God, The Full and Final Version

[There will be lots of repetitions here. It is unavoidable because this is the full and final version.]

God is not only described by the theists as omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, but as spaceless and timeless as well.

There is a reason as to why God is always described as spaceless and timeless. I have already shown here1 that if we go through some simple logical steps, then we will arrive at the conclusion that a creator God will always be spaceless, timeless and immaterial.

There is one more reason as to why this creator of the universe will have to be spaceless and timeless. It has already been shown here2 that if anything exists at all, if even a single speck of dust exists, then ultimately there will have to be something that will be neither in space nor in time, as otherwise there will be an infinite regress.

So, there are at least two reasons as to why the creator of the universe will be spaceless and timeless. One reason is that the creator will always be prior to the creation event. The other reason is that in order to stop the infinite regress the creator will also have to be spaceless and timeless because someone or something spaceless and timeless can only stop this regress. If God as the creator of the universe cannot stop the infinite regress, then this silly and nonsensical question will repeatedly be asked: Who created the creator?

Now, is there any evidence that there is such a God?

If there is indeed a spaceless and timeless God, then, first of all, it must have to be ascertained that something is there in nature that is spaceless and timeless. Then only we will have a chance to ask the next question here as to whether this spaceless and timeless thing has got consciousness or not.

Scientists who are working with the quantum theory of gravity are now saying that space and time are not fundamental entities at all, but epiphenomena arising from other yet more fundamental entities. Even string theorists, causal set theorists, and scientists working with loop quantum gravity – all of them are saying the same thing that space and time are not fundamental. Below are some relevant quotes:

1) While different approaches to quantum gravity are often based on rather different physical principles, many of them share an important suggestion: that in some way spacetime as we find it in our existing theories is not a fundamental ingredient of the world, but instead, like rainbows, plants or people, `emerges’ from some deeper, non-spatiotemporal physics. What replaces spacetime and what aspects of spacetime remain in the ontology of fundamental physics differs, as one would expect, from approach to approach. But the idea that the universe and its material content might not, at bottom, be `in’ space and time, that these seemingly fundamental ingredients are just appearances of something more fundamental, would, if borne out, shatter our conception of the universe as profoundly as any scientific revolution before.
-The emergence of spacetime in quantum theories of gravity by Nick Huggett and Christian Wuthrich

2) Space (or spacetime) does not exist fundamentally: it emerges somehow from a more fundamental non-spatio-temporal structure. This intriguing claim appears in various approaches to quantum mechanics and quantum gravity.
– Composing the World Out of Nowhere

3) In quantum gravity, research programs such as loop quantum gravity state that the relativist spacetime is not fundamentally real and emerges somehow from a non-spatio-temporal ontology.
– Ibid

4) “If there were a dividing line between the quantum and the classical worlds, we could use the space and time of the classical world to provide a framework for describing quantum processes. But without such a dividing line—and, indeed, without a truly classical world—we lose this framework. We must explain space and time as somehow emerging from fundamentally spaceless and timeless physics.

“That insight, in turn, may help us reconcile quantum physics with that other great pillar of physics, Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which describes the force of gravity in terms of the geometry of spacetime. General relativity assumes that objects have well-defined positions and never reside in more than one place at the same time—in direct contradiction with quantum physics. Many physicists, such as Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge, think that relativity theory must give way to a deeper theory in which space and time do not exist. Classical spacetime emerges out of quantum entanglements through the process of decoherence.”
– Vlatko Vedral, Living in a quantum world, Scientific American, June 2011

5) “There aren’t many things in quantum gravity that everyone agrees on,” says Eleanor Knox, a philosopher at King’s College London who specializes in the philosophy of physics. “Yet the one thing many people seemed to agree on in quantum gravity was that we were going to have to cope with space and time not being fundamental.”
– Are Space and Time Fundamental? – The nature of reality – PBS by Kate Becker, Mar 2012

