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The world can’t be billions of years old because the Gemmora (I think) says the world is for 6 days of Hashem which is 1 day equals 1000 years. So if we are in the 6th day, which is after Masei Brashis then even if you count the previous days as each a thousand years, you still would only get 7 thousand years + the 5,000+ that we are in now.
Science, fossils, “dinosaurs” etc. are the modern equivalent of nevi sheker, sent by Hashem to test our faith. Hashem will explain these hoaxes in His good time.
Derech – I drew no conclusions, simply asked a question. The question essentially remains unanswered. And, as I pointed out, the question of the age of the universe is not a matter of ‘Rabbinical Knowledge’ as there are many Rabbinical opinions.
Your tzu shtell to flat Earths and suns going around them is not especially valid. For starters people knew that the Earth was not flat for many thousands of years, but secondly because HKB’H put methods of determining the shape of the Earth, and also of heliocentricity, into the berioh, they simply remained to be discovered. In this case, it is the methods of determining that have already been discovered that are leading to the mistaken conclusions, not just the article by simple observation.
I think you also fail to address my problem with applying your Sifsei Chaim to dinosaur bones by taking a far too literal approach to my statement about Alpha Centauri, Alpha Centauri is lav davka (although Deneb might have been a better choice – it is 7000 light years away, yet we see its light…). All I was pointing out was that it a very arbitrary application. So maybe Alpha Centauri is still ‘working’, but what about an extinct volcano? Is that also a remnant? Furthermore, it falls foul of Russel, because I can claim any date I want and anything that appears older I can call a physical remnant of a spiritual existence. I can claim that the universe is 450 years old and the cemeteries are simply full of physical remnants of spiritual existences.
I’m not sure I understand your point about deer, I think that keeping something in existence (the deer had a skeleton whilst it was still alive) is hardly comparable to creating a physicality just to have an existence.
I’m not going to discuss paradigm shifts here, but, as a quick note on your point about abiogenesis: “Vayitzer H’ Elokim es ho’odom ofor min ho’adomo” (Bereshis 2,7). Abiogenesis ;-)?
Also, the cyclical (or spiral) nature of time time is hardly relevant. Whether time is a pond or a stream, if there is more than a certain amount of it, there is more than that amount. The branch cosmology doesn’t work in this instance as that would involve parallel existences whereas we are positing sequential ones. Olom kadmon is the term the Rishonim use for Steady State Theory; the Big Bounce (as you call it) is simply a modern iteration of it as it involves the infinitude of both matter and time.
As for Seder Olom being quoted in the gemoro, there are a number of things that are in there that are not of Tannaic or Amoraic authorship. Unless the person quoting it is a Tanna or an Amora, this would not rule out later authorship. Second, the fact that it goes through the generations is irrelevant as that goes back to Odom, not the sheshes yemei bereishis. And I know there is what to have a massive argument about there.
Anon1m0us – I think you are just as mistaken in your certitude in an old universe as, say, 2Scents or gotbeer are in theirs in an young one…
Health – it is not a gemoro, but a Gr’a. Which simply proves that he held that the universe is 6000 odd years old, not that the universe actually is that age.
jmh:
I was taught that all shitos are different bechinos of the same reality, so I don’t see the different opinions as a question of which is correct, but rather, which is talking about the point that is relevant to our discussion.
I completely disagree with the implication of the statement that methods of observation were already discovered. Three thousand years ago they would have said that they discovered by observing the sun traveling across the sky, that the galaxy is geocentric. The method of observation already existed. However, new technological advances in science over the next 1500 years proved that previous methods of observation can be wrong. All that’s changed since then is that our methods of observation have grown more complex, not less dynamic.
I don’t think I understood your point about Alpha Centaur because I don’t understand why Deneb would be any different.
Also I think you are missing the point with you statement about being unfalsifiable. I’m not trying to prove an idea. My proof is that it was said by Da’as Torah so it must be true. I’m not trying to prove, but to explain why our perception of reality seems at odds with what the Torah (and I don’t only mean the Chumash) teaches us, by explaining that our observations are misleading because our reality reflects greater elements of creation than what we can purely observe. An explanation doesn’t have to be unfalsifiable it just needs to account for all the data. And the scientific answer doesn’t account for Da’as Torah.
And this leads to my point about the deer. The nature that Hashem created are rules that creation follows. One of these rules is (maybe) that things that die are not erased from existence, they persist in some manner. According to the Sifsei Chaim (and again its been awhile since I saw it, but I don’t think he was explaining his own ideas), physical reality as we understand it came into existence at the point of Adam’s cheit. before that, the creation was still a creation but on a level that we would describe as spiritual. After the cheit all those spiritual elements translated into the physical. Whatever the spiritual equivalent of an extinct volcano is, it became a physically extinct volcano. So it is not a question of creating an existence that has no purpose, but that the purpose of the creation was for something that was relevant to the time preceding the physical manifestation of the universe.
