This spawned from a discussion with a friend about CS Lewis's ideas as both a christian and a scholar. Just for some context, though it's not really important.

A: The day we started using the word "person" to describe God was the day the whole damn machine broke because as humans, it's an idea that's very easy for us to relate to--and thus makes it feel like we can relate with God (Given that the name "God" is a label we humans use to describe the genesis, present being, and future of our Everything.) Sounds a bit lofty to me.

B: Well sure. God is incomprehensible. We just try making analogies.

A: The analogies are insufficient.

B: Here's the way I see things. This universe is WAY too complex to be happenstance. We were created, through intelligent design. Whether Evolution was used or not, whatever. This universe was created.

A: That's a huge statement--that the universe was created.

B: It is.

A: You and I were created. This planet was created. The universe is the big, infinite, everything.

B: The universe. Space is big, remember?

A: Space isn't big. Big assumes a limit.

B: You may think it's a long way down the street to the corner store but that's just peanuts to space.

A: It's not even that. Size doesn't even factor. There is simply everything stretching across distance and time-- Infinitely in all directions and in all manners.

B: Pretty much, forwards and backwards, Eckwards and Andwards.

A: So, if we accept that time is infinite, then can it be said that time was ever created? Creation assumes there was a point where time and matter did not exist and that after that point, it did.

B: So.... the universe always existed. Always.

A: Yes. Our creation myths are exactly that. Myths.

B: Nope. I don't buy it.

A: Then dispute the logic.

B: I'm not even going to try to give you the 'oh that's faith' schtick, it's juvenile and insulting. Here's the thing, I, personally, [his full name] am unable to even fathom numbers you have to begin to crunch to estimate this stuff.

A: Numbers can't do it. Estimation has no place.

B: So what happened? You can't just say we always existed, because we didn't.

A: You and I didn't. Humanity didn't. "We" is a label that's typically assigned to humanity--not necessarily to the entire everything.

B: How did humanity come about then?

A: That's not a question I'm equipped to answer, but it's also not the point I'm presenting. Humanity is a blip on the endless radar of the universe.

B: Okay then. let's try this. There was a pre-humanity, right?

A: Sure.

B: There was a pre-earth.

A: Sure.

B: So why can't there be a Pre-Time? It's like I said before, about 2 dimensional characters trying to explain the fourth dimennsion. We BARELY grasp time as we stumble through it. Given that logic, I don't think it's so unreasonable to think that maybe there was a point when the universe as we know it didn't exist.

A: I suppose the idea does border on the creation of a concept of another "dimension." Just as you and I can observe a 2D plane, but characters on the 2D plane cannot perceive their world as we do. Such it is with "divine beings," perhaps.

B: Oh geeze.... I just argued myself into the position that We, humanity... are nothing more than a cosmic Web Comic.




This could be extended further. Any takers? Personally, I think it peters out around the time B assumes the "beginning" of the various dimensions--that one spawned from another or something.

I think our brains aren't naturally well suited to understanding reality. Hence the popular delusions of "God" or of reality being "too complex" to be an "accident".

I agree, but that's when I get my cool-face on and think "But what if I try anyway?"


A is a practical atheist who rejects the idea that universe even had a creation. He believes it "simply" has always been and always shall be. B is a religious man, who accepts the idea of the universe's creation, and that the entity called God is responsible for said creation. This is part of a discussion they have about that topic.


I've not read any of Card's work. After a quick wiki, I think I come to your same conclusion--the idea that there is an indivisible piece of matter which, despite being indivisible, also takes no space and has no mass (light doesn't count, since it is not matter) is an interesting piece of thought, but is probably not true. It is fun to think about the idea of atoms having a soul. And if a thought is fun, what more do you need?

1. Space is expanding in all directions and the rate of expansion is increasing.

--I've heard this before, but it doesn't really make sense to me. The idea of expansion springs from a therefore non-infinite universe. Whether or not it's "expanding," using any terminology relating to size or boundaries lends credence to the idea of a finite universe, which I think we all agree is not so.

2. Its carrying all the matter in the universe out with it in all directions.

--Same. "all the matter" implies a finite amount. Which there isn't.

3. We have been able to use mathematics to determine that the expansion had an origin point and we have a decent idea of what was happening millionths of seconds after the expansion began (temperature, composition, rate of expansion).