6) Nobel Laureate David Gross observed, “Everyone in string theory is convinced…that spacetime is doomed. But we don’t know what it’s replaced by.” Fields medalist Edward Witten also thought that space and time may be “doomed.” Nathan Seiberg of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton said, “I am almost certain that space and time are illusions. These are primitive notions that will be replaced by something more sophisticated.”
– Donald D. Hoffman in The Abdication Of Space-Time (Edge.org)

Below are two quotes that show how scientists are ultimately moving towards a radically new physics of no space and no time from their centuries-old physics of space and time:

1) Today's scientists seeking to combine quantum mechanics with Einstein's theory of gravity (the general theory of relativity) are convinced that we are on the verge of another major upheaval, one that will pinpoint the more elemental concepts from which time and space emerge. Many believe this will involve a radically new formulation of natural law in which scientists will be compelled to trade the space-time matrix within which they have worked for centuries for a more basic ''realm'' that is itself devoid of time and space.
– Brian Greene in The Time We Thought We Knew (The New York Times)

2) …[W]hile we may not have experimental data to tell us about physics near the Planck scale, we do have an ocean of “theoretical data” in the wonderful mathematical structures hidden in quantum field theory and string theory. These structures beg for a deeper explanation. The standard formulation of field theory hides these amazing features as a direct consequence of its deference to space-time locality. There must be a new way of thinking about quantum field theories, in which space-time locality is not the star of the show and these remarkable hidden structures are made manifest. Finding this reformulation might be analogous to discovering the least-action formulation of classical physics; by removing spacetime from its primary place in our description of standard physics, we may be in a better position to make the leap to the next theory, where space-time finally ceases to exist.
- Nima Arkani-Hamed in The Future of Fundamental Physics

From the above quotes, I think it has become clear that scientists do no longer hold that spacetime is fundamental. Rather, they are now saying that it emerges from some deeper, non-spatiotemporal physics, or from fundamentally spaceless and timeless physics. In this connection, it should be stated that there cannot be any non-spatiotemporal physics if there is nothing non-spatiotemporal in nature, as there cannot be any black hole physics if there is no black hole in the universe. Similarly, it can be said that there cannot be any spaceless and timeless physics if there is nothing spaceless and timeless in nature.

What this amounts to is that scientists are now saying that there is something non-spatiotemporal, or spaceless and timeless in nature from which spacetime has emerged.

Here we should also mention that ‘non-spatiotemporal’ is the new scientific term for the old term ‘spaceless and timeless’. Space and time are now combined into one single entity: spacetime. The adjective form of the word ‘spacetime’ is ‘spatiotemporal’ and its negative form is ‘non-spatiotemporal’. So instead of saying ‘spaceless and timeless’ they are now saying ‘non-spatiotemporal’. But the meaning remains the same.

I have written above that if there is indeed a spaceless and timeless God, then, first of all, it must have to be ascertained that something is there in nature that is spaceless and timeless. Here we see that it has already been ascertained by the scientists that there is something spaceless and timeless in nature from which spacetime has emerged.

As our existence is dependent upon the existence of spacetime and as this spacetime has emerged from something spaceless and timeless, so in a sense, our existence is also dependent upon the existence of this spaceless and timeless thing. This is because if it were not there, then in that case spacetime would not have been there at all. And if spacetime were not there, then we would not have been here. So, all our existence is ultimately dependent upon the existence of this spaceless and timeless thing.

It now remains to be seen as to whether this spaceless and timeless thing is conscious or not. Regarding this, we want to convey the following message to the non-believers in general:

‘It is not the job of the scientists to manufacture truth but to discover it. If there is a spaceless and timeless God, then scientists will also discover it one day. Up till now, they have discovered that there is something spaceless and timeless in nature from which space-time has emerged.

‘So, scientists have been able to deliver this much up till now. For the rest of the bags and baggage, we will wait.’

Yes, we will have to wait for the delivery of the requisite goods from scientists.

Reference:
1. https://www.11prompt.com/?q=node/557
2. https://www.11prompt.com/?q=node/537