To put another way, the Big Bang and subsequent expansion of the universe seems to be strongly eluded to in the words of chazal about Hashem’s name coming from “she’omar la’olam dai”. But we need to resolve a Big Bang in conjunction with 7 days of creation. So based on Chazal we can say that both events were spiritual in nature. However, the translation of an expansion of a spiritual universe into a physical universe became a universe with an apparent cosmological age in the billions. But this age is based on calculations of current changes in various elements and then counting backwards, without taking into account this translation. You are looking at the point of physical manifestation as a new creation of the world, when I am saying that it was only a continuation and translation of an (spiritual) existence that began with Bereishis.
Claiming abiogenesis from the posuk would be the easy way out, but the time frame wouldn’t work for one thing unless you start messing around with relative time like Mr. Schroeder. Besides for that, have you ever seen any peirush from anywhere, that supports any idea besides Hashem taking dirt from various places and using it to form Adam? I mean Ramban in Bereishis for one, goes pretty far in comparing the creation of Adam from earth with the creation of the golems.
As for brane cosmology, I think the model works really well modified to be speaking spiritually. Spacetime is not really infinite in such a case, because the bulk is not four dimensional reality. So each brane would have its own finite spacetime (lasting 7,000 years) that begins at each Big Bang. The only difference is, that like you said, each brane would have been created consecutively rather than co-existing.
I don’t think that Brane theory or the oscillatory model can be compared to the Steady State theory because in both cases time at least has a beginning with the Big Bang and -whether or not branes persist- in the crunch part of the Bounce time does end.
I don’t understand how Rishonim could hold of a universe that has no beginning and no end and I’d love to see a mekor for this idea. Likewise, if you have time I think you’d really enjoy seeing the Sifsei Chaim on this whole topic. He explains how towards the end of Yemos Moshiach nature and time will start changing. It’s really amazing.
I understand your point about Seder Olam. You’re right, the main point is what happened at (and before) Adam, so his calculations are largely irrelevant.
Derech – I think we shall have to agree to disagree because we do not agree on first principles, so we’ll just end up going in circles. You have been told by your rebbeim that all the shittos are “different bechinos of the same reality” (whatever that means) and that a young universe is ‘Da’as Torah’. I do not think that this is necessarily the case, and have heard such from my rebbeim. Therefore, I am justified in my not accepting your answers, being that they are only answers if you need them to fit into the framework that you already have, whereas you are justified in not accepting my questions on them as your framework excludes them.
A few other points:
a) Abiogenesis simply means that organic matter is a product of non-organic matter, it does not mean that it is autogenic (that it came of its own accord), and the possuk says quite clearly that HKB’H made Odom (organic) from earth (non-organic). Whatever Dr Schroeder wants to do with that, he is entitled to. I was just pointing out that the Torah talks about abiogenesis as done by G-d.
b) The Rishonim did not believe in Steady State Theory, however, when talking about it in seforim (so as to discuss why it is incorrect) they had to have a term for it, and so labelled the theory Olom Kadmon. (though the Rambam in Moreh does seem to imply that if Olom Kadmon were to be scientifically proven [and not just posited by metaphysical speculation] then he would accept it and try to see how it fit with the Torah… but that’s a shmooze farzich…)
And lastly, c) Deneb is a star that is 7000 light years away. That means that the light from it takes 7000 years to reach us here on Earth, and yet it is a star that is visible to the naked eye (we do not need other methods of detection, optical or otherwise to see it) implying that the light that we see left Deneb 7000 years ago, which in a young universe is impossible as Deneb did not exist then to be giving light…
jmh:
Yeah you’re right, we probably would end up going in circles. I just enjoy a good debate. By “different bechinos of the same reality” I mean “eilu v’eilu divrei elokim chaim”. Therefore, everything chazal say is true. As for your points:
a) My comment about abiogenesis was because I (mistakenly apparently) understood your comment within the context we were speaking. Not the literal definition of the word, but the common theory implied by it. Obviously the creation of man from earth is the creation of life from inorganic matter.
b) Oh, Ok. I got scared there.
c) Now I understand your point, but the answer is simple. Spiritual “light” was already in transit from spiritual “Deneb” to spiritual “earth”. At the moment of the cheit, the spiritual “oros” became physical “light”.
The question is since Einstein determined that time is different at different reference points, what was the reference point for the 6 days of maaseh bereishis?
Derech – Can we now have a discussion as to when we say eilu v’eilu? It’s not so poshut that we say it when it comes to a machlokes in metzius… ;-p
Haha. Just before I came to check if you wrote back, I was thinking how you would respond with that.
Derech – Am I that obvious?
Why can’t it be that the Mabul weakened Pangaea so it came apart a few years after when the animals were back?
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