Scientifically, I agree with molecular-panspermia (Extraterrestrial organic molecules).
Indeed, statistically it is plausible that organic molecules can be formed from dusts (and later meteorites and comets) in space. These molecules may have become precursors for life after crashing on planets. Amino acids was also detected in one of the comets, if my memory serves me right. — FLUX23
A lot of extremely clever scientists, utilising sophisticated technology, have come to the view that the Universe began with rapid expansion from a single point. They're not simply sitting around the camp-fire spitballing 'how did it all begin, George?' There are masses of observational data - and besides all the hypotheses are subject to constant questioning and review. Scientists don't believe anything just for the sake of believing it. Certainly there are many things unknown about it, but the fact that you can't believe that it happened doesn't count for evidence against it. — Wayfarer
have a lot of respect for your posts on philosophy, but I think most of your arguments against scientific topics are variations on: 'I can't understand that at all, and unless you can explain it to me, it must be nonsense'. There are very many confounding discoveries in science, things that highly intelligent people have wrestled with, even to the point of breakdown. Often they can only be represented in the language of mathematical physics which I know I don't comprehend. But that doesn't mean they're 'talking gibberish'. — Wayfarer
An expanding universe implies that in the past everything was closer together, and taken to it's extreme implies that all observable objects were in a very dense (and therefore hot) cluster. — VagabondSpectre
I thought you were against extreme skepticism. You seem to be unable to accept general relativity because of certain area that it cannot account for despite the good description (or approximation) of reality that general relativity provides (and is actually used in engineering area, and it works well). This is likely the same for any other theory. Does that mean you disagree with every single theories out there?According to your claim then, we cannot prove the existence of anything, and this is probably true, we take the existence of things for granted. But that's just extreme skepticism, to claim that we can't prove the existence of anything. — Metaphysician Undercover
This tells me thatSo when something which is clearly contradictory in terms of description, (such as the expansion of space inside an object being different from the expansion of space outside an object), can only be accounted for with mathematics, I consider such an application of mathematics to be deception, used to hide a contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover
is a lie.I have a reasonable scientific background and you might be surprised at how well I understand this stuff — Metaphysician Undercover
Spectral measurements indicate that amino acids and sugars indeed form in interstellar dust. They are all over the place, literally. I am by no means an expert, but that might suggest that simple organics didn't have to be seeded: if they form so readily everywhere, couldn't they have formed here on Earth? — SophistiCat
My claim is that the fact that the expansion of space, as recognized through general relativity, is not the same internal to an object as it is external to an object, indicates a failing of general relativity's expressed relationship between space and objects — Metaphysician Undercover
But we all know that objects themselves are made up off parts, and each of the parts might also be represented as an object. Why is it that the parts of an object were not closer together in the past? — Metaphysician Undercover
Scientists do attempt addressing that problem. They just haven't got a universally acceptable solution or alternative. So you are right, general relativity is, by no means, a complete, fully accurate description of physics.
Unlike special relativity, where theories like QFT have unified quantum mechanics and special relativity, general relativity lacks any good alternative or generalizing theories. In fact, even one of the most successful theories like Quantum Field Theory is still inadequate to completely explain several experimental data such as particle physics. This is due to the fundamental nature of QFT. — FLUX23
So then, from the practical point of view, what are you insisting we do? Forget about scientific theories and be "philosophical", which in my opinion is even worse in this particular case? Or we just stop talking about it and be agnostic? — FLUX23
This tells me that ... is a lie. — FLUX23
I thought you were against extreme skepticism. — FLUX23
Objects on cosmologically small scales (our local galactic group and smaller) exist within a gravitational field strong enough to counteract metric spatial expansion. If I understand the science correctly, spatial expansion occurs everywhere, it's just counteracted by other physical forces (nuclear bonds/gravity) and therefore not at all measurable on small scales. It can only be experimentally observed using cosmologically large scale distances (millions of parsecs). — VagabondSpectre
When I talk about the big bang as if it is bona fide knowledge , what I'm saying is essentially is that the above description of the evolution of matter in the observable universe is all very well reasoned by physical science. You can focus on the fact that we cannot see beyond what we can only faultily describe as a "singularity", and say the big bang is bullocks, but you would be discounting everything that we know about what came afterward, which in every possible sense of the word, is everything. — VagabondSpectre
I believe that gravity is incorporated into the space-time metric, it is a property of space time. So if there is a part of space, at a great distance between objects for example, in which there is no gravity, then general relativity does not apply here, there are no objects moving in relation to each other, they are too far away. Yet there is still activity of space relative to time here, what is known as spatial expansion. So general relativity gives us an inaccurate representation of the relationship between space and time. — Metaphysician Undercover
