Re: Why atheists believe in a universe capable of Judgment and

On Fri, 1 Jan 1988 14:34:32 -0500 "jack syme" <drsyme@cablespeed.com>
writes:
> Did anyone else get this email with formatting errors? Unfortunately
> I cant
> read it becuase of this. If you got this email with no formatting
> problems
> could you forward me a copy? I would like to read this.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Glenn Morton" <glennmorton@entouch.net>
> To: <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 11:18 PM

Had the same problem. Have tried to edit Glenn's text in Notepad. Won't
guarantee I got it all right, but it is better, though without italics
and other niceties.
Dave

Prophecy
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:42:10 -0500
Sender: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
Precedence: bulk
 
This didn't go through yesterday. I return to Beijing tomorrow
so won't be able to discuss until Saturday. Thanks to everyone
for their prayers and concern, we don't know what my wife has
but it doesn't appear to be cancer.
 
Why Atheists Believe in Eternal Judgment and Prophecy and
Don't Even Know It.
 
By Glenn R. Morton June, 2005
 
'I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground
for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of
course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil, has no real
existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane.
These things are mere abstractions.'
 
'That is all right,' said the Psychologist.
 
'Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a
real existence.'
 
'There I object,' said Filby. 'Of course a solid body may exist. All
real things - '
 
'So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an instantaneous cube
exist?'
 
'Don't follow you,' said Filby.
 
'Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real
existence?'
 
(Wells, 1895, chapter 1)
 
Thus starts H. G. Wells' the Time Machine. The question he asks
gets to the heart of existence. Existence means or implies, a temporal
duration. Without that, one can=E2=80=99t actually exist, or so it
seems. As discussed in the last post, the existence of the universe
is a permanent gap in our understanding. In principle, the
universe's existence will never really be explained apart from
positing god-like properties and/or powers to the universe or some
constituent of the universe.
 
In 1949, Kurt Godel presented a novel solution to Einstein's
gravitational equations. The solution he presented is now known as
Godel's universe and it has profound implications to the science/theology
debate. Godel's paper, presented in a book in
honor of Einstein, argued that time does not exist. He argued that
time is an ideal, not real. Time is an illusion. His paper was met with
silence, some say because he was an outsider to relativity and an
outsider to philosophy. One will find occasional references to his
work in the relativistic literature but only to say that in rotating
universes there are closed time-like paths(i.e. time travel is
possible). Whatever the reason for the previous silence, his paper
has drawn much more interest in the past 10 years, due mainly to the
efforts of Palle Yourgrau, a philosopher at Brandeis University.
Godel's argument has much to say about the nature of time and is worth
hearing. I will bring out some theological implications from this work.
 
The main point in writing this article is to show that if one follows
a reductionist path, one is forced into believing that the universe is
one which would allow things like prophecy and judgment, things which the
secular world would rather omit from consideration.
 
The technical details of Godel's bizarre universe is outlined by
Deser and Jackiw(1992) and can be found below the references. The
main item we need to pay attention to is that with a particular
arrangement of matter in the universe, time travel is possible.
Technically, there are closed time-like curves.
 
What are the implications of a closed time-like curves? Well, it means
that a person can travel into his past in such a universe. Clearly
this implies all sorts of acausal paradoxes=E2=80=94things like killing
your grandmother before your mother was born. If you succeed, then you
are not born and could not travel back into the past to kill her so she
didn't die and you were born. Most people who believe time travel is
physically possible think that one can only do that which is logically
possible to do thus ruling out killing granny. Most physicists have
rejected Godel's universe because the mass distribution he
assumed is not observed in our universe. Thus, most have ignored
Godel's Universe and its implications. More on this below, but
suffice it to say that Godel's argument includes arguments for
the applicability to our world.
 
