Thursday, August 9, 2018

Cosmology at Creationism Conference

The 2018 International Conference on Creationism met last week from July 29 to August 1 in Pittsburgh. This conference meets every 5 years, bringing together many well-known creationists, and features their latest research.
Conveniently, the full presentations can be downloaded at the conference site. Some papers that I found particularly interesting were:

Y Chromosome Noah and Mitochondrial Eve, by R.W. Carter, S. Lee, J.C. Sanford and Designed Genetic Diversity in Adam and Eve, by J. C. Sanford et al, both show that human genetics can readily be interpreted to be consistent with Biblical history.

The Case for the LXX's Chronology in Gen 5 & 11, by H.B. Smith, argues that the genealogy numbers are best preserved by the Septuagint, which places creation at about 5554 BC and the Flood at about 3298 BC.

Creationist Cosmologies

My prime interest in this post, however, is to discuss the presentations dealing with creationist cosmology. 

Dr. Danny Faulkner gives a handy overview in his paper The Current State of Creation Astronomy II. He discusses, among other things, various views on the nature of the "expanse" created on Day 4, the "waters above the expanse", the cause of redshifts, and various astronomical indicators of young-age. 
One of the biggest challenges is to solve the Light Travel Time Problem: how can we see galaxies apparently billions of light years away if these were created only 6000 years ago? Faulkner lists 7 different proposals, but doesn't critique them. Three other conference papers present possible solutions:
1. One proposal, by Dr. B.M. Johnson in Towards a Young Universe Cosmology, is that the speed of light c varies with position. His main idea is that c might much greater in regions of low gravitational potential. The gravitational potential near the Sun is dominated by our Galaxy. In Johnson's model, it still takes light 8000 years to travel to us from the Galactic Center, and presumably even longer from more distant galaxies. Moreover, c would not be expected to vary much from us to the nearest stars. Thus, if Sirius (the brightest star in our sky), 9 light years distant, were created on Day 4, Adam would not see its light until 9 years later, when it would suddenly become visible. If stars are to be visible by Day 7, this approach certainly won't work.
Johnson explore also the possibility that light might travel faster in regions of low particle density. The density in the interstellar medium, and between galaxies, is much lower than that of the best vacuum we can reach experimentally. Yet, the difference in c as measured in air and as measured in our best vacuum is so small that it is highly doubtful that c would be any different in a perfect vacuum. 
2. A second proposal, by Dr. P.W. Dennis in Young Earth Relativistic Cosmology, is a very sophisticated model stitching a young earth neighbourhood to an older remote universe. This paper contains some interesting ideas, but is not very easy to read, particularly not for those not well versed in general relativity and cosmology. The key idea seems to be that "God advances the (cosmic) time of the spacelike hypersurfaces at a non-uniform rate during the miraculous creation week", thus solving the distant light problem.
It would have been helpful if the author had spelled out more clearly, without math and technical jargon, what this actually means. Does the miraculous advancement of cosmic time mean that cosmic time differs from earth time? or that light travelled faster, or that all physical processes were speeded up, as measured by earth clocks? Further, are galaxies created full-blown, or formed from primordial matter? Since this model relies, ultimately, on miraculous events, it is not clear to me that the cosmological details are necessary, or even helpful.
3. Finally, we consider the presentation Creation Time Coordinates Solution to the Starlight Problem by T.G. Tenev, J. Baumgardner, M.F. Horstemeyer. This approach is similar to that of Jason Lisle (2010). It is based on the fact that, in special relativity, we cannot measure the one-way speed of light. All measurements of the speed of light ultimately involve a two-way average speed in two opposite directions. Hence, to synchronize distant clocks, one can use different conventions. The usual convention, adopted by Einstein, is to assume that light travels the same speed in all directions. An alternative convention, applied by the authors, is to assume that light travels infinitely fast in one direction (i.e., towards the earth) and c/2 in the opposite direction (i.e., away from the earth). With this convention (called CTC, for " creation time coordinates") light from distant stars arrives at the earth instantaneously, thus solving the distant light problem. Stars and galaxies are created mature, fully formed, and are seen to be only 6000 years old. They should thus, according to the authors, exhibit indications of youth.

One might well ask, is CTC merely a convention for setting distant clocks and dating astronomical events, or does it assume that light really move infinitely fast towards the earth? This paper isn't clear on this.

Considering CTC as merely a clock convention entails that we date an astronomical event to when it is observed at the earth, rather than when it actually occurred. In this view, Genesis 1 tells us when starlight first reached the earth, rather than when it was actually created. This  implies that stars and galaxies were created in a contracting spherical shell, centered on the earth, so that their light all reached the earth at the same time on Day 4 (i.e., galaxies x billion light years away were created x billion year before Day 4).

This would mean that starlight was first created billions of years before Day 4. But this conflicts with the stars being placed "in the expanse" (i.e., space), which was not created until Day 2. Since space itself was created only 2 earth days before the stars, the stars could not have been formed before that.

The authors contend that their CTC convention is divinely-prescribed. Their argument seems to be that when God created the stars on Day 4 they immediately became visible. But Genesis implies at most that the stars became visible sometime on Day 4, which could be consistent also with other models, such as mature creation or a changing speed of light.

Moreover, Genesis 1 relates creation from the perspective of God. God said "let their be lights"....and saw that it was good. Being omnipresent, he would have seen the light when He created it, not just when it arrived at the earth.

