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

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

#391

Post by tsimionescu »

jondeval wrote: post #295
jjcon wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Religious people who conceive of God as the creator, believing that the word 'creator' refers to the creation of the universe at some point in the past, are completely misunderstanding the use of the word and need to do some more homework. Can you explain what you mean here - I couldn’t follow

Sure. I'll try. There are two senses to understand the word creator. I'll illustrate both by analogies to the way 'we' create as people: (1) A violinist is creating the music that you are currently hearing. Here and now in the present. (2) A painter created a painting in the 19th century, and you can see the artifact on the wall in a museum. In the case of (1) the creator brings the song into being out of nothing. Mo…

> So, it's important to remember that, for example, knowledgeable Christians refer to God as the creator in the sense of (1)

I am very curious why you think that - given that the Bible and all common teachings of it that I've ever seen very explicitly define God as the creator in the second sense (Genesis very clearly describes past events - not just Let there be light and so on, which could be taken as metaphors for every day dawning, but also Adam and even and all of their descendants, which are described and were understood throughout history as ancestors, not metaphors). The Jewish calendar is even numbered since the year of creation.

Also, while I'm now atheistic, I received at least basic Eastern Orthodox education in school, and the very explicit notion there was that God was the creator of the universe; I also know modern Catholic teaching explicitly names God as the cause of the Big Bang itself, or whatever else science finds to be the mechanism by which the observable universe formed.

Also, while many do accept the possibility of miracles, even some commonly recurring miracles (like the transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ during Holy Communion during every Sunday Mass), the working of the natural world is accepted as ordained by God, but not personally directed by Him - this is quite explicit at least in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, where any direct intervention of God on Earth is seen as a miracle, usually related to a Saint.

Note: I am not saying that there are no Christians that believe what you are saying, or that it somehow runs counter to Christianity. I am only saying that I don't think it is a common understanding of Christianity, even one limited to more literate/knowledgeable Christians; e.g. I don't think the Pope believes what you are saying.

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

#392

Post by cwalv »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #231
cwalv wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We sometimes also rule out other ways it "could" have happened, because they're further from our current paradigm, or just harder (or maybe impossible) to verify. In this sense, it may not be a "religion", but there is an element of "faith"

Faith is believing without objective evidence. Yet if there is evidence of a possibility then there is no faith involved.

I wouldn't say that faith is believing without objective evidence. It's believing without certainty

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

#393

Post by maleldil »

jondeval wrote: post #295
jjcon wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Religious people who conceive of God as the creator, believing that the word 'creator' refers to the creation of the universe at some point in the past, are completely misunderstanding the use of the word and need to do some more homework. Can you explain what you mean here - I couldn’t follow

Sure. I'll try. There are two senses to understand the word creator. I'll illustrate both by analogies to the way 'we' create as people: (1) A violinist is creating the music that you are currently hearing. Here and now in the present. (2) A painter created a painting in the 19th century, and you can see the artifact on the wall in a museum. In the case of (1) the creator brings the song into being out of nothing. Mo…

> knowledgeable Christians refer to God as the creator in the sense of (1)

How does this relate to the idea of creation in 7 days? Doesn't it imply that creation is something that happened in a particular point in time (ie the first 7 days in time), like (2)?

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

#394

Post by tsimionescu »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #390
tsimionescu wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Similarly, it’s entirely conceivable that we may find independent ways to test which of the proposed modifications of the evolution laws is correct, for instance by using data collected from binary mergers. Then, these modified laws would lead to a modified story of what happened near the Big Bang. Sure, but you have to start from observations of the binary merger, not from what you'd like the Big Bang to be like,…

Einstein's equations are time reservable and deterministic, so the evolution has only one path and ultimately it doesn't matter which end you start at, you'll get to the other unique end point regardless. The problem is to get the correct start conditions that makes the other end of the path end up somewhere plausible. It is largely a matter of training and temperament if you think it's more rewarding to start from t…

Sure, the equations themselves lead to the same place.

But this is only true if they are the right equations.

If you look at an existing phenomenon that maybe relativity doesn't describe well enough, and find some modification to these equations that explains it better; and then you go and check that indeed this new model explains all known observations better - you have a pretty solid new theory. You can then expand this theory into the early universe and see what consequences it would have for the inflation model.

