No beginning, no end. The universe simply is.

Why would you need religion, mysticism, or spirituality to expand your mind? Or, blow it. Science works just fine.

Much better, in fact, because science starts with is rather than what could be. If you're going to expand or blow your mind, you might as well be standing on a solid foundation before you explode into mindlessness.

Take the question of the universe's beginning and end.

Most of us assume that the universe began at some point. After all, the Bible tells us so in Genesis. And if we're scientifically minded, wasn't the Big Bang the beginning of time and space?

No, not necessarily.

Yesterday I was happily reading along in my copy of The Portable Atheist, re-reading an excerpt from physicist Victor Stenger's God: The Failed Hypothesis (I've already read the book, and blogged about it here and here).

My mind was rolling along fine, connecting ideas cleanly, until I came to this paragraph.

Craig and other theists also make another, related argument that the universe had to have a beginning at some point, because if it were infinitely old, it would have taken an infinite time to reach the present. However, as philosopher Keith Parsons has pointed out, "To say the universe is infinitely old is to say that it had no beginning – not a beginning that was infinitely long ago."

Mind blow! Red alert! Meltdown, meltdown!

I stopped reading. I put the book down. I tried to let the notion of a universe that had no beginning settle into what was left of my mind.

It was an enjoyable, though disconcerting, experience. Like being on the edge of an abyss that would be a hell (or heaven) of a ride if you jumped off.

No beginning. No end. A ride that just…is.

A few pages later, once I got my mind functioning again, I came to this:

While he avoided technical details in A Brief History of Time, the no boundary model was the basis of Hawking's oft-quoted statement: "So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end; it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?

When I wrote about "it is what it is" recently, I wasn't thinking that this was a profound scientific statement. Yet here's Stephen Hawking saying about the universe, "It would simply be."

Taoism agrees. From the Tao Te Ching: The Definitive Edition (excellent book), verse 14.

Eyes look but cannot see it
Ears listen but cannot hear it
Hands grasp but cannot touch it
Beyond the senses lies the great Unity –
invisible, inaudible, intangible

What rises up appear bright
What settles down appears dark
Yet there is neither darkness nor light
just an unbroken dance of shadows
From nothingness to fullness
and back again to nothingness
This formless form
This imageless image
cannot be grasped by mind or might
Try to face it
In what place will you stand?
Try to follow it
To what place will you go?

Know That which is beyond all beginnings
and you will know everything here and now
Know everything in this moment
and you will know the Eternal Tao

Comments

[Tucson]

Brian provided: "Craig and other theists also make another, related argument that the universe had to have a beginning at some point, because if it were infinitely old, it would have taken an infinite time to reach the present. However, as philosopher Keith Parsons has pointed out, "To say the universe is infinitely old is to say that it had no beginning – not a beginning that was infinitely long ago."

At which point Brian's mind was blown.

--Another way of saying it:

Let's say just for kicks that extending from any given moment is an eternity into the past and also into the future. In other words, before we were born we didn't exist forever and when we die we won't exist forever. I see a problem with this..

How could eternal non-existence become existence for awile and then eternal non-existence again? It would seem there would have to be only one or the other..eternal non-existence or eternal existence. Wouldn't it be impossible for one to be interupted by the other if both were eternal?

Can a tree not exist forever, suddenly exist, and then not exist forever again?

How about rocks, beings, galaxies, universes, or whatever we are?

Brian wrote: "No beginning. No end. A ride that just…is...

'This formless form
This imageless image
cannot be grasped by mind or might
Try to face it
In what place will you stand?
Try to follow it
To what place will you go?'"

THIS is it. Nothing else to it.

Good one brother.

[Robert Paul Howard]

Yet I recall having not read the Dec. 5 essay before I did, and I surely do think that a Dec. 7 essay is yet to come. "THIS" surely does seem to change. Is it a "ride" or is "THIS" it? (Too late! IT seems to have "changed.")

Robert Paul Howard

[Tucson]

THIS is always present, only apparent content changes.

Air is always present and unseen, yet it is breathed, felt as hot/cold, calm/windy, humid/dry, etc.

[Robert Paul Howard]

In the vacuum of space there is no air. "Apparent content" is part of THIS.

Robert Paul Howard

[tAo]

That is a beautiful and right on selection from the Tao Teh Ching.

[Kathryn Flight]

I'm looking for Robert Paul Howard from Southport and I wondered if you are him.

[Robert Paul Howard]

Dear Kathryn Flight,

No, ma'am. I am not he.

Robert Paul Howard

[HIGHSON]

THE UNIVERSE IS A IS THAT IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE.THE SAME WITH REBIRTH IT NEEDS NOT BELIEVE,IT IS THAT IT IS A CYCLE GIVEN TO ALL AND NONE CAN STOP OR DESTROY!

