There was a lot to your post and I wanted to address it all. I’m sorry to take so long to respond.
Regarding ‘cause and reason’. I see reason as an explanation for an event within a specific context and cause is the explanation when you back up one level. One’s view of how much depth there is to the universe determines when you stop looking for a prior level.
BJ: Are you saying that nowhere does not exist in the universe or outside of it?
Perfection: Nowhere by it's very nature is non-existent! That's what nowhere is!
In a dualistic universe everything exists in relationship to something else. It is the only way we can define discrete things, events and concepts. The self and everything that is not self is the first one we learn. “Somewhere” can only exist in the context of a somewhere/nowhere duality; the same applies to exist and non existent. Both must be possible or the duality is lost. Once you lose duality you are left with an undifferentiated uniformity that is beyond time and space; an all encompassing everything that is permanent and unchanging. This uniformity will swallow all duality by its very nature. If you assign this singular nature to the physical universe, then you are saying that it is the most fundamental to all existence, beyond time and beyond change. Difficult to defend cosmologically.
Within duality our universe fits easily and should have a shadow non universe (characterized by anti matter??). Virtual particles can migrate back and forth according to whatever laws determine such movement. Does this seem to fit with current thinking? Science operates in the dualistic universe.
Whether one accepts that there is anything beyond duality is strictly a personal choice. There is no firm proof.
Birdjaguar: I don't doubt the validity of the math in this. But, it is really simple only if you ignore the fact that you depend upon "nowhere and nothing" to make it work. The mathematics account for the event, but not for the nowhere and nothing.
Perfection: The math and the physics account for it without having to use a source, it appears that they don't require a source, so we say there is no source. Is this absolute proof? Of course not, but it's a lot better than making an assumption that appears to be faulty! YOU ARE ASSUMING THAT SOMETHING MUST COME FROM SOMETHING ELSE, SCIENCE HAS PROVIDED EVIDENCE AGAINST THIS!
I tried to address this above. I hope I was clearer this go around.
Birdjaguar: Do you think the mathematical nature of the universe evolved or was it inherent from the beginning? If there was a beginning.
Perfection: I believe mathematics is an inherent facet of the universe.
I would agree.
Birdjaguar: Our universe is dualistic. If you accept that it had a beginning, then there has to be "something" before that beginning even if that "something" was "nothing". If time began, then before time began there was timelessness.
Perfection: No, if there was a beginning there must not be something before it, or else it wouldn't be the beginning! Natural numbers begin at one, nothing is before it. And nothing is not a thing! It's the complete [???] of a thing! Timelessness is the absence of time, so how can it be put in chronological order?
My use of “timelessness” above was misleading. I should have used “before time or outside of time”. Your beginning was only the beginning of time and the universe. If you are claiming that the universe is all that has ever existed and it still has a starting point you have created a duality of before time and within time. Both must exist. Neither can exist without the other. To avoid the duality you must make the universe eternal and then it cannot have a beginning. I have no interest in forcing a time based chronology. I do think that the universe had a beginning.
Birdjaguar: IIRC doesn't the probabilistic nature of the universe and the known nature of the subatomic world lead one to believe that the entire universe is really "nothing". At that level it is certainly a stretch to call anything real.
Perfection: "Real" is only used to describe the difference between human ideas that have a presence outside of the mind from those that have a presence only within the mind! The subatomic level is weird but it certainly is real.
Are you assigning “real “ to those ideas that exists only within or only outside the mind? Is there really a difference? Does anything exist outside (independent of) the mind? Is all love real?
Sometimes I’m not sure whether or not it is all in the mind or all outside the mind. The probabilistic nature of things is only real in the context of our time based, dualistic, physical universe where those laws have to actually work. If that context is the only one you choose to accept, then they are only as permanent as the universe.
Birdjaguar; "Nothing" is just a placeholder for "we don't know". Physics is trying to give it an acceptable name and some characteristics that fit with current theory.
Perfection: The place where virtual particles come from? I'd like to see a scrap of evidence for that statement.
I’m not a physicist, but it’s my understanding that’s what string theory and brane theory is all about. Folks are trying to put our time dependent, big bang starting universe in a larger context that accounts for all that before time non universe stuff and still include quantum mechanics and the probabilistic nature of the universe intact.
Birdjaguar: But there is only one correct answer to this question. Both cannot be correct. But both could be wrong.
Perfection; True, but I'm saying it's irrelevant to the discussion. If the universe has a beginning, what caused it? If the universe doesn't have a beginning then who [how?] could the whole chain of events have been put into place? The answer both depends on breaking out of the illusion of linear time!
Yes, you have to break free of time and of duality.
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This strawman arguement is funny. The author takes some random email from an unknown source, then reads 2 paragraphs of a college biology textbook and says there are errors in what the random email says.... Interestingly enough, it doesn't even mention how exactly bacteria from the rainforest, for example, acquire resistance. All it says is something about bacteria in hospitals collecting plasmids which contain antibiotics which give them resistance. Explain, then, how mosquito's became resistant to bug spray and mosquito repellent. This happened in the country I was born, and causes problems in the rainforest areas.
