Big Bang or Never had a Begining.

Also for the record I am taking the scientific position that there are a set of mathematical rules that govern the Universe that are Universal.

Of course our communication of mathematics is a human invention, but the rules underlying appear to be some sort of basic rules about how the Universe works. The ability of mathematics to make predictions about things that humans have never experienced--- and then are proven correct when tested (this is the triumph of science) is evidence of this.

Of course anything done by humans involves a human factor-- but I am arguing that humans can discover a mathematical set of facts about the Universe that are discovered (i.e. are real attributes of the Universe) rather than invented.

I think mebbe that might better be rephrased slightly -

" ... there are a set of mathematical rules that govern the Universe which we observe that are Universal within the Universe we observe as we observe it ... "

Re: Big Bang or Never had a Begining.

Rereading your opening argument leads me to think that you are more addressing the aftermath than the actual event which took place eons before any observation was possible .... and again observation comes with the caveat of perception.

Cryacuz says: "Doesn't everything depend on your frame of reference? The only absolutes we have are abstract ideas, and even they are relative to our mindsets."

That is exactly how I see it. All absolutes are abstract fictions, retained by us only because of their usefulness.
The world AS WE SEE IT, is visible to us because we have constructed it.

Again we are holding our physical senses as bona fide. If you believe in the micro then you must also adhere in good faith to the macro, with Homo sapiens falling someplace in the middle .... depending upon the true nature of our being, something we are still hashing out. To solve the subjective we must first solve the objective, objectively.

The Big Bang is a likely scenario. But that is not to say there was nothing before that. The previous Universe may have collapsed into a giant Crunch thus giving birth to the big Bang.

Nick,

You are missing my main point. If the current Big Bang theory is correct then the phrase "previous to the Big Bang" has absolutely no meaning... this is because our Universe was created at the Big Bang along with any possible Frame of Reference in our Universe.

It is certainly possible that other Universes exist (whatever the word "exist" means outside of our Universe).

But it is impossible that you could compare the time any event happened in this hypothetical other universe to any event in our universe.

In other words if NickFun (a sentient being in our Universe) could contact Xuhlrntel (a sentient being in the other Universe) there is no way they could compare their times. Saying that Xuhlrntel's Universe collapsed BEFORE NickFun's Universe exploded implies some absolute time that both Universes would operate in.

Based on our knowledge of Relativity... there is no absolute time in which two parts of our Universe can be observed and compared... the Multi-Universe absolute time is simply impossible.

It is possible that there are more than one Universe. It is impossible that they can be compared as to which one happened first or last or whether they existed at the same time.

Ho Hum... Have been away for the New year and just got back. These debates do move quickly don't they!

Thanks Gelisgesti for reminding me of my prime question.

If there was a BB that happens 13 odd billion years ago and all matter/energy set out on diverging courses why are galaxies colliding into each other, in some cases almost head on?

More a bit later after unpacking etc.

It is very simple (and it has already been answered before we started talking about more interesting things).

There are forces (most importantly gravity) pulling galaxies together so they don't just move in a straight line. There are also forces pushing matter apart... for example when something explodes, matter get's thrown in all directions.

Next question...

JL

Interesting way to put it.



Of course, I agree completely. But I also like to consider the fact that everything that I percieve ME to be has risen from nature's womb, so to speak. I am a product of this world I see, and so the power to shape and visualize my sensoral input, which is basically atoms and waves, is essentially a force of nature.

So nature constructed man, so that man could reconstruct nature on an abstract level, thereby expanding it, giving evolution a broader sweep as it rolls on.

Based on this, Gelisgesti, I would say that solving the subjective is solving the objective. There is only an imagined difference.

Re: Big Bang or Never had a Begining.

I'm so sorry, but IMO you are a complete fool. Do you think that matter just keeps on travelling out in the same direction?

Besides:
If we live in an infinite universe and it has a uniform distribution of stars, then infinite amounts of energy would exist in the universe. When I look around me, I do not see an infinite nuclear explosion. Maybe you should get your eyes checked.

Eiadeo is no fool. He may be wrong in some instances, but he is clearly intelligent enough to warrant serious attention.

Eiadeo, the immediate consequence of the emergence and expansion of the singularity was not matter, but rather elemental energy at its very most essential - "Proto-Energy", if you will, both "Mass" and "Energy" not as distinct entities, but a a single, unified, undifferentiated entity (hang on, here - I'll try to explain that).

