We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by al_mandi » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 8:09 PM UTC

wruza wrote: post #214

al_mandi wrote: post #172

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…

I’m only 10:33 into this video and already facepalming so much. The guy starts with explaining logic basics, which is cool, then goes to blaming some people “leading the atheist movement” (whom I never really listened to and agree that they devote too many of their attention to fight religion, but hey everyone chooses their own way) and then summarizes “if you don’t have any moral authority then what’s your moral anc…

No post body was provided.

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

#352

Post by chiefalchemist » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 8:11 PM UTC

stackbutterflow wrote: post #128

Victerius wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My pet theory: Something has always existed. There was no beginning. No origin. No first cause. No t=0. No start. It's always been there. What was before that? That. And that. And that. Always that. And the Second Law of Thermodynamics is not absolute and can be broken.

If time exists then there's always a before. Unless at some point time didn't exist. But if time didn't exist and then suddenly something started to tick, that's still a transition from "no time" to "time" and this "no time" was before "time". These thoughts are driving me crazy. There must be a piece of the puzzle we're missing. There must be something about time that isn't or wasn't always linear. Otherwise there's…

It feels as if there's a force (?) that we're not yet recognizing. Else, it's a crazy infinite loop.

Not that I'm saying this is true (just an example), but is the Big Bang simply (?) the introduction of time into the then time-less universe? It just doesn't make sense to say "The universe started with the Big Bang" when what that was prior was the universe but in a different form (or so we guess).

So it seems that something else had to be introduced to change the nature of the old universe into the new universe. Else the "start" is more like a "transformation" and even that opens a ton of questions.

My head hurts.

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

#353

Post by everybodyknows » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 8:11 PM UTC

moomin wrote: post #287

I don’t think people are understanding the subtlety of what she’s saying here. She’s saying that since there are no predictions to be made, there’s nothing falsifiable in any of the many theories. Worse, if the theories _do_ make falsifiable predictions that still will only reduce the imaginative space, not reduce it down to one theory, and that instead we choose between theories on the basis of how many “constants”…

A concise shorthand for "non-falsifiable theory" is "faith".

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

#354

Post by al_mandi » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 8:11 PM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #261

al_mandi wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Faith by definition isn't something which can be backed by evidence There is evidence backed belief in the unseen, and there is blind faith. So your claim that by definition faith is without evidence is not correct. Secondly, even science needs to accept certain axioms as a given so that we can build upon them. Scientism is believing that the only way to arrive at truth is through experimentation, which is a false…

Science chooses minimal axioms and builds the flesh of the world based on the existing bones ready to revise when new bones are discovered. Religion chooses a substantial set of axioms derived from a mixture of philosophy and fantasy dreamt up by our pre scientific ancestors who thought bad smells caused disease then makes many forms of revision sinful. A set of beliefs without ability to revise everything from the g…

Just because the sets are of different size does not mean one is incorrect. You're also straw manning by talking about pre ancestors and bad smells.

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

#355

Post by tsimionescu » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 8:14 PM UTC

sigmoid10 wrote: post #228

DemocracyFTW2 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gen…

This just falls completely apart when you look at the history of physics. Einstein for example is usually considered to be one of the smarter people, and even he thought it would be impossible to ever measure gravitational waves directly. He simply could not foresee the future developments of quantum mechanics, like lasers or squeezed light states. And yet here we are. Even if the author was the best physicist in the…

I hate this way of thinking. Einstein never thought that it's impossible to measure gravitational waves, he just couldn't imagine any way we could ever make instruments precise enough to do so.

However, measuring the state of the singularity that probably existed before inflation, or even more so, measuring anything about how that in itself came to be, is explicitly impossible given our current theories. As impossible as building a space ship that travels faster than light, or measuring the precise position and velocity of a particle.

These are not technological issues: finding a way to do them would mean a completely new paradigm in science. So any paper that attempts to prove these things without presenting a new paradigm is doomed to the "we will never know" bag.

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

#356

Post by wheelerof4te » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 8:16 PM UTC

Of course we don't know. That does not mean we should stop searching for the answer.

But before we try to understand how the universe began, maybe a better starting point would be: how did we begin?

Finding out what exactly happened to us that made us different than the rest will lead to answers to greater mysteries of this world.

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

#357

Post by al_mandi » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 8:18 PM UTC

eis wrote: post #232

al_mandi wrote: post #172

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…

You don't need to post the video numerous times. I have commented on it on one of your other replies. > Proper religion and science do not disagree. What makes a proper religion? And can you tell me how it agrees with science? > 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. Well for me personally, curiousity pushed m…

> What makes a proper religion? And can you tell me how it agrees with science?

One that is backed by proofs and evidence. Islam does not disagree with science.

Your argument is not very different from can God create a rock so heavy that He cannot cary it? The answer is simple, it's a logical absurdity to even go there. God told us about his Attributes, and we are not to hold Him or His Attributes to our worldly logic.

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

#358

Post by al_mandi » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 8:20 PM UTC

eis wrote: post #334

eis wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Mathemat…

I finished it now. It did not get any better. Most of his arguments can be boiled down to "science can't explain that so it must be god". No. Towards the end he shows a lack of understanding of statistics. He claims if any infinitesmally small change to the laws of nature would have caused an uninhabitable universe then it must have been specifically designed the way it is. He brings several examples that actually ar…

> There is no reason to believe that there was only one try.

Exactly what he mentions in his talk, on what are you basing this belief? It's a metaphysical claim that is outside the realm of science. You just proved his point.

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

#359

Post by green_on_black » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 8:21 PM UTC

koshnaranek wrote: post #326

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #254

I honestly never cared for Hossenfelder's science communication. She's far too dismissive and dishonest in representing theoretical views she disagrees with. And I don't necessarily have the physics understanding to pick these biases out too easily. I think Sean Carroll for instance does a much better job at this when he interviews people whose views he disagrees with in his podcasts, which happens quite frequently.

I enjoy it. There are a lot of communicators who shy away from giving their own opinion about anything that isn't the overwhelming consensus. They might be wrong after all. It is refreshing to have somebody actually disagree with something and then back it up.

It depends on what you mean by "back it up", especially regarding rigor. The more "surprising"/disagreeable an idea is, the more rigor we (or at least I) expect of the arguments.

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

#360

Post by martinko » Sat, Aug 27, 2022, 8:21 PM UTC

yibg wrote: post #265

IAmGraydon wrote: post #178

“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 don’t know if the statement is correct in this case but in general saying “we will never know” about a subject which we have incomplete knowledge isn’t a contradiction. I can say, we will never know what the first human that got to North America had for lunch on their 20th birthday, and I think that’s as true as it could reasonably be. Sure maybe we’ll invent a time machine or some other technology in the future th…

> I can say, we will never know what the first human that got to North America had for lunch on their 20th birthday, and I think that’s as true as it could reasonably be.

if there is a large mirror a few hundred light years away we might be able to see his lunch in the reflection ;)