From: Rafal M. Smigrodzki (rms2g@unix.mail.virginia.edu)
Date: Sat Dec 07 2002 - 13:27:45 MST
On Fri, 6 Dec 2002, gts wrote:
>
> --- 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.
### What is so *actual* about our universe? You don't think that the
visible universe is all there is, do you?
--------
>
> 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.
>
### I agree that because time itself is valid only in the context of the
universe, the question about what caused the universe cannot be couched in
temporal terms. What Hal and I say is (the way I see it) is to provide a
conceptual framework for looking at the universe from an imaginary outside
perspective, to gain a pleasant, aesthetic sense of understanding, no
more.
Rafal
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