I will use Dorato's reconstruction of the argument, which in outline is:

(0) Time is real only if change is real.
(1) Change is real only if there exists an objective lapse of time.
 change becomes possible only through the lapse of time=C2=BB
 (1949a, p. 558/1990, p. 202)
(2) Time is real only if there exists an objective lapse of time [from
 (0) and (1)]
(3) =C2=ABThe existence of an objective lapse of time means or at
 least is equivalent to the fact, that reality consists of an infinity
of layers of "now" which come into existence
 successively (1949a, p. 558/1990, p. 202).
(4) Reality consist of an infinity of layers of "now" which come into
existence successively only if spacetime admits of a global time
function (cosmic time).
(5) Time is real only if spacetime admits of a global time function
 [from (2), (3) (4)]
(6) G6del's rotating-model M, qua solution to Einstein's field
equations, is a physically possible model, and
 despite the presence of closed timelike curves (circular time) and
looming grandfather paradoxes, cannot be ruled out a priori.
(7) Since for every x in M, x chronologically precedes itself, M does
 not possess a global time function.
(8) In the physically possible world M, time is ideal [from (5) (6) =
 (7)].
(9) The main, contingent, non-lawlike difference between M and our
 universe is given by the (probable) absence of a net rotation of
matter, which implies the existence of cosmic time in our world.
(Dorato, 2001)
 
[the references 1949a are to Godel 1949 in this paper]
 
Let's look at each step in the argument closely.
 
(0) Time is real only if change is real.
 
(1) Change is real only if there exists an objective lapse of time.
 change becomes possible only through the lapse of time
 (1949a, p. 558/1990, p. 202)

The objections to these two assumptions is that it implies absolute
change. It has also been objected that this appears to be the
constantly moving "now" concept and this is a view which
philosophers seem to have rejected. The way to interpret these two
assumptions within Godel's argument is that at time t certain
events exist and at time t' later than t, other events exist
mind-independently. In other words, this implies that there is an
objectiveness to the passage of time.
 
(2) Time is real only if there exists an objective lapse of time [from
(0) and (1)] (Dorato, 2001).
 
This conclusion is logically deduced from the first two.
 
Readers will object that special relativity shows that there is no
objective or global time but we still intuitively feel the passage of
time, i.e. the present flowage of time into the existing present then
into past. Godel is ready for that objection.
 
(3) The existence of an objective lapse of time means or at least is
equivalent to the fact, that reality consists of an infinity of
 layers of "now" which come into existence successively (1949a, p.
558/1990, p. 202).
 
(4) Reality consist of an infinity of layers of "now"
 which come into existence successively only if spacetime admits of a
global time function (cosmic time).
 
(5) Time is real only if spacetime admits of a global time function
 [from (2), (3) (4)](Dorato 2001)

 
Step 3 is an acknowledgement of McTaggart's A-series. One can go
to J. M. E. McTaggart's 1908 article in which he argues for the
ideality of time to see why time can't be real if the world is
governed by special relativity. McTaggart defined the A-series, the
B-series. The B-series is a formal, geometricized time scale. 1776
will forever be after 2005, but 2005 will always be before 2006. The
A-series is the ever present now, that dynamic present moment. Points
come into existence during the now and go out of existence into the
past. The point in step 4 concerns the need for each moment to
/come into existence/. This is the intuitive
understanding of time in which the future does not yet exist.
 
McTaggart, who notes that Kant, Spinoza, Hegel and Schopenaur believed
in an idealized time, argued for an idealized time based upon the
incompatibility of the A-series and the B-series.
 
      It would, I suppose, be universally admitted that time involves
change. A particular thing, indeed, may exist unchanged through
any amount of time. But when we ask what we mean by saying that there
were different moments of time, or a certain duration of time, through
which the thing was the same, we find that we mean that it remained the
same while other things were changing. A universe in which nothing
whatever changed (including the thoughts of the conscious beings in it)
would be a timeless universe.
     If, then, a B series without an A series can constitute
time, change must be possible without an A series. Let us suppose that
the distinction of past, present and future does not apply to reality.
Can change apply to reality? What is it that changes?
     Could we say that, in a time which formed a B series but
not an A series, the change consisted in the fact that an event ceased
to be an event, while another event began to be an event? If this were
the case, we should certainly have got a change.
     But this is impossible. An event can never cease to be an
event. It can never get out of any time series in which it once
is. (McTaggart, 1908)
 
He then says:
     Neither can the change be looked for in the numerically different
moments of absolute time, supposing such moments to exist. For the same
arguments will apply here. Each such moment would have its own place in
the B series, since each would be earlier or later than each of the
others. And as the B series indicate permanent relations, no moment
could ever cease to be, nor could it become another moment.
(McTaggart, 1908)
 
Once again, McTaggart's line of reasoning leads him to believe
that moments can not cease to be.
 