What resulted from the singularity - what "emerged" from it - was pure energy of a state, mass, density, and potential such that the "rules" by which today we describe and understand energy - the 4 Fundamental Forces (Electromagnetic, Weak, Strong, and Gravity) - did not yet apply, and there was no matter, period, no differentiation among "Energy", "Mass", and "Matter". There were no atoms, nor even electrons or protons or neutrons - there was just energy, energy "organized" very differently from energy as now we observe and experience it, a mass of energy, that's all, nothing else. There were not 4 distinct Fundamental Forces, there was but a single "Unified" Force, a state or condition of being in which all that exists - all that can exist - might for ease of understanding best be termed "Proto - Energy".

Consequent to the emergence of that proto-energy was that spacetime came about - space and time as one word, one "thing"; neither "Space" nor "Time", the one without the other, has any meaning in and of itself; they are functions of - dependent upon - consequent to - indistinguishable from - one another. The proto-energy emergent from the singularity resulted in spacetime, which as consequence expands as a function of that energy, and "into" which that energy continues to this day to expand, expanding not just in terms either of "Space" or "Time" individually, but into Spacetime. To any meaningful sense, the more "Time" there has been, the more "Space" there must be; the 2 are one and the same.

With the expansion of spacetime, the energy density - the energy "level", if you will (though technically "level" would be an imprecise conceptualization, its good enough for approximation) - lessened; in a sense, given expanding space into which to disperse and time over which to expand into expanding space, the energy began to "Cool Down" (again a technically imprecise characterization, but useful enough for basic understanding). As the decrease in energy density consequent to the expansion of Spacetime came about, this "cooling", went on, first becoming a distinct entity within the what we conceptualize as the 4 Fundamental Forces was Gravity, which by itself is the "weakest" of the 4 Fundamental Forces, yet which also is the most pervasive of those forces. While the Electromagnetic (the "strongest" of the 4 Fundamental Forces), the Weak, and the Strong forces (which latter two are so "weak" as to have appreciable application only at the sub-atomic level) as distinct entities interact with and act upon one another, influence one another, they have no influence on Gravity but rather all 3, unified or individually, are acted upon by Gravity.

In a sense, the first "ripple", the first "irregularity", in Spacetime was Gravity. Consequent to and In concert with the ongoing expansion of Spacetime, Gravity "began" (again an imprecision, but handy enough to ease understanding) to act upon, affect, the yet then still "unified" force, "pulling it apart", so to speak, this affect functionally effecting the distinction of that unitary force into three individual forces each having its unique attributes. Still there was not "matter" - just energy organizing itself differently in response to the environment that energy itself it was changing. This first "ripple", in the manner of ripples, expanded, and as ripples do begat more ripples, etc. etc. etc. YThe effect of these ripples was to further drive the distinction of the remaining three Fundamental Forces, and as these forces grew in distinction, "sepatated" from one another, eventualy (a few hunderd thousand years) conditions were such that energy density had decreased to the point, proto-matter - the precursor to matter as we oberve and experience it - came about.-

Having arisen in circumstance of increasingly complex, cascading chaos, thi proto-matter was not absolutely uniformly distributed, and due to the effect of gravity, the discontinuity of proto-matter distribution only could increase - exponentially - as conditions permitted the formation of more and more proto-matter, and eventually therefrom (another few hundreds of thousand years) of matter as we now observe and experience it. Gravity being what it is, and being a function of mass density, the tiniest concentration of matter in relatively in even ever-so-slightly greater abundance at one locale or another respective overall to the still relatively small (in terms of spacetime) uninverse would accellerate the concentration of nearby matter, centering on the center of increasingly dense mass. These growing mass assemblies, with their growing gravity, would, through gravity and to some, if very considerably lesser, extent electromagnetic force, influence - act upon - one another.

An inescapable consequence of such interaction would be a wide impact on the momentum and velocities of these mass assemblies with respect to one another even as all "rode" expanding spacetime essentially "outward" from the point of the singularity. There would be not just slightly, but increasingly, differing "paths" and velocities in respect of these mass assemblies in relationship to one another, inevitably there would be collisions and mergers, circumstances which would serve both to locally increase matter concentration into increasingly dense centers of mass, but to further alter relative velocities and vectors - once the process got going, as inevitably it would, its effects would become increasingly distinct, and increasingly effective.

