Are You A Quantum Creationist?

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Eugene Shubert said:
Prof. Alexander Vilenkin didn't confess in that video to being a quantum creationist.
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'Confess'? You're making it sound like a crime.

He just asserts that a "quantum creation" of the universe is extremely reasonable. There are also other unabashed cosmologists. For instance, Stephen Hawking asserts that he and Jim Hartle have developed a view of "the spontaneous quantum creation of the universe."
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I don't think that they are talking about the same thing that religious creationists are. When they talk about the universe arising from 'nothing', they are interpreting 'nothing' to mean 'quantum vacuum' combined with the principles of quantum mechanics.

I believe that Vilenkin is quite upfront about saying that he doesn't know how to account for those things. So these cosmologists don't seem to me to really be addressing the ultimate 'why is there something rather than nothing' question at all.
 
Eugene Shubert said:
Quantum creation already has a specific meaning.
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No it doesn't. There is no such theory in science called "quantum creation". In the video in the OP, the two words are next to each other in the same sentence - which happens some times with words - but they are not, together, a term for a certain scientific idea. Indeed, the idea being described in the video is so tentative that it doesn't even have a name! More on that later. Maybe your name for it will stick if the idea ever becomes a theory, maybe not.
If quantum creationism has never been defined heretofore, then I have every right to define it as I have done.
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Sure. But that doesn't mean others have to like it, much less find it useful and it does make it incumbent upon you to make it absolutely clear what the definition is, which you haven't done. That said, the issue is moot since, as I said above, there is no scientific theory called "quantum creation" and more to the point, the nameless idea you are attaching that name to is so tentative that there couldn't possibly be any "quantum creationists" who believe in it.
 
Eugene Shubert said:
Are you admitting to not understanding what Prof. Alexander Vilenkin means by "quantum creation"?
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Right. I can't really express an informed opinion on "quantum creation" until I know a lot more about what's being proposed and why.
 
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Eugene Shubert said:
So I gave it a name. Live with it.
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Ok, fine. It only took 5 pages for you to acknowledge that you made-up both the terms "quantum creation" and "quantum creationism". Now what? Since these terms didn't exist before and the idea being described is so tentative it didn't have a name until now, there couldn't possibly be anyone who could reasonably be labeled a "quantum creationist".
 
Eugene Shubert said:
Why aren't Prof. Alexander Vilenkin and Prof. Stephen Hawking legitimate believers in quantum creation?
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As you've already acknowledged, Prof Vilenkin never claimed he "believed in" the idea he's discussing and in fact stated that the idea was tentative/unproven. So he couldn't possibly qualify as a "quantum creationist".
 
Russ_Watters said:
Prof Vilenkin never claimed he "believed in" the idea he's discussing and in fact stated that the idea was tentative/unproven. So he couldn't possibly qualify as a "quantum creationist".
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William Lane Craig and Alexander Vilenkin handsomely refute your error in this short video:

 
Eugene Shubert said:
Sorry. I didn't invent the term "quantum creation."
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That's not what you said here:
So I gave it a name.
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In any case, I think you are dodging your own point, so I'll respond to it again:
Eugene Shubert said:
Why aren't Prof. Alexander Vilenkin and Prof. Stephen Hawking legitimate believers in quantum creation?
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As you've already acknowledged, Prof Vilenkin never claimed he "believed in" the idea he's discussing and in fact stated that the idea was tentative/unproven. So he couldn't possibly qualify as a "quantum creationist".

[edit] Oh, I think I get your angle now: you're hoping that by labeling scientists as "quantum creationists" you can actually convince them they should believe in God/biblical creationism!
 
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exchemist said:
No, because you are trying to redefine - or more correctly perhaps to obscure - the accepted meaning of the term "creationist".

The first line of the Wiki definition of "creationism" is as follows: "Creationism is the belief that the Universe and Life originate "from specific acts of divine creation."

Now tell us where, in the video you posted, the speaker said he believed in specific acts of divine creation?
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I'm still waiting for you to respond to this.
 
exchemist said:
I'm still waiting for you to respond to this.
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From the poster of the youtube video in his most recent post:
"It matters to me because if it's true that the universe began to exist, then the best explanation for what caused the universe to come into existence would be God..."
So that's what this is about. He is indeed using the word "creationism" because he wants scientists to get onboard with the idea that this was God's Creation Event.
 
Russ_Watters said:
Prof Vilenkin never claimed he "believed in" the idea he's discussing and in fact stated that the idea was tentative/unproven. So he couldn't possibly qualify as a "quantum creationist".
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William Lane Craig and Alexander Vilenkin handsomely refute your error in this short video:

 
Eugene Shubert said:
William Lane Craig
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This person (William Lane Craig) is manifestly no one I would pay any attention to about evolution or cosmology, under any circumstances. Watch his long recent debate with Sean Carroll if you have any doubts. WLC has nothing resembling science that he reasons with. He appears knowledgable in philosophy (and so is Sean, only Sean understands much more of science related philosophy and in more depth). But philosophy is not science.

Prof Vilenken however seems to know whereof he speaks.

It isn't clear to me, so please explain. Does Prof Vilenken consider himself a 'quantum creationist' or not? What he has said about a closed universe sounds very much like what Michau Kaku says about the universe without reference to whether it is an open or a closed system or otherwise. According to Kaku, electric charge, gravitational potential energy, matter and antimatter, all pretty much sum to zero in this universe, or pretty close to it.

Anyone who believes in pair virtual photon creation in the vacuum would be a quantum creationist also, correct? Perhaps I'll need to revise what I posted previously, because I do believe in this.

Conservation of mass / energy, (even if this is only on average in the quantum domain), does rather strongly suggest a universe that is in actual fact closed in the sense of closing off the door to possible multiverses spawned by quantum fluctuations in this one.
 
I've just watched the video, and at no point was the word creation used.
 
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