Ginkgo wrote:Greylorn Ell wrote:
Beon Theory hypothesizes a different kind of mind than any religious scheme.
Imagine entities that came into being non-conscious, but with the potential for consciousness. (Like yourself at birth.)
Imagine them coming into being without bodies, in an empty space full of unstructured dark energy, using that energy and one another to develop self-awareness, and having the single property that might enable them to structure that energy into the universe we perceive today.
This kind of hypothesis differs from the two primary and conventionally accepted ideas:
1. An omniscient and omnipotent mind always existed and created the universe, and man.
2. A mysterious physical "singularity," the cosmologists' version of God, containing all the mass-energy that exists, spontaneously exploded and at the same instant created all the physical laws and precise constants that make the universe we know today.
Beon Theory declares that those apparently conflicting notions are merely morphs of one another. Neither notion explains the available data; thus both are religious. Like all religions, each notion is incorrect.
Consciousness was self-generated, earned by those beons who acquired it. The universe was engineered by such entities. Those engineers did not create us; they are us-- or more precisely, advanced versions, examples of what we could become.
And so that you do not get confused if you ever read the book, "beon" is not the same as "mind." The complete theory is presented with explanations and details that do not fit in a forum.
Number 1. is an example of a cosmological argument. Better know as a first cause argument. As a first cause of the universe God must exist outside of time and space. This idea is often referred to as God being an "uncaused cause" This formulation can be traced back to Aristotle's metaphysics.
Number 2. is a different type of causation As you are aware science cannot and does not theorize about a state of affairs that exists outside of time and space. No time, no space, no causality, no science.
What you appear to be saying is that Beon theory, as a science must provide us with a scientific causal explanation. Therefore, such an explanation must taken into account the notion of time, space and causality. Not necessarily all three, but at least one of these postulations.
Are you in agreement thus far?
Ginkgo,
We seem to be closing in on something that might actually be agreement. That would be nice.
A few points, though. I want to make it clear that I find both arguments, 1 and 2, to be illogical, which is why I engineered Beon Theory. Moreover, #2 is not the least bit scientific. Admittedly it is the favored choice of scientists, but their poor choice is derived mostly from agreement, not from science.
Back in the early days of Big Bang theory I was working with astronomers and naturally arguing the merits of various cosmological theories. One thoughtful man, the director of our lab, pointed out that while the Big Bang theory (back then, the thing that exploded was a tiny particle that contained all the mass and energy of the universe) was derived from scientific observations of the universe's general expansion, it could never be a truly scientific theory because the particle had long since blown up and could not be investigated. Of course these days one might claim that the WMAP data validate the theory, but there are serious problems with that interpretation.
The most obvious is that a tiny particle (I call it the micropea) smaller than a proton yet containing all the mass energy in the universe will necessarily be completely trapped in the space-time its intense and highly localized gravitational field will have wrapped around it. This would make it the mother of all black holes, except worse. It would have been perfectly stable, incapable of exploding.
A few years back some guys actually did the numbers and found that out. Cosmologists then removed the theory completely from the province of science by declaring that the micropea was actually a "physical singularity." There is no such thing in physics. They went further than that by declaring that it appeared out of nothing. Great idea. A tiny and mathematically undefinable lump of stuff spontaneously materialized out of a "nothing" and then spontaneously blew itself up. As if that isn't fanciful enough, instead of forming rubble as might be expected from a real explosion, it produced a well-structured universe.
The first time that I heard of the universe's creation from nothing was in my first grade religion class. That's what God made the universe from.
I refuse to dignify Big Bang theory with the word "science," when it is so obviously a religious concept.
Finally, you wrote, "
... Beon theory, as a science must provide us with a scientific causal explanation. Therefore, such an explanation must take into account the notion of time, space and causality. Not necessarily all three, but at least one of these postulations."
Pretty much correct, except that although it has the potential, Beon Theory is not ready to be called a science. Nonetheless, it has several properties that I regard as essential to any legitimate science.
1. Beon Theory hypothesizes the existence of three absolutely simple things in order to generate our universe, instead of one complex thing. This is consistent with reality, in which at least two things must interact to cause a physical event. That is part of how B.T. deals w/causality.
2. The three things still exist today, albeit in slightly modified form, and therefore are available for genuinely scientific investigation. Of the three, one is implied (space) and another (dark energy) has been detected. So yes, space is part of the theory.
3. Beon Theory includes a different concept of time as part of its explanation for the quantization of matter, and energy transfers. This component of B.T. needs the assistance of a better mathematician than I am.
BTW I appreciate your insightful inclusion of three things that need to be accounted for.
Greylorn