional sense that science and philosophers of science use?
Yes/No

Doron,

The answer to the first question is yes, there is a scientific consensus on the Big Bang model. The answer to the second question is no, the claim you described in this question is indeed incorrect.

I am very surprised to hear your answer to the second question. I have never been exposed to this and I am interested in whether readers who understand physics can strengthen your words (or vice versa). But let's assume that you are right and go with you. Now come explain to me what exactly did happen or change in the Big Bang according to the same models in which space and time and the laws of physics also existed “before”.

I suspect that I know where you are going with this and I allow myself to bet: you will adopt a sweeping naturalistic approach (perhaps in the name of Occam's razor) and argue for the existence of “other” laws of physics that existed “before” the Bang. But that is just a gamble…

Doron,

Providing the explanation for ”what exactly did happen or change in the Big Bang” and so on? That is a formidable task. Why would I try to do that? It is not necessary for our conversation, for two reasons. First, remember that I am still at the stage where I am trying to understand your next position: that delicate design solves some problem. If I provide this explanation, how will it help me understand the problem as you see it?

Second, I do not see how it helps you understand my position on delicate design. My position on delicate design does not depend at all on what I know about cosmology. We entered this topic only in the context of my attempt to understand what you are arguing. If in this question of yours you are trying to understand my opinion on delicate design, that is not really necessary. Just ask about my opinion on delicate design, as I presented it above.

I will add another side puzzle. How did you arrive at ”naturalism” And Ockham's Razor? I wouldn't use neutralism or Ockham's Razor to justify the various claims I've made about cosmology throughout our conversation. There's no need. I would simply do my best to explain the relevant material in cosmology. There are quite a few religious scholars in cosmology who are not tainted by the taint of neutralism. They wouldn't dispute what I said earlier about cosmology. This is literally what's in the cosmology textbooks. It's in the textbooks, because these results are quite old, from the 1960s to the 1980s.

It seems to me that you have pushed the discussion back a bit. I already agreed with you that anyone who sees subtle design as a solution is obliged to show what the problem is first. But in order to show what the problem is, there must be agreement on the factual basis, in this case regarding the scientific consensus surrounding the question of the origin of the universe. Specifically, we must agree that the scientific mainstream does indeed hold the position that I attributed to it in advance, according to which space, time, and all the laws of physics were created out of nothing in the Big Bang. You claimed that there is no such consensus, and I was very surprised and immediately ran to check myself. What I have discovered in the meantime is that my initial assessment was actually justified: the alternative theories - those that deny the creation of the universe and physics in general - are considered "exotic" (not mainstream).
Of course, it is possible that I did not understand what I read this time either. But if I am right about this, then you are wrong about the facts and we cannot move forward anyway.
I can share with you that I looked at Wikipedia, Britannica and Scientific American and that is how I understood them. Maybe not perfect sources but as a start they seemed great to me. These sources more or less see the facts as I do.

Of course, you can do what you suggested and that is that you will accept only for the sake of the discussion the assumption that I was right about those facts and from there we will continue the discussion

Below is a quote from Wikipedia. Since we have already agreed that most scientists accept the Big Bang model, we only have to find out if it actually says what I claimed.

“The Big Bang (in English: The Big Bang) is a physical theory that describes the formation of the universe. According to this theory, the universe expanded from a state of “gravitational singularity” in which gravity, density and heat are infinite. The known laws of physics cannot describe this point in time and only after a Planck time (approximately 10-43 of a second) can they be applied. According to the theory, the first particles were created due to quantum fluctuations (an’). The Big Bang describes the processes that have occurred since then and from which the universe was created, the dimensions of time, space and the physical forces known to us today were created.”

Doron,
Okay, the bottom line of my response would be that it is not at all the consensus that “space, time and all the laws of physics were created out of nothing in the Big Bang”. If the sources you read say something that sounds like that, they are wrong, but I think that at least in the case of Wikipedia (in Hebrew), they are more of a misnomer. The reasoning, I hope, will refresh people’s minds. I will limit myself to four paragraphs and list my sources at the end. I will add that I think we should fully flesh out this point, for two reasons. One, so that future readers will have a record of the Big Bang and what is known about it. The other, because I wonder if there is anything left of the argument for delicate design, once the claims you have made are themselves in dispute. If you will agree to cooperate, I am now putting myself in a “Socratic” position in this conversation to examine this question.

I'll start with the facts as I know them. In a series of very important papers published in the 1960s and 1970s, Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose examined the conditions for the appearance of gravitational singularities, points where the curvature of space-time is infinite. In general, all the theorems they proved have the following form: Given certain physical conditions, then the theory of relativity states that a singularity will appear (what comes after the "then" is only "kind of true", but close enough for our purposes). These theorems are known today as the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems. These theorems are not only relevant to the Big Bang, but also to black holes and perhaps other contexts that I don't know about. I will add that these are really beautiful mathematical results. I learned more mathematical versions of them (without the physics) when I studied (semi)Riemannian geometry. That's why I know what little I know about cosmology.

What's important for our purposes is that the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems (and other singularity theorems, which I haven't studied) have assumptions. In situations where these assumptions are true, then their conclusion is true and a singularity is expected to appear. In situations where they are not true, these theorems tell us nothing. By all accounts, we are probably in the second situation. For example, the biggest assumption of these theorems is that they only take into account the effect of general relativity. However, if we “run the clock back” and imagine what happens when the universe was very small, we reach a point where the universe is so small that the effect of quantum forces on gravity starts to be relevant. For brevity, I will call everything that preceded this stage the “very early universe”. No one is sure what the impact of quantum effects is in this situation. There is no consensus among physicists on a theory of quantum gravity anytime soon.

There are other assumptions for these theorems and it turns out that there are plenty of mathematical models of the early universe that violate them and even some observations that do not agree with the idea that these assumptions are indeed true for the universe in which we live. And so there are models of the very early universe in which a singular point never appears, other models in which there is a singular point but there is also “time before the singular point”, and yes, even models in which ”time” “begins” at the singular point there were still things that happened “before” The singular point (which is completely bizarre and it is impressive in my opinion that such bizarre things can be mathematically modeled!). Some of these models are “classical”, meaning that they only take into account the effect of gravity without trying to enter the quantum swamp. I have only read one of them in depth (it belongs to the family of bizarre models that I mentioned. I already said that they are awesome in my opinion that it is possible to model such things??? It still cools me). Others, combine all kinds of hypotheses about quantum gravity. I tried to read one of them, but I did not understand it at all. Either way, as of 4 years ago, it seemed to me as an outside observer that there was a lively debate about the correct model for the very early universe and that no one model had received overwhelming support. I would be shocked if this were not the case today, because we would hear about every breakthrough in the headlines of all the newspapers.

All this information is the reason for the answers I gave you earlier. First, no cosmologist I have ever read thinks that the universe was created out of nothing. It doesn't even appear in the quote you quoted from Wikipedia and certainly doesn't appear in anything I have read on the subject. Even in models where there is a singular point in the very early universe, such a point is certainly not “nothing”, but a very… “existence”. Second, there is a general agreement about what happened in the early universe from the stage when its size exceeded the size at which quantum effects on gravity are relevant. This is what I meant when I talked about the Big Bang theory and the consensus on it. What happened before this stage, in the very early universe? I don't know and I don't think anyone knows yet. Third, what is certainly true is that no cosmologist thinks that there were no laws then or any concept of space-time. There is a consensus around the opposite claim. The only model of the very early universe that I have read in detail was exactly such a model in which there is a “time before the singularity”. All the models that I have heard anything about are all models of the very early universe in which there is exactly what you claim that cosmologists think there is not.

Where do we take our conversation from here? I think it is worth clarifying this point to the end, if only because of my curiosity about the implications of this for the argument from delicate design.

Sources
——
Below is a list of the sources that I read at the time. I debated whether to give them, because most of it is technical literature that there is no point in trying to read. As a compromise with myself, I read some relevant entries on Wikipedia. After reading the entry on the Big Bang in Hebrew, I must say that I think it was written by Eilag and is quite misleading. A linguistic editor is a must and editing the content would not hurt either. Try reading it again in light of what I said before and maybe things there will take on a slightly different meaning. The English entry is very nice as a popular science, and there are also entries that are specifically dedicated to the question of the existence of a singular point where pretty much everything I said above is mentioned and with additions that did not fit into the four paragraphs to which I limited myself.

