Cosmological Singularity and the Creation of the Universe

One of the most important and most frequently discussed theological problems related to cosmology is the creation problem. Unfortunately, it is usually considered in a context of a rather simplistic understanding of the initial singularity (often referred to as the Big Bang). This review of the initial singularity problem considers its evolution in twentieth-century cosmology and develops methodological rules of its theological (and philosophical) interpretations. The recent work on the "noncommutative structure of singularities" suggests that on the fundamental level (below the Planck's scale) the concepts of space, time, and localization are meaningless and that there is no distinction between singular and nonsingular states of the universe. In spite of the fact that at this level there is no time, one can meaningfully speak about dynamics, albeit in a generalized sense. Space, time, and singularities appear only in the transition process to the macroscopic physics. This idea, explored here in more detail, clearly favors an atemporal understanding of creation.     

Is the History of our Universe Finite?

Modern cosmology indicates that our universe has a finite age. However, it is not understood whether the initial state before the Big Bang is finite in history or not. In this article, I show by simple arguments that the initial state must be finite in history if it is real. If the initial state is not real, a special transition is needed to specify the beginning of the real time. Moreover, if our universe is just one of the many universes, it can be shown that the history of the universe generator must also be finite.     

A MODERN LOOK AT THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE

Abstract. In what follows, I review the modern theory of the origin of the universe as astronomers and physicists are coming to understand it during the last decades of the twentieth century. An unexpected discovery of this study is that the story of "cosmogenesis" cannot be completely told unless we understand the fundamental nature of matter, space, and time. In the context of modern cosmology space has become not only the bedrock (so to speak) of our physical existence, it may yield a fuller understanding of the universe itself.     

The Astounding Assumption of Infinite Life

The multimillennial philosophical discussion about life after death has received a recent boost in the prospect of immortality attained via technologies. In this newer version, humans generally are considered mortal but may develop means of making themselves immortal. If “immortal” means not mortal, thus existing for infinity, and if the proposed infinite‐existing entity is material, it must inhabit an infinite material universe. If the proposed entity is not material, there must be means by which it can shed its material substance and exist nonmaterially. The article examines arguments for how an infinite life would be possible given current physical understanding. The paper considers a Pascalian‐style wager weighing the likelihood of adjusting to existence wholly within a finite universe versus betting on there being some way to construe the universe(s) as a viable medium for infinite beings. Conclusion: the case for a finite being to exist infinitely has little viable support.     

The Enigma of Existence

Why is there a universe rather than nothing? And if there is a universe did it have to burst into being through the Big Bang? And if so, will the answer to the question: what caused the Big Bang? eventually be discovered, or will it remain a mystery forever? Or is there nothing mysterious about it at all? Is the suggestion that the Big Bang was a result of a divine act simply false, or devoid of meaning? The main argument of this essay is that a considerable amount of clarity will be achieved if we realise the radical difference between the kinds of hypothesis that are legitimate to account for events within the universe and events accounting for the very existence of the universe.     

Beyond Reductionism: Reinventing the Sacred

We have lived under the hegemony of the reductionistic scientific worldview since Galileo, Newton, and Laplace. In this view, the universe is meaningless, as Stephen Weinberg famously said, and organisms and a court of law are “nothing but” particles in morion. This scientific view is inadequate. Physicists are beginning to abandon reductionism in favor of emergence. Emergence, both epistemological and ontological, embraces the emergence of life and of agency. With agency comes meaning, value, and doing, beyond mere happenings. More organisms are conscious. None of this violates any laws of physics, but it cannot be reduced to physics. Emergence is real, and the tiger chasing the gazelle are real parts of the real universe. We live, therefore, in an emergent universe. This emergence often is entirely unpredictable beforehand, from the evolution of novel functionalities in organisms to the evolution of the economy and human history. We are surrounded on all sides by a creativity that cannot even be prestated. Thus we have the first glimmerings of a new scientific worldview, beyond reductionism. In our universe emergence is real, and there is ceaseless, stunning creativity that has given rise to our biosphere, our humanity, and our history. We are partial co-creators of this emergent creativity. It is our choice whether we use the God word. I believe it is wise to do so. God can be our shared name for the true creativity in the natural universe. Such a view invites a new sense of the sacred, as those aspects of the creativity in the universe that we deem worthy of holding sacred. We are not logically forced to this view. Yet a global civilization, hopefully persistently diverse and creative, is emerging. I believe we need a shared view of God, a fully natural God, to orient our lives. We need a shared view of the sacred that is open to slow evolution, because rigidity in our view of the sacred violates how our most precious values evolve and invites ethical hegemony. We need a shared global ethic beyond our materialism. I believe a sense of God as the natural, awesome creativity in the universe can help us construct the sacred and a global ethic to help shape the global civilization toward what we choose with the best of our limited wisdom.     