However, if you start from the big bang and want to modify Einstein's equations, what will guide you to a better model? Most likely you will use your intuition on how the universe must have begun - but then, chances are, your modified laws will predict entirely the wrong thing about the current universe; or, you can add terms to the existing equations that have no influence in the current universe, but then, by Occam's razor, your theory should just be discarded since it explains all observable phenomena equally well, but is more complex.

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

#395

Post by Kerrick »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #382
galaxyLogic wrote: post #373

This is what I don't get: "... if the universe expands today, this means if we look back in time the matter must have been squeezed together, so the density was higher. If the universe expands today, how does it follow that it was also expanding yesterday, or a million years ago? Maybe universe expands, then contracts again cyclically?

The reason expansion yesterday is plausible if we see expansion is simply that's it's far more plausible nothing so special happened yesterday as to change the motion of the entire universe . The universe is not a little trickle of water down the wall in the bathroom you can easily redirect with your little finger, the universe it really big, so you need something equally big to make it change behaviour.

The oceans used to seem really big to us too, but each rising tide wasn’t destined to continue rising—the tides turned out to be cyclical, even though we couldn’t imagine anything but gods or magic to be powerful enough to cause the change. Perhaps we’re in a similar trough of understanding here?

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

#396

Post by eis »

al_mandi wrote: post #350
eis wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not 100% true. There can (and is) proof and evidence for validating religious claims. You're conflating belief in the unseen (with evidence) with blind faith without evidence, those are two different things. Any religion who claims there is a God does not have proof of such. If there was real experimentally testable and unambigous proof than scientists would need to accept that. What does belief in the unsee…

> he then turns around and just claims religion can give you the correct answer which clearly it can't because there are different religions His point is that experimental science is not in the domain of answering "why" in that sense. It's a metaphysical problem outside the realm of science. The question of finding which religion is true is a separate issue. You don't want to fall in the genetic fallacy when making s…

  > His point is that experimental science is not in the domain of answering "why" in that sense. It's a metaphysical problem outside the realm of science. The question of finding which religion is true is a separate issue. You don't want to fall in the genetic fallacy when making such an argument.
That is a wild claim. Science is very much in the domain of answering "why". Science is selfcontious enough to know it can't answer everything. Religion claims the answer "why" but there is tons of claims without proof and often impossible to disprove and so a very sneaky tool. I don't know what genetic fallacy you are refering to.

  > No one is saying we shouldn't work on it. But this sounds like the "science of the gaps" argument that atheists make fun of theists for using when the former claim "God of the gaps" fallacy.
As I said, he claims science cannot explain emotions without providing any evidence whatsoever and anyone who is following science even a bit should clearly see that it seems entirely possible that we will be able to understand it all. He wrongfully accuses science and uses this accusation to make us seek the answer in religion instead. Terrible.

  > Show me how. He talks about how different cultures agree that certain things are acceptable and others aren't. And he gave the example of harming or sacrificing children.
I gave you an example. Protecting children serves an evolutionary goal. We can find more logic scientific reasons for this behavior. The presenter then brings an example of standing up for an old lady in the bus. Equally here we can make arguments like "if people behave this way then it will increase their own quality of life when they are older". A young person giving up their seat is a minor inconvenience to them but the gain for the old person is much bigger because they might experience a lot more relief when sitting down. This behavior could be explained as an optimization of quality of life of the society.

If different cultures agree on certain acceptable behaviors then that hints at other reasons than religion because different societies have different religions. Which one is the right one?

  > If we agreed tomorrow that such practice is ok, in a secular society there is nothing prohibiting such action.
Again logical fallacy. There is nothing inherintly preventing a religious society from commiting atrocious acts as evidenced by religious sacrifices. What if we agreed tomorrow to form a religion which required that red haired kids be sacrificed by the age of 10? How is it being decided by a religious group any different from a secular group? Your claim that a secular group can't have morals is absurd and baffling.