Technical sources:

O’neill, B. (1983). Semi-Riemannian geometry with applications to relativity. Academic press.‏
A textbook on semi-Riemannian geometry, the last chapter of which blew me away with some really beautiful theorems, including Hawking's singularity theorem. This is what made me go a little deeper into cosmology. I should point out that I claim a high-level knowledge only of what appears in this book.

Liddle, A. (2015). An introduction to modern cosmology. John Wiley & Sons.‏
The only cosmology textbook I've ever really understood. It's not 100% either, because I'm not a physicist and they like to complicate life with physics terms. There's a short chapter on the existence of a singularity point, and you're welcome to read it for more on a few other points where the assumptions of singularity theorems don't hold.

Hartle, J. B., & Hawking, S. W. (1983). Wave function of the universe. In EUCLIDEAN QUANTUM GRAVITY (pp. 310-325).‏
That was a model of the early universe that I kind of understood at the time. I've tried to skim through it again now without much success. If I can't, I don't recommend you try, but so be it.

The following entries on Wikipedia were quite a pleasure to read, if only because of their proper syntax. They say what I said above and more. Among other things, they mention the existence of models of the physics of the very early universe (this is what the Hebrew Wikipedia calls “Planck time” in what you quoted).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Singularity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_singularity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units#Cosmology

This is a rather technical entry, but it fits into the model of the very early universe that I said I read in detail at the time. Pay particular attention to the criticism of it that appears in the last paragraph. This should demonstrate that there is no model of the early universe that there is a consensus among cosmologists that is the correct model.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_time#In_cosmology

Well, it seems to me that we are both not qualified, at least at the moment, to arrive at the facts. It is true that your situation is better than mine, but I don't think that much better... This is supposed to be a relatively simple question (the scientific consensus). And I hope that someone here on the site who does understand will be willing to help.

Here are some comments/questions:

Why do you say that the quote from Wikipedia does not strengthen my position? If it is misleading, then fine, but if not, then on the surface it does strengthen my words.

Secondly, you may be aware of the following comment, but if not, don't worry: It is not of great importance whether or not there are many physical models (let alone abstract mathematical models) that compete with the “conservative” model that I know. What is important at this stage of the discussion is only one specific point: Are they perceived by most of the scientific community as plausible, that is, indicating the existence of a separate reality (empirical or even metaphysical)?

Third, regarding the model that proposes the existence of a time that precedes “our” time (the current age of the world, about 14 billion years). It is very important to understand what we are talking about, is this a much longer period of time but still finite? Or is this a claim that time is eternal towards the past?

Fourth, a philosophical note regarding the (scientific?) concept of “singular point”: On the surface, this is just a convenient image that has didactic value but does not seem to have any real cognitive content. I am also not sure that the scientific claim that there is a situation in which there is infinite heat and infinite density does not really fit with what I know about the scientific theories we have today. I hope that they will correct me here if I am wrong.

Doron,
I will start with the comments/questions, in the order they appear. Finally, I will say something about your opening remarks.

—

First, in the quote you cited from Wikipedia there is no mention of the idea that things were created “out of nothing”, so an important piece of what you claimed is not supported by it. Also, I will mention again that a singular point is completely something that “has changed”, and cannot be described as &#8221not”. Even if we use the Hebrew Wikipedia as the sole source, I think we should abandon the talk of “out of nothing”.

Second, I will try to explain why I think the Hebrew entry is misleading. Compare, for example, the following from the opening paragraphs of the English entry with the Hebrew entry. From the English text:
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model explaining the existence of the observable universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution.[1][2][3] The model describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature,[4] and offers a comprehensive explanation for a broad range of observed phenomena, including the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, and large-scale structure.
From the Hebrew text:
The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes the formation of the universe. According to this theory, the universe expanded from a state of “gravitational singularity” in which gravity, density, and heat are infinite. The known laws of physics cannot describe this point in time and only after a Planck time (about 10-43 of a second) can they be applied.
I tried to emphasize the parts where there is a gap between them, and I hope they will see it. To make sure the gaps are clear, I will write them down. In the Hebrew version, it is claimed that the Big Bang explains the formation of the universe, but according to the English version, it explains the development of its current state from a certain point onwards (this is what I called above the early universe, as opposed to the very early universe). In the Hebrew version, the Big Bang begins at a singular point where the density of matter and heat is infinite, while in the English version it describes what happens starting from a state where their density is “high”. In short, if all one reads is these opening words from the Hebrew Wikipedia, it is easy to get the impression that you were indeed right in what you said earlier.

However, the facts do come to light later in the Hebrew entry. Under “singularity” It says:
When we estimate the expansion of the universe backward in time, we arrive at the conclusion that the density of matter and temperature were infinite at some finite time in the past.[1] This singularity indicates that general relativity does not adequately describe the laws of physics in this context. The ability of models based on general relativity to estimate the singularity is questionable, certainly not at the time before the end of the Planck era (10-43 seconds from the beginning of the Big Bang).

That primordial singularity is sometimes referred to as the “Big Bang”, but the term sometimes also refers to the primordial, dense, and hot stage of the universe. In any case, the ”Big Bang” as an event can be referred to colloquially, as its ”birth” of the universe since it represents the point in history at which the laws of physics as we understand them (especially general relativity and the Standard Model), including time itself,[2] began to play a role.
So clearly the description in the introduction is qualified later in the entry by the facts I mentioned in my previous response. I think any reasonable reader will ask themselves whether or not the Big Bang theory had a singularity, and that would be a reasonable question when you consider everything else in this entry. In addition to its general absurdity, this is why I think this entry is poorly written, and I really don't feel much comfort that the facts I described in my previous response are actually there. When I learned about the Big Bang, I learned what Wikipedia in English says (at least, a mathematical version of it), without unnecessary confusion.

—

First, I don't think your model can be described as a “conservative” model, because I don't think it is a model. You claim that there were no physical laws and yet things happened, and they happened “out of thin air”. I'm not even sure that's coherent. Maybe you didn't mean it that way, but it sounds like you're saying that things happened in the absence of anything to make them happen. That's certainly not plausible to me, and it's certainly not plausible to cosmologists.

Second, I don't know what you mean by “separate reality”, so I'll say the following in the hope that it answers your question. All of these models claim to describe the reality we all live in. Because the models of the very early universe predict specific things and have specific properties, it's possible to gauge how well each of them is supported by the available evidence. Evidence that exists in our reality, the one you and I live in. In cosmology, there are a number of measurable phenomena that each model has to explain and predict and a number of theoretical criteria that they have to meet. The reason no model has become a consensus is precisely because they all manage to do so only for some of these phenomena and meet only some of these theoretical criteria, but not all or most.

This is typical of any open question in any scientific field: hypotheses compete with each other, and the one that crosses the finish line and becomes the consensus in the field is the one that manages to explain/predict all or the overwhelming majority of the phenomena that needed to be explained/predicted, and even manages to predict phenomena that were not measured before. My impression is that the current situation in cosmology is that what happened in the very early universe is a partially open question. We know in which directions the answer probably lies, but there is still a long way of research to go to find the model that does cross the finish line. What is certain is that these are hypotheses about the reality in which you and I live, and they are compared with findings in the reality in which we live.

—

Pulling an answer from memory: In the specific model I mentioned earlier, the “time” is infinite backwards. There are models in which time is finite backwards. I will add that you will not necessarily like the models in which time is finite backwards. “Finite backwards” time is not equivalent to “there is a first moment of time”. Time can be finite backwards, without having a first moment. I know that such models exist, but I have never studied them in depth beyond seeing some slide about it in a lecture by some researcher who was a guest at the faculty or something.

—

A singular point is really not just a convenient image. It has real content that I can understand, and people with a background similar to mine certainly can. I know that physicists understand it better than I do, because I only understand the mathematical formulation of the concept and they also have an understanding of its broader connection to physics. Either way, it's a concept that is mathematically well-defined in several ways, and the idea that it lacks real content sounds to me like the claim that the word table lacks real content.

—

I'll go back to your opening statement. To me, the claim that we're both incapable of arriving at facts is strange and dismissive. I admit that I'm in a pretty unique position. I have a background in things that most people don't and won't have, and I enjoy pretty easy access to experts in a variety of fields. It's easier for me to find out what scholars in fields different from mine think. Still, I don't think it should give you or anyone else any discount. What is this hands-off approach??? If the subject intrigues you, and it clearly does, then find out. Figuring out whether what you previously claimed is true or false shouldn't be beyond you or any other person of average or above average intelligence. It also won't be months of ants' work. You could probably do it right now, in less than 24 hours.