[HIGHSON]

THE UNIVERSE IS A IS THAT IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE.THE SAME WITH REBIRTH IT NEEDS NOT BELIEVE,IT IS THAT IT IS A CYCLE GIVEN TO ALL AND NONE CAN STOP OR DESTROY!

[HIGHSON]

THE UNIVERSE WITH NO END SHOWS A POWER THAT IS ALL WISE!

[HIGHSON]

THE WORDS HEREAFTER IS BLESSED TRUTH, IT IS NOT SOMEWHEREAFTER NOR IS IT THEREAFTER,IT IS HEREAFTER THE BODY PASSES INTO REBIRTH.

[HIGHSON]

EVEN AS A DROP OF WATER IS GIVEN THE CYCLE OF REBIRTH SO ARE YOU AS WELL AS EVERY LIVING BEING !

[tAo]

pissssssssssssssssssssss...
flusssssssssssssssssh...
gurgggggggggggggle...
swisssssssssssh...
...............
............
.........
......
...

[HIGHSON]

BE NOT DECEIVED IF IT WAS MEANT FOR YOU TO LIVE SOMEWHERE (FOREVER

BE NOT DECEIVED IF IT WAS MEANT FOR YOU TO LIVE SOMEWHERE FOREVER ETERNALLY YOU WOULD BE THERE NOW.UNERSTAND THIS TO FOREVER LIVE IN THE SKY A MAGNIFIED LIE!

[HIGHSON]

TO FOREVER LIVE IN THE SKY IS A MAGNIFIED LIE.

[HIGHSON]

HERE IS THE TRUTH,YOU COULD NOT STOP YOUR OWN BIRTH NEITHER CAN YOU STOP YOUR REBIRTH!TO ALL LIVING BEINGS NONE KNOW THEIR OWN DEATH FOR THE LIFE OF THE (SOUL)YOU THAT IS YOU THERE IS NO DEATH.THE PROCESS OF YOUR BIRTH IS THE SAME FOR YOUR REBIRTH!

[Highson]

THE MOST BLESS TRUTH EVER IS AS YOU BEGAN YOU BEGIN AGAIN.IT IS BOTH NATURAL AND DIVINE AT THE SAME TIME.DON'T SAY THAT YOU DON'T KNOW THIS FOR YOU WERE 6 MONTH OLD AND YOU DID NOT REMEMBER THAT,BUT YOU WAS AND YOU ARE STILL HERE.

[Bleep]

...and blah blah blah

...and blah blah blah

...and blah blah blah

...and oh yeah... SHUT UP!

[Highson]

SINCE YOU ARE A SHIT ASS TAKE ALL MY COMMENTS OFF THIS SITE.SHAME ON YOU FOR DAMMING YOUR SELF.

[Bleep]

hah hah hah !!!

just as i suspected, you're an IDIOT.

hee hee hee !!!

and your spiritual blah-blah talk is all fake - so you're a hypocrite.

hoo hoo hoo !!!

[Matt]

I also have a problem with the fact that we don't exist, we exist, than we don't exist, then it stops there.

I believe it's an infinite circle of both. Though, when it is all said and done in our minds we will always just exist, because the nonexistance would not be of conciousness. I think we get to play different games as different players.

You don't need science, or God to believe this.

With one you cannot have the other, so when you don't exist, you will exist, and when you exist, you will not exist and so on. It's all about the balance of life. Meaning it's all a circle of darkness and lightness.

This is why the Universe was born in the first place, because it didn't exist, so it had to exist, and at some point it will not exist, but than it will exist again.

If you get my point it makes sense.

[Stephen]

Well I don't think you are looking at it right. Numbers (whole numbers) are infinite in amount. When the number 'x' is reached it doesn't exist for an "eternity" before that and doesn't exist for an "eternity" after that. It only exists in the moment it is 'x'. Yet the number 'x' still works just fine.

[Downdraft]

The human mind can't accept that "something" has always been because the human mind relies on time as a construct as well as a constant. I'm not a mathmetician but time is simply an illusion used to place events in order. I know Einstein was brilliant but would someone else have come up with the same theories if he was killed in the Holocaust. Something cannot come from nothing, therefore, something has always been and will always be.

[C-Bisquit]

I am paraphrasing, but didn't SH say that he had solved the problem of data loss? Since energy can neither be created or destroyed and black holes essentially destroy energy (or do they) ... SH said that just because something ceases to exist here in this universe, it still exists in other universes (timelines) where the energy did not get consumed. So, when you look at the whole picture of multi-verses and postulate that replicas exist in each but goverened by their host universes ...

Isn't it possible then that simply existing or not existing in one universe is not the "whole" picture. What about the potentially limitless number of alternate realities or universes where things exist and then don't exist ... as long as something exists in at least one should it matter if it doesn't in any of the others?