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Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs

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Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs

#41

I don’t see what is the alternative. If it’s not cyclic how can there be something from nothing? The only solution is every thing has always existed and there is no such thing as nothing

There are alternative hypotheses like Eternal Inflation, and Blackhole Cosmology. Mathematical Universe hypothesis would have our existence merely be one expression of consistent mathematical laws, all possible variations of which exist in a level 4 multiverse. Or we could just be a Boltzmann Brain that only imagines it is a universe that started with a big bang and real physics are markedly different.

It is worth keeping in mind that reality is under no obligation to make any kind of sense to us.

Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs

#42
post #19

> What proof does the physicist have for this theory he dubbed “conformal cyclic cosmology” (CCC) that goes against the current Big Bang dogma? It doesn't go against the current "dogma", as the Big Bang theory only covers history up until a fraction of a second after the big bang. Anything before that is basically fair game, even though some ideas are further out there than others. Penrose admits it's a "crazy idea o…

What are you referring to re Linus Paulings?

Another user in this thread mentioned it and it's described in the wikipedia article about crazy nobel laureates linked elsewhere here. Basically, Pauling believed high doses of vitamin C could prolong the lives of cancer patients and cure schizophrenia, despite being out of his field of expertise and lack of evidence.

Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs

#43
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this question can never actually be answered using our concept of language and time. If I tell you A happened before B, you can always ask what happened before A.

I guess an easy idea to escape this is that it's a cycle of events that repeat forever. For example, imagine the sequence of events `A, B, C`. After `C`, imagine that the cycle repeats with the beginning of `A` again, ad infinitum.

But what got the cycle going in the first place?

Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs

#44

I know HN hates religion, but after being an atheist all my life, and graduating with a STEM degree (the 'S' part) from a top tier institution, I've started in the last year or so to turn to the church (Roman Catholic) and theism, both to find answers to some of life's mysteries, such as the origin of the Universe, and for personal reasons (I plan to start my initiation, starting with a baptism, within the next year…

Does the child abuse bother you?

Yes. It's not going to erode my faith, since I'm loyal to Christian values and principles more than any individuals, but the things some of these people in power have done are unacceptable, immoral, and fundamentally un-Christian, and they should be held accountable.

Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs

#45
post #19

> What proof does the physicist have for this theory he dubbed “conformal cyclic cosmology” (CCC) that goes against the current Big Bang dogma? It doesn't go against the current "dogma", as the Big Bang theory only covers history up until a fraction of a second after the big bang. Anything before that is basically fair game, even though some ideas are further out there than others. Penrose admits it's a "crazy idea o…

What are you referring to re Linus Paulings?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling#Medical_resear...

Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs

#46

I know HN hates religion, but after being an atheist all my life, and graduating with a STEM degree (the 'S' part) from a top tier institution, I've started in the last year or so to turn to the church (Roman Catholic) and theism, both to find answers to some of life's mysteries, such as the origin of the Universe, and for personal reasons (I plan to start my initiation, starting with a baptism, within the next year…

I hear you: I've got a STEM background as well, and for many years I was a Catholic-raised agnostic, having bailed from belief at age 12 (and having been skeptical starting at age 5). In later life I worked my way back around to sort of a general agnosto-monotheism, to coin a phrase, and am now at least nominally an Episcopalian (I married one).

I did a lot of thinking and writing on the subject and concluded that we're part of what could be called "The Great Project"; see https://www.questioningchristian.org/2006/06/metanarratives_... and the other "Favorites" links in the right-hand column.

Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs

#47

I know HN hates religion, but after being an atheist all my life, and graduating with a STEM degree (the 'S' part) from a top tier institution, I've started in the last year or so to turn to the church (Roman Catholic) and theism, both to find answers to some of life's mysteries, such as the origin of the Universe, and for personal reasons (I plan to start my initiation, starting with a baptism, within the next year…

[flagged]

I also know someone in a similar circumstance who suddenly turned to religion. Turns out he was becoming schizophrenic.

Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs

#48
post #17

I know HN hates religion, but after being an atheist all my life, and graduating with a STEM degree (the 'S' part) from a top tier institution, I've started in the last year or so to turn to the church (Roman Catholic) and theism, both to find answers to some of life's mysteries, such as the origin of the Universe, and for personal reasons (I plan to start my initiation, starting with a baptism, within the next year…

I myself am partial to the Latter-day Saint teaching that matter/energy has always existed (and forever will exist) and that the creation of the world involved "organizing" existing matter in an iterative process. That matches the pattern of creation I've experienced myself where I take something that already exists and iterate on it until it is in a refined state that I desire. I find it hard to believe that the min…

How is an infinite universe that's been painstakingly engineered by an infinitely omnipotent being less mindboggling than evolutionary biology?

Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs

#49
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I myself am partial to the Latter-day Saint teaching that matter/energy has always existed (and forever will exist) and that the creation of the world involved "organizing" existing matter in an iterative process. That matches the pattern of creation I've experienced myself where I take something that already exists and iterate on it until it is in a refined state that I desire. I find it hard to believe that the min…

Uh, what man? That “guide” was natural selection over millions of years. It’s literally random chance, and if a change is beneficial, it sticks. If we were really “designed” then there are so many failures and inefficiencies that deserve scrutiny. Chief among them, childhood cancers. Fuck a designer that left that bug in the system and shipped it.

> That “guide” was natural selection over millions of years.

Small nitpick: millions of years is how long Hominini brains have been evolving with stone tools. Mammalian brains had already been evolving for at least a hundred million years, animals in general for seven hundred million years, and the basic molecular machinery like genetics and proteomics had been evolving for billions of years.

The scale at which evolution operates at is truly mind boggling.

Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs

#50
post #6

Nobel disease or Nobelitis is the embracing of strange or scientifically unsound ideas by some Nobel Prize winners, usually later in life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

Clearly, their creativity setting is too high and they're hallucinating answers to questions they weren't even asked.
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