We have already seen that English Wikipedia does not support what you said (certainly in relation to ”there is from nothing”), and I argued that Hebrew Wikipedia is mostly confusing, but certainly does not support what you said. This is Wikipedia, a fairly easy source to access, and it has already said something about the matter. This is generally true. I have been in academia for about a decade, and in this decade I have discovered that research in general and science in particular are quite accessible things, if you know where to look. Universities have information pages that try to present their research areas. Lots of cosmologists have written popular science books on the subject, popular science-level articles, and more. Experts also tend to be quite accessible. If you want to know what cosmologists think about a question today, you can find some on the websites of research universities and send them an email. Cross-reference their answers with what you have read. What is certain is that there is no reason to give up. These are all things that you can do right now and gain some insight into the matter in one afternoon of reading.

I think the hard part is not figuring out what's true about cosmology. The hard part is standing up to the implications of that for other things that interest us. In my own experience, that tends to be harder for me than figuring out what's true. It's kind of the difference between buying the ingredients for sushi and actually making it. This leads me to a question that I've been thinking about since last night and am really curious about. Does the argument from delicate design really not stand up, if what I said about cosmology is true? That is, if we assume that the universe didn't come into being out of nowhere, there were laws of nature in the very early universe (whatever they are), if there's no consensus on whether the universe began and all that, can't we build an argument from delicate design? More and more, I'm inclined to think that even if we accept all of these things, there is a version of this argument that will stand up. At the very least, it's possible to build a version of this argument that is just as good as the versions I'm familiar with. To me, that means this argument will still be wrong, but at least it's there and can be argued about. Maybe I'll try to build one in the future.

I openly admit: based on the knowledge that each of us brings, it seems that your answer is more reasonable at the moment. If that is the case, then I actually have to accept, at least for now, that there is no real problem and therefore the argument from subtle design as a solution to it cannot really take off. One zero for you.
(It may be as you say that it is still possible to propose “subtle design” even based on models of an earlier universe, but at the moment I have no idea how to do that)

The problem is that it does not fit with the reading material that I have read for many years – especially the philosophical one. So please do not be overly happy about your victory… I am going to investigate a little more deeply whether the facts are indeed as you say.

However, I want to clarify: I did not claim that things happened out of nowhere just like that, but out of nowhere by the power of a transcendent factor (God) who brought them about.

The issue of the singular point is particularly complicated from a scientific perspective. What I was trying to say is that it seems to me that there are very serious philosophical conceptual problems here. For example, a point (we are not talking about its mathematical concept) occupies a size in space. If we agree – I am not sure we will agree.. – that there was no space, then what is the meaning of talking about a “point”? Another question regarding its “infinite density… Can a “body” made of matter or energy with such a density even exist scientifically? The same in terms of infinite temperature… does this have an empirical scientific meaning?

I once again suggest that you deal with the hypothetical question I raised: Let's assume that I am right and everything began from nothing about 13.8 billion years ago. And when I say everything, I mean everything: time, space, physical forces, particles, and everything you can imagine.
In that case, do you think there is a problem here that delicate planning could serve as a solution to?

Doron
You have disappointed me greatly. For some reason you listen to everything that a cosmologist claims. Since I studied at university and not on Wikipedia on the subject (although it was part of an introductory course and not something too serious, but it is certainly more reliable than a cosmologist) I feel that I can speak on the subject with some confidence.

The Big Bang does claim that existing space began at a certain point (time has no meaning without space, meaning that time also began at that point - this is according to what I understand) from which all space expands. (This has also been proven with the cosmic microwave background radiation)

And indeed, as you wrote, the “singular point” is not really a known thing. The idea is that it is the point where all space began, but scientists do not really know what was at the point itself (and before the point they do not know of course, there are various and strange hypotheses). Of course, infinite temperature and density are not an exact scientific concept (this is already as far as I understand). But the point was really dense and with a very high temperature.

And it's a shame that Rabbi Michi didn't enter the discussion and make a laxomologist out of meatballs. It would have been nice to see that.
Regarding the beginning of the discussion, the many-worlds theory is a hypothesis for understanding quantum theory in reality. An alternative to the theory in which the wave function collapses to a certain eigenstate. To claim that this is a proven model is complete nonsense and to the best of my knowledge it is not the model that most physicists in the world accept.

Yishai
(Are you Yishai, the one I discussed the historicity of Jesus with?)
I am very happy about your response and I am interested in how a cosmologist would respond to it.

Doron
I am indeed exactly the same Yishai. (Why did you stop that discussion, really?)

Doron,
Don't worry. I'll wait with the victory celebrations forever. I doubt I'll repent as a result of this conversation and I doubt you'll become an atheist, and I doubt we'll solve the riddles of the early universe or the riddle of God's existence here. This is an internet discussion between two strangers. As long as the conversation is going well and there's potential to learn something from it, it sounds like victory enough to me. Certainly compared to most internet conversations between strangers.

I said earlier that I'm starting to think there's a way to build an argument from delicate design, despite the state of affairs in cosmology. However, it's by “decoupling” the argument from cosmology. In a way, I think what went through my mind was a kind of attempt to make the argument from delicate design more similar to the cosmological argument. It doesn't sit so well in my head yet, so I'll give it some time to sink in. I'll mention it again if it “sinks” in the end.

I assumed that in your opinion things did not happen out of thin air. However, you did attribute this to cosmologists. My only point is that there is no consensus among cosmologists, but rather the opposite.

Regarding the singular point and the conceptual problems that the term supposedly has. The bottom line is that we need to separate the question of whether a singular point is a concept that has a clear content and the question of whether claims about a singular point at the beginning of the universe are correct. I am not sure that this difference is clear to you, given the wording of the questions you asked there and after reading Yishai, it seems to me that they are not clear to him either. I will simply say where I stand in the context of these two questions.

I only know the mathematics here, and there is a mathematical definition that is completely clear to me of what it is to be a singular point (there is more than one, but this is one of the simpler ones for me). I can say it: a point in Robertson-Walker space-time where the scale factor of the space-time matrix tends to zero and its derivative tends to infinity (well, let's hope my translation from English to Hebrew is similar to how physicists would talk about these things in Hebrew). I have a background in a relevant field of mathematics, so I know what all these words mean, which probably sound like pure gibberish to you. To me, this completely limits the ”semantic field” of the words “singular point”. That is, given these definitions, these two words “denote” a very specific and very well-defined phenomenon and really do not “denote” the vast majority of things that could be described with them.

The point I am sure of is that there is a very clear sense of what it is to be a singular point. The open questions are not the basic semantic question of what it is to be a singular point. That question has reasonable answers. The open questions in cosmology are questions like the following, which we have already mentioned here. Is there or was or will there be a singular point in the physical reality in which we live? If there was such a singular point in the very early universe, was there anything “before it”? Was this singular point something static or dynamic, in any sense of those words? And many more such questions. What they all have in common is their subtext: they are questions about what is reasonable to conclude happened in the very early universe, given the available evidence. Cosmologists are concerned with such questions, and I am not. What is certain is that their discussion among themselves is not about the question of whether a singular point is a concept with real content, because it is.

I will answer Yishai and then I will have to withdraw from the conversation for about 48 hours. I still think it is worth trying to develop an argument from delicate design without resorting to it. Sounds like a pretty cool intellectual exercise to me. I will continue with it in my free time. It sounds like you are about to leave the whole conversation about cosmology and adopt your assumptions for the purposes of the discussion. I will go with it. To straighten the line and signal a new line for the conversation, I suggest that you write again what the problem is that delicate design solves. You can quote yourself again, if that is convenient for you. The main thing is that it is clear where we are starting from and that I can forget about everything we wrote before. I would be happy if you also said something about how delicate design solves this problem, because that will be my next question anyway.

Yishai,
I will answer what seems to me to add something new to the conversation.

The existence of the cosmic microwave background radiation is entirely a prediction of the Big Bang model and its measurements provide quite a bit of information about the early stages of the universe. Contrary to what you say, its existence provides evidence for a more limited claim than you think. When I described the Big Bang above, I said that in the early stages of the universe the density of matter and energy in the universe was very high. This high density is enough to predict the existence of the cosmic microwave background radiation. It is not necessary to assume that there was a singular point in the very early universe, where the density is infinite, to derive this prediction.

