The forbidden questions of comsology and physics

Forums: Science, Physics, Cosmology, Cosmology Physics
Email this Topic • Print this Page

I've raised some of this on the "A god that makes sense" thread, but I'd like to focus on what I perceive as some "holes" in current scientific cosmology and physics regarding the origin and nature of the universe.
The singularity is theorized as the origin of the universe just before big bang; however it contradicts all of physics, having a boundless quantity of energy and matter (or the makings of matter) in a single point. This problem is compounded in Neil Turok's (Cambridge University) theory of cyclic multiple big bangs for a number of reasons, particularly conservation of angular momentum. Angular momentum is believed to be a force even greater than gravity; it is apparently the force that causes the pulses of pulsars, and the matter ejections of black holes. If you compress a universe down to a singularity in the contraction phase of a big bang cycle, there's no place for the angular momentum to go.
Next, there's nothing in current physics or scientific cosmology to account for what happens beyond the singularity, or beyond the universe as we know it. That's definitional, as current theories go, except multiverse theories. However, there's a glaring problem: If the universe is constantly expanding presently, WHERE is it expanding into? If there's NOTHING beyond the universe, a conceptual total vacuum, does it become real and something that our universe can expand into only through the power of our imagination? What's gnawing at me is that if there is NOTHING (including no space) beyond the singularity, then there is NOTHING (including no place) for the big bang to explode into; it's far too pat to merely say "it creates its own space." There has to be a context; there has to be at least a conceptual space into which the space of THIS universe expands into.

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Question • Score: 5 • Views: 10,139 • Replies: 142

@Banana Breath,

There is disagreement about whether 'space' is an entity, a relationship between entities, or just part of a conceptual framework. Common perceptual experience of three dimensions tells us little about cosmological theories. Like in quantum physics, 'making sense' might boil down to finding the mathematics 'which works'. Note that Rorty (in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) makes a case against 'picturing' as an ultimate criterion of understanding.

1 Reply

@Banana Breath,

Quote:

...WHERE is it expanding into?

Good q, Ban; oft asked. It doesn't have to be expanding into something. Supposedly we're it, space and all, and there simply is no "outside"

Quote:

...a conceptual total vacuum...

Except of course for the absence of space

Quote:

...then there is NOTHING (including no place) for the big bang to explode into

Why should there hafta be

Yet often wonder about the singularity. There's a suggestion that we might be misusing the term "nothing," that it isn't what we suppose. Don't know about physics stuff like angular momentum, but I've often entertained the idea that at the end of each Big Crunch it's of zero diameter but infinite mass. We'd now think of it has having disappeared, but future discoveries bypassing the dualistic nature of our reason will show it somehow perfectly logical

Yea Ban, I'm sorta kidding but not entirely

1 Reply

@dalehileman,

Quote:

Don't know about physics stuff like angular momentum

The classic example of angular momentum is the spinning skater. When she pulls her arms in, she spins faster as angular momentum is conserved[1]. When you compress much of a galaxy into a black hole, small rotational speed of a star at a great distance becomes a fantastic speed in the close confines of a black hole's diameter. Consequently some black holes are believed to be rotating at nearly the speed of light[2]. However if you reduce the diameter to zero, the speed would have to be LITERALLY infinite; at the same time it is zero, since that is the diameter. Consequently the biggest force in the universe just "disappears."
[1]

[2] http://www.nature.com/news/spin-rate-of-black-holes-pinned-down-1.13512

1 Reply

@fresco,

Quote:

Rorty (in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) makes a case against 'picturing' as an ultimate criterion of understanding

Thanks for the reference, I'll take a look, I noticed the entire text is posted on line:
http://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/courses_readings/rorty/rorty_PMN_full.pdf

0 Replies

@Banana Breath,

Good question about the angular velocity. Another nail in the 'Big Crunch' theory's coffin.

But back to 'what's outside' of the expanding universe, even if I reject the problem of 'nothing to expand into' thing as just a misnomer, the math says that there isn't even any 'time' outside it. Since the universe is expanding at less than the speed of light (but accelerating) I'm trying to imagine how the light from stars at the periphery shines through that threshold between time and no time. What is the speed of light through 'no time'? If it is infinite, maybe a new and better Hubble telescope will see those multiverses that are supposed to exist.

I guess I haven't answered any forbidden questions...

3 Replies

But from the view of "A God that makes sense", the true outer limits of the universe is just beyond the reach of our instruments. It forms a bell jar large enough so that the test subjects inside are never aware of it. That was necessary to maintain plausible deniability of his existence.

1 Reply

@Leadfoot,

Quote:

I'm trying to imagine how the light from stars at the periphery shines through that threshold between time and no time. What is the speed of light through 'no time'? If it is infinite, maybe a new and better Hubble telescope will see those multiverses that are supposed to exist.