What about the other option: that light actually travels infinitely fast towards the earth? The authors seem to think that the one-way speed of light is not an objective physical quantity, and that this is therefore not a physically meaningful question. However, simply because humans can't measure it doesn't mean that God doesn't know what the case is. Surely photons are moving at some particular speed. 

Intuitively, it makes more physical sense to consider the speed of light to be the same in all directions within the background space, or ether, than that it approaches the earth with infinite speed.

A Simpler Solution
A simple solution to the distant starlight problem is that of mature creation: the notion that the entire universe, including light rays, was created instantaneously some 6000 years ago.

Many creationists reject this solution since this entails that the light we view from distant galaxies never actually came from those galaxies. This, the objection goes, makes God deceptive. Hence other, more theologically viable, solutions should be sought.

Yet, the previous model (and presumably also the other two) posit that galaxies were created instantaneously, 6000 years ago, in mature form, apparently with full gravitational and radiative cohesion. But then each galaxy would include "light created in transit". If this is permissible in other galaxies, why not in our own Galaxy? And, if mature creation is postulated for individual galaxies, why not for clusters of galaxies? and, indeed, why not for the entire universe? 

The models discussed above all rely upon miraculous mature creation of some sort, plus some hypothetical new physics, unusual time convention, or the like. It seems to me that the plus part is general implausible, unlikely to convince opponents, open to potentially disproof, and unnecessary.

Finally, regarding the deception alleged to be associated with mature creation, note that Genesis tells us only that the stars were made on Day 4, and presumably became visible from the earth later that day, or by Day 6. Thus, stars, and starlight, need not have been created instantaneously. Rather, Genesis leaves open the possibility that stars, galaxies, and their light were very rapidly formed, on Day 4, via a miraculous process.
In this "rapidly matured creation" [see my post] the starlight we see actually did come from stars, galaxies bear signs of actual past formation, etc.  Of course, analyzing these observations in terms of currently observed natural laws will yield wrong conclusions about the distant past, since these laws were not operative on Day 4. See the discussion in my post Is Mature Creation Deceptive? 
*****



44 comments:

Randy S said...

Nice unpacking and high-level dismantling of each idea presented. I agree with you. If you, like me, have given a young universe much thought at all, you really have no idea how hard and seemingly implausible it is. Notice I said seemingly. I still say you have a great idea regarding mature creation - yours does seem to have a promising twist not seen in other mature creation models. When can we expect a more thoroughgoing presentation of your thoughts? Soon I hope?

john byl said...

Hi Randy

Any creation model, whether young universe or old, seems implausible when examined under naturalist assumptions. But so, or even more so, is the Big Bang--evolution from nothing to man--origins tale of naturalism.


The "rapidly matured creation" of the celestial sky is similar to Jonah's rapidly matured vine, which grew overnight. For more on this see my post "Is Mature Creation Deceptive?" noted above.

Steve Drake said...

Hello John,
Thanks for this synopsis. The links in your post to the abstracts do not seem to be operative. I found the same thing when I went to the ICC website. Could not locate any links to abstracts to the 2018 ICC conference.

john byl said...

Thanks for alerting me to this. They have changed the addresses, but the links still exist. I have updated them. Unfortunately, in doing so I lost my entire post. Happily, I had saved an earlier version on a Word file. So this version may differ somewhat from what it should be.

Steve Drake said...

Thanks John! It's working now. I was especially interested in H.B. Smith's "The Case for the Septuagint's Chronology in Gen. 5 & 11". The later begetting years of the patriarchs following Noah from the Septuagint text seem more in line with a gradual decrease after the Flood than the very sharp decline in begetting years as seen from the Masoretic text (Table 1 in Smith's paper). I'm happy to see this is now being discussed amongst those who take a high view of Scripture.

john byl said...

Hi, Steve. The Septuagint is defended also by Jeremy Sexton, "Who was born when Enosh was 90? A semantic reevaluation of William Henry Green's chronological gaps" (Westminster Theological Journal 77 [2015]:193-218). See my post "Reviving Biblical Chronology".

Steve Drake said...

Yes, I remember your excellent post on that. I have a copy of Sexton's paper on my desk and refer back to it frequently.

To the secularist, (and to our old-earth brethren) whether the universe is 6000 years old or 7550 years old makes no difference, (it's still too young), but I imagine that the major Creation organizations who have built their houses on a 6000 year old universe will find it hard to agree with these conclusions.

I am not criticizing any of them, for they have produced wonderful research, both scientifically and Scripturally, that has cultivated a revival and return to the orthodox position held for most of Church history, but I will be watching to see if the older Creation and Flood dates catch on with any of them.

Randy S said...