The deduction that there is need for a global time function would rule
out the compatibility of intuitive time with special relativity (step 5)
as Godel argues. He says that the A-series, the intuitive flow of
time, can not be real if special relativity is true.
 
The opening move concerns the more limited special theory of
relativity. Given that the A-series contains the flux of
"now", the absence of an objective, worldwide "now" in special relativity
rules out its ex=C2=ADistence. But absent the
A-series there is no intuitive time. What remains, formal time as
represented by the little "t" of Einstein-Minkowski space-time, cannot
be identified with the intuitive time of everyday ex=C2=ADperience.
The conclusion, for Godel, is inescapable: if relativity theory is valid,
intuitive time disappears.=E2=80=9D (Yourgrau, 2005, p. 128-129)
 
To re-iterate, if everyone has a different flow of time (something
true in special relativity) and there is no formal, global time, time
becomes entirely subjective and ideal. Another way of looking at this is
that the A-series views future events as not yet existing, and past
events and no longer existing. Only the present exists. Future events
come into existence and then disappear into the past. This is
incompatible with special relativity and mind-independent objective time
since two observers will have different perceptions of what exists and
what doesn't. And this is where Godel brings down the hammer. He
says, "The concept of existence (...) cannot be relativized without
destroying its meaning completely." (Godel,1949, p. 559)
 
A moment of reality can not exist and not exist at the same time, and
still retain the concept of existence. This is true as long as one
accepts the concept that A and Not A are a contradictory. This is not
the same as A plus Not A, which is a quantum mechanical statement of
superposition.
 
      Godel then reminds the reader that Special Relativity is just
that, special. It does not include accelerations. In General Relativity,
a type of global time is allowed. It is the time of the clocks which are
co-moving with the average matter content of the universe(Peebles, 1993,
p. 112 note). This "global time" is a good candidate for an objective
time that Godel is looking for. However, Godel has a surprise in store.
 
(6) G6del's rotating-model M, qua solution to Einstein's field
equations, is a physically possible model, and despite the presence of
closed timelike curves (circular time) and looming grandfather
paradoxes, cannot be ruled out a priori.
 
(7) Since for every x in M, x chronologically precedes itself, M does
 not possess a global time function.
 
(8) In the physically possible world M, time is ideal [from (5) (6)
 (7)] (Dorato, 2001).

 
Einstein presented a view of the world in which space-time is fully
geometricized=E2=80=94the block universe, in which all events appear as
points in such a universe. Duration appears as lines moving through
the block. The paths through the block are subject to the mass
distribution in the universe. And this is where Godel pulls out his
surprise. Godel showed that if you had a rotating universe, that there
would be closed time-like curves. If you are on one of these closed
timelike paths, you can travel forward in time but meet yourself in your
past. In Godel's universe, he showed how a rocket with a certain
acceleration could enable one to travel back to the past and meet himself
at an earlier time. Such a pathological universe was generally greeted
by silence on the part of philosophers and physicists.
 
Godel then argued that if one can visit himself in the past, the past
has not really disappeared. After all, if you can visit New Jersey,
then New Jersey must exist. And this brings into question the reality
of the A-series, in McTaggart=E2=80=99s terminology. We think the past
no longer exists and the future doesn=E2=80=99t exist yet. But if you
appear from the future to tell yourself some trivial piece of
information (like what stocks to buy) it also means that the future
actually exists. It isn=E2=80=99t that great undetermined thing that
we normally think it is. Yourgrau writes:
 
"But if it is possible in such worlds, Godel argues, to return
to one's past, then what was past never passed at all. But a time that
never truly passes cannot pass for real, intuitive time. The reality
of time travel in the Godel universe signals the unreality of time. Once
again, time disappears." (Yourgrau, 2005, p. 129-130)
 
The physicists rejected the universe as being "unphysical". Our universe
does not seem to be rotating. Godel's distribution of matter also
required that the galaxies stay rigidly separated, neither expanding or
contracting towards each other.
 
