• Joe0082
    19
    Was just watching HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS episode about the Big Bang. It is fascinating to hear the narrator describe an event and process that is physically impossible without the least awareness that what he is describing is a scientific fairy tale, probably even more outlandish than the birth of the universe myths of Amazon natives who ascribe it to the hatching a a giant alligator egg.

    So according to modern astrophysics the universe began with a sudden uncaused explosion (a silent one) -- but where? Since the universe didn't yet exist where did this happen? and since there was no time yet -- when? From a "singularity" of infinitely small size, energy expanded much faster than the speed of light to create planets, stars, and galaxies of a universe 100 billion light years across, with the help of a strange, still not understood force, gravity.

    I believe it probably really did happen this way, however, am amazed most scientists fail to see the mystery of it. In the material universe we live in, the Big Bang as astrophysics describes it is totally impossible. Awakening from the scientific trance for a second, one has to say the universe could not expand then coalesce into the vast reality it has become from an infinitely small point Just not possible. In fact ridiculous. Nor could energy expand faster than the speed of light. Not possible. Nor could gravity shape matter and anti-matter into a universe capable of creating and supporting life, even if on just one little planet. No way.

    So how do things which are clearly and obviously not possible, given a material universe, happen anyway? Can it be the universe is not really material? If not material, then what?
  • synthesis
    933
    So how do things which are clearly and obviously not possible, given a material universe, happen anyway?Joe0082

    Instead of people accepting that they cannot understand, they make-up all kinds of stories for fun and profit. It's been going on for a long time and seems as if it's not going to be stopping any time soon.

    It's seems to be what people so best...bullshit.
  • T Clark
    13.7k
    Awakening from the scientific trance for a second, one has to say the universe could not expand then coalesce into the vast reality it has become from an infinitely small point Just not possible. In fact ridiculous. Nor could energy expand faster than the speed of light. Not possible. Nor could gravity shape matter and anti-matter into a universe capable of creating and supporting life, even if on just one little planet. No way.Joe0082

    I'm not a physicist, but I have a good background in science. The story does not seem ridiculous or impossible to me.
  • SophistiCat
    2.2k
    I believe it probably really did happen this way, however, am amazed most scientists fail to see the mystery of it.Joe0082

    So how do things which are clearly and obviously not possible, given a material universe, happen anyway?Joe0082

    Why do you believe that "it probably really did happen this way" if you also think that it's "impossible" and that it's all a "mystery?" Who are the mysterians that initiated you into the secrets of the universe? Not scientists, apparently, since they don't know what they are talking about. Then who?
  • 180 Proof
    15.3k
    So how do things which are clearly and obviously not possible, given a material universe, happen anyway?Joe0082
    Nonsense. Whatever happens presupposes that it is possible to happen.

    Can it be the universe is not really [be] material?
    Maybe it is 'more than material' (material+) ... Define material.

    If not material, then what?
    Physical.
  • Banno
    24.8k
    It's so easy to criticise stuff you haven't understood.
  • Mww
    4.8k
    So how do things which are clearly and obviously not possible, given a material universe, happen anyway?Joe0082

    Either it is possible, or, it didn’t happen. There are mysteries of which physicists are aware, but that ain’t one of ‘em.
  • Joe0082
    19


    you missed "given a material universe"
  • 180 Proof
    15.3k
    That must be why I requested of you define material. :roll:
  • Mww
    4.8k