Dr. Byl, by “rapidly matured creation” you must mean that the passage of time at cosmological distances was enormous – and that works. Harnett tried the same approach but with one-too-many dimensions and he erroneously built in a huge horizon gap here
https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j27_1/j27_1_54-56.pdf
Of course he attempted a rebuttal but never really successfully “closed the gap”. More here
http://www.setterfield.org/Challenge_to_Hartnett.html#update1114
Humphreys believed in billions of cosmological years to his credit but his model too appealed to an added dimension and failed in a purely mechanical sense, although he still denies it here
https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j27_2/j27_2_39-42.pdf
I liked the purity of Faulkner’s model and have not given up on it but he is loath to admit the passage of billions of years in the cosmos, so his model leaves evidence contrary to what we observe and will be hard-pressed to move forward, as shown here
https://assets.answersingenesis.org/doc/articles/pdf-versions/arj/v7/Faulkner_light_model_critique.pdf
Lisle almost had it but completely fumbled the ball when he began to claim what one could never prove out, and further, what one could really never believe; namely, an infinite light speed. For that reason, his idea will never move forward, even as you have pointed out.
But here is what I think Lisle saw, and knew, when he first set out to build his model. By far, the simplest approach to all of this is to say that in the beginning God [truly] created the heavens and the earth [all of it concurrently] and the earth just sat motionless for an undisclosed era because nothing was as of yet marking time. Light traveled from cosmological sources at light speed for that same undisclosed era to reach earth. Now, yes, “light speed” involved the passage of time, at least in our common reasoning, but not according to God’s creation clock of six 24-hour earth days, so cannot be counted as the passage of billions of years.
It was only when God turned on a local light source and earth began to rotate on its axis, that creation time truly began. This is what I think Lisle saw when he imagined light from distant stars reaching earth on day 4. But in an effort to deliver a credible cosmology, he overreached, and asked us to accept what we are not able – an infinite light speed. Not to mention, God having to create closer and closer regions of the sky over billions of years just to get starlight here concurrently on day 4. It is a strange approach, to say the least, and certainly not elegant.
That is why your ideas are interesting and may begin to supply what is lacking in these other approaches (though, to be sure, some will want to subject it to more rigor than it has received to date). Of course, yours is all accomplished by a miracle of God, but by varying the speed of growth processes of the cosmos based on distance from earth – and if you agree that you are also necessarily varying the age of the cosmos based on the same – then there should at least be no blueshift in light we receive from cosmological sources. Of course, it will not be redshifted either, but that is an easy problem to overcome, say with the addition of a gentle expansion of the system, also increasing in step based on distance, something that falls right in line with God’s modus operandi up to this point, at least as you see it.
Immediately, your thoughts are more elegant than Lisle’s approach because accelerated growth, and age, based on distance from earth, would be an in-built feature of the cosmos, preempting Lisle’s notion that God had to create over billions of years. You also have the added benefit of claiming all could be accomplished during one earth day – day 4 of creation. However, you are reticent to mention a varying age over cosmological distances in your comments about your model. Can you speak to that idea for a moment?




john byl said...

Hi Randy

Thanks for your thoughts. Let me clarify that my proposed "rapidly matured creation" does NOT involve enormous time intervals at cosmological distances, nor varying ages over those distances.

Rather, as I noted in my previous reply to you, I propose that the stars and galaxies were created miraculously on Day 4, involving miraculously accelerated processes, not necessarily following current laws, much like Jonah's vine that miraculously grew overnight. Again, see my post "Is mature creation deceptive?"

Randy S said...

Dr. Byl, I understand. Then the only way around varying cosmological ages is to also endorse a varying light speed in accord with varying distance from earth. You must be saying that as accelerated growth processes were occurring in the cosmos, they were also accompanied by an accelerated light speed.

And this would accord with your claims regarding Jonah's vine. What normally grew at, say, 1 foot per day would instead grow at 20 feet per day during the miracle stage of growth. If we had no knowledge of this miracle, we might visit the vine afterward and erroneously claim that it had been growing for 20 days (still locked into our 1 ft/day thinking). In the same manner, I might claim a 14 billion-year-old universe locked into a fixed light speed of 300,000 kilometers per second, when in reality the universe may have miraculously grown up in a single day at an enormous overall rate of 1.12e28 kilometers per second (taking only the radius of the light horizon of the universe into account).

Your ideas definitely remain unique in that you have chosen to insert the notion of varying growth and speeds of growth based on distance from earth. I personally have not seen this in any other creationist literature about cosmology. Faulkner did not claim this, though he certainly spoke much about the rapid growth of the universe. Had he done so, his ideas may have had legs.

What you have really done is to propose an odd, albeit plausible, metric to the expansion of the universe. You have not claimed any more than 3 spatial and 1 time dimension, and have posited a smooth, ever-increasing metric expansion based on a simple line-of-sight increasing radial distance from earth. At this juncture, I don't see a problem, though I would certainly like to hear input from other creationists. All the best.

Randy S said...

Tag. I am just now re-reading this line in your thoughts here

http://bylogos.blogspot.com/2017/05/is-mature-creation-deceptive_18.html

You write: “In this scenario the history we see in starlight is thus real--depicting actual historical events--but reflecting accelerated processes no longer operating after Day 4.”

Remember, it was this kind of thinking that drew fire from Hartnett on page 460 of his critique of Faulkner:

“You can’t say this process stopped at the end of Day 4, and light now travels at normal rates, otherwise you still have a light-travel-time problem.”

https://assets.answersingenesis.org/doc/articles/pdf-versions/arj/v7/Faulkner_light_model_critique.pdf

And Hartnett is correct in that it will require an ongoing miracle to continue to bring light to earth in a young universe. You see, a universe that is only 6000 or so years old – everywhere – will always have a basic problem. While a miracle of accelerated light can certainly get the first wavelengths of starlight to earth on day 4, you will need that same miracle to remain in operation in order for Adam to see it on day 6, or else the sky will go dark. Then about 4 years later, Adam will see our nearest star wink into existence, and so on and so forth, until several billions of years later, earth observers will finally enjoy a view of the entire universe as we do today.