Exploring the relationship between the Five-Factor Model of personality,social factors and self-reported delinquency

The ‘Big Five’ is one of the predominant models of personality structure but relatively little research has focussed on how the five factors might be related to self reported offending separately for males and females. This is problematic for understanding the relationship between personality and offending as females and males typically have different personality profiles and differ considerably in self-reported offending. In this research 720 adolescents (376 males and 344 females) completed a Big Five personality measure along with measures of self-reported offending, socioeconomic status and family structure. The results suggested that low agreeableness and low conscientiousness were independently related to the prevalence of self-reported offending for males and that low agreeableness was independently related to frequent male offending. Low conscientiousness was independently related to female offending, but so too were interactions between disrupted family and extraversion and disrupted family and openness. The interaction between extraversion and a disrupted family was also independently related to frequent female offending. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.     

A General Factor of Personality (GFP) from two meta-analyses of the Big Five: and

In two studies, we used structural equation models to test the hypothesis that a General Factor of Personality (GFP) occupies the apex of the hierarchy of personality. In Study 1, we found a GFP that explained 45% of the reliable variance in a model that went from the Big Five to the Big Two to the Big One in the 14 studies of inter-scale correlations (N = 4496) assembled by Digman (1997). A higher order factor of Alpha/Stability was defined by Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Agreeableness, with loadings of from 0.61 to 0.70, while Beta/Plasticity was defined by Openness and Extraversion with loadings of 0.55 and 0.77. In turn, the GFP was defined by Alpha and Beta with loadings of 0.67. In Study 2, a GFP explained 44% of the reliable variance in a similar model using data from a published meta-analysis of the Big Five (N = 4000) by Mount, Barrick, Scullen, and Rounds (2005). Strong general factors such as these, based on large data sets with good model fits that cross validate perfectly, are unlikely to be due to artifacts and response sets.     

情绪智力在大五人格与学业满意度之间的中介效应

以229名大学生为被试,采用问卷调查法,通过考察情绪智力在大五人格与学业满意度之间关系中的中介效应,探讨了两种情绪智力模型之间的区别。结果表明：（1）大五人格因素巾只有开放性维度对学业满意度存在显著影响;（2）能力型情绪智力在开放性与学业满意度之间的关系中起完全中介的作用,而混合型情绪智力则没有在上述两者之间关系中起到中介作用。     

SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN THE THEOLOGY OF DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

The German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer is not widely known for engaging with scientific thought, having been heavily influenced by Karl Barth's celebrated stance against natural theology. However, during the period of his maturing theology in prison Bonhoeffer read a significant scientific work, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker's The World View of Physics. From this he gained two major insights for his theological outlook. First, he realized that the notion of a "God of the gaps" is futile, not just in science but in other areas of human inquiry. Second, he felt that an infinite universe, as considered by science, would be self-subsistent and could exist as if there were no God. Bonhoeffer replaced Barth's radical critique of religion with the even more extreme view that it is a mere passing phase in history that grown-up humanity can dispense with. At the same time Bonhoeffer began an important critique of Barth's reaction, namely, the latter's retreat to a "positivism of revelation." While Bonhoeffer did not go quite as far as one might like, his approach opened up hopeful avenues for an answer to "the liberal question" and even a revived place for some kind of natural theology.     

Consciousness,Vorticity, and Dipoles

As spin is a fundamental feature of the universe, preliminary evidence suggests that its study could help in understanding consciousness. Research detailed in this article further develops the author's work in Keen (2005) Keen, J. 2005. Consciousness, intent, and the structure of the universe, Canada: Trafford. Available at http://www.trafford.com/robots/04-2320.html [Google Scholar]. The findings demonstrate that rotating objects generate fields that are also associated with mind-generated fields. Numerous quantitative properties of these fields generated by rotation are shown to be very different to fields associated with static objects. Dipole antenna radiation patterns are also discovered. The conclusions suggest that vorticity is not only involved in consciousness, but also has wider implications in understanding our universe, and therefore the subject warrants further research.     

A Religious Interpretation of Emergence: Creativity as God

Thinking of God today as creativity (instead of as The Creator) enables us to bring theological values and meanings into significant connection with modern cosmological and evolutionary thinking. This conception connects our understanding of God with today's ideas of the Big Bang; cosmic and biological evolution; the evolutionary emergence of novel complex realities from simpler realities, and the irreducibility of these complex realities to their simpler origins; and so on. It eliminates anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism from the conception of God, thus overcoming one of the major reasons for the implausibility of God-talk in today's world—here viewed as a highly dynamic reality (not an essentially stable structure), with God regarded as the ongoing creativity in this world. This mystery of creativity—God—manifest throughout the universe is quite awe-inspiring, calling forth emotions of gratitude, love, peace, fear, and hope, and a sense of the profound meaningfulness of human existence in the world—issues with which faith in God usually has been associated. It is appropriate, therefore, to think of God today as precisely this magnificent panorama of creativity with which our universe and our lives confront us.     