--When I say "universe" I am referring as much to it's physical properties as I am to the mental concept of it. Ev-er-y-thing. The presence of an origin is very, very puzzling. Here's an idea I once heard that helped to explain it while allowing for the idea of an infinite universe.

Rather than a point where nothing became something, there is the idea that there has always been something--the universe--and that it's been expanding (as you suggested) at a non-constant rate. If we look at the rate of expansion, it's essentially an asymptote. If we were to reverse the expansion of the universe (purely for observational purposes), we would see that the "size" of the universe is something that approaches, but never reaches zero. The idea of size, of course being used very loosely. Perhaps this is part of what explains gravity. I don't know. Some of the ideas I'm presenting here conflict with one another--that's because I can't really lay claim to any answers. All I can do is invite thought.

Basically War just kills it. That was really.. beautiful.



As for the rest of this topic well I'm not going to quote your guys individual blurbs because I'm on a school computer and it's really shitty and I don't feel like copying and pasting and shit. But here's what I remember from reading "A brief history of time" and lectures from my physics prof. Keep in mind I read a brief history in sophomore year (4 years ago) and I have ADHD and tend to space out in class.

-The prevailing theory among physicists is that there is a finite amount of matter in the universe. The big bang theory states the universe expanded from a singularity, which mathematically and conceptually is complex as fuck. In physics a singularity is either a black hole or the big bang. I think I remember it being described as a finite amount of matter with infinite density. Does this make sense? to me, no. But some of the greatest minds humanity has to offer have thought about it and have used mathematics to prove it and have performed CALCULATIONS to predict the behaviors of it. And sure enough when they look out at space their observations match the theories. Light gets bent around invisible objects at certain angles, stars orbit like they're in a binary system even though we only see one, whoa. Anyways..

Once again, I think I can safely say that nobody here really understands these complex theories.. yet... but we all, as humans, are natural philosophers and everything we have to say has some merit, so we can take it all seriously, but not too seriously.

I think I remember reading that another consequence of the singularity that was, as far as we know, the only thing in the universe, is that there was no time. What does that really mean though? Another thing we can barely understand because we never get anywhere close to a negligible fraction of relativistic speeds. But We know because of einstein's special and general relativity, and have proven it using sophisticated atomic clocks, that the difference in perception of time is affected by the relative velocity between two observers, and that the presence of mass alters the spacetime around it. So take all the matter in the universe, put it in a single point, and there's no time. Whatever.

Going simply by scientific data, though, time seems to stop as we go 'backwards' and get to the big bang. How did all this matter get here? Nobody knows. At all. It's all speculation at that point. I heard one idea though, that sounded pretty awesome. There's two things, a big bang, and a big crunch. A big crunch is when all the matter in the universe is already expanded out but is contracting slowly into a singularity. So the idea is there's a finite amount of matter in the universe, and throughout all of time, this matter keeps expanding, expanding, then contracting, contracting, into a singularity then explodes and expands again and on an on like a beating heart.

Be careful to not mix up matter and space though. Matter is real (well is it? lets just assume a naive assumption that what we see is how the world works) it's shit you can grab. Space is an idea. It's a mathematical idea that helps us model the world. Anybody can say space is infinite, because space is something you imagine. draw a rectangle or ellipse or whatever on your sheet of paper and put some speckles in it. That's the universe. You have a finite amount of matter there, but do you have a finite amount of space? you can. But you can just as easily draw a larger circle around that, and so on and so on, to represent more coordinate points that might have something in them sometime.

I'd like to wrap up this ADHD tirade with some parting words about science in general and physics in particular. Don't have a glossy-eyed idea of science. It's not perfect. A lot of kids, myself included, used to think physics was the language of gods, and that scientists are slowly discovering god's or nature's or whoever's blueprints. That's not the case. Relativity is a model. Quantum Mechanics is a model. Even classical mechanics is a model. F=ma is not always right and nature doesn't give a fuck about integers. These models and equations and whatnot have been proven to around 8 or 10 or something significant digits, I can't remember which exactly pertain to which theories, but the bottom line is it's not a perfect description of the world. It's an approximation. A damn good one at that, but still an approximation.

P.S. String theory is fluff and heresay. It's pretty much religion wearing a science mask. I'll believe it when they have peer-reviewed test results on paper.