Of course, this is why Hartnett, Humphreys, and now even Lisle try to build cosmologies that include billions of years – so they can avoid the problem of an ongoing miracle. Because in a universe of ongoing miracles, one could argue that God is still creating, thus violating the teaching of the biblical Creation Week.

That is why I believe that in your model it would be vital to somehow transfer the initial miracle of accelerated growth and light speed into the very spacetime metric, thus allowing God to uphold the universe by the word of his power, if you will. How that metric would look, I cannot say, but I personally find it extremely intriguing to think about. What indeed would a spacetime look like that had a varying light speed actually hard-coded into its metric?! I find the thought absolutely fascinating. I think that metric may be the miracle a young universe has been seeking.

Thank you again for your thoughts. I personally think they hold promise.

john byl said...

Hi Randy

Hartnett's critique does not apply to my proposal.

Consider "mature creation" (MC), where the entire stellar universe, including light rays created en route, is created instantaneously on Day 4. This requires no ongoing miracles after Day 4. It is observationally undisprovable. But some object that it entails that God is deceptive, since the starlight we see never actually came from stars, apparent supernova explosions never really happened, etc.

"Rapidly matured creation" (RCM) is similar to MC in that, at the end of Day 4 the entire universe, in essentially its present form, has been created, light rays and all. No miracles are needed after Day 4.

The only difference is that RMC does not specify instantaneous creation but allows for process, following Gen.1, so that the stellar universe is created complete within one day. Hence, in RMC observed starlight can actually have come from the stars, supernova explosions may have actually occurred, etc.

Did the acceleration rate vary with distance? Perhaps. It is one possibility, but I don't want to insist on that.

Randy S said...

Dr. Byl, thinking out loud and hearing you bring up mature creation vs. rapidly matured creation tells me that I have committed a big oversight. So sorry. If you choose to opt of billions of years of history passing in the universe during a single earth day, then you have also opted out of the benefits of a rapidly matured creation. See, while an ongoing accelerated light speed certainly could bring us visibility to a 6000-year-old universe staggeringly vast in size, it is powerless to explain collisions, scars, burnt-out stars, supernovae, and gas jets millions of light years wide. Those will have to be explained as does Lisle - namely, that God has created those features already in the "middle of their history", really only images with an apparent history.

Accelerated light cannot help age a young universe. Light waves can only tell us what is already "out there", whether it is very old with a very real and deep history, or very young with only a mature look created into it, an apparent age.

You have a powerful model with the inclusion of an accelerated history. I have not seen it elsewhere. I would like to see you use it to the full benefit.

john byl said...

No, you misunderstand. Unlike Lisle, who has stars and galaxies created instantaneously, the Rapidly Matured Model model postulates process, albeit accelerated and miraculous. As I noted in my last reply, supernovae explosions actually occur (as do gas jets, collisions, etc.).

However, it must be kept in mind that the processes of Day 4 were miraculous, and were not necessarily merely accelerated versions of currently observed physical laws. For example, the usual energy laws might not apply. Just like Jonah's vine, which rapidly grew in a night, was not powered by sunlight, as would normally be the case.

Randy S said...

Dr. Byl, good morning on the Lord ’s Day. I will quickly slip in this a.m. comment.

I think I have a really good understanding of your model. I would like to momentarily replace the earthly analogy using Jonah’s vine with a real-life “Jonah’s vine” found in the sky.

Go here to witness the beauty of Centaurus A:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ESO_Centaurus_A_LABOCA.jpg

Relativistic jets erupting from a black hole at the center span about 1 million light years across the sky. They represent our choice of a cosmic Jonah’s vine.

How old does your model say those relativistic jets are?

Randy S said...

The correct answer from a rapidly matured creation model says the jets are 500,000 years old – 500,000 lights years to the left of the black hole and 500,000 ly to the right.

A rapidly matured creation model must predict those kinds of ages for cosmic structures or it fails. Here is why.

The radial distance of Centaurus A from earth (for simplicity’s sake) is 10 million light years. Under your current thinking (if I am hearing you correctly), you would predict Centaurus A to be roughly 6000 years old today, meaning that at the close of Creation Day 4 the structure would be 1 day old. This must be true because you would also predict the entire universe to be only 1 day old at that point in time.

Still under your mode of thinking, the miracle of Day 4 says that God moved the light of Centaurus A to earth at a speed of 10 million ly / per day, or 1.09e15 km/sec. That fast-moving wave-front of light would allow a hypothetical observer on earth to visibly witness Centaurus A on Creation Day 4.

However, that view is short-lived, because by the dawn of Day 5, that miracle ceases based on your assertion,

“In this scenario the history we see in starlight is thus real…but reflecting accelerated processes no longer operating after Day 4.”

This means that the entire sky goes dark and Centaurus A disappears from our view because the Day 5 wave-front of light is traveling only at the usual speed of light – namely, 300,000 km/sec. We will not see Centaurus A again from earth until 10 million years have elapsed.

This fails the model under your current thinking.

However, the model succeeds if you allow the Day 4 miracle to impact cosmic ages and not light speed.

The correct answer from a rapidly matured creation model says that at the close of Creation Day 4, Centaurus A has been miraculously aged 10 million years and that light has already been traveling toward earth at its usual 300,000 km/sec for 10 million years.