社会认知内容的“大二”模型

社会认知的内容存在两个基本维度,一个与热情或社会性特质有关,另一个与能力或智力性特质有关,称之为社会认知内容的"大二"模型。关于"大二"模型的理论有进化心理学、本体论和功能性三种解释。目前,"大二"模型的理论焦点集中在模型的文化普适性检验、两维度之间的关系以及两个维度的权重和偏好问题上。今后可结合本土实际情况围绕着三大焦点问题和两维度的具身研究等问题进行深入探讨。     

Is Theism a Simple,and hence Probable,Explanation for the Universe?

Abstract

Richard Swinburne, in his The Existence of God (2004), presents a cosmological argument in defence of theism (Swinburne 1991: 119, 135). God, Swinburne argues, is more likely to bring about an ordered universe than other states (ibid.: 144, 299). To defend this view, Swinburne presents the following arguments: (1) That this ordered universe is a priori improbable (2004: 49, 150, 1991: 304 et seq.), given the stringent requirements for life (cf. also Leslie 2000: 12), and the Second Law of Thermodynamics (Giancoli 1990: 396); (2) That it seems as if this ordered universe can be explained by theism; (3) A theistic explanation for the universe is more probable because it is a simple explanation. To this end, Swinburne makes use of Bayes’ Theorem. Symbolically, this claim can be represented as (e) for the evidence of the existence of a complex universe, and (h) for a hypothesis. Swinburne’s argument is that theism has a higher prior probability, P(h_theism) > P(h_materialism), since theism is simpler than materialism. He concludes that P(e|h_theism) > P(e|h_materialism). In this paper I will address only this argument (3) above, and defend the view that it is false: theism is not simpler than materialism, nor it is more probably true. I conclude that theism is less probable than materialism, expressed by P(h_theism) < P(h_materialism) : 2/N(2n+1) < 1/n, where N is the number of possible universes and n the number of entities in existence.     

Which Time for Eschatology? Relativity Theory,Local and Cosmic Times,and the End of the Universe

The aim of this article is to formulate the theological notions of the end and fulfilment of the universe before the background of relativity theory and cosmology, in particular the lack of a global passage of time. It argues that the “arrow” of time is a local phenomenon, linked essentially to recording objects. On this basis, it makes the case that the notions of a common end of all local times and of a final, timeless state of the universe are viable independently of a global direction of time.     

稳定性与可变性：西方儿童青少年“大五”人格发展研究概述

弄清儿童青少年人格发展特点,可为人格发展与教育工作提供参考。文章梳理了近30年西方儿童青少年“大五”人格发展的研究进展,区分了人格发展的两种主要表现形式,并分别从这两方面总结出儿童青少年“大五”人格结构的稳定性、人格特质平均水平的可变性。最后基于现有研究存在的问题,结合当前时代特点,提出未来研究方向。     

庄子"天地大美"思想的现代阐释

在知识学、美学、伦理学分科的学术背景下解读庄子思想,庄子以“道”为指归,批判现实人生中的知识、伦理因素,追求与“道”相融通的境界,向自身、向固有存在结构复归,具有美学内涵。“天地大美”作为其唯一肯定的通达于“道”的中介,在于使世界以其本来面目自然呈现,具有“美”的本体意义,成为体现庄子思想美学内涵的核心范畴。     

Ordinal test fidelity estimated by an item sampling model

A test theory using only ordinal assumptions is presented. It is based on the idea that the test items are a sample from a universe of items. The sum across items of the ordinal relations for a pair of persons on the universe items is analogous to a true score. Using concepts from ordinal multiple regression, it is possible to estimate the tau correlations of test items with the universe order from the taus among the test items. These in turn permit the estimation of the tau of total score with the universe. It is also possible to estimate the odds that the direction of a given observed score difference is the same as that of the true score difference. The estimates of the correlations between items and universe and between total score and universe are found to agree well with the actual values in both real and artificial data.Part of this paper was presented at the June, 1989, Meeting of the Psychometric Society. The authors wish to thank several reviewers for their suggestions. This research was mainly done while the second author was a University Fellow at the University of Southern California.     

Differential relations between two dimensions of self‐esteem and the Big Five?

Recent research has suggested the possibility that self-esteem (SE) may be viewed as a two-dimensional concept consisting of: (a) self-liking, the subjective evaluation of oneself as a social being; and (b) self-competence, the internal conceptions of success and failure in performing tasks (Tafarodi & Swann, 1995). Establishing differential relations between these two dimensions of SE and an important psychological concept like the Big Five, would support the notion of two-dimensional SE. To test this hypothesis the self-liking/self-competence scale (SLCS) and the Big Five Inventory (BFI) were administered to 128 Norwegian college students. The results show a differential relationship between the two dimensions of SE and the personality dimensions of the BFI.