Origin of Matter

[Anomalocaris]

Hi all, this is my first time posting.  I'm a Christian and I want to discuss what is the origin of matter?  Wouldn't the origin  have to be something (1) natural, (2) nothingness/null/void, (3) supernatural, or (4) paranormal?  One might argue "we don't know" which I can appreciate, but it would have to fall in one of those four categories, right?  Thank you in advance for your responses to get the conversation rolling!

Ah, joy, another know nothing Christian confidently thinking simple word games and false dichotomies will overawe profession scientists on subjects requiring more IQ digits he could count.

[RedSox]

Can you first describe what you mean by "supernatural", and "paranormal"?

Sure thing…
supernatural: a :  departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of natureb :  attributed to an invisible agent (such as a ghost or spirit) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictiona...rce=jsonld
 
paranormal: not scientifically explainable https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictiona...rce=jsonld

[RedSox]

What I said was that whatever the cause it would be natural.

No supernatural or paranormal thing has ever been found to actually be real when properly investigated.

Feel free to prove me wrong, but I require properly scientifically verified evidence not some vague argument.

Thanks, downbeat.  I hear ya on whatever the origin of matter being natural.  Can you expand on that given the two questions here:
(1) Wouldn’t matter being the origin violate the theory that matter can neither be created nor destroyed in a closed system… and only transferred across open systems?  Am I incorrectly understanding that theory... I may very well be.
 
(2) Additionally, if matter is the origin of matter then what is the origin of the earliest matter that ever existed… would it be infinite?  Not talking about the universe or planets here, just matter itself.

[LastPoet]

Alright, who has been going trough WLC's dirty underwear? Skip to the punchline.

[Alex K]

Dear RedSox,

The question concerning the origin of matter is a very interesting one which is hotly debated in the scientific community. However, I get the impression that your question, the way it is presented, does not really touch upon this debate but tries to rather superficially short-cut to a philosophical conclusion. I do not know any meaningful definitions of "paranormal" and "supernatural" that can be used in such a debate, and I am inclined to say that the origin of matter is by definition natural.

Thanks, downbeat.  I hear ya on whatever the origin of matter being natural.  Can you expand on that given the two questions here:
(1) Wouldn’t matter being the origin violate the theory that matter can neither be created nor destroyed in a closed system… and only transferred across open systems?  Am I incorrectly understanding that theory... I may very well be.
 
(2) Additionally, if matter is the origin of matter then what is the origin of the earliest matter that ever existed… would it be infinite?  Not talking about the universe or planets here, just matter itself.

Allow me to chime in here.

Now, the principle that matter cannot be created or destroyed does not exist - it is patently untrue since other forms of energy can be converted into matter easily and vice versa. What you are looking for is probably the principle that energy is conserved. This is largely true in nature on short time spans and small scales - the principle of conservation of energy for example forces us to convert other forms of energy into a usable form to keep civilization going rather than have it come out of a perpetual motion machine.

That being said, conservation of energy is not so straightforward when we look at the cosmos at large scales, or even the universe as a whole. If you for example send out a light beam to a remote place, it will have lost a little bit of energy when it gets there because of universal expansion and the consequent red shift. This loss is not noticeable in everyday life because the Hubble parameter is so tiny, but it is very noticeable when we look deep into the universe and consider cosmological time scales of billions of years. So energy is not conserved in the simplest sense once you take the dynamics of space-time into account. But - people have discovered an extended concept of energy which would be conserved again: one has to take the curvature of space-time into account as a form of energy, and if one does that correctly, the loss of energy from cosmological red shift is compensated by space-time gaining a bit of energy.

I think you can already see that in extreme conditions as we expect them to be present in the early universe, when space and time themselves are affected by quantum fluctuations and can undergo extreme changes, the issue of conservation of energy is far from clear-cut. But even in the regime where it is still applicable, there is an astonishing possibility: the geometry of space-time generally carries negative energy, and it is very well possible that the total energy of the contents of the universe and space-time itself is zero. In this case, we wouldn't even have to account for the origin of energy, because the universe does not contain net energy. While this is still an active field of research, and many questions are far from settled, I hope that you at least get a first impression that the somewhat naive philosophical musings about time and causality which many apologists engage in are often painfully stuck with outdated simplistic notions of cosmology and physics.

p.s. and before you drag out the BGV theorem as W. L. Craig likes to do like the dishonest fool he is even after he was corrected by experts, no, it doesn't prove that the universe must have been created.