Since light speed remains constant throughout the miracle and afterward, this allows a hypothetical Day 4 observer to witness its light, and a Day 5 observer to witness the same, and Adam to witness Centaurus A’s beauty on Day 6, and so on and so forth for the next 6000 years up to the current day’s observer.

Correctly rendered, a rapidly matured creation says the universe is made to age billions of years during a single earth day by a miracle of God. At its farthest extent, the universe is roughly 14 billion years old.

john byl said...

No. The correct answer, according to the Rapidly Matured Creation model is that Centaurus A is two days older than Adam, although it may seem to be millions of years old when analyzed via naturalist presuppositions.

As I explained above, there is no darkness on Day 5, nor any need of a continuing miracle after Day 4; after the end of Day 4 the RMC model is identical to the Mature Creation model.

Randy, I thank for your comments, but we seem to have reached the point of diminishing returns, as I just seem to be repeating myself. Thus I am going to discontinue this exchange. Thanks.

JohnV said...

Dr. Byl:

It's all quite easy, I would think:
- God is over the creation, not subject to it; He may do as He pleases, and

- man's best science is subject to his own presuppositions; and these are always up for correction or may yet prove false. That is the limitation of science.

I am one of those who believes that God also had us in mind, we who live in the 21st Century, when He authorized the Bible as His infallible Word. He called me before the world was made, so He had to have known about our times. His Word stands true in our time too. He calls me too to just trust in His Word, so I do. There is nothing "wooden" about that.

Theistic evolutionists seem to always have this wrong: we are not a "wooden literalist" in rejecting hypothesis-laden factualizing. There is an inherent big 'IF' in front of science's so-called facts; that 'IF' is not present before God's Word. I would throw that accusation right back at them with their faith in "science" (I am referring to evolution being called 'science' here, when in point of fact it is hypothesis-based "sciencing" if I may coin a word.)


I would think that the bottom line is: though all the world's facts might say otherwise, I prefer to take God's Word for it rather than man's inductions. You just can't rule out God's Word with science, simply because of the limited nature and scope of science, and because they both attest to the same underlying truth. It's that simple.

The RMC idea has this going for it: it keeps this epistemic order intact. This is quite unique about this concept, compared to others. It has my vote.

JohnV

Steve Drake said...

Dr. Byl,
I have enjoyed the point-counterpoint exchange between you and Randy S. It seems his subterfuge has been unmasked. He's not really interested in your rapidly matured creation model, but, trying to show you up old man :)

Correct me if I'm wrong Randy S, please. Are you an honest man, genuinely seeking clarification, or just a poser, trying to make light of the RCM of Dr. Byl, whose real agenda is now evident?

Perhaps Randy S. is a Rossite, no? Let's lay our cards on the table brothers.

Randy S said...

Steve, I can appreciate you sticking up for Dr. Byl. You all have had a good thing going for a long time at this blogsite. I think that is special and great. I am simply a visitor, true. But let me assure you, a very honest one indeed. I absolutely am not seeking my own in this encounter. To the contrary, it has been my aim from the start to give Dr. Byl's cosmology every benefit.

Speaking of which, I did take a step back for awhile today, took off my cosmology hat, and just sat by the stream to ponder some things. I was not expecting to get an answer so soon, and certainly not a positive one. I still needs to be checked out first with a little math. The results look positive for now.

I have taken the liberty to email Dr. Faulkner first about the possible solution because it also pertains to his cosmology as much as it does to Dr. Byl. Fair is fair. Right now it looks like his model is helped. I believe the same will happen for Dr. Byl's.

See, what is really lacking in both of these models are full physical write-ups. Had that been done at the outset, I think today's solution - or, at least, possible solution - would not have even been necessary. Full write-ups are so vital in these kinds of scientific endeavors, yes even if they involve miracles.

I hope to be in touch shortly.



Randy S said...

Dr. Byl, I do respect your request to end the conversation with me. I know I benefited in unexpected ways. Here I add my well-wishes to your endeavors.

john byl said...

Randy, I was merely ending our last exchange, which was becoming repetitious, in line with my comment rules. You are welcome to bring up new points.

Steve Drake said...

Randy, thanks for the reply. Let me ask you a question if I may, as it pertains to your comment above about checking out the math. How can you apply math to a miraculous event?

Randy S said...

MIRACULOUS DAY ...........SOLAR DAY

nascent...........................>(Earth

intermediate...................>>(Earth

post intermediate..........>>>(Earth

fully mature>>>>>>>>>>>>(Earth

As a single solar day – Day 4 – passes on Earth, a miraculous day passes in the heavens. Moving from top to bottom, the cosmic object on the left can be seen to rapidly mature over the course of that single miraculous day. Some objects/structures grow in size until full maturity is reached. Others have very different histories and may actually shrink in size – e.g., burned-out stars, black holes, by full maturity.

But here is what is missing in all the literature and discussion. The cosmic object itself is only half of the ensuing miracle. The other vitally important half is the light/radiation column that is shot to earth, at superluminal speeds, from each cosmic source as the source matures. The light column above is represented by the growing line of arrows headed towards Earth. Each arrow represents a single light pulse emitted from the source. The first arrow contains the earliest information about source’s history and moves to the right as the second arrow with a little more history comes behind. By the close of the miraculous day, not only is the cosmic source fully mature, its ensuing light column is completely stacked with a deep and authentic history of its source, and touching Earth.