Also, you are confusing two concepts of the multiverse that are different from each other and have no necessary connection. You are talking about the multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics. This is a kind of idea that our universe is a kind of “splitting process”. At each stage when a quantum event occurs the universe “splitting” To several parallel universes, each of which has a different outcome of the quantum process. Or something like that. My knowledge of quantum mechanics is entirely “popular science” with some knowledge of the mathematical formalism, and nothing more. Anyway, what I am sure of is that the questioner is referring to a multiverse in cosmology, the idea that there is (or was) more than one location. This is because this is the multiverse that atheists are talking about when they respond to the argument from delicate design that he asked about. The two ideas are different from each other.

You have intrigued me about the possibility that there might be some cosmologist who has tried to connect these ideas, and examine the implications of the quantum multiverse on the cosmological multiverse. Sounds like an obvious thing to try, so I would be very surprised if it hasn't been tried at some point. I wonder what will come of it.

To the Cosmologist
First of all, it seems strange to me that you are trying to think of a successful formulation of the delicate argument yourself while you are on the site of someone who wrote a whole book on the subject. (See the Books of Faith, Book 3, I think)
Secondly, it is clear that you have much more mathematical knowledge than I do. But it seems that this is exactly where you are falling short. You understand the concept of a singular point mathematically, which is excellent, but the question is when we translate the mathematical term into the physical world, what exactly does it mean. Infinite density? Do you understand the problematic nature of the concept? It is some kind of point where it is not entirely clear from a physical point of view what is happening there.
I did not claim that it has no real content. I claimed that even scientists themselves are not clear about the physical reality at this point.
Now to your claims about what I wrote.
First paragraph: From what I understand, the reason for reaching a singular point is from calculations of the theory of relativity. What I claimed is that the cosmic background radiation proves that all space spread from one place with a very high density. That is, all space started from this point. (I assume you know why the cosmic background radiation is proof, but I will just write it simply to be on the safe side. Because the radiation is the same in the same place in all space (except for gravitational wave effects) it means that the density was in all space, that is, space spread from one point where the density was very high and from there space started. )
Second paragraph: I do not know the claim of the universe from a cosmological perspective. I know the claim of the universe from a quantum perspective. Where can I learn about the universe from a cosmological perspective? (Although we have already moved on to something else in the discussion)

From what Wikipedia says about the universe, from a cosmological perspective, it all sounds like speculation, and that there is debate among cosmologists on the subject and there is no consensus.

To the Cosmologist
First of all, I don't understand your obsessing over the problem of subtle design… everything has already been explained– where is the problem and what does subtle design come to solve. All of this assuming that you accept for the purpose of the discussion the facts as I presented them. Go ahead and do it.

I will repeat my comment (and Yishai told you this too): It seems that you do not understand or understand and ignore the claim that a mathematical model, no matter how successful, is not enough. You must also explain what empirical and metaphysical reality it describes. This claim of mine is relevant to the description of the singular point (of course only assuming that you accept for the purpose of the discussion the model that I called “conservative”).

This is also where your claim comes in:

“that it is necessary to separate the question of whether a singular point is a concept that has a clear content and the question of whether claims about a singular point at the beginning of the universe are correct.”

What's the problem? It's clear that it needs to be separated!!!

I have no idea about your version of the delicate planning problem and I have nothing smart to say to you about it.

Doron Vyshy, apologies for the delay in responding. It took me longer than I thought to do something that required attention from the moment the sun came up until the soul left. ——– Vyshy, with your permission, I will first answer the points that can be answered briefly. First, Michi's formulation in the notebook explicitly assumes assumptions that the version I am trying to think of – does not. In particular, he implicitly assumes some assumptions about cosmology and the physics associated with them. They are relatively general, but they are still there and I wonder if it is possible to construct a version of the argument that does not rely on them. Second, I assume you want popular science-level sources on the multiverse in cosmology. I know there are a million popular science books, far too many in my opinion, considering that this is nothing more than a hypothesis with some promise. I have never read any of these books. I sent an email for you to a colleague who is closer to the field, hoping that he is familiar with it. In any case, the general recommendations I gave Doron are valid here as well. Because this is such a popular topic, I'm sure that a single Google search will find you a lot of sources, probably some of which have been translated into Hebrew. I will add that the idea that there is no consensus on the existence of a multiverse in cosmology and its properties is what I told Doron. It is nothing more than a hypothesis with a certain promise, and nothing more. It is also what I said in my first response in this thread. I don't know what you think follows from this, but at least we can say that we agree on it. Now to my main point. I reread your responses, and I did so grammatically. In light of my rereading, for the rest of my response to you I will take a multi-step approach here. In the first step, I will clarify that the way you characterize the consensus among cosmologists is vague. In the second step, I will clarify that, according to your own words, you are wrong about at least one of the following two claims: (1) Doron was wrong in accepting the way I characterized the consensus among cosmologists on the singular point. (2) There is difficulty in “translating” the mathematical term of a singular point to the physical world. Specifically, you cannot hold both at the same time. Finally, I will argue and pretend to establish that point (2) is correct. I have already given my sources for my opinion on the consensus among cosmologists, so I do not feel obliged to justify my opinion on the consensus among cosmologists on the matter. As an important preface, I will begin by describing the nature of a singular point in the very early universe. In loose terms, to say that there was a singular point in the very early universe is the same as saying that the curvature of space-time at this point in the history of the universe is infinite and space-time is a point, devoid of “volume”, where all the matter in the universe is concentrated. In particular, it follows that the density of matter is infinite and also that ”time” in the ”ordinary” sense in general relativity loses its meaning at this point. Therefore, we can say that in a certain sense time and space ”begin” the moment we &#8221leave” this singular point and the expansion of space-time begins. In O'Neill's book that I mentioned earlier, a mathematical version of this claim was proven for density and time (under the assumptions of what is known as the Robertson-Walker space-time model, which is widely used among cosmologists). At this point, it is important to clarify the difference between the idea that there was a singular point in the very early universe and the idea that the early universe was very small. To begin with, in a very small universe the universe still has a "volume", and in particular it is not a "point" where all the matter is concentrated. In any case, the density of matter in the universe is high, but not infinite, and space and "time" in their usual sense in relativity still occupy there and certainly do not "begin" there in any sense (I implicitly assume here that this universe is large enough that quantum effects on gravity do not change). All of these properties are completely different from the properties of the singular point that I listed above. Throughout this thread, I have argued that there is no consensus among cosmologists that at the beginning of our universe there was a singular point. The consensus, I have argued, is that in the early universe space-time was very small, and the density of matter in it was very high. What happened before this stage is up for debate, with a number of hypotheses that sound promising from all sorts of researchers in the field. One of them is that earlier, in what I have called in this thread the very early universe, there was a singular point. But this is not, in my opinion, part of the consensus among cosmologists. It is disputed. This is where the ambiguity in your responses comes into play. In your first response, you expressed disappointment that Doron listens to everything I say. Indeed, you explicitly tried to explain to Doron what the Big Bang theory says. However, in doing so, you asked for components from two completely different ways of characterizing the consensus among cosmologists. Sometimes you wrote things that sounded like the idea that the very early universe had a singular point, as if that was the consensus among cosmologists. Sometimes, you wrote things that sounded like the idea that the early universe was very small, without there being a singular point in the very early universe. It is not clear from the text you wrote which of these ideas you think is in the consensus among experts. I will show that this is the case, and then I will explain why when forced to choose one of them, you cannot hold both claim (1) and claim (2). You will have to abandon at least one of them. To see the ambiguity, one must follow your use of the word “point”. In your first response you said that ”the Big Bang does claim that existing space began at a certain point”. You immediately added that ”according to what [you] understand”, ”time has no meaning without space, meaning that time also began at that point”. Clearly, you are describing here a feature of a very early universe with a singular point. It is not clear whether this describes ”what [you] understand” that cosmologists think, or ”what [you] understand” about the subject that cosmologists study. Either way, you are describing here a feature of the idea that there was a singular point in the very early universe. A few short sentences later, you characterized the ”singular point” as ”the point where all space began”. This is consistent with what I quoted earlier and with the idea that there was a singular point in the very early universe. However, you added that “infinite temperature and density are not precise scientific concepts” and said that it was “to the best of [your] understanding.” You signed off with the words “meaning that the point was really dense and with a very high temperature.” This is no longer consistent with the idea that there was a singular point in the very early universe, but with the idea that the early universe was very small. Given the placement of the words “to the best of [your] understanding,” it is not clear to me whether the “meaning” you are talking about is yours or that of cosmologists. This only adds to the ambiguity. In your current response, you are again vague about the use of the word “point.” What is particularly striking here is that within two sentences, you borrow elements from two completely different ways of describing the consensus among cosmologists! For example, you wrote, “The cosmic microwave background radiation proves that all space expanded from a single, very dense place.” It sounds like you’re talking about the idea that the early universe was very small. But then you add, in the next sentence, the following words: “That is, all space started from this point.” (emphasis mine). But that’s a feature of the idea that the very early universe had a singular point, so you can’t use the word “that is” here! It’s explicitly not (!) a feature of this idea. You sound confused and vague about what you yourself are trying to argue, repeatedly mixing two things in a kind of cosmological muddle. I’m forced to force you to make a choice. Choose one of the following two ways to describe the consensus among cosmologists. One way is to argue that the consensus among cosmologists is that the very early universe had a singular point. The second way is that there is no consensus among cosmologists about the existence of a singular point, and the consensus is only that the early universe was very small. You must choose only one of these two options, because they contradict each other. This leads you to your dilemma regarding claims (1) and (2). If you choose the second way to characterize the consensus among cosmologists, then you agree with what I said to Doron on the subject. Since this is the only open thing you explicitly disagreed with in what I said in your original response, we have resolved the whole “don’t listen to the cosmologist” thing, because we are saying the same thing. I would add that Doron does not need to listen to any of us, but to find out these things himself. There is enough material on the Internet at the level of popular science. Things become more interesting if you choose the first way to characterize the consensus. I will examine it in detail. In your last response you said something quite general that is kind of true. Kind of. Not really. You said that “it is not entirely clear from a physical point what is closed” at the singular point. This is true only in the following specific sense: there are open questions in cosmology about this singular point. Among these questions is the question of whether there was such a point at the beginning of the universe in which we live, and if so, whether something “preceded” it. I mentioned the fact that there are such open questions about it earlier, in my conversation with Doron. If that was all you were going to say, I would say “in a sense, I already agreed with that” and close this corner of our conversation. However, it seems to me that you are pretending to claim something stronger, but you are not simply saying that. I have no other way of interpreting the question “when we translate the mathematical term to the physical world what exactly does it mean”. In these words, you do not explicitly claim that such a translation, whatever it may be, is impossible. You simply imply that it is not based on some vague difficulty in “translating” a mathematical term into the physical world. I have two things to say about this. First, you cannot adopt the first way of characterizing the consensus among cosmologists and at the same time claim that there is a difficulty in “translating” the mathematical term of a singular point into the “physical term”. Assuming that this is the way of characterizing the consensus that you choose, you yourself have presented and used something that sounds exactly like such a “translation”: what you said about the cosmic microwave background. If at the beginning of the universe all matter was concentrated in infinite density at a singular point and space-time expanded from that point, we would indeed expect to discover the cosmic microwave background. If that is not “translating” the mathematical term to the physical world, I don’t know what is. Second, regardless of what you think about the subject, it is indeed possible to build a model of our universe in which there is a singular point in the very early universe and predict from it the existence of the cosmic microwave background. Regardless of which way you choose to characterize the consensus among experts, it is absolutely possible to do this: you can develop a model that starts from a singular point and predicts the existence of the cosmic microwave background. As I explained in a previous response, it is a mistake to think that the cosmic microwave background “proved” the existence of such a singular point, but this does not contradict the fact that such a model can be built. So what exactly are you claiming when you talk about the difficulty of "translating" the mathematical term of a singular point to the physical world? What is the same difficulty you talked about of translating mathematics to the physical world? The last question is critical in light of the fact that it seems possible to translate a "singular point" to the physical world in a way that allows us to answer very "physical" questions such as "what would we expect to see in the universe if it started from a singular point?" ”. I don't know what you're talking about, and I want to know. You need to establish that such a “translation” difficulty exists, especially if you think that the existence of the cosmic microwave background radiation can indeed be inferred from the idea that there was a singular point in the very early universe. I'll end this whole response with a hint. In your response, please answer the following questions, in order to dispel the ambiguity and put the conversation in a clear direction, one that can clarify exactly what we disagree on (and maybe we agree on everything?): 1. Which of the two ways to characterize the consensus among cosmologists do you choose? 2. What does it mean to “translate” a mathematical concept to the physical world? Can you at least provide hints as to what you consider such a translation to be? 3. Do you agree that the cosmic microwave background radiation can be predicted from a model of the very early universe in which there is a singular point? 3. a. If not, why? 3. b. If so, is this a “translation” of a mathematical concept to the physical world? 3. b. a. If not, why? 3. b. b. If so, what do we disagree on about everything related to the place of the singular point in cosmology? I think our conversation will take a more promising direction if you answer these questions.