Godel would counter argue that the physical reality of his mass
distribution is not of importance in determining the truth or falsity
of what he says about time:
 
(9) The main, contingent, non-lawlike difference between M and our
 universe is given by the (probable) absence of a net rotation of
matter, which implies the existence of cosmic time in our world.
(Dorato, 2001)
 
Afterall, he used the very same natural laws which govern our
universe. The only difference between Godel=E2=80=99s universe and ours
is a contingency in the distribution of matter, e.g. an accident in
how matter is arranged. I would suggest it would be like saying that
just because all the roads to New Jersey have been destroyed
doesn't mean that New Jersey doesn't exist. You may not be able to visit
it, but that is merely an accident due to the fact that
no roads are left intact. Similarly, the fact that we can't
visit the past in our universe is merely an accident of the distribution
of matter. However, as we shall see, we very well might be able to visit
New Jersey.
 
Monday, I read a marvelous book by Richard Gott, called Time Travel
in Einstein's Universe. He outlines several methods of time
travel in our universe assuming that there are cosmic strings and there
is some evidence for their existence.
 
"The mysterious gamma rays that emanate from the central bulge
of our galaxy could arise from a seething tangle of 'cosmic
strings'." (anonymous, 2005, p. 16)
 
While that is a possible tangle of strings, if you have two strings
moving past each other at rapid velocities Deser and Jackiw (1992)
state:
"The reason for current interest in time travel ideas derives
from the recent realization that infinitely long and arbitrarily thin
cosmic strings can support closed time-like curves."
 
Gott states.
      "To allow time travel to the past, cosmic strings with a
mass-per-unit length of about 10 million billion tons per centimeter
must each move in opposite directions at speeds of at least
99.999999996 percent the speed of light. We have observed high-energy
protons in the universe moving at least this fast, so such speeds are
possible." (Gott, 2001, p. 104)
 
And Tipler has a solution which allows time travel in our universe:
 
"CFrank Tipler, now at Tulane University, found that if you have an
infinitely tall cylinder rotating at nearly the speed of light on its
surface, you could go back in time by flying around the cylinder. This
solution is reminiscent of mine, with the two infinite cosmic strings
passing each other." (Gott, 2001, p. 117)
 
There is one more interesting counter argument to Godel's
possible universe. If the multiverse is true, then Godel's
universe is not merely a possible universe, it is a real universe
somewhere in the multiverse. There are only 2^(10^118) (Tegmark, 2003,
p. 42) different ways to arrange matter in a universe the size of our
observable universe. If the multiverse consists of all possible
universes (as Hawking's wave equation of the universe would
include all possible universes(Kaku, 1994, p. 254), and that should
include Godel's universe, making it a real item.
 
Today we know of many arrangements of matter which will allow time
travel in our universe with our distribution of matter, and this has
theological implications. We CAN visit New Jersy. These time machine
solutions mean that the past isn=E2=80=99t non-existent. It also means
that the future isn=E2=80=99t non-existent. It means that our intuitive
time, the A-series, in which past and future are non-existent is not
real as McTaggart argued in 1908. And that has implications to whether
or not there is real change in the universe as opposed to perceived
change. And as McTaggart says:
 
"Neither can the change be looked for in the numerically
different moments of absolute time, supposing such moments to exist.
For the same arguments will apply here. Each such moment would have its
own place in the B series, since each would be earlier or later than each
of the others. And as the B series indicate permanent relations, no
moment could ever cease to be, nor could it become another moment."
(McTaggart, 1908)
 
And
      "Without the A series then, there would be no change, and
consequently the B series by itself is not sufficient for time, since
time involves change.=E2=80=9D (McTaggart 1908)
 