By the close of Creation day 4, multiplied trillions of light/radiation columns are streaming to Earth from just as many cosmic sources bringing Earth and sky into full causal communication for as long as both are in existence. Never will the sky go dark, not from day 4 forward. As light pours from the bottom of each light column, we are recipients of each pulse of emitted history straight from the source, and so are free via spectral analysis and other means to study an authentic and rich history of the cosmos.

The entrance of light/radiation columns into the discussion changes everything.

Randy S said...

The math involved deals with light/radiation leaving cosmic sources at ever-declining speeds and filling the light columns from bottom to top, "bottom" being nearest earth. Will this constitute aging light? I am not yet convinced. Faulkner thinks it does. And radial distance of sources from earth will very much affect accelerated light speeds and "aging" if it is really occurring. But it should not matter anyway. The model works. Details aplenty still need to worked out in the physical to help explain things.

Randy S said...

MIRACULOUS DAY ..............SOLAR DAY

nascent..............................>(Earth

intermediate.....................>>(Earth

post intermediate...........>>>(Earth

fully mature>>>>>>>>>>>>(Earth

All the Earths should be in a straight line but I think you got that anyway. This one may not work out either.

Randy S said...

I said this: "The first arrow contains the earliest information about source’s history and moves to the right as the second arrow with a little more history comes behind." But that needs a correction.

The very first emission of light from the newly created object yields its earliest history but it does not "move to the right" as I said above as the second comes behind. That first emission of light/radiation goes clean to the bottom of the light column and immediately touches earth. The next arrow - light pulse - will also come superluminally fast (albeit slower than the first by an almost infinitesimal amount) and stack right on top of the first.

This scenario will play out for 1 day (each cosmic object is 1 miraculous day away from earth no matter its distance) until the column is filled with light/radiation.

You know this already, but the columns are not represented by anything physical.

Randy S said...

I will probably have to yield on the aging light question. Faulkner has to be correct because light only ages as it travels through space. There should be no difference in this model. And since the oldest light yields the youngest views of the cosmos, radiation traveling the farthest is collected at the bottom of the light columns and offers us the youngest views of Creation.

Steve Drake said...

Randy S said,
"The math involved deals with light/radiation leaving cosmic sources at ever-declining speeds and filling the light columns from bottom to top, "bottom" being nearest earth."

Randy, can you write an equation for this? What are your variables? Are these variables known constants or unknown? Are you trying to explain through math and known laws of physics a miraculous event? Will this not lead to futility and frustration?

Randy S said...

Hello Steve, the equation you describe will be "an equation of the line" or in this case, a curved line. It will be nothing like futile or frustrating, but informative and satisfying. We will first find the relationship of our independent variable, time - a 24 hour day and our dependent variable speed of light and come up with an equation of the line. Then we will begin taking the derivative of that line to find the ever-changing slope. This will give us predictive power as well as the ability to show how someone like Dr. Byl might be correct in his belief that the nearer we are to the Creation moment, the greater the accelerated physical processes occurring - a steeper slope.

Randy S said...

MIRACULOUS DAY ..............SOLAR DAY

nascent..............................>(Earth

intermediate.....................>>(Earth

post intermediate...........>>>(Earth

fully mature>>>>>>>>>>>>(Earth

Correcting a correction: this picture I posted is incorrect. Arrows should not be farthest right, but rather farthest left and "pushing" right as the light columns grow over time. So my initial correction was incorrect, meaning I am now correcting my correction! Ugh. That means this statement was correct after all: "The first arrow contains the earliest information about the source’s history and moves to the right as the second arrow with a little more history comes behind." Sorry for the confusion.

Randy S said...

One more post and I will cease for a season. Just wanted to say that this model regards the earth as the preferred frame of reference, just as the Bible Creation story does. So the purist may find this model deeply satisfying in that God is seen to deeply age the system over the span of a single earth day with no communication lost between an observer like Adam and a vast, beautiful universe. The technician too can find satisfaction in the fact that to adopt a cosmic frame of reference in the model yields a time-dilated cosmology.

This one has really stretched me. I did not know this possibility even existed. I would have insisted against it, as you see me several posts previous actually doing! Well, I am a changed man. There is a beauty and simplicity, an elegance, in this model that I have not seen in any other creationist cosmology. I end up a very benefited man, indeed!!!

RubeRad said...

"Many creationists reject this solution since this entails that the light we view from distant galaxies never actually came from those galaxies."

Further, the light rays carry 'video' of a history that never actually happened.

Although I guess what you're saying is that that history would have happened at an accelerated pace during day 4, and we now observe it at 'regular' speed. We've watched the first 6000 years of video, and there's presumably billions more years of video queued up and streaming our way.

Randy S said...

RR, Comment. This is not my model so I cannot speak to what is in another's mind. What I know is that your last paragraph seems to be spot-on. It follows that there would be an enormous amount of history out there.

And you actually make a point that I meant to make two days ago but forgot to. Yes, the light pouring in on us from the light/radiation columns is traveling at conventional c, as you say 'regular' speed.

I defer.

RubeRad said...

"No. The correct answer, according to the Rapidly Matured Creation model is that Centaurus A is two days older than Adam, although it may seem to be millions of years old when analyzed via naturalist presuppositions."

And yet that "seem" is all we have access to, since we have no skill to outsmart God's perfectly smooth and transparent manipulation of time. What if every cosmological or astronomical paper began with "Assuming the laws of nature have remained constant since the singular origin of the universe, what we can deduce from observations is..." All science implicitly relies on the uniformity of nature, I don't think many scientists would deny this, no matter how secular.