Doron,
Regarding the singular point, see what I wrote to Yishai. I would add that like the ”challenge” he mentioned about the “translation” of the mathematical concept to the physical world, you present another ill-defined challenge. If “explaining also what empirical and metaphysical reality it describes” is equivalent to showing that this model is indeed correct, indeed describes the history of the universe in which we all live, then yes, we agree that this is an open question regarding the singular point.

And yet, because of your choice of words in several parts throughout this conversation, I get the impression that this is not what you meant by this challenge. If that is the case, then like Yishai, one needs to explain what that “translation” that he talked about, you are welcome to explain what you think it is to “explain an empirical and metaphysical reality” that a model describes. I am only self-taught in philosophy, so maybe I am missing some subtle point. And yet, the meaning of phrases like “empirical and metaphysical reality” escapes me, and I have no idea what it means to “explain” such a reality. We do not have a common language here and you will have to explain yourself in a language that I understand.

Well, all this is very interesting, and you and Vishish are welcome to continue this conversation with me in parallel. In the rest of this response I will discuss what you wrote about intelligent design. I will quote the things to which I am going to respond explicitly:
As I understand it, the problem is very simple. Physicists agree among themselves that our universe was created out of nothing from the singular point. As far as I understand, everyone agrees that before His creation there was no space and time and no physical laws (at least not laws in any accepted or understandable sense to us). It seems to me that everyone also agrees that this universe contains some very, very specific constants… without which life could not have developed (even if only on the fringes of this universe).
Hence the question: What is the most successful explanation for the existence of these constants?
And the answer that claims to be the most plausible (in my opinion it is indeed the most plausible as far as I understand the matter) is that an intelligent designer is required to make this possible.

I emphasized in your words what we agreed that I was going to adopt as an assumption for the purposes of this discussion. I will add that you have already added a certain qualification to this description. “From nothing” does not really mean “From nothing”. You wrote at one point:
However, I want to clarify: I did not claim that things happened out of thin air just like that, but out of thin air by the power of a transcendent factor (God) who caused them.
I don't know if this will change anything later for me or you, but it's on the table.

I like to be organized. This is a disease of academics. I will try to write in an organized way what I recognize in what you wrote above. Your starting point is some phenomenon with two components, a general component and a specific component:
1. General component. The universe – including space-time, matter and the laws of nature – was created out of thin air (with that qualification) from the singular point in the Big Bang.
2. Specific component. In the laws of nature there are natural constants, whose values must be very specific, so that life can develop.
I will call this two-component phenomenon “a specific universe for life was created”.

You say that a universe specific to life was created, and as I said, I assume for the purposes of the discussion that this is true. You are looking for the most successful explanation for the formation of the universe specific to life. The answer that you think is most likely is an intelligent designer. This is the point where I am not so sure what you are saying: I do not know in what way you think an “intelligent designer” is an explanation for the formation of the universe specific to life.

I asked you to elaborate on this, but it sounds like you thought it was clear and had already been said. It is not clear to me and past experience has taught me that if we do not agree on this in advance, it will be a deaf dialogue. So I will try to pour specific meaning into the idea that an intelligent designer explains the universe. I will try to keep this content as general and broad as possible, and remain faithful only to the raw connotations of the words “designer” and ”intelligent” in Hebrew.

This is the content I propose for the claim “an intelligent designer created the life-specific universe”: some entity wanted to create a life-specific universe, had the power to design a life-specific universe, had the power to devise a plan that would lead to the creation of a life-specific universe, had the power to carry out that plan, and it did carry it out. To say that the claim “an intelligent designer created the life-specific universe” is a true claim is to say that the life-specific universe in which we live was created by an intelligent designer in the sense I just presented.

There are several implicit assumptions in this description. I use words that are familiar to all of us from our inner world. I attribute desires to this entity. The ability to think is necessary for it to be able to plan. It also has the ability to plan ahead and the causal power to “move” things. For all these words to have any meaning, I must at least assume that there is something similar between how I, you, and all humans “want” things, “think” and “plan” things, and what this entity does. Otherwise, we don’t know what “planning” is, and certainly not what an “intelligent” one is. It is less clear whether the causal force it exerts and the causal force we exert are the same “kind” of causal force, but that is not a point we must get into. I do not base my criticism of the argument from subtle design on that point.