I imagine that "no time" would be like a wall; a photon travels 186K miles/second, but the denominator changes to ∞ on reaching the wall; thus progress is halted, or more precisely, limited to the rate at which the universe is expanding in that direction. But that perhaps leads to another forbidden question: If photons meet and stop at a moving wall that bounds the universe, and that wall is moving away at a sublight speed, light can't travel past it because there is no "space beyond; so does it then travel at the sublight speed of the expansion of the universe?

1 Reply

This is typical religious bullshit to the effect that if there is anything science can't explain, the holy roller gets to insert his imaginary friend into the equation. Not only that, the holy roller then asserts that science has no validity, and his magic sky daddy is responsible for everything.

We've heard this horseshit many times before.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Have you ever posted anything useful to A2K, Setanta? Your whining nonsense has no place here, and clearly your tiny brain can't wrap around anything that won't fit in a 12 ounce can. Get a life, this thread has nothing to do with religion. Your time would be better spent at a site such as dictionary.com where you could learn some basics, such as the difference between cosmology and cosmetology, and if you want a place to conduct your drunken rant against magic sky daddy followers, try your local Scientology office.

1 Reply

@Banana Breath,

To be fair, Setanta does have a point this time though his lack of decorum is indefensible.
His point is valid since you have introduced this thread within the context of the 'making sense of God thread'. Religion has indeed been a catch-all palliative solution to the possible limits of what we call 'science', but that psychological state of affairs is less tenable in modern times as evidenced by the relative irreligiosity among 'scientists' as a group. Note also that your use of the word 'forbidden' carries with it a pseudo-religious nuance which reinforces the 'logic' of Setanta's attack.

1 Reply

@fresco,

I introduced the thread because there was content that did NOT fit into the other thread and my interpretation of the other thread is that it asks for a rational, scientifically sound basis for a god-like concept; and my answer to that was simply the stuff that slips beyond human understanding of physics, time and space; that is the scientific/cosmological description of the big bang. However Setanta is clearly on a crusade and his only reason to be here, apparently, is to attack. That's usually a sign that someone is compensating for something they're very embarrassed about.
Ironically it is people like that who are acting like religious zealots, unable to think or listen or understand, myopically focused on parroting the dogma they've absorbed as "gospel." Indeed most people defending scientific viewpoints can't begin to deeply understand the very viewpoints they're defending. Real thinkers and philosophers go beyond that, they dare to question not only the basis for religious convictions, but also scientific convictions, and point out the logical inconsistencies in both. As to the "forbidden" word, that sentiment comes from the likes of science teachers and such, who become very uncomfortable, and start squirming and trying to change the subject when you ask certain questions. Conservation of angular momentum is NOT a controversial topic, EXCEPT in this context, when cosmologists squirm and when you ask them what happens to the angular momentum in a universe compressed down to a singularity. They behave very much like a priest asked to explain why Jesus would have to ask god why he has forsaken him, which seems an extremely peculiar thing to ask one's self it they indeed were two out of three instances of a single entity. Funny thing about that.

1 Reply

As for Fresco's phony appeal to decorum, one only need read his reply the first time i challenged his communicative context theory of reality. It seems everyone gets vicious when their sacred cows get made into hamburger. He has never answered the question of whence his language users. I suspect that he'll never really try. He'll just pompously wave Rorty and Wittgenstein about.

"Science teachers and such?" Ooo, now there's a sharply defined group. (Insert rolly-eyed emoticon here.) Do you have some survey data to offer about the "science teachers and such" to whom you refer, and where their line of forbidden discussion lies? The theist who challenges the current model of cosmology on the basis of what came before the singularity, and what lay outside it is ignoring their own burden when positing a deity. In what context does such a deity exist, and what comes before the deity? The standard reply of the theist is that their god is eternal, which dodges the very questions which BB here claims are forbidden in cosmological discussions. Just because science does not purport to have all the answers does not mean that positing a deity therefore becomes an equally valid cosmogony.

But thanks, BB, for demonstrating the strength of your argument by having responded with a series of vicious personal remarks.

2 Replies

@Banana Breath,

Quote:

I imagine that "no time" would be like a wall; a photon travels 186K miles/second, but the denominator changes to ∞ on reaching the wall; thus progress is halted,

Then perhaps the cosmic background radiation is actually the red shifted REFLECTION of star light inside the time bubble and not an echo of the Big Bang.

1 Reply

@Leadfoot,

Quote:

Then perhaps the cosmic background radiation is actually the red shifted REFLECTION of star light inside the time bubble and not an echo of the Big Bang.