Steve Drake said...

Mr./Ms. RubeRad,
Oh, what joy it would be to know who you really are! Like those of us who honestly put forth our names and stand behind our positions, it would be wonderful if you would deem it honorable to disclose yourself.

After years of reading Dr. Byl's posts, and bringing forth your comments to this forum, are you still an old universe-old earth guy or gal? Still a follower of Hugh Ross, right?

"...since we have no skill to outsmart God's perfectly smooth and transparent manipulation of time".

This sounds like someone setting himself/herself up to take God's place, putting God in the dock, with himself/herself as Judge. As if himself/herself knows what's possible and not possible, and brings the judgment down on the Almighty. Be careful Mr./Ms. RubeRad. You will one day have to stand before the Almighty Creator of all that is and give account.

Thomas Hamilton said...

I think our differing philosophies of science (instrumentalist on your part, realist on mine) impacts our view here, but it seems to me that even if mature creation or other ultimately untestable explanations are true, there is no point in making an argument for them- the creationist scientist should continue to search for an alternative explanation. If none exists, he will never find one which truly satisfies the demands of a rigorous scientific model. But if your view turns out to be wrong, its widespread adoption could inhibit the discovery of that fact. I suppose I'm offering something of a lower stakes Pascal's Wager here.

I take it as a given from the outset that God has hidden Himself in the creation in such a way that thorough investigation will unveil these mysteries. We are to trust His Word always. That's our basis, starting point, and absolute standard. It blocks us from false paths- like the one science has been traversing the past two centuries, wasting time all the while. But it seems to me that the scripture indicates that the profound difficulty of working out these mysteries (Prov. 25:2) is part of their joy.

The rapidly matured creation model may be consistent with this- but I would expect it to leave some traces distinguishing it from a genuinely old cosmos.

john byl said...

Hi Thomas

Thanks for your comment. Your raise some interesting points.

One difficulty with origins is that, from a Biblical perspective, it must involve some miraculous divine activity. Hence no creationist theory will ever truly satisfy “the demands of a rigorous scientific model”, to the extent that miracles can't be rigorously modeled.

On the other hand, any valid scientific model must account for all the relevant data. Thus any scientific model of cosmic history must be consistent with historical data, including that recorded in the Bible. Hence, to the extent that mainstream historical science contradicts the Bible, it fails to satisfy the demands of a rigorous scientific model.

My point is that one is severely limited in trying to reconstruct the past via scientific models, particularly if these are based only on current observational data plus naturalistic assumptions and extrapolations.

The wealth of recent astronomical observations may well uncover hidden mysteries. These certainly serve to show the shortcomings of naturalist scientific explanations. Whether they will lead to a solid scientific proof of a young cosmos is more doubtful.

We await for full proof of the Biblical worldview with the imminent return of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

Phillip W. Dennis said...

Hello John,

A few comments concerning my model published in the ICC 2018.

First, I agree that the paper is intended for those well versed in GR. There has been some discussion about writing a lay version of the paper but so far I have not found the time to do so.

As to the the "miraculous advancement of cosmic time at remote locations:" I proposed that as an after thought, late in the writing. It is actually unnecessary as the advancement that results in a "now" that can't be observed is empirically inaccessible anyway. Part of that urge was that some have taken my diagrams to indicate that the FLRW spacetime, from which my model was excised, has ontological privilege. That is not the case. That interpretation came from a very good question that was raised in private communication. The interlocutor suggested that my initial creation surface potentially extended to an infinite (or extremely large) past of the FLRW. Two points: The FLRW manifold and its cosmic time has no claim to being the correct cosmic time. This was one of the points I discussed in the paper. GR cannot specify which spacelike surface is a putative now. We are free to choose my creation surface as the ontological moment of creation, cosmic time = 0. Further, everything of FLRW manifold below that surface just never existed. It is just a mathematical extrapolation into a fictitious past.

I should add that Tenev's solution is a special case of mine... a similar creation hypersurface but in an empty cosmos. A defect of Tenev's approach was he didn't firmly give the surface ontological status -- it was just a choice of coordinates within an otherwise eternalist Minkwoski space. In that regard it shared the conceptual features of ASC which is inherently eternalist. However, Tenev , in private communication, now agrees that presentism is the correct view of time and he affirms the ontological status of his proposed creation surface, i.e. it would be absolute cosmic time = 0, but in a flat empty cosmos. At this point my model and Tenev's share no conceptual similarity to ASC (which is geometrically flawed at any rate).

My model gives a view of the geometry of spacetime at the moment of creation and, by way of 3+1 formalism, its time evolution thereafter. It is thoroughly a presentist theory -- which is compatible with GR.

As for the creation of the structure within the universe, I see no issue with it being created in a mature state. A state that would be consistent with the full blown state of the stress-energy distribution along the spacelike slice of my creation hypersurface. On the other hand, I should add that my model places no restrictions on possibilities of other non-gravitational accelerated processes in the early universe -- my model is purely a gravitational spacetime model within the confines of GR. Those processes are out of scope for my paper which is concerned with the large scale cosmos in which gravity is the dominate process. I defer to other creationists to flesh out particulars of other material processes.

Hope these remarks are useful.

Regards,

Phil

Phillip W. Dennis said...

In a rereading of my post above, I see I was a little loose.