[brewer]

Waiting for "God did it". We know you want to say it. 

So, while you question the origin of matter will you also consider the origin of god? 

What is more likely: that a god existed prior to anything and created everything, makes it's presence known on only one tiny little planet and in one tiny little area of that planet, communicates and makes rules and directs the actions of only one species (for the most part), comingles with that species to make a hybrid son, then provides and eternal place of bliss for those found worthy and punishes the rest..........or........... that the idea of a god was made by man with it's ability to create fantasy.

[Alex K]

@RedSox

Concerning your question (2), while there are no really secure answers, the leading candidate hypothesis is universal inflation. If you are interested I can go into why this hypothesis has so much support.

In inflation, matter is created after a region of spacetime undergoes a rapid expansion. When it drops out of this phase of expansion, the fields which drove this expansion carry a lot of excess energy which will then via the fundamental interactions be converted into all the types of particles that exist. Due to the violation of matter-antimatter symmetry, a bit of excess matter remains and antimatter is annihilated, and voilà, here we are.

[RedSox]

Dear RedSox,

The question concerning the origin of matter is a very interesting one which is hotly debated in the scientific community. However, I get the impression that your question, the way it is presented, does not really touch upon this debate but tries to rather superficially short-cut to a philosophical conclusion. I do not know any meaningful definitions of "paranormal" and "supernatural" that can be used in such a debate, and I am inclined to say that the origin of matter is by definition natural.

Thanks, downbeat.  I hear ya on whatever the origin of matter being natural.  Can you expand on that given the two questions here:
(1) Wouldn’t matter being the origin violate the theory that matter can neither be created nor destroyed in a closed system… and only transferred across open systems?  Am I incorrectly understanding that theory... I may very well be.
 
(2) Additionally, if matter is the origin of matter then what is the origin of the earliest matter that ever existed… would it be infinite?  Not talking about the universe or planets here, just matter itself.

Allow me to chime in here.

Now, the principle that matter cannot be created or destroyed does not exist - it is patently untrue since other forms of energy can be converted into matter easily and vice versa. What you are looking for is probably the principle that energy is conserved. This is largely true in nature on short time spans and small scales - the principle of  conservation of energy for example forces us to convert other forms of energy into a usable form to keep civilization going rather than have it come out of a perpetual motion machine.

That being said, conservation of energy is not so straightforward when we look at the cosmos at large scales, or even the universe as a whole. If you for example send out a light beam to a remote place, it will have lost a little bit of energy when it gets there because of universal expansion and the consequent red shift. This loss is not noticeable in everyday life because the Hubble parameter is so tiny, but it is very noticeable when we look deep into the universe and consider cosmological time scales of billions of years. So energy is not conserved in the simplest sense once you take the dynamics of space-time into account. But - people have  discovered an extended concept of energy which would be conserved again: one has to take the curvature of space-time into account as a form of energy, and if one does that correctly, the loss of energy from cosmological red shift is compensated by space-time gaining a bit of energy.

I think you can already see that in extreme conditions as we expect them to be present in the early universe, when space and time themselves are affected by quantum fluctuations and can undergo extreme changes, the issue of conservation of energy is far from clear-cut. But even in the regime where it is still applicable, there is an astonishing possibility: the geometry of space-time generally carries negative energy, and it is very well possible that the total energy of the contents of the universe and space-time itself is zero. In this case, we wouldn't even have to account for the origin of energy, because the universe does not contain net energy. While this is still an active field of research, and many questions are far from settled, I hope that you at least get a first impression that the somewhat naive philosophical musings about time and causality which many apologists engage in are often painfully stuck with outdated  simplistic notions of cosmology and physics.

p.s. and before you drag out the BGV theorem as W. L. Craig likes to do like the dishonest fool he is even after he was corrected by experts, no, it doesn't prove that the universe must have been created.

AlexK, thanks for that detailed response!  If net energy was zero, did positive and negative energy exist?  What is the origin of the positive energy?  What is the origin of the negative energy?  Should one consider quantum fluctuations to be a form of energy or something different?

[LadyForCamus]

Dear RedSox,

The question concerning the origin of matter is a very interesting one which is hotly debated in the scientific community. However, I get the impression that your question, the way it is presented, does not really touch upon this debate but tries to rather superficially short-cut to a philosophical conclusion. I do not know any meaningful definitions of "paranormal" and "supernatural" that can be used in such a debate, and I am inclined to say that the origin of matter is by definition natural.