Do you adopt the description as the opening frame of the conversation? In particular, do you accept how I described the phenomenon of “a universe specifically for life being created”? And the way I described the intelligent design explanation? I will add that even if you accept both, they seem quite general to me so that you can always add details and refine them in the future. However, I want to know in advance that at least this general and broad description is indeed what you have in mind. If not, please suggest an alternative. The main thing is to have some description on the table that is agreed upon by both of us of the claim “an intelligent designer created a universe specific to life”. Without at least some general description, we will surely talk over each other’s heads, as always happens.

If you think I did not understand your point properly, I think we should clarify this. If I did understand your point properly, we can proceed to the next stage and begin to build my counterargument. I will pretend to conclude in the end that there is no basis for claiming that an intelligent designer most likely created the universe specific to life. In fact, I will argue that it is more likely that this claim is false.

For an cosmologist,
It's a bit difficult to answer responses that are as long as the exile (and I thought I was prolonging it).
Regarding the comment about Rabbi Michi, I have nothing to answer.
Regarding sources about Rav Yaqum - I'm not interested in popular science. Popular science is usually populism and not at a sufficient level.
Now to the core of the argument in your response (after that I'll answer the questions). As you wrote, you didn't understand the meaning of what I wrote to translate mathematics into physics. The point is that we have a certain mathematical expression, the question is what does this expression mean in reality. For example, I'll take the Hamiltonian operator. Its eigenvalue is a number, now the question is what does this number mean in the real world. The translation from mathematics to physics is to come and say that this eigenvalue is actually energy.
Now let's move on to cosmology, we have a mathematical entity of something with an infinite value (density), now the question is what does this mean in the real world? Can there be such a thing as infinite density? I hope the math hasn't warped your mind too much and you'll agree that the answer is no (spare me an explanation, please). So now we're left with trying to understand what our mathematical result means. And the answer is that it's a very, very high density. In short, my argument is that there's no difference between a very, very small universe and a singular point. The singular point in the physical translation becomes a very small universe (from which space expanded and therefore time also began at that moment, this is part of the mathematical conclusion that we have no problem translating to the physical world). Therefore, the fundamental question is this.
Now to your questions:
1. As I answered above, the two methods are the same.
2. As I explained above.
3. Indeed. 3. A. Indeed, this is a translation from the mathematical world to the physical world. 3. B. b. What is the physical meaning of the singular point itself.
Therefore, it turns out that there is definitely a consensus on the beginning of space (which also entails the beginning of time) from a certain point (at least in our space, if we don't jump into all sorts of hallucinations). And my 2 claims stand in their place.
(Because you told Doron that there is no consensus among cosmologists that time and space (at least ours) began at some point and I claim that you are wrong and you don't understand that even those who claim that the universe was simply a small universe are actually translating the singular point and they also claim that space and time began there. I hope that is clear.

To the cosmologist
I will skip the technical matters you brought up here, especially in your answer to Yeshi, which are incomprehensible to me and are not important to the fundamental (philosophical) matter.
I greatly appreciate your rigor, but you get a little carried away and end up in unnecessary quibbles. I say this in the context of the question of the applicability of mathematics to the world and specifically regarding its applicability to the “singular point”. There is nothing to get hung up on here: a mathematical model, no matter how successful, does not necessarily say anything about reality itself. For example, we all accept and understand the concept of minus 3, but if I am missing 3 oranges, I cannot describe it physically (is there a physical world of minus 3 oranges..???).
Regarding your formulation of my opening position (the entire universe was created out of nothing by an intelligent designer, etc.) I “allow” you to continue. You have more or less successfully described my position. Please be precise and brief. Good philosophy tries not to use too many words.

P.S.
I have not yet found good confirmations of your position regarding the scientific consensus about the Big Bang. Of course, I have found serious people who apparently support your position, but I have not been able to understand from them whether they are in the minority or not. Sean Carroll, for example, seems to me to be an interesting and serious person (he is an atheist physicist who assumes that in his opinion the most reasonable thing at the moment is to assume that the universe was not created in time but has always existed).

Doron
Regarding the PS. I didn't see what Sean Carroll said, but I assume it's not exactly as you describe. It seems to me that everyone (cosmologists) agrees that the space we live in began with the Big Bang (at that very, very small point, see my answer to the cosmologist). But what Sean Carroll says about the Big Bang is that the Big Bang is a phenomenon that repeats itself and that the universe has always existed and that it contracts from time to time and reopens. As you understand, this is a hypothesis after you come to the conclusion that space began with the Big Bang. In other words, he also agrees that space began with the Big Bang, but the question is whether there were other contractions and expansions before that. (I tried to see what he thought from Wikipedia, but it was very brief and I couldn't verify his opinion) This is part of what the cosmologist claimed that there is a debate among cosmologists about. Was there anything before the singular point? But everyone agrees that the space we are in was created as a result of that point (more precisely, a very small universe).

Yishai, I don't feel qualified to tell you exactly what Sean Carroll thinks. I know that he is an atheist and a naturalist and opposes fine tuning (at least in its theistic version, as I presented here). The important point is that it emerges from his words that there have always been some physical conditions (and it doesn't matter if it's our space-time or something else) from which our known universe grew. If this is true, there was enough "time" anyway to probabilistically allow the growth of life-supporting conditions in the universe. In other words: if his physical hypothesis is correct, it may weaken the explanation from delicate design. I bet that Bezz is wrong, just in a different place. In my opinion, he sneaks metaphysical explanations through the back door without noticing and just calls it a "scientific explanation". But I need to delve into this a little more before I can express a more informed opinion. There is a long and interesting debate between him and my favorite philosopher William Lane Craig on the subject. Here is a link

Doron
What you say is kind of what I meant. From what I get from people who make claims similar to what he says, they first see that our space began from a certain place and time, and then they assume that there is no possibility that the world could have begun at some point, so they come to the conclusion that there is an expansion and spread of the universe that repeats itself every few years. In other words, they assume what they want without scientific proof. That's my impression, maybe I'm wrong.
I see that this William Lane is very popular with you because in the previous debate you actually said exactly what he claimed.

We may agree.
Regarding William Lane Craig, I must make the reservation that all my acquaintance with him is from what he said (YouTube lectures) and not from reading his works. In this respect, my impression may be a bit superficial… and I still don't remember ever encountering a living philosopher with such an all-encompassing, systematic and, above all, rational approach as he does. This is something relatively new to me. I hung around the university for a few years and my impression is that in the philosophy debates (and probably in the other departments as well) there are mainly “technicians”. He doesn't seem like such a technician.

I apologize that it took me about two weeks to respond. I was just busy most of the first week, and I read material in the second week in order to understand if there was a chance that Friday was right in what he said.

Doron,
I'll start from the main point. I'm glad that you accept my description of your position. I would be happy if you could tell me what was less successful in the description I gave and how you would fix it. I doubt if this will change anything for the rest of our conversation. Maybe it does, but I'm more curious about the potential to improve such conversations with others.

In my previous message to you, I gave clear content to the claim “a specific universe for life was created” and to the claims “an intelligent designer created the specific universe for life”. Now I will add clear content to the claim “an inanimate cause created the specific universe for life”: some inanimate entity had the causal power to cause the formation of the specific universe for life, and it did happen. To be sure, the word “inanimate” here excludes intelligent beings, and “entity” here is in the broadest sense of the word “something that exists.” To say that the claim “an inanimate agent created the life-specific universe” is a true claim is to say that the life-specific universe in which we live was created by an inanimate agent in the sense I just presented.

In the absence of an explicit argument to the contrary, the idea that an intelligent designer created the life-specific universe and the idea that an inanimate agent created the life-specific universe both explain the life-specific universe in the same way, and in both cases the explanation fully explains what is being explained. I emphasize: in the absence of an explicit argument to the contrary. In particular, there are two hypothetical explanations on the table for the formation of a life-specific universe. Hypothetical, not necessarily true. You think the first is the most likely explanation and derive from it evidence for the existence of God. I will later pretend to show that the second is the most likely explanation, given the cosmological premises of the discussion. I will point out that I do not conclude anything about the existence of God from this, because I am on the fence about the cosmological premises in question.