That's an interesting idea. If there WERE a "wall" to the universe moving away from us that was effectively impenetrable/reflective (but not in a glassy manner), producing a diffuse reflection, I think it should indeed reflect a red-shifted glow. One study [1] however suggests that more light is coming from the background glow than the entire galactic light production WITHIN the universe. That might suggest that the wall itself produces some light. I would have to guess that the process of creating new space at the edge of the universe releases some energy in the process. If it instead TOOK energy, then one would expect the process to be slowing down with time, but instead it is described as increasing,[2] as with a fire.
[1] http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/12/cosmic-glow-discovered-radiates-more-light-than-all-the-known-galaxies-in-the-universe.html
[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-15165371

0 Replies

@Setanta,

Quote:

But thanks, BB, for demonstrating the strength of your argument by having responded with a series of vicious personal remarks.

Ha ha, this is classic. The fat bully who appears on the schoolyard and punches a few kids cries to his mommy the first time someone punches back. Let's scroll back and see what was the very first thing you posted on this thread:

Quote:

"This is typical religious bullshit. . . We've heard this horseshit many times before."

I recognize a drunken sociopath when I see one. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that you've only thrown poo, monkey style, while I have probed the deep questions with appropriate legit references. If you want to continue your bad behavior and whining, you really should find someplace more private to do it.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Since you show no evidence of interest in the philosophical literature, you are unlikely to understand the distinction between 'languaging' and ' using language', so your fatuous 'challenge' which dissipates within such a distinction will forever remain your own bit of fantasy. So I suggest you confine such simplistic infinite regress games of the type 'who made God' to to the more intransigent Creationists on the forum, and not risk exposing your own ignorance which predictably results in you lashing out.

1 Reply

Part of the problem with the classic big bang theory apparently arises from its base in the Schwarzchild metric and its simplistic view that assumes such conditions as a vacuum, zero electric charge, zero angular momentum, and a universal cosmological constant of zero.[1]
Stephen Hawking acknowledges the problems and says on this topic:

Quote:

the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition. This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn't have any boundary or edge. The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation. The no boundary hypothesis also predicts that the universe will eventually collapse again. . . .
The expansion will start with an inflationary phase, but the collapse will not in general end with an anti inflationary phase. Moreover, the small departures from uniform density will continue to grow in the contracting phase. The universe will get more and more lumpy and irregular, as it gets smaller, and disorder will increase.[2]

Soooo....
1) The classic big bang theory describes a singularity wherein the laws of physics break down. I'm concerned that this allows one to sweep any inconveniences under the rug. INFINITE energy and mass in a single point? No problem, because physics laws have broken down. Conservation of angular momentum problem? No problem, because physics laws have broken down. (This would be an even greater issue if Hawking is right in the second part of the quote above that the contracting universe were more lumpy and irregular, since that would lead to GREATER angular momentum)
2) The best hawking can propose to reconcile the problems is to map time/space and the universe onto an imaginary timescale and a finite but unbounded space. But I'm unconvinced that this resolves the gaps: the infinite energy, infinite compression, and failure to account for what may be the largest force in the universe, angular momentum. It merely places the big bang in a larger imaginary time and space context. As he describes it, instead of an infinitely compressed big bang and nothing outside of it, imagine a big bang at the north pole that expands over the surface of the earth (a finite but unbounded surface). His imaginary dimensions echo what I posed at the beginning this question: "does it become real and something that our universe can expand into only through the power of our imagination?"
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_metric
[2] http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html

1 Reply

@Banana Breath,

Ban, thank you for that #....730

Quote:

the speed would have to be LITERALLY infinite

Yes it would and perhaps it does. Maybe there's something about the notion of "infinite" that needs adjustment

..so we must start thinking outside The Box, where She is It, All, and all the motion therein her reasoning; where as the growing ball approaches that last moment of the Big crunch, all the present rules get bent a little

Yes I do realize it isn't a ball 'cause there's no outside, was being colorful

....or so I imagined. However, one very critical aspect of the new approach is the realization that we're not expanding into "something," something very few of us entertain

We must greatly broaden our thought horizon

Ban thanks again

0 Replies

@Banana Breath,

Have you noticed that you tend to use the word 'imaginary' in contrast with the word 'real' ? The reference I gave above dismisses such a dichotomy as 'futile' as far science is concerned, the essence of which might be said to be reflected in quantum physics (at least) by the adage "whatever can happen, does happen."
Now it may be that you have taken this on board with your mention of 'multiverses' in which the so- called 'laws of physics' may be something of a lottery. If so does this not render your particular questions about the axioms on which this universe seems to operate a bit of a straw man ? Surely all that 'matters' in cosmology is about successful prediction (and post-diction) irrespective of a psychological desire for total coherence.

2 Replies

The forbidden questions of comsology and physics

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know