Consider the implications of this for chance. A physicist travels back
into the past to visit his aging father again before he died 10 years
ago. Ten years ago he had set up an experiment to observe virtual
particles via the Lamb-Retherford shift. Before going to see his
father, he stops by the office to check the experiment. If he is
actually in the past, the jitters of the electron circling the hydrogen
atom should be the same, the very same in this past as it was 10 years
ago when he performed the experiment. The only difference is that this
time he feels he is the guy walking in the door to see himself standing
over the equipment instead of being the guy who was standing over the
equipment seeing himself walk in. To visit the actual past means that
virtual particles, those paragons of random chance, can't
possibly be random at all but are fixed into the block universe of the
B-series--the 4D manifold of General Relativity. Time travel
destroys chance being anything other than the illusion of chance like
that we get from most random number generators in our computers. Like
the output from the old GWBasic language where one could get the same
"random" sequence time and time again by specifying the
same seed number, the universe would yield the same pattern of virtual
particles every time you visited your aging father in the past.
 
Well if chance dies in the block universe, then determinism reins, only
we don=E2=80=99t know what is determined. We live in the A-series and
can=E2=80=99t look at the B-series. But God can. That means that
prophecy is allowed because God=E2=80=99s laws, the laws which allow
time travel, allow Him to know what the future holds. And more than
that, such a block universe would absolutely mean that judgement can
occur. If you stand before the divine being who is looking at your life
and you object that you were really a good guy and didn't murder
487 people, God can give you a glimpse of your timeline, effectively
giving a trial by replay for your benefit.
 
What does this do to free will? Clearly this is where everyone will
complain. Indeed, I don't like this aspect of Godel's argument. Free
will is a form of intentionality and physics has little to say about how
that arises:
 
"In the hierarchy of complexity, each level links to the one
above: chemistry links to biochemistry, to cell biology, physiology,
psychology, to sociology, economics and politics. Particle physics is
the foundational subject underlying=E2=80=94and so in some sense
explaining=E2=80=94all the others. In a reductionist world view, physics
is all there is. The Cartesian picture of man as a machine seems to be
vindicated.
      "But this view omits important aspects of the world that
physics has yet to come to terms with. Our environment is dominated by
objects that embody the outcomes of intentional design (buildings,
books computers, teaspoons). Today's physics has nothing to say about
the intentionality that has resulted in the existence of such objects,
even though this intentionality is clearly causally effective."
(Ellis, 2005, p. 743.)
 
But, this is not what one usually means by the term intentionality.
In the block view of the universe one could give a reductionist view of
intentionality. The very electrons in our brains would be determined
and (yes this is physicalism) thus our thoughts. For those who
don't think that our thoughts are determined by our brains, look
what happens to someone whose brain is scrambled by some horrible
accident. Their thoughts get scrambled as well.
 
How are we held accountable? I don't know. Godel's argument for the
existence of time travel seems to preclude free will.
I can think of two ways this might not be. First if, as Hawking has
suggested, quantum considerations rule out time travel. This is often
called the Chronology protection conjecture. Hawking claimed that the
vacuum would always blow up creating a singularity as you approached an
area of the space time which would allow time travel. The biggest
complaint against this is that it seems to be ad hoc.
 
Secondly, one might be able to avoid this conundrum when the full
quantum mechanical gravitation is finally developed.
 
Thirdly, Dorato (2001) believes that Godel failed in proving the
ideality of time. That being said, I find his objections to be weak. He
denies the postulate that one can't relativize existence. But,
if he is right, then one can get out of Godel's argument, but maybe not
out of the fact that both future and past must still exist if
time travel is to be considered a physical possibility given
Einstein's equations.
 
Now, before people misunderstand the reason I am writing this (I am
sure people will write responses before getting to this place in the
text) I am writing primarily to suggest to the atheist that if they do
engage in reductionism, they end up with a universe which is quite
capable of things like prophecy and eternal judgment, qualities which
they deny. My personal reasoning was that I finally got tired of being
looked upon as the village idiot by atheists, who think they are oh so
intellectual, and yet they don't realize that they must have something as
the creator of the universe and that if they are logically consistent in
believing science, they end up with a universe capable of all the things
the theist says.
 
