From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 06 2002 - 14:32:20 MST
--- Rafal Smigrodzki <rms2g@virginia.edu> wrote:
> ### Now, there might be some thinkers for whom it is
> in fact impossible to conceive of the universe's
> non-existence, I however do not belong to this
> group.
It appears to me that you and Hal are thinking of
abstract models of possible universes rather than this
*actual* universe in which we live. Mathematically, we
can of course construct a universe that exists only as
a line or a point. We can then even erase it, leaving
"nothing at all." But that is only playing with models
with pen and paper in the universe... it is not the
same as conceiving of our actual universe as
non-existent.
Another way to look at this: the universe is defined
as the totality of all things. The question of what
caused it is meaningless because if there were
something before the creation of the universe that
caused its creation, then that thing must have existed
in the universe -- and that is a contradiction.
-gts
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