  > In Islam, we have something called the Fitrah, a natural disposition to certain things, such as acting "good" (we need a benchmark for that obviously, but in a Judeo-Christian Western world, it's quite obvious), or the innate belief in a Creator. This falls under that, and animals also have instincts.
If we behave similar to animals in some regards is it that we do that because of our instincts or do animals have religious believes? If Islam has some rules that make you behave well then that's great. But it does not mean that you need Islam to behave well.

  > I think you're missing the forest for the trees. He states the argument at the beginning, and then gives examples. You don't have to agree with each and every example, but the point stands.
I don't think so. I bring arguments and explanations why his claims don't hold water and his examples are not evidence for his claims. If you want then we can go more into some specific examples.

  > Experimental science cannot answer things beyond what it is designed to do.
Once more: that science cannot explain something is NOT evidence for any other random unprovable explanation like the existance of a god.

I would btw like to ask you: would you agree that some parts of Islam might be wrong or do you believe it is 100% correct?

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

#397

Post by honkdaddy »

stakkur wrote: post #378
goldenkey wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After I pick up the crack pipe from my HN brother, I come to the same conclusion. Most questions aren't even answerable in a cosmic context because they become ill formed at that level.

After requesting the crack pipe from my fellow traveler, I conclude that the answer doesn’t matter. The universe Is.

Putting down my bong and loading another, I remark to the travelers that the human brain is the only set of atoms in the universe which wonders why they are there. All the other atoms seem perfectly happy to exist at all.

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

#398

Post by benreesman »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #377
benreesman wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hossenfelder is a polarizing figure. “Lost In Math” was a thought-provoking book in the tradition of the other string iconoclasts (Smolin, Woit, Rovelli, roughly “the Perimeter crowd”). “Three Roads to Quantum Gravity” was the last general audience book that Smolin did before he’d fucking had it and did “The Trouble with Physics”. Woit went straight for the jugular with “Not Even Wrong”. These people have (for better…

The trouble with Hossenfelder isn't so much that she rejects string theory, lots of people do that. No the problem is that she's pivoted into declaring the entire enterprise of cosmology and particle physics pointless, when she says """How about you wait, and we talk again in 10 billion years.""" this is not so much a joke as a thinly disguised a deeply held conviction. There's no need for a secret cabal to explain w…

You sound very knowledgable about this, so I guess I'm mostly addressing any readers of this thread when I recommend Lost in Math as a prerequisite for making that judgement. Of the four I mentioned, it's the most personal / autobiographical / reflective.

She's obvious pissed off, and that should be taken into account when evaluating her assertions. Woit is way more pissed off, and probably the better mathematician. Smolin seems like, sad and resigned more than angry, but he also got a great gig wither Perimeter (which he might still hold?), which has to soften the blow.

Frankly my layman's knowledge of all this is badly dated, because after decades of avid interest going back to childhood I got so dispirited about it I've kind of stopped paying attention outside of a few bright spots (Deutsch/Marletto have my rapt attention).

So I don't doubt you that lots of people reject Stringworld now maybe even to the point of that being a fairly mainstream view, but 10 or 20 years ago that was a CLM at best and usually tenure-track suicide, and there's a whole generation of people who did in fact operate under the dictates of something that could, with a little poetic license, be called a "cabal". Dismantling the scientific method to admit the Landscape was, at least to an avid outsider, dogma not long ago.

I'm enheartened to hear that people are starting to try new stuff again, but it's not difficult for me to have sympathy for people who just kinda gave up.

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

#399

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

UmbertoNoEco wrote: post #363
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.

agree but be aware carroll swings way way way way to the other extreme especially about the pet theories he happens to like: multiverses ; the everett interpretation of qm ;boltzmann's brains and so on

Yes, he's opinionated. But he regularly interviews people who disagree with him and does a good job at both asking them hard questions and helping them explain their own view. And when he does agree with them, I think he does a decent job at playing devil's advocate and challenging their position.

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

#400

Post by yibg »

0134340 wrote: post #369
yibg wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Very few things about the origins of the universe can be stated as fact at this point so “we will never know” isn't a "fact" either. Implied certainty on either side seems pre-emptive.

I'm not questioning that part. I don't know if stating that we'll never know about the origins of the universe is correct. I tend to agree personally that it seems premature.

All I'm saying is that making (nearly) absolute claims with incomplete knowledge is not a contradiction.

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