I can of course live without a problem with the idea that these are two explanations for the life-specific universe and that there is no decisive argument as to which one is likely to be correct. This is not a position open to someone like you who thinks that the argument from fine design provides evidence for the existence of God. All of this leads us to a certain discrepancy in what you have written so far. You have explicitly written that you think the most likely explanation is that an intelligent designer created the life-specific universe. In particular, you think the idea that an inanimate agent created the life-specific universe is less likely than the idea that an intelligent designer created it. Can you build an explicit argument that concludes that it is indeed more likely that an intelligent designer created the life-specific universe than that an inanimate agent created it?

I will emphasize that I cannot build a valid argument that bridges this gap. All the ones that come to mind are riddled with holes from beginning to end. What is certain to me is that there is a need for such an argument. If you think otherwise, we will have to argue about it, as an introduction.

——

I will move on to the various side conversations between us here.

First, you said that Sean Carroll supports my position. Just so I understand, what position is this? Specifically, does Sean Carroll think that there is no consensus among cosmologists about what happened in the very early universe? If so, I would be happy to see a place to clarify the matter. It could make my life easier the next time I enter into a discussion on the subject.

Second, regarding the characterization of the consensus itself. I don't know what sources to give you beyond those I've already given. I remember Liddle's book as being really explicit on the subject of the lack of consensus regarding the existence of a singular point, and it's the only direct source from the literature that I know of that I think is likely to be followed by someone without a background. You could also read the relevant chapter without going into the rest, although I recommend going into the rest, both for context and because it's interesting. Beyond that, I'm not sure what else to give you. In very few scientific fields do people conduct opinion polls, research, and publish them, and when they do, it's mostly on issues of public interest (climate change, for example). What is in the consensus and what is not becomes clear from a review of the literature itself. I think my characterization of the consensus is consistent with reality, in light of my reading of the literature (see an update on the state of the literature as it appears from my response to Lishi below).

Third, regarding the veneration of words, I recommend that you read articles by William Lane Craig from any philosophical journal. If you thought what I wrote was rambling, I wonder what you would think of his texts. If good philosophy doesn't expand on the scale that goes on here, Craig needs to cut back a lot. Either way, I think my responses did their best to shed light on points of contention in order to whitewash them. I have no intention of apologizing for that and it's not going to stop.

Regardless, because you like Craig, I can recommend a few of his articles that I like that deal with topics that are tangential to what we're discussing. In general, I think it's always better to read than to discuss with people. Silence always helps me formulate conclusions and makes me feel less obligated to someone and less like I have to defend my opinion.

Finally, the math thing. Whether you meant it or not, at the heart of what you wrote is a distinction between two things, a distinction that I will write explicitly:
1. The claim that a mathematical model describes reality.
2. The mathematical model itself and its mathematical properties in and of itself.
This distinction seems trivial to me. My job requires me to recognize it all the time. I am an applied mathematician. Most of what I do is empirical work, on the seam between mathematics and science (in my case, biology in general, not physics).

I will add that this distinction is far-reaching. For some reason you focused on negative integers as an example of some mathematical object that does not necessarily “capture” something in the physical world. This is also true for the natural numbers. In light of part (1) of the above distinction, the justification for “counting” describing “accumulating oranges in a hand” using natural numbers is only the fact that it actually works. Imagine that we live in a different world than the one we live in, a world in which if you have two oranges and I give you two more oranges we consistently find that you have 3 oranges in your hand. In this world, we would not use the natural number system and its usual addition operation to count oranges. In such a world, a model that does this would not correctly describe “accumulating oranges”. We do not live in this world, and in the world we do live in, the model of “accumulating oranges” that uses natural numbers and their usual arithmetic operations – does work. This empirical finding is the justification for using natural numbers and their usual addition operation to represent accumulating oranges.

And now I will answer your question directly. There is absolutely a physical world in which you have minus 3 oranges. This is exactly the same physical world in which a lot of people have a minus in their bank account (overdraft). This is our world. In general, when we model how much of X we have (for example, how many oranges or how much money), it is quite common to give a negative value the meaning of owing X to others. Is this a property of mathematics? No. It's a model of "how many X do we have" that we built on top of the standard addition operation of integers. It's no different than deciding to "count" how many oranges we have in our hand using the natural numbers and the standard addition operation on them. Again, this model is useful because it does capture the behavior of things that exist independently of this model, things like how much money we have in our bank account and the balance of oranges in your orange pool.

I'll point out that the main difference between these models is the range of things that are true about reality that each of them can capture. The "natural" model does not capture "debts" of oranges. The "whole" model does. And neither of them grasps the idea of accepting someone as half an orange, even though that could absolutely happen in the reality we live in. For that, you would have to switch to using rational numbers and their standard addition operation.

In short, it seems trivial to me that there is a distinction between the claim that a mathematical model correctly describes reality and the model itself and its properties. My career depends on this distinction existing and that certain skills are needed to build a mathematical model with the convenient mathematical properties that actually describes reality. That's how I make a living.

So what were you trying to say? I don't know. Do you? There's a recurring pattern in this part of our conversation. You claim and usually just imply that there are all sorts of "metaphysical" or "conceptual" or "content" challenges with things like singular points. As far as I remember, you used the words I first quoted, not me. Perhaps you also agree with Yishai's terms and think that there is a difficulty in "translating" a mathematical concept like "infinite density" into physical reality. "Translation" was certainly not my choice of words. As far as I can see, what all these apparent challenges have in common is that they are distinct and distinct from the following open question in cosmology: Was there even a singular point in the very early universe? The challenge you point to is ostensibly some kind of problem with the hypothesis that there was a singular point in our universe that does not depend on whether this hypothesis is true or not. If you see a dependence between them, I assume it is in the opposite direction: if this challenge is unanswerable, perhaps it tells us something about whether or not there was a singular point in the universe. What is certain is that there does not seem to be a mutual dependence.

Do you really think there is such a challenge? It sounds like there is, so please, elaborate on what it is. This is not the first time I have asked this and you have not done it, so I will elaborate a little on what you should do in the hope that it will motivate you to take action. Explicitly state the metaphysical principle that infinite density violates and provide an argument that it does violate it. Literally state what that metaphysical principle is, in words. Perform a conceptual analysis of “infinite density” that challenges the idea that it can “locate” in the physical world in which we live. Literally analyze this concept and contrast it with the concept of “being in the physical world” at the conceptual level. Or alternatively, explain in detail what it means to “translate” a concept into physical reality and show that ”infinite density” It cannot be “translated” in this way. Actually build at least the skeleton of an approach to “translating” a concept to physical reality. I have dealt here with the concept of “infinite density”, but you can choose any other concept related to a singular point that has come up here.

I do not see this challenge and I am your target audience, so please make an effort to communicate yourself better. If you are unable to communicate this challenge to others, I recommend that you take seriously the possibility that it simply does not exist. I will state explicitly that I believe that such a challenge does not exist and I am very curious to find out otherwise. So far I thought, and I still think, that all we have before us is an open scientific question about the existence of a singular point in the very early universe. It is an open question like any open question in science, and nothing more. It is open in the same sense that it should be an open question to you whether I have a table in M”D or not.

—

Finally, I will note that if you would like me to address something specific that Friday says in this thread, you are welcome to ask me and I will consider it. However, know that I will generally ignore him in the future. I simply do not care what he has to say. See my response to him for the reason.

Yishai,
I will start from the bottom line, which will be very firm, both on the subject of the content of the discussion and on the personal side. Everything you wrote about the consensus among cosmologists is simply disconnected from reality. This will be my last response to you on the matters we discussed, because I do not consider you to be contributing anything to me on these matters. The conversation with you is, in my opinion, one of the worst examples of conversations between strangers on the Internet.

And now the reasoning. When I first read what you wrote, I raised an eyebrow. Basically, you claim that the consensus among cosmologists is that ”infinite density” is actually finite density, “there is a singular point where the density of matter is infinite” is actually “there is no such point with infinite density, but a point with very high density”, and ”time began” It's the same as "there was a time before time when we say time began." And so cosmologists decided that in their field "there is" is actually "nothing," "infinity" is actually "the end," and something existed before it was created. And all of this is somehow obvious to anyone whose brains haven't been blown away by math, even though a kindergartener knows the difference between "there is" and "nothing," you don't need a background in math to get an idea of the gaping chasm between the finite and the infinite, and the devil knows what it's like to exist before creation. On the surface, I thought it was highly unlikely that this was what cosmologists thought.

And yet, I said to myself, well, maybe I missed something in what I'd read before. It's been a few years since I studied O'Neill. Vychy knows what self-value and the Hamiltonians are, so he's not ignorant. So I opened the literature and started looking. My initial conclusion only strengthened what you claimed is completely disconnected from what cosmologists actually say. It's quite amazing how far off track you are. This is not a situation where there is any doubt about anything. Cosmologists have been very clear and specific in their words. They don't say what you say they say and they are having a discussion about what I say they are having a discussion. Period.

