Subj : The universe
To   : Joshua Lee
From : Bob Eyer
Date : Sun Dec 24 2000 03:04 am

BE:
-But the concept of cause has no meaning unless it occurs in the
-world of appearance, i.e.  in the universe.  Therefore no
-empirical meaning can be attached to the question "What caused the
-universe to exist?" There is no logically possible way to answer
-such a question.

>Jewish mysticism refers to spiritual universes created (that
>continue to exist) before this one in order to create this one,
>and coincidentally, from what I understand, the first thing
>emmenated (but so close to G-d that it's closely identified
>with him as a form of attribute, as it were - a sefira) was
>simple divine will itself; or cause. Thus, cause was emmenated
>before the material universe, known as "the world of action";
>so the entire problem you stated is avoided.

This is all very well as a matter of religious faith; but it won't
cut the mustard as empirical science.  There is no way, not even
in principle, of telling whether "the first thing emmenated ...
was a simple divine will itself".

>This is why the Rabbis stated that there are ten sayings
>that created the universe, even though there are only nine times
>that the Torah says "and G-d said", the tenth, explains the
>Gemara, is "in the beginning", which is the "hidden saying". Jewish
>mystical writings identify this with the divine will, the
>hidden sefira.

Once again, this is religion, not science.

 BE> But it had no cause.  It began, simpliciter.

>Atheists keep forgetting that Ocham was a theist.

And a Catholic.

However, this is neither here nor there.  Practically all the
philosophers and scientists of the modern period, even those which
elaborated and defended the Big Bang Theory, were theists.  The
Big Bang Theory itself originates with the scientific writings of
a Belgian cleric by the name of Georges Lemaitre in the 1920s.
George Gamov in the United States made Lemaitre's theory very
popular among scientists during the 1950s; but nobody made the
mistake of supposing that the Big Bang theory ought to be attached
to the catechism of some religion.  The issues in this theory are
purely scientific and mathematical in nature; and the mathematical
side of it actually prohibits any interpretation suggesting that
the Big Bang itself had a cause.  For such an hypothesis involves
the false idea that time existed before the beginning of the
universe.  This idea is false because it is incompatible with the
mathematical formalism in General Relativity which was responsible
for the development of the Big Bang theory in the first place.

Bob

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