Pretty soon - not even hundreds of thousands of years, it'd be sorta like a rack of well-struck billiard balls caroming around the table, smacking into one another and/or the table's rails.bouncing off on new trajectories with each colision (again an oversimplification, but useful for illustration). Some objects would be headed toward one another, others away from one another, and so long as energy was present, the process would continue even as its effects increased.

A better example mught perhaps be represented by an nuclear chain reaction; it starts relatively slowly, and on relatively small scale, but expands and feeds itself from the surrounding matter as it expands, the enrgy and effect of the expansion increasing so long as there is sufficient concentration of matter that the chain reaction may propogate.

What 'subjective' observation would you share in regard to the 'objectivity' of 'a' big bang?

Timber .... [applause] and a tip of the fedora

Thanks, Gel - I tried to make it as simple-to-understand as I could, using no math. Problem is, without math, its difficult if not impossible to really, really make clear how and why it really, really really seems, to the best of our ability to determine, to be that's exactly what happened, why no other hypothesis ever presented for consideration is supported by math, why ongoing discoveries, including even those over the past couple years pertaining to dark energy/dark matter, not only fit with but are called for - required by - and ever more solidly, manifoldly confirm, the math. With the math, it really is damned near clear as 1+1= 2 every time (at least within this particular spacetime continuum ).

Gelisgesti, you ask: "What 'subjective' observation would you share in regard to the 'objectivity' of 'a' big bang?"

Scientific knowledge is, of course, not ACQUIRED subjectively or privately. It is achieved by means of public processes (as in the "scientific method"). BUT I don't think we can ever say that the KNOWLEDGE gained is inherently objective. To have an understanding of principles describing the objective universe amounts to something happening within the head. It is ultimately intuitive or inherently subjective, even if (we claim) it is ABOUT objective events.

Yes, great reading, Timber. Thanks.

It is definitely problematic since we cannot tell whether an object is moving at a constant velocity > 0 or = 0. A static frame of reference, I suppose, would mean a point in space at absolute zero; a point in space where nothing ever accelerates. It would probably be scientifically impossible to ever determine whether such a thing exist.

I suppose an "absolute zero" frame of reference may have to be "outside" of our universe somehow... Since space is expanding, it cannot be a static frame of reference, but perhaps a hypothetical empty region, or an infinitesmal point of space at the region where the singularity prior to the big bang is at...

When I hear 'absolute zero' I think about -273 degrees celsius, or 0 degrees calvin.

Maybe not directly related to the topic. I don't know.

Timber,

You wrote

Eiadeo, the immediate consequence of the emergence and expansion of the singularity was not matter, but rather elemental energy at its very most essential - "Proto-Energy", if you will, both "Mass" and "Energy" not as distinct entities, but a a single, unified, undifferentiated entity (hang on, here - I'll try to explain that)

A very concise and compelling argument. You could well have made a convert.

Taking what you have said as read and for the purpose of stimulating a bit more discussion from the contributors to this debate I have a few questions on the assumption that there really was a bang.

The initial situation of proto energy from your paper can be considered as a "simple" state of things, every thing is one, the same, equal etc. After a period of "time" divergence begins to emerge and the proto energy converts into specific forms of being. These gradually "shape" the formation and construction of the universe

At the present time in the universe and the time when we are observing and studying it, the proto has evolved into the 4 Fundamental Forces (Electromagnetic, Weak, Strong, and Gravity).

Questions that occur to me are that given that the initial state is considered as a simple one and that the present state is more complicated/diverse what are people's views on an increasingly complex universe? Does a fundamental force just emerge - electromagnetism for example? Did the electromagnetic force just happen at a specific point or did it mutate from another? Will additional fundamental forces emerge at a later date?

I think gravity is accepted by all, regardless of their opinion of creation or not as the major/main/primal force within the universe. Given that evidence increasingly points to the existence, even in a temporary state, of anti-matter do people think that anti gravity can exist? And if so could there be other anti forces in existence?

And complexity, can complexity continue to a final complex state? Can there ever be a situation where there are so many alternative forces operating on a body/energy source that it is not affected in any way? Is there a paradox here?

I'm now going to read your paper again and then go through the whole topic from the start.

Thank you everybody.

I'll be back……