What About Distant Starlight Models?

[John_Harshman]

@r_speir

when creating the earth on day 1, then simply use that same metric when creating the universe 14 billion years earlier on day 4.

You got to admit, he can write an odd sentence.

[Chris_Falter]

@r_speir

All God has to do is to make sure he uses that metric when creating the earth on day 1, then simply use that same metric when creating the universe 14 billion years earlier on day 4.

Self-refuting.

Best,
Chris

[r_speir]

@Chris_Falter

Self-refuting.

Not at all. You simply do not understand the metric of spacetime and how expansion and shrinkage both result in postive (+) values for time. You are hung up on a “learned” idea that moving “back in time” 14 billion years before earth somehow is unallowed temporally or somehow results in some kind of strange “negative flow of time”. You could not be more mistaken. Whether a(t) in the metric is expanded or contracted, time flow is always forward in the positive direction.

In other words, run the big bang forward from a singularity or run it backward from a fixed coordinate point in Minkowski “now” spacetime and it does not matter. 14 billion years is the result.

[Chris_Falter]

It is true that certain dynamics work equally well in either direction. However, causality only operates in the direction of the arrow of time.

Trying to run things backwards breaks the arrow of time and therefore breaks causality.

Best,
Chris

[r_speir]

@Chris_Falter

Trying to run things backwards breaks the arrow of time and therefore breaks causality.

You don’t know what you are talking about. So we will leave it at that.

[Chris_Falter]

Actually, physicists cannot explain why the arrow of time exists because it does not emerge from fundamental equations. It does seem to be related to causality, however.

This is why your reliance on equations alone is leading into ferocious, insoluble paradox that breaks the arrow of time and causality.

Have a blessed day.

Chris

[Patrick]

Perhaps time isn’t fundamental, perhaps entropy is the fundamental measurement and time emerges from the measurement of increasing entropy of an expanding universe. We observe that the entropy of the universe is increasing in a universe that is expanding in spacetime. Is that the explanation for the arrow of time? Time expands one second per one second in the forward direction along with the expansion of space in three dimensions?

[Chris_Falter]

@Patrick

Perhaps time isn’t fundamental, perhaps entropy is the fundamental measurement and time emerges from the measurement of increasing entropy of an expanding universe.

That is a plausible explanation. However, it has not reached the status of theory.

Best,
Chris

[pevaquark (Matthew Pevarnik)]

@swamidass

In other words, how do we recieve light from galaxies greater than 15 billion light years away when the universe is less than 15 billion years old?

Ah I see, I misunderstood. You’re right in what you’re saying but that’s not what Faulkner meant by the secular distant starlight problem which he makes about the homogeneity of the CMB, not the difference in the size of the observable universe and the actual size of the universe.

[T.j_Runyon]

@r_speir

I have a much better idea. Why don’t you take back all the libelous and slanderous statements you have made against God and Genesis and finally admit, Duh, I think I might have missed something after all !

How does this not get someone banned? Just curious

[pevaquark (Matthew Pevarnik)]

@T.j_Runyon

How does this not get someone banned? Just curious

That’s a discussion between you and the @moderators, but given my experience with such a thing, it’s not a simple thing to ban someone that shows some demonstratable amount of engagement with the goals of the forum. The forum is not supposed to be an echo chamber (as fun as those can be). Kudos to @r_speir for being honest with where he’s at on this journey of science and faith.

[T.j_Runyon]

So I can say terrible things as long as the majority of my posts are engaging? Cool!

[nwrickert (Neil Rickert)]

Please don’t.

[Chris_Falter]

@T.j_Runyon

So I can say terrible things as long as the majority of my posts are engaging? Cool!

Speaking from my experience as a forum participant, but not as a moderator (which I am not):

You can probably avoid getting banned if your posts generally engage with the goals of the forum. However, individual posts may get flagged and ignored, as occurred with the post in question.

Best,
Chris

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@pevaquark

You’re right in what you’re saying but that’s not what Faulkner meant by the secular distant starlight problem which he makes about the homogeneity of the CMB

You are a physicist, so please correct me if I’m wrong @pevaquark. I thought these two problems are linked, because of the expansion of the universe, which is why it is called the “distant starlight problem.”

[Toni_Torppa]

In this video, Lisle schools nicely Ross about how Einstein’s theory supports his model.

Discerning Truth: Dialog on the Age of the Earth - Part 4

[T_aquaticus]

It isn’t just distant starlight that is a problem, but distant events. For example, there are jets of matter coming out of black holes that are 100,000 light years across. Even for Lisle’s model, this is a pretty massive problem. Here is an article to check out:

However, take another look at the jets in the image above. It’s definitely not a stable system. We see some discrete “blurps” in the jets, as if the output has been changing in the past. Even light (traveling at the fastest speed possible) did not have time enough to “connect” these regions with each other within 6,000 years. In the ASC model, such relativistic jets (including their discrete blobs) were created midflight . This would give us human beings only the illusion of a causal relationship between the source (the medium near the black hole) and the astrophysical jet itself. This illusion would include a fictional history of variable input from the source near the black hole. Even today, distinct parts of this particular jet would only be causally connected with very small surrounding regions (only about 0.5 percent of the whole jet length).

Lisle rejected the proposal of light being created in transit based on the principle of intelligibility. His argument was that we would expect God to provide some way to understand his Creation. Otherwise, it would not be worth the effort of trying to make sense of everything at all anymore. The fact that Lisle and other young-earth creationists have rejected the idea of light being created in transit is what originally led to the need of a solution to the distant starlight problem. However, we have seen in this post that Lisle’s proposal suffers from exactly the same problem which it aimed to avoid. It leads to a picture of the universe wherein God produced sequences of imaginary events in relativistic jets. This would revive the idea of God creating “appearance of age,” overruling any attempts to understand Creation coherently. It leads to the Omphalos hypothesis, which holds that God created nature with all the telltale marks of a distant past which it never had.[2] Young-earth creationists such as Lisle have aimed to distance themselves from this hypothesis because it contradicts the principle of intelligibility. However, as we’ve seen here, assuming the mature creation of relativistic jets revives the Omphalos hypothesis.
Light Matters: A Response to Jason Lisle - BioLogos

[r_speir]

@Toni_Torppa, I appreciate your defense of a young universe though it won’t be occurring with Lisle’s argument in my view. Even John Hartnett has dropped the idea over the past year and he was arguing vehemently for it. He must have come to some public or private knowledge that Lisle’s ASC is just so much hay.

…BUT do not stop your investigation! Who knows. Perhaps you will come up with the right idea. Thank you for sharing this. And if you are YEC, I applaud your bravery.