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We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

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191–200 of 610 posts

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#191

“We will never know” is such a contradictory statement. On the surface, it implies the limits of our knowledge while simultaneously indicating that the author possesses the omnipotence required to know what humans will learn throughout the entirety of our future. Add it to your list of things to never write.

That's a very narrow reading of it. There's always an implicit "to the best of our current knowledge" caveat with every sound scientific statement. And it's true, to the best of our current knowledge, we can never know what it's like inside a black hole or very close to the time our universe began because the physics that we know tells us no person or probe can ever go there and come back to tell. If you're no so generous as to accept the implicit caveat you just end up being fun at parties because you go around and tell people to "never say never and always avoid always".

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#192

“We will never know” is such a contradictory statement. On the surface, it implies the limits of our knowledge while simultaneously indicating that the author possesses the omnipotence required to know what humans will learn throughout the entirety of our future. Add it to your list of things to never write.

I see what you did there. ;)

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#193

This universe became just in universes bubbles explosion. One day, we will be able to determine which of the marbles of universes in the universes bag of marbles collide to create this one new marbles. Sciences is here to go further, not to stop thinking at the edge of one way of think.

Ok, then how did the “marble bag” came into existence?

It arose from the dream of a flying space turtle

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#194
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the ratio of babble to sound reasoning is much better in science than in religion. That being said, there is also a lot of science babble and we should call it out and try to keep it at a as low amount as possible. The core tenets of science are pretty sound. Religions are based on a lot of completely made up stuff. They are not 100% bad of course. But we seriously can do much much better than that. I think t…

> Religions are based on a lot of completely made up stuff Did you survey all religions to make such claim? And it's not like you don't need axiomatic bases that need to be accepted as is to base science on. There's a lot of "I think" and assumptions in your post that are not backed up by evidence, and some even contrary to reality. This is a good starting point to expand your horizon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

  > Did you survey all religions to make such claim? 
That is the definition of religion. They are believes that relate to supernatural beings and sprituality. They cannot be proven or disproven.

  > And it's not like you don't need axiomatic bases that need to be accepted as is to base science on.
Correct, there are axioms - assumptions - which the rest of the logical system is based upon. Same as for example in Mathematics. The assumptions are much more reasonable than for example assuming there is a God because they result in expirically testable predictions.

I have started to watch the video you linked to, I have not finished it yet but the beginning was pretty good and the presenter seems well spoken. But by about minute 10 I already noticed a lot of logical fallacies. He is (rightfully maybe) accusing certain famous people in history of wrong logical arguments but then he quickly makes the same plus a lot of ad hominems thrown in for good measure. For example the claim that the "four horsemen" of science think that replacing mosques and synagogues into starbucks would make society all peaceful is frankly just ridicolous. Then he immediately follows it up by claiming if there is no religion then there is no morality. This is completely baseless. I am not a religious person but I do have morals. I'm not running around trying to torture people just because I don't believe in a supernatural being. I'm going to watch it in full because listening to the other side of an argument is the best but I have to say this talk is going south very fast IMHO :(

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#195

We may not know the answer to how the universe began, but a time loop at the beginning of the universe is my favorite explanation. Gott and Li proposed this model and you can see Gott explain it elegantly here: https://youtu.be/raTqAyLikLU

I for one am glad that Gott has finally joined youtube to explain to everyone the meaning of the universe and everything. Cool move bro!

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proper religion and science do not disagree. I am a person of faith (which is backed by evidence), and my faith pushed us to seek knowledge. The Islamic Golden age is a testament to that fact. Scientism is not what you defined. From wikipedia (which I take with a big grain of salt) > Scientism is the opinion that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality. W…

Yes yes and sperm comes from between backbone and ribs.

Sounds like another straw man (answer here by the way https://youtu.be/rvrqwD4I9Nc). Did you watch the video I posted earlier?

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're straw manning when you say things like "cares about the sexual life of humans". I highly recommend you watch this to broaden your horizons: https://youtu.be/If3cNUixEBM

There is simply put no evidence for the existence of God. Neither philosophically nor rationally. And it's not a straw man argument. God in Islam cares about foreskins and sex and if you disbelieve in him he sends you to hell for eternity. Don't send videos tell me your arguments, you can speak for yourself.

Did you watch the video? You keep straw manning.

You expect a detailed and nuanced response in 1 paragraph on HN?

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t often go looking in Astronomy or cosmology journals, but I’d be surprised if either scientists were trying to publish articles like that — or if they were, that they could pass peer review. On the other hand, if you are working on theories that can extend into the early universe, it’s not unimportant to try and figure out where the model breaks down. Maybe t=0 isn’t possible, but t=1s? 1ns? 1ps? How much can…

> I’d be surprised if either scientists were trying to publish articles like that — or if they were, that they could pass peer review. The article we're discussing itself even links to one such paper [0]. All of the others she mentions are also published works - Penrose's CCC [1], the ekpyrotic universe [2], Hawking's no-boundary state [3] etc. > On the other hand, if you are working on theories that can extend into…

The point of publishing those articles is...to publish them though. Like, you have an idea, you write it up, submit it and note that it can fit known data but isn't currently testable. Done, and important. Maybe it goes nowhere, maybe it inspires someone, but the point of journals is in the name: they're journals of work in the field, shared so the community can explore and benefit from them.

They're not publications of "what is definitely true", they are fundamentally explorations of what could be, or the more important "this is kind of interesting where could it lead?".

Re: We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know

#200

Why is there even such a gigantic universe? Like what is the purpose of it - why was there a Big Bang? If I really think hard about these questions it makes me uncomfortable and anxious.

> Why was there a Big Bang?

Big assumption to make there. The big bang is a theory and it is not at all proven to have happened.

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