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

backreaction.blogspot.com

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

#131

Post by kthejoker2 »

aliasxneo wrote: post #99
gcau wrote: post #74

Things like the big bang seem to be things after the beginning of the universe. In the same way, the issue with a god is "who created god, and who created that who created god...". If he's eternal, who/what made him eternal? We have the same problem in science, and I think any explanation/theory would have the same problem. Also, I dislike that when some physicists explain this they say, "sure, you can get something…

In the case of the Bible, it makes it explicitly clear that God is uncreated. Asking the question, "Who created an uncreated God?" doesn't make much sense in that case.

To be clear, it makes a ton of sense to ask such a question.

The underlying assumption to the question is why only one thing is allowed to be uncreated .. ? Are there others like them, much like here on Earth where we have many authors writing many books? The Bible doesn't answer those at all, it starts in media res (despite its first three words!)

(I have other complaints about such a God but)

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

#132

Post by jgrowl »

Therein lies the True eternal distinction between Reason and Faith.

Reason is that which can be known and where it ceases becomes Faith. They are separate parallel structures, to mistake one for the other is folly.

We know that everything we can see originated as a single point of one uniformly distributed substance.

We know that everything we can see will return into one uniformly distributed substance (Heat and red-shifted light).

Belief is Necessary to fill in the gaps between creation cycles (Or its rejection entirely).

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

#133

Post by superposeur »

I’m a big fan of the blog, but disagree with this entry. Her argument could be applied to the idea of the Big Bang itself: we can never receive light from any further back than the “surface of last scattering”, so the notion of a hotter prior epoch is an extrapolation. The extrapolation is a good one as it uses independently-tested laws of evolution, at least to the point these laws presumably break down, as she points out.

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. Alternatively, it may happen that all but one or a few of the proposed modifications do not play nicely with the other forces of nature at a theoretical level.

Or maybe not, but we certainly can’t rule out this possibility a priori.

Moreover, her point about not having a multi-universe data set would dismiss all of cosmology as mere “ascience” — again, including the notion of the Big Bang itself.

Instead, I think it likely that the present multiplicity of early universe proposals will be pruned as more data becomes available.

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

#134

Post by aaaaaaaaaaab »

aurelien wrote: post #122

This universe became just in universes bubbles explosion. One day, we will be able to determine which of the marbles of universes in the universes bag of marbles collide to create this one new marbles. Sciences is here to go further, not to stop thinking at the edge of one way of think.

Ok, then how did the “marble bag” came into existence?

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

#135

Post by krapp »

aliasxneo wrote: post #124
tsimionescu wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, but then immediately leads to the question: if we admit that it is possible for God itself to be un-created, why can't the universe itself be uncreated as well?

That was a popular theory for a long time, although I think it's declined over the years. I don't recall the reasons why, though.

Probably the Big Bang and evidence of inflation and the CMB. There is a lot of credible evidence that our universe had a definite beginning.

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

#136

Post by Tenoke »

c048 wrote: post #109
egello wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about time loop is that, how and when did it began? I just can't wrap my head around something being here, there and everywhere at all times.

That's the thing about time-loops; you don't need to have a start and a beginning. There's a good movie about that concept; Interstellar.

Interstellar is pretty much nonsense even given the premise. Even if you are talking about time travel you can easily make something more plasuible than that.

Also Interstellar had information passing from the future to the past which isn't really what's typically sufficent to consider it a time loop.

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

#137

Post by [deleted] »

c048 wrote: post #109
egello wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about time loop is that, how and when did it began? I just can't wrap my head around something being here, there and everywhere at all times.

That's the thing about time-loops; you don't need to have a start and a beginning. There's a good movie about that concept; Interstellar.

[deleted]

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

#139

Post by skissane »

gibsonf1 wrote: post #33

What if it never began and has simply always existed? That is the likely scenario, as the moment you think about it beginning, you again face beginning from what? What was that called before the universe other than the universe?

If the universe is infinitely old - well, what’s the probability that, untold (yet finite) aeons ago, a planet existed just like this one, in which history unfolded in exactly the same way, even the pettiest details of our lives being precisely the same? I think the probability is arbitrarily close to 1 - not just that our lives have happened exactly the same before once, but an arbitrary - even infinite - number of times - and we should expect will again in the future. Would it follow that Nietzsche was correct in his doctrine of eternal recurrence?

But if there exist an infinite number of copies of myself, all exactly the same - why should I consider myself to be any one of them individually, as opposed to all of them equally? If they are all the same, are they not identical? In which case - the past isn’t infinite after all - rather time is finite and circular.

Another way to put it - any finite spatial volume must contain finite information (see the Bekenstein bound) - hence can only exist in a finite number of distinguishable states. Given infinite time but only a finite number of possible states to visit in them, it has to visit the self-same states again and again - an infinite number of times

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

#140

Post by eis »

mef wrote: post #104
eis wrote: post #80

Quoted post unavailable.

I found it interesting as an early example of a similar line of reasoning with a similar conclusion. The Wikipedia link mentions that: “Astronomer Carl Sagan quoted it in discussing India's "tradition of skeptical questioning and unselfconscious humility before the great cosmic mysteries."”

I don't think the line of reasoning is similar at all.

The quoted text just says "We don't know. Hypothetical beings higher than us don't know because they came after the initial origin. A hypothetical creator might or might not know."

I agree with the first sentence but it doesn't give any insight really. The reasoning regarding Gods coming after creation so they wouldn't know doesn't check out. Maybe they are great scientists and found a way to get the answer? By implying even Gods don't know you get defeatism - how could we mere mortals know? Let's not try.

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