Do I believe in a totally reductionist universe? No, of course not.
Do I believe that all my actions are determined? No, but I believe this
in spite of the line of logic above. My belief isn't science; my =
belief is faith. I will defend the line of logic, but I will not
defend the view and I would appreciate the responders remembering this
distinction. The views are not something that I am advocating but
something I am trying to say that one must hold if one is a radical
reductionist. In general, atheism holds to a radical reductionism.
 
References.

 
Anonymous, 2005. Mystery Rays Could Be Sign of Cosmic Strings, New
Scientist, June 4, 2005
 
Deser, S. and Jackiw, R., 1992. TIME TRAVEL? Extended version of talk
presented at =E2=80=9846 LNS 46 Cambridge, MA,May 1992=20
 
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/9206/9206094.pdf
 
Dorato, Mauro 2001 ON BECOMING, COSMIC TIME AND ROTATING UNIVERSES,
Forthcoming in C. Callender (ed.), Time, Reality
and Experience (provisional title), Royal Institute of Philosophy Series,
Cambridge University Press, 2001)
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000150/00/becoming.pdf
 
Ellis, George F. R., 2005. Physics, Complexity and Causality, Nature,
435:(June 9):743
 
Godel, Kurt, 1949. A Remark about the Relationshiip Between
Relativity Theory and Idealistic Philosophy, in P. A. Schilp, ed.
Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist (La Salle, Il: Open Court). p.
557-562
 
Gott, Richard, 2001. Time Travel in Einstein's Universe, (New
York: Houghton Mifflin Co.)
 
Kaku, Michio, 1994, Hyperspace, (New York: Anchor Books).
 
McTaggart, John Ellis, 1908. The Unreality of Time, Mind: A
Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy, 17:456-473.
http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html
 
Peebles, P. J. E. 1993. Principles of Physical Cosmology, (Princeton: =
Princeton University Press)
 
Max Tegmark, 2003 Parallel Universes, Scientific American, May.
 
H. G. Wells, The Time Machine, 1895=20
 
Yourgrau, Palle, 2005. A World Without Time, (New York: Perseus Books).
 
Godel's Universe
 
 Godel took T[mu,nu] to be a space-time constant, not vanishing
only in its time-time component (energy density),
 
T[infinity] =3Dc^4/8=CF=80G > 0 . (5)
 
The metric tensor that then solves Einstein's equations leads to
the space-time interval
 
ds^2 =3D g[mu,nu] dx^[mu] dx^[nu]=20
 
=3D {cdt =E2=88=92 =E2=88=9A2/[Lambda] (cosh=E2=88=9A[Lambda]r =
=E2=88=92 1)d[theta]}^2 =E2=88=92 dr^2 =E2=88=92 1/[Lambda] sinh^2 =
=E2=88=9A[Lambda]r d[theta]^2 =E2=88=92 dz^2 , (6)
 
where r, [theta] are planar circular coordinates, with [theta] =3D 0
and 2[pi] identified, and there is no interesting structure in the
z-direction. A curve x^[mu](=CF=84) is closed and time-like if both
x=C2=B5(0) =3D x^[mu](1) (closed) and (ds/d=CF=84)^2 =3D g=C2=B5=CE=BD
(dx^[mu]/d=CF=84) (dx^[nu]/d=CF=84) > 0 (time-like). It is therefore
clear that a circular path in the Godel universe for which t, r and z
remain constant, while [theta] varies from 0 to 2[pi], is closed and
time-like provided cosh=E2=88=9A[Lambda]r > 3, i.e., r >
2/=E2=88=9A[Lambda] ln(1 + =E2=88=9A2 ).=E2=80=9D (Deser & Jackiw,1992)
 
If you hold t,r, and z constant, dt, dr and dz go to zero and all you =
have left is the d[theta] terms. Setting ds^2 =3D 0 and solving for r =
yields the answer in the above citation.
 
Received on Sat Jun 25 15:19:03 2005