    I’m good. You stipulated material universe, so.....hard to miss.
  • Wayfarer
    22.3k
    It wasn’t ‘an explosion’ or ‘a big bang’. Those images are used to convey the idea in layman’s terms, and obviously don’t always work.
  • Deleted User
    0
    That is why sometimes it's best to say: I don't know
  • counterpunch
    1.6k
    You're right of course, that the Big Bang explanation of the universe - has some very strange implications, but then, the faster than light expansion of the early universe is only impossible by the internal physical laws of the universe. This is interesting because, if correct - and there's some underlying reality with different physical laws, it may have implications for faster than light travel in the future.
  • SimpleUser
    34
    We only know the direction from the "point of the big bang" and the approximate time of its beginning. But we do not know (are not sure) that this happened from the "point". Those. we do not know the initial radius of the source. It could very well be (I'm fantasizing) a mega-large neutron star or something.
    The rest is quite a reasonable theory.
  • 180 Proof
    15.3k
    FTL is only impossible for mass particles not space itself, so no violation of SR occurs in the FTL expansion of the universe (NB: "BB" is outdated by the No Boundary conjecture). Thus, the Alcubierre Warp Drive is not a laughed-out-of-the-building FTL propulsion conjecture. :nerd:
  • tim wood
    9.2k
    Thus, the Alcubierre Warp Drive is not a laughed-out-of-the-building FTL propulsion conjecture. :nerd:180 Proof
    ... And that giant sucking sound you just heard was the AWD sucking itself through space. Ride the Hoover! Or, I think our man in Havana may be at it again.
  • Joe0082
    19
    Speaking only philosophically, the Big Bang just deepens the mystery and Kant's antinomy still holds, "That the universe has a beginning in time is impossible; that it has no beginning in time is also impossible."
  • T Clark
    13.7k
    the faster than light expansion of the early universe is only impossible by the internal physical laws of the universe.counterpunch

    The explanation of the apparent expansion of the universe at speeds greater than that of light I have heard is that the expansion of the fabric of space-time itself is not subject to the speed limit. Seems like a cheat to me, but people who know more than I do accept it.
  • T Clark
    13.7k
    We only know the direction from the "point of the big bang" and the approximate time of its beginning. But we do not know (are not sure) that this happened from the "point".SimpleUser

    It is my understanding the singularity that is talked about at the beginning of the universe or in a black hole is a mathematical construct based on the equations of General Relativity, i.e. an undefined point. The interpretation of that as an infinitely small and infinitely dense point is a human interpretation. A metaphor.
  • 180 Proof
    15.3k
    Proof that Kant's transcendental notion of Newtonian "time" & "space" are empty speculations: in Einsteinian terms, the universe is time(space).

    :up:
  • Wayfarer
    22.3k
    It might be interesting for you to read what Kelly Ross has to say about that https://www.friesian.com/space-2.htm
  • Mww
    4.8k
    Kant's antinomy still holds, "That the universe has a beginning in time is impossible; that it has no beginning in time is also impossible."Joe0082

    That’s exactly the opposite of what the first antinomy says.

    FIRST CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS.
    THESIS. The world has a beginning in time, and is also limited in regard to space.
    ANTITHESIS. The world has no beginning, and no limits in space, but is, in relation both to, time and space, infinite.

    The conflict proves the universe has a beginning, and it proves it does not. That’s what makes the conflict an antinomy of reason in the first place. Possibility, and its negation, is not a consideration, under the conditions stipulated in the text.

    For accuracy, not antagonism, doncha know.
  • T Clark
    13.7k


    Here's a quote from the website you linked:

    Classic quantum mechanics seems to exhibit some of the characteristics that Immanuel Kant described about the relation between phenomenal reality in space and time and things-in-themselves.

    Kant's things-in-themselves have been interpreted as analogous to the Tao as described by Lao Tzu. That seems like a reasonable interpretation to me, keeping in mind I have not read a lot of Kant. The concept of the Tao is a metaphysical, not a physical, concept. Quantum mechanics is a physical concept. Any similarity between them is metaphorical. It's a trap many people have fallen into. One of the most prominent is Fritjof Kapra in "The Tao of Physics," which is a bunch of baloney.

    Or did I misunderstand your point.
  • Wayfarer
    22.3k
    I was attempting a response to

    Proof that Kant's transcendental notion of Newtonian "time" & "space" are empty speculations180 Proof

    But the page I should have linked to is The Ontology and Cosmology of Non-Euclidean Geometry, where we read that:

    The Euclidean nature of our imagination led Kant to say that although the denial of the axioms of Euclid could be conceived without contradiction, our intuition is limited by the form of space imposed by our own minds on the world. While it is not uncommon to find claims that the very existence of non-Euclidean geometry refutes Kant's theory, such a view fails to take into account the meaning of the term "synthetic," which is that a synthetic proposition can be denied without contradiction.

