I think the tone of the article is a bit too judgmental. He himself called it a 'crazy theory'. I took it to be a pet theory he thinks is interesting, personally would like to believe in, but knows he can't prove. We've all got some of those, there's room to talk about them without being called a crank.
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
#52I 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…
Thanks, I'll check it out.
Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs
#53> a claim that is not widely accepted within the cosmology community. I'd rather hear the top 5 theories rather than the officially "accepted" ones from any given "community". Want to break the speed of light? Why yes tell me and don't let them filter you.
Accepted just more or less means there is enough evidence that most people agree its a convincing explanation.
Nobody is filtering anybody. Acceptance is just the end of the process not the beginning. It is expected most hypotheses do not start as accepted and most won't make it that far.
To give a start up analogy: an accepted theory is like a company that is profitable. Most start ups aren't profitable. Some might become so, most won't and will eventually fail. There is nothing wrong with not being profitable, everything starts somewhere, but its still important to describe the stage the company is at accurately.
Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs
#54Nobel 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
Yes, this suggestion is practically impossible to prove (or disprove), and quite fringe, but the listed examples in that article are usually of things people suggested outside of their field after they got the Nobel prize, and often things that were quite easily disproved at the time of suggestion. Meanwhile Penrose suggested CCC (2006) way before he received the Nobel prize (2020). Also, cosmology is Penrose's resea…
what happened before this universe is not cosmology, but religion, and that's not Penrose's field. neither is neuroscience, where he's giving air to similarly unsupported ideas.
Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs
#55I 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'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...
Accepting God created the universe just moves the big questions one level of indirection upward: Why does God exist? Why does God exist with the characteristics that he does (e.g. why is God X instead of Y)?
It's unclear how this is more satisfying on an intellectual level. It's only more satisfying on an emotional level, as it usually comes with the belief of a personal God that loves and wants the best for you, not to mention an afterlife.
Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs
#56Nobel 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
Yes, this suggestion is practically impossible to prove (or disprove), and quite fringe, but the listed examples in that article are usually of things people suggested outside of their field after they got the Nobel prize, and often things that were quite easily disproved at the time of suggestion. Meanwhile Penrose suggested CCC (2006) way before he received the Nobel prize (2020). Also, cosmology is Penrose's resea…
A lot of our well-evidenced scientific ideas today would've been practically impossible to prove at some point in history. I think people forget that all hypotheses are nothing more than thoughtful just-so stories when they're first stated.
Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Negation. The negation of nothing is something.
Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs
#58IANAP - why are these ideas so controversial? The article seems to suggest he has some (potentially) supporting evidence, and I don't have an intuition for how damning the counter-argument is ("This would necessitate making all particles lose mass as the universe gets old." Again, IANAP and physics can get weird).
it's fringe because it's almost certainly nonfalsifiable
Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
That presumes that the cycle isn't the ground state and something had to start it.
Also,i feel there are no satisfactory answers here. See also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover
Re: Roger Penrose claims our Universe has been through multiple Big Bangs
#60I 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…
the problem is epistemology, not aesthetics. why are you comfortable believing in things that are nonfalsifiable? that you find them comforting is not much of an argument.