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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

#111
post #87
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But Penrose's field of expertise is Cosmology. So I don't think I get the analogy? I understand that this is a speculation because it is very hard to collect evidence for that claim but it is still within the wide umbrella of what Penrose devoted his career.

That's the point. Penrose's ideas are worth taking seriously because they are directly in line with his field of expertise, and there are means supplied in his papers to rule the ideas out (predictions that should hold true on data we are able to measure). This was a contrast, not an analogy.

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

#112
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ke…

Natural phenomena do tend to make sense when investigated scientifically. It seems rather that not all cosmologists and mathematicians have an obligation to develop scientific theories: - Blackhole Cosmology, Eternal Inflation: unscientific, dismiss reality - Mathematical Universe: unscientific, no reality The actual sciences brought to bear on cosmology (thermo and statistical mechanics) can make enough sense of our…

Empiricism is only one of the tools that can be brought to bear on our understanding of reality. Clearly it is not complete on its own, since its reliance on objective measure leaves things like consciousness (that is, the philosophical experience of being) completely outside of its purview. Even professional scientists well versed in their craft engage in unempirical thought in their quest to understand.

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

#115

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'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 satis…

Humans are fundamentally emotional, not intellectual.

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

#116

This reminds me of something I read some time back. It was about hypervelocity stars, stars with escape velocity. These are stars that are moving fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of their galaxy. If they are escaping their galaxy and moving away from the galactic center, they may also be beyond the pull of any retraction. This, in turn, would mean the subsequent post-retraction Big Bang contains less matt…

Escaped matter is somewhere else: it would do the Bang and expand into the less populated area. All you need is to assume that on a bigger scale the universe is uniform and all the Bangs are just the ripples in it.

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

#117

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…

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.

- humans have value

- life is worth living

- doing the right thing matters

All are unfalsifiable. I am deeply skeptical of anyone who claims to not believe unfalsifiable things.

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

#118

This reminds me of something I read some time back. It was about hypervelocity stars, stars with escape velocity. These are stars that are moving fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of their galaxy. If they are escaping their galaxy and moving away from the galactic center, they may also be beyond the pull of any retraction. This, in turn, would mean the subsequent post-retraction Big Bang contains less matt…

Spacetime itself is not limited to slower than light speeds, and the big crunch has nothing to do with gravity. Rogue stars wouldn't escape it.

The universe is not finitely/countably infinite. From the perspective of everything inside it, it is truly infinite. You can't escape something that goes on forever.

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

#120

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…

Intelligent design makes sense to me.
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