Thanks, downbeat.  I hear ya on whatever the origin of matter being natural.  Can you expand on that given the two questions here:
(1) Wouldn’t matter being the origin violate the theory that matter can neither be created nor destroyed in a closed system… and only transferred across open systems?  Am I incorrectly understanding that theory... I may very well be.
 
(2) Additionally, if matter is the origin of matter then what is the origin of the earliest matter that ever existed… would it be infinite?  Not talking about the universe or planets here, just matter itself.

Allow me to chime in here.

Now, the principle that matter cannot be created or destroyed does not exist - it is patently untrue since other forms of energy can be converted into matter easily and vice versa. What you are looking for is probably the principle that energy is conserved. This is largely true in nature on short time spans and small scales - the principle of  conservation of energy for example forces us to convert other forms of energy into a usable form to keep civilization going rather than have it come out of a perpetual motion machine.

That being said, conservation of energy is not so straightforward when we look at the cosmos at large scales, or even the universe as a whole. If you for example send out a light beam to a remote place, it will have lost a little bit of energy when it gets there because of universal expansion and the consequent red shift. This loss is not noticeable in everyday life because the Hubble parameter is so tiny, but it is very noticeable when we look deep into the universe and consider cosmological time scales of billions of years. So energy is not conserved in the simplest sense once you take the dynamics of space-time into account. But - people have  discovered an extended concept of energy which would be conserved again: one has to take the curvature of space-time into account as a form of energy, and if one does that correctly, the loss of energy from cosmological red shift is compensated by space-time gaining a bit of energy.

I think you can already see that in extreme conditions as we expect them to be present in the early universe, when space and time themselves are affected by quantum fluctuations and can undergo extreme changes, the issue of conservation of energy is far from clear-cut. But even in the regime where it is still applicable, there is an astonishing possibility: the geometry of space-time generally carries negative energy, and it is very well possible that the total energy of the contents of the universe and space-time itself is zero. In this case, we wouldn't even have to account for the origin of energy, because the universe does not contain net energy. While this is still an active field of research, and many questions are far from settled, I hope that you at least get a first impression that the somewhat naive philosophical musings about time and causality which many apologists engage in are often painfully stuck with outdated  simplistic notions of cosmology and physics.

p.s. and before you drag out the BGV theorem as W. L. Craig likes to do like the dishonest fool he is even after he was corrected by experts, no, it doesn't prove that the universe must have been created.

AK!  Can you expand a little on this BGV theorem (for dummies like me) and how, exactly, creationists try to use it to argue god?  I'm interested, and I tried reading through the Wiki entry but it went way over my head.  Like, WAY up there, lol.

[Alex K]

@LFC,

To get one thing out of the way, the first proponents of big bang cosmology encountered a strange consequence of their model: as you go back in time using the formulas of gravity, temperature at one point 14 billion years ago goes to infinity, and the size of the universe becomes zero. This was dubbed the initial singularity, and it is outdated but confusingly still parroted by popular science. This idea that the big bang simply was such a singularity is ruled out by observations. The inflation models I outlined above are different from that in that the size of everything does not shrink to zero in the past, and temperatures do not suddenly become infinitely high in the past. However, Borde Guth and Vilenkin proved an interesting theorem about the mathematics of such models: if you arbitrarily go back in time, while the universe as a whole does not shrink to zero, you will run into singularities, i.e. points in our past where the mathematics of coventional space and time breaks down. Think of it kind of like there being strange phenomena like black holes in our past. This existence of mathematical singularities in these models has been eaten up by apologists once they heard of them and turned into "science proves the universe must have been created" etc.

This is unjustified on several levels:
We know that classical (non-quantum) gravity is an incomplete theory and the theorem only applies to this since obviously we do not know what the correct theory of quantum gravity is

As BGV themselves say, the mere fact that there are singularities in the past of such models does no more tell us that this is where some kind of supernatural creation occured, than the existence of black holes today tells us that the universe has magically vanished into nothingness. I strongly paraphrase here because I don't have the quote handy.

Last but not least, there are alternatives to inflation to which the theorem does not apply.

And most importantly, the breakdown of ancurrent theory is NEVER a good.justification to conclude your favorite version of magick rather than keep looking for more complete theories. It has always failed in the past.