rationalskepticism.org

Maryann wrote:
Regarding my knowledge of Greene, it's like my knowledge of virtually every other book I've read. I don't memorize the whole book.

Well you could at least try to understand the sections that you pull your quotes from.

Maryann wrote:
Branes...yep, I don't remember how they are a connection between M and cycles which would make them not mutually exclusive...sorry. Is it important to this discussion?

You tell me, you’re the one that brought up Greene and used his explanation of Turok’s cyclical model to show that Greene doesn’t believe in an “eternal universe“.

Oldskeptic wrote:
the universe had a beginning is not a given. That the universe as we know it began a finite span of time ago is, but that has nothing to do with what the universe was like before.

Infinitely hot dense quark-gluon plasma or cold dead infinitely large 3branes are two models that fit with what we do know of the expansion that ensued, and there are others,

Maryann wrote:
Began...had a beginning...two very different things, apparently. And, no doubt, before it began...before it had its beginning...there's no telling what it was like (when it wasn't...yet).

“The universe as we know it” and “the universe” are two different things. The former is what we can observe the latter is everything that exists or has ever existed. Hackenslash has tried to explain this more than once I believe, but you seem to be deaf to it, and even misrepresent what I said above.

The universe as we know it could be something that exists in the universe. So when I say that the universe having a beginning is not a given I mean that we, as in no one, knows whether it did or didn’t or even could have had a beginning.

And the universe as we know it could be just a different form of something that existed prior to when the universe as we know it began. The big bang model has this something as an almost infinitely hot, dense singularity at maximum entropy. Turok’s model has this as a cold almost infinitely large 3brane at maximum entropy colliding with another 3brane at maximum entropy. Either way what began was something changing into something else with no loss or gain in total energy.

Combine E=MC2 with the first law of thermodynamics and it becomes clear that the “beginning” of the universe as we know it was the conversion of total potential energy into other forms of energy. Nothing created. No actual beginning out of nothing. And no evidence that any intelligence was required.

Oldskeptic wrote:
With people like Maryann all roads lead to God

Maryann wrote:
Yes, that directly addresses my argument. Well done.

If you are going to truncate my sentences then at least have the integrity to indicate it by using an ellipsis.

Full sentence:

With people like Maryann all roads lead to God and never to question marks or statements such as, “I don‘t know.”

My purpose in that segment wasn’t to address your argument. It was to address Hackenslash’s question of what you were talking about. The sentence above that you plundered and dismembered was a comment about people like you that have a simple apologetic agenda: Defend the “God concept” at all costs. Why bother with fact checking or understanding concepts behind quotes used. Never mind intellectual integrity.

The columns you write and the posts you make here make it clear that you know diddlysquat about anything other than memorized apologetic arguments that have been demolished over and over again.

Maryann wrote:
And I'm not going to ignore relevant quotes just to avoid the "quote mine" objection I've heard fifty billion times.

These quotes are not relevant just because when taken out of context they give an impression of supporting your argument. They are only relevant if you understand them and use them in context.

Maryann wrote:
Branes...yep, I don't remember how they are a connection between M and cycles which would make them not mutually exclusive...sorry. Is it important to this discussion? Right after I read the book, if you'd've asked me, I might've known. Then again, much of the book was over my head. I've never even taken a basic physics class, so...

It is the same with concepts and ideas. If you don’t understand them or the subject matter then you have no justification for using them other than cherry picking and quote mining for things that you think, but do not know, support your argument.

Xrayzed wrote:
It is quite possible (but not necessary - eg see Hawking's "no boundary" proposal) to say the universe began at the Big Bang, and equally to assert that the universe has always existed, if we are careful to distinguish between two conceptions of "the universe".

In the former case we're talking about the immediate universe of connected space-time that we can live in and can observe: the one with c. 10^11 galaxies, mainly empty space, about 13.7 billion years old, has various Laws that describe how various aspects work etc.

In the latter case we're talking about everything that exists that could include other universes/metaverses/ominverse/whatever-we-choose-to-call-them-verses. So something, say space and time, have always existed, and our universe is simply one branch of that universe.

To distinguish between them we could talk about our immediate universe (lower case) as opposed to the Universe (upper case). The universe began to exist. But there are parts of the Universe that have always existed.

Maryann wrote:
Why didn't Greene talk about any of this?

Given your admitted limited reading comprehension how do you know that he didn’t?