Actually, what I am arguing is that your starting point, general relativity, is faulty, and that is why your finish point, the big bang is faulty. So I believe that the entire described scenario is deficient. Look, general relativity cannot account for the activity which is known as spatial expansion, scientists do not know what this is. There are no principles to explain it. So your entire described scenario is just unprincipled speculation. The problem is, that when cosmologist come across a problem, something which makes no sense, or appears to be unintelligible, then instead of recognizing the most likely cause of this problem, that the general theory of relativity is inadequate, and this inadequacy is causing the problem, they'll just invent some new fiction, like dark matter, to account for the problem. Instead of accepting the most probable reason for the problem, that they do not have an accurate model of the relationship between space and time, as general relativity is unreliable, they'll assume the existence of something like dark matter, which has no evidence for its existence, other than that there is something which the theory cannot account for. So the only evidence of its existence is the fact that assuming its existence makes the theory work. — Metaphysician Undercover
"Spatial expansion" isn't a problem, it's a working solution to a problem. Without it the observational evidence leads to great confusion. — VagabondSpectre
The observational evidence for an expanding universe doesn't rely on GR though. — VagabondSpectre
Hubble measured and demonstrated the positive correlation between the distance of deep space objects and the speed which they are all traveling away from us (a positive correlation). This means that either we are at the center of a central point of expansion of matter (hence everything is heading away from us) or everything is moving away from everything else (it's all spreading out via some kind of metric expansion). If we were at or near a central point of expansion, then it stands to reason that there would be some sort of pattern in the distribution of matter, but the distribution of matter at the largest observable scale has no such detectable pattern or form, and we would be very lucky indeed if we truly were the center of the universe. — VagabondSpectre
The legs of your disagreement are that A) General relativity leads to spatial expansion, which is "nonsense", and B) An unexplained objection about the real relationship between gravity and time which GR fails to describe... — VagabondSpectre
I know that your distaste for the concept of spatial expansion doesn't negate it's validity, so what about general relativity is really so inadequate? In light of all the predictive power it lends us, what evidence do you have to suggest that it is somehow false? — VagabondSpectre
Mathematicians and physicists utilize non-dimensional points, as if they have real existence. — Metaphysician Undercover
The information received by Hubble is interpreted with the use of GR. — Metaphysician Undercover
OK, so this is what I mean when I say expansion is unintelligible. Imagine a point in space. Then imagine a point some distance to the right, and a point the same distance to the left, and points above, and below, etc.. Everything is moving away from each of these points. How would you reconcile such different motions? Clearly relativity theory is incapable of reconciling such radically different motions, which are actually the same objects observed from different perspectives. — Metaphysician Undercover
This would allow us to deal with the vast quantity of evidence, that there is non-spatial activity which occurs, in a coherent and intelligible way. — Metaphysician Undercover
You are conflating the actual particles with the hypothetical (i.e., mathematical) representations. — aletheist
Spatial expansion is the only thing we can come up with that reconciles and predicts these seemingly contrary motions that we observe. We can only reconcile our observations by proposing that the space in-between sufficiently distant objects expands and push/pulls us apart. The fact that GR infers spatial expansion and that we observe it is points for GR, not a mark against it. — VagabondSpectre
I propose that events occurring on sufficiently small scales are indistinguishable from "non-dimensional events". GR breaks-down at quantum scales, it's true, but to an extent that doesn't matter as long as what GR says about Newtonian scales remains true. It's true for Newtonian/macro scales. — VagabondSpectre
The representation is as a non-dimensional point, but what does this actually represent? It can't be a particle, because a real particle cannot be at a non-dimensional point. — Metaphysician Undercover
The issue is that there is motion of objects which cannot be comprehended by GR...
How can we even begin to measure these motions when our only means for measuring them, GR, views them as contrary motions, i.e. contradictory. — Metaphysician Undercover
It's not like everything is moving away from one single point, like an explosion, as "big bang" implies, it's the case that everything is moving away from every point. So the big bang is way off track, because there must be a big bang at every point in space, to account for the observation that everything is moving away from every point in space. — Metaphysician Undercover
We measure these motions with classical astrophysics, not GR. We describe and predict what we measure with "spatial expansion", which GR endorses. The expansion itself isn't contradictory if you're speaking in terms of transposing the expansion into direction and velocity. — VagabondSpectre
The big bang still makes sense in this scenario. 13.75 billion years might not mean the beginning of everything, but it does still mean the beginning of everything observable. — VagabondSpectre
If we are utilizing mathematics, we are dealing with strictly hypothetical objects, which may be (and often are) diagrammatic models of actual phenomena. — aletheist
The fact that you think I am just blabbering makes my point for me. — aletheist
I said nothing at all about quarks, leptons, bosons, or the Standard Model. My claim is strictly about mathematics. — aletheist
No, we utilize non-dimensional points (and other mathematical constructions) as strictly hypothetical objects, and recognize that they do not have real existence. — aletheist
If you would have paid attention to what I said, you would have noticed that what I was saying is that we do not have any way of representing real, non-dimensional existence. — Metaphysician Undercover
I took you to be claiming that a non-dimensional point cannot represent a real particle, which is false.The representation is as a non-dimensional point, but what does this actually represent? It can't be a particle, because a real particle cannot be at a non-dimensional point. — Metaphysician Undercover
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