    Leonard Nelson realized that Kant's theory implies a prediction of non-Euclidean geometry, not a denial of it, and that the existence of non-Euclidean geometry vindicates Kant's claim that the axioms of geometry are synthetic [Leonard Nelson, "Philosophy and Axiomatics," Socratic Method and Critical Philosophy, Dover, 1965; p.164], as quoted above. The intelligibility of non-Euclidean geometry for Kantian theory is neither a psychological nor an ontological question, but simply a logical one -- using Hume's criterion of possibility as logically consistent conceivability. Something of the sort is admitted with hesitation by Jeremy Gray:

    As I read Kant, he does not say non-Euclidean geometry is logically impossible, but that is only because he does not claim that any geometry is logically true; geometry in his view is synthetic, not analytic. And Kant's belief that Euclidean geometry was true, because our intuitions tell us so, seems to me to be either unintelligible or wrong. [Gray, Ibid. p. 85]

    If we are unable to visualize non-Euclidean geometries without using extrinsically curved lines, however, the intelligibility of Kant's theory is not hard to find. The sense of the truth of Euclidean geometry for Kant is no more or less than the confidence that centuries of geometers had in the parallel postulate, a confidence based on our very real spatial imagination. If Kant's claim is "unintelligible," then Gray has not reflected on why everyone in history until the 19th century believed that the parallel postulate was true. That is the psychological question, not the logical or ontological one. The sense of ancient confidence can be recovered at any time today simply by trying to explain non-Euclidean geometry to undergraduate students who have never heard of it before. We might say that attempts to prove the postulate show that people were uneasy about it; but the universal expectation was that the postulate was really a theorem, and no one cashed in their unease by trying to construct geometry with a denial of it. Saccheri denied it, but only because he was constructing reductio ad absurdum proofs. Non-Euclidean geometry did not change our spatial imagination, it only proved what Kant had already implicitly claimed: the synthetic and axiomatically independent character of the first principles of geometry.

    I don't know for sure, as it's a very difficult issue, but it seems germane to the conversation. But anyway, I linked to the wrong page, my bad. :yikes:
  • counterpunch
    1.6k
    The explanation of the apparent expansion of the universe at speeds greater than that of light I have heard is that the expansion of the fabric of space-time itself is not subject to the speed limit. Seems like a cheat to me, but people who know more than I do accept it.T Clark

    Not necessarily. Imagine two dots drawn on a balloon, that is then inflated. The dots move apart exponentially as the angle from the radius increases.
  • FlaccidDoor
    132


    If you're calling the Big Bang a fairytale to describe how ludicrous of an idea we're told to take in, I agree. Not because it is improbable, but because everything from the span of time to magnitude is far beyond what a normal person is capable of comprehending. I suppose it's just as unbelievable as theories about how the universe will end, although there is much more competing theories for that. I don't think the problem of this is that the fact that it is unbelievable, but rather we have nothing more believable to fall back on.

    I'm not sure what you mean by "material" universe, but my understanding is that the universe is commonly differentiated into two dimensions of space and time. Useful. I know, but I've heard of arguments about whether time actually flows forwards or backwards and I feel like that's relevant here.
  • T Clark
    13.7k
    But anyway, I linked to the wrong page, my bad. :yikes:Wayfarer

    But I liked the page you linked to. It gave me a chance to feel all smart and superior.
  • T Clark
    13.7k
    Not necessarily. Imagine two dots drawn on a balloon, that is then inflated. The dots move apart exponentially as the angle from the radius increases.counterpunch

    I agree. As I wrote, I believe it, but it seems like a cheat. God may not play dice, but he cheats at cards.
  • Mww
    4.8k


    it only proved what Kant had already implicitly claimed: the synthetic and axiomatically independent character of the first principles of geometry.

    What do you suppose the character is independent of? What does axiomatically independent really say?
  • jgill
    3.8k
    Not necessarily. Imagine two dots drawn on a balloon, that is then inflated. The dots move apart exponentially as the angle from the radius increasescounterpunch

    Hmm. Maybe. Think of yourself at the center (0,0) of a circle of radius R in the plane. One point on the circumference is at (R,0) and the other point is above that in the first quadrant. As the circle inflates the angle, A, between the points from your perspective is constant, but the radius increases as does the arc distance between points. The arc length between points is S=RA Thus the rate of change of S wrt time t is S'(t)=AR'(t). Now, if R'(t)=CS(t), you get exponential change in S(t).
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