The phrase " he affirms the ontological status of his proposed creation surface, i.e. it would be absolute cosmic time = 0, but in a flat empty cosmos" should be modified.

The qualifier "flat" should be deleted, as follows: " he affirms the ontological status of his proposed creation surface, i.e. it would be absolute cosmic time = 0, but in an empty cosmos." The reason is that the spatial hypersurface in the model would be the non-flat pseudo-sphere.

john byl said...

Hi Phil

Thanks for your clarifications and comments regarding your paper.

I found your paper very interesting. I totally agree with your position for presentism rather than eternalism. I also share your concerns regarding Jason Lisle’s ASC model.

Yet, according to John Hartnett (https://biblescienceforum.com/2018/11/13/new-cosmologies-converge-on-the-asc-model) your model is similar to the ASC model, in that incoming and outgoing (earth-wise) light rays have different speeds, so that “incoming light rays from distant stars can reach the earth instantaneously.” Do you agree with that, and is that how you solve the distant starlight problem?

On the other hand, in your paper, you appeal to a “miraculous advancement of cosmic time at remote locations”, which sounds more like a rapidly matured creation.

Now, in your above comment, you remark that you have no issue with a universe created in mature state, which presumably entails that light rays from distant stars didn’t actually come from those stars, and exhibit a fictitious past.

Which of these solutions to the distant starlight problem does your model best support?

Thanks

Phillip W. Dennis said...

Hi John,
Thanks for your reply. Glad to hear you are a presentist!

(1) I disagree with Hartnett's assessment. While there is a degree of similarity it is only so in a formal mathematical sense. The similarity arises from the fact that my hypersurface is asymptotically null (when interpreted in terms of the fictitious FLRW manifold in which it is embedded). The other departure is that my hypersurface is smooth at the origin; and geometry in every "present" is locally Euclidean while ASC has what is known as (pathological) conical singularity at the origin. That conical shape is present through out the universe in Lisle's model. His model is non-Euclidean everywhere. Circumferences of circles, surface area and volume of spheres are not the Euclidean formulas. Validity of high school geometry would be an enigma. In my model, the departure from Euclidean geometry increases smoothly as one recedes from the vicinity of the earth neighborhood. Euclidean formulas hold at the earth and for a sizeable neighborhood. The upshot of all this is that the distant objects are not as distant -- due to the non-Euclidean distance. In my model light does not arrive instantaneosly but actually travels through each instant of the evolving non-Euclidean space. (BTW, I am currently researching radically inhomogeneous models that will allow light to arrive earlier by traversing voids (in which no matter is present to drag the light away in the Hubble flow. That would be a modification to the last model in the ICC paper -- it would incorporate the features of the barbell cosmologies I outlined in early part of the paper).

Returning to Lisle, I note that Lisle has allowed his "synchrony" surface to be non-null cones. He is sensitive to using a null-surface. So his light travel time is huge but not instantaneous. But since Lisle stays with conical spaces they all exhibit the conical pathology. I hope this explains why my model, though it looks similar (asymptotically only) differs in major details that remove the defects in Lisle's "conventionalist" approach., such as local non-Euclidean geometry. Note, I am analyzing Lisle's model in light of a presentist, non-convetionalist philosophy. The eternalist conventionalist interpretation would be a "non-starter" from a Christian position.

One final remark regarding Hartnett. His claim that my paper depends on a synchrony convention is mistaken. But I won't expand on that here.

(2) Regarding the rapidly advanced cosmic time: For better or worse, I added that as an after thought while looking at the embedding diagrams. It is not a necessary consequence of the model. For example just stay with the 3+1 formulation. We then have the initial value problem for a 3D space with a time dependence hij(t,x,y,z) (i,j = 1,2,3) and t as the cosmic time (or age of the creation). Besides which, rapidly advancing the time at remote locations only advances it in an unobservable portion of the universe (those events would be spacelike w.r.t. the earth).

(3) My statement about a mature creation was not clear. I meant mature state on the spatial initial Cauchy surface and other spatial volumes during the creation week. An example we use would be Adam created in a mature state. My model rejects "pseudo phos" (false light). All light would be emitted from an object at the moment of the object's creation in a mature state and would progress through the subsequent 3d spaces to arrive at the earth. There is no light created "in transit" as if it had been eminated from a non-existent object.

I hope the above adequately answers your comments and questions.

Soli Deo Gloria

Phil

john byl said...

john byl said...

Hi Phil

Thanks for your further clarifications. It seems to me, then, that you are saying that light from a galaxy, say apparently 13 billion light years away, actually came from that galaxy (not created "en route") and travelled to us in less than, say, 10,000 years. During its travel the light speed was c (contra Lisle), and time dilation was not a major factor. But, since the non-Euclidean (hyperbolic) geometry of space make objects appear to be more distant than they actually are, the actual distance travelled was less than 10,000 light years.

This is an interesting idea that I discussed briefly in an article "On Small Curved-Space Models of the Universe" (CRSQ 25: 138-140) back in 1985. The problem is that, if the radius of curvature R is constant, it must be huge, so that this can probably be ruled out observationally. You could modify R to suitably vary with distance, but this makes the model rather ad hoc. Also, distant galaxies, cluster of galaxies, etc. become very flattened in the line of sight direction.

To make your model more applicable-- and more plausible-- I suggest doing some calculations of actual travel times within your non-Euclidean model.

By the way, thanks for your email address, but I can't get past your anti-spam link, which gives me an error message.