Specifically, cosmologists have had and are having a lively discussion about the following three questions:
1. Was there a singular point in the evolution of the universe? A singular point here, on its various definitions in the literature, as I define it, with all that you say it is not.
2. If so, what was its nature?
3. If so and if not, what can be concluded about the evolution of space-time?

Just a few examples of this. In one paper, Hawking and Ellis (1968) tried to show that there was a singular point in the very early universe based on a particular singularity theorem combined with measurements of the cosmic microwave background. A 1971 paper tried to get rid of the singularity in their model, but still get a model that got things very “compressed”. In other words, these cosmologists tried to build a model in which something pretty much resembles what you think everyone thinks is happening – actually happening, and not the thing that Hawking and Ellis’ singularity theorem showed to be happening (Nariai 1971). Others built models that tried to “bypass” the singularity in an attempt to answer all sorts of physical questions about the evolution of the universe where it arose (for example, Hawking and Hartl in the 1981 paper that I think I mentioned here did exactly that). And all this without mentioning works from the theoretical framework of steady-state cosmology, which was still kind of alive in the 1960s.

This literature is insanely rich and this richness is not a “new” phenomenon. For most of this week I limited the time window in Google Scholar to articles published up to 1985. When I expanded that window, to be exposed to newer literature, it seemed to me that the main thing that had changed was mainly the richness of ways to avoid or “characterize” singular points. (I especially liked an entire theory that I didn't know existed that allows you to extend all sorts of geometric quanta to situations where a semi-Riemannian metric “vanishes”. The most useful thing I got out of all this reading.) Either way, all these researchers are doing one of two things. Either they are explicitly trying to violate the assumptions of theorems that state that there is a “singular point” that is whatever you claim it is not, or they are constructing space-time models in a way that allows them to “look at” or “beyond” this singular point.

Looking at this literature under the assumption that you are right yields a truly illusory result. According to you, cosmologists don't really think there was a singular point in the sense I am talking about. So cosmologists think that ”is”is”not”, “infinite” is “finite”, and ”things exist before they begin” and all that. As mentioned, this is already bizarre in itself. In addition to this, in light of your assumption, researchers in the field have built an extensive research literature in which they never bother to write that by the words “singular point” they actually mean what you say they mean, while they explicitly write that they mean what I say they mean. They still debate to this day about the existence of a singular point, even though you claim that its existence is in consensus. According to you, this is an entire community of researchers in a state of deep schizophrenia. They never write what they really mean, consistently write that they mean what you state that they do not mean, while they conduct a discussion about what you believe is in consensus. Atonement for sins, this is not a Genesis rabbi's midrash here. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and turns to you and says, “I’m a duck,” it’s a duck, and in this case, it has a singular point on its beak!

Another aspect in which you are disconnected from reality is your reasoning. You argued what you argued in the name of the idea of the ducks, that only people with mathematics instead of neurons can imagine things like infinite density. After all, it is crystal clear that infinite density cannot be part of the physical world. As if mathematicians with no familiarity with the field conceived the concept of a singular point, not cosmologists. Well, really.

This is a position that has been floating around in the free market of ideas on a cloud of fairy dust. You suffer from a misunderstanding that I have seen many times in the past, including in myself. You don’t acknowledge that what feels right to you is simply not interesting and irrelevant in science. In science, you don't sit on your armchair and think about things like "infinite density doesn't seem right to me, and anyone who thinks otherwise has their head twisted by mathematics." This is science, not a lesson in armchair philosophy or a psychoanalysis session. No one cares what you think is right or wrong, and certainly not about your psychological analyses. All that matters is what you are able to provide an argument in its favor. In fact, the concept of infinite density in the context of the Robertson-Walker space-time model is a well-defined concept that easily (quite easily!) extends the concept of ordinary density in physics. (Of all the things to deal with in general relativity and its applications, this is one of the most "intuitive"! And that's what bothers you???) In the context of this model, there is even a fairly trivial geometric interpretation of this concept. If you have difficulty understanding how to “work with it” and how to relate it to the real world, go back and study the relevant physics and mathematics, instead of wasting your time putting words into the mouths of the cosmologists who did it.

Finally, listen, I'm just not with you. I've wasted too much time on this conversation without getting anything out of it, and the way you write and the content of your words make it clear to me that I won't either. The week I spent reading the literature was interesting at times, but there's no way I would have devoted that time to this purpose for nothing. Just go to Google Scholar and type singularity theorems and start reading the literature. You'll find the articles I mentioned here and many others. The sources from the literature in this thread will also be really easy for you to find if you search for the names of the authors and the year. Most of them are quite famous. I recommend that you find a good book on general relativity as a background for this reading, because if I had difficulty following the literature I reviewed this week, I'm sure it will happen to you too.

To the Cosmologist
I'm afraid your frustration with Yishai's responses is quite similar to my frustration with your response to the main point of our discussion (what is the most likely explanation for the universe's emergence from the Big Bang). I'll repeat what I said even though I'm not sure why I need to do so…
If indeed science agrees that all of nature – space, time, matter, energy, particles – was created out of nothing almost 14 billion years ago, then from a philosophical point of view the most likely explanation is that there is a deliberate hand behind it. This is because the other explanations (physical determinism or randomness). are less likely. Physical determinism is unlikely because according to this position there was not even “physics” before the Big Bang and in any case there is no point in talking about such determinism; Randomness is unlikely because in principle explanations based on such rare and special coincidences are less successful (although they should not be categorically dismissed).

If you continue to insist even now that there is no “explicit argument” on my part, you probably did not distinguish between the main and the minor and therefore did not understand what the discussion was about in the first place. That's how I see it, maybe I'm wrong….

Regarding the side issues you raised, I will provide a separate response. These are really side issues…

Regarding your reference to Yishai, I was overcome with fear and trembling when I heard what you said about him and to him. I would not want to meet you in a dark alley and I hope that mentioning his explicit name by me will not seal my fate like his. ? On the other hand, I also had a very difficult time with him in a discussion we had recently on a completely different topic…. Yishai, my apologies.

So about the marginal matters…

1. I don't know what Sean Carroll thinks about the scientific consensus on our matter. I brought it up because I thought it would contribute to the discussion from another direction. I don't know if it did.

2. Regarding that consensus, maybe later I'll actually check the source you referred me to.

3. If Craig is unnecessarily verbose, then I have criticism of him too.

4. I completely agree with you that it's always better to read a philosophy text than to listen to a lecture.

. 5. Regarding infinite values that science uses (for example, the supposedly infinite density of the singular point). Well, here I think you're confusing a philosophical discipline (specifically, we're talking about branches like metaphysics and ethics) and a mathematical discipline) with the sciences (in our case, physics). Modern science makes a borrowed, very legitimate and useful use of the concept of infinity that it “borrowed” from the a priori disciplines (philosophy and mathematics). There is no problem with that. The problem begins with the interpretation given to that process when people like you mistakenly think that the origin and meaning of infinity is found in “phenomena” or in physics. For example, when Sean Carroll claims that the material universe is eternal, that is, infinite in time, he may be right. But if he thinks that this can be described from science alone – and that is really what he thinks – then he is creating categorical confusion. The same goes for the singular point (assuming that science does indeed describe it according to what I have called the conservative model). The only way to use it within science in a coherent and useful way is to “import” it from the outside. What does that mean? This means that there is no such thing as infinite density in which all matter was compressed, as it were, into a single point. And if there were such a thing, it would not be matter. It is an abstract and spiritual entity.

6. This matter is related to your confusion (in my opinion) with the example of "minus three oranges". You are probably confusing the ability to make practical and useful use of the concept of minus, which is drawn from the a priori mathematical discipline, with the ontological question of its application to the field of physics. Indeed, the example you bring from the bank debt reinforces my opinion: if I am in minus at the bank, it does not mean that it has a physical expression in some world. It is merely a mental operation, certainly relevant to the real world (and perhaps also the physical one) but absolutely not part of it.
I will offer you a challenge: describe to me in natural or physical language what “minus three oranges” looks like (as opposed to a description of “plus three oranges”). Explain to me in detail what, for example, the weight, color, or size of those missing oranges are. Note that the description must first of all include their ontological (missing) status. Good luck.

Wow, I didn't expect such a response.
Anyway, Doron pretty much explained what I was trying to say.