Philosophy Discussion Forums

Jklint wrote:If everything IN the universe is expanding in the same proportion as the Universe itself wouldn't that presuppose that the Universe remains forever static in its relative distances for ANYTHING contained within it...or have I missed something? If everything expands at the same rate the distances between them would be thoroughly unnoticeable because their distances would be maintained and therefore static which according to observation is not the case.

Yes, you missed something. Look at the 2 diagrams below and note the following comment:

Note that the black dots represent galaxies, and the galaxies do not expand even though the separation between galaxies grows with time.

How can the Universe be infinite if it was all concentrated into a point at the Big Bang?
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/infpoint.html

Also, the Big bang theory does not specify whether universe is finite or infinite, as explained in the link.

The universe is expanding because the galaxy's are moving away from each other, creating more space in between. When you know which direction a galaxy is moving, you can also trace back to where it came from. The galaxy's all trace back to the same region in space, hence the Big Bang which set them in motion. Because the galaxy's are expanding, it does not mean that solid objects, like the walls in your house are also expanding.

Wizard wrote:Now here comes the big problem for Big Bang [... off topic content]. If the space-time between the walls in your bedroom is expanding then why not also the dimensions of the yard stick you used to measure that space? The yard stick, or the nano-inches, the device itself used to measure distance, must also be expanding.

Because the measuring device is also a "part of the universe", is it not? Science cannot resolve this paradox.

Interesting line of thought, but there was never the problem you state because observers used redshift effects rather than just watching celestial bodies fly away from us (which is a surreal notion) scitechdaily.com/new-planck-data-challe ... -universe/

This appears to be more or less the best picture we have of the Universe's origins so far.

There is a challenge (albeit (untestable) to the expanding universe but it still involves inflation in the past dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2013/08/the-u ... osmos.html

If you don't want science quoted at you, I did mention my own pet notion of the nature of the BB and inflation as massive energy leakage from a higher dimension much earlier in the thread. However, I made no claim that this was the truth and said it was only a guess, just like your guess.

My position is not a 'guess' inasmuch the "Big Bang Theory" is also a guess.

Your wording is denigration. As-if you have any evidence or proof of the Big Bang? No, you merely repeat what scientists tell you. Did you do any of the reasoning/experimentation yourself? Probably not.

Again it is much simpler to grant the premise that the universe is infinite, not expanding, and then see where this reasoning+logic takes us.

It solves too many "scientific" problems in one fell swoop. The problem is this—science is too ingrained in its BBT postulation. Similar to how Roman Catholics and general Christianity is too ingrained in Creationism.

But this is all anti-philosophical. This is a philosophy forum. So everybody should agree with me, not science, not religion.

Side with reason.

Bohm2 wrote:

Jklint wrote:If everything IN the universe is expanding in the same proportion as the Universe itself wouldn't that presuppose that the Universe remains forever static in its relative distances for ANYTHING contained within it...or have I missed something? If everything expands at the same rate the distances between them would be thoroughly unnoticeable because their distances would be maintained and therefore static which according to observation is not the case.

Yes, you missed something. Look at the 2 diagrams below and note the following comment:

Note that the black dots represent galaxies, and the galaxies do not expand even though the separation between galaxies grows with time.

How can the Universe be infinite if it was all concentrated into a point at the Big Bang?
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/infpoint.html

Also, the Big bang theory does not specify whether universe is finite or infinite, as explained in the link.

I'm in complete agreement with what you infer but you seem to have missed what I responded to. It's long been known or hypothesized that it's the space between galaxies which expand and not the galaxies themselves. This I've been long aware of. I would imagine that if space expanded "intra" galaxy as it seemingly does "inter" galaxy, galaxies themselves would eventually disintegrate because, in Yeat's words, "the centre cannot hold" that is, distance must finally surmount the ability any theorized super massive Black Hole holding it togther.

My response was meant specifically in context to the following statement by Wizard:

If the space-time between the walls in your bedroom is expanding then why not also the dimensions of the yard stick you used to measure that space? The yard stick, or the nano-inches, the device itself used to measure distance, must also be expanding.

...if this, purely as a though experiment, were true, that everything expands including intra galactic space AND everything contained within, it would make no difference; the Universe would remain static because everything would be expanding at the same rate the ratio between objects and forces would remain constant which does not correspond to theory and least of all observation.

BTW, I appreciate the link! Thanks!

To break the so-called paradox that all yardsticks expand or contract in an expanding or contracting universe, there is one that never expands or contracts relative to an expanding or contracting universe, and that is the speed of light itself in SR and due to the success of SR to explain and make predictions, I consider this matter to be resolved.

that has always been. what was there before the universe began?

Wizard wrote:My position is not a 'guess' inasmuch the "Big Bang Theory" is also a guess.

Your wording is denigration. As-if you have any evidence or proof of the Big Bang? No, you merely repeat what scientists tell you. Did you do any of the reasoning/experimentation yourself? Probably not.

Again it is much simpler to grant the premise that the universe is infinite, not expanding, and then see where this reasoning+logic takes us.

It solves too many "scientific" problems in one fell swoop. The problem is this—science is too ingrained in its BBT postulation. Similar to how Roman Catholics and general Christianity is too ingrained in Creationism.

But this is all anti-philosophical. This is a philosophy forum. So everybody should agree with me, not science, not religion.

Side with reason.

I do side with reason, which is why I more trust the expertise of serious researchers to an anonymous person on an internet forum. Renegades may make the breakthroughs but the strength of the human race has come from shared accumulated knowledge, which requires at least some trust of others' expertise.

Still, like you, I have done my own speculating, some of which I have now mentioned twice on this thread but seemingly yet to hit the mark. However, not only does all the math and observations point to a beginning and end - at least of what we call the universe today - but it strikes me as intuitively more logical than anything else I've heard. After all, everything else is subject to entropy and has a beginning and an end, so why not the universe?

Once we thought we lived on a flat Earth surrounded by a canopy of stars. Gradually we broadened our conception to realise that our solar system is a minuscule part of a vast galaxy. Then we found that there are billions of galaxies. So I figure there's a decent chance that our conception will be expanded again, and String Theory suggests that the Universe is just one amongst many.

This raises the question of defining "universe". As I've said here before, the title may be a misnomer, given that "universe" is supposed to mean everything, not just a vast array of galaxies and dark matter and energy amongst billions of other such entities. M-theorists refer to this larger entity containing the theoretical billions of "universes" unglamorously as The Bulk. For the purposes of this conversation, I have referred to the Universe as per the common conception, not The Bulk.

For all I know, The Bulk is eternal, and that intuitively fits for me but, again, it can only be guesswork.

Greta wrote:I do side with reason, which is why I more trust the expertise of serious researchers to an anonymous person on an internet forum. Renegades may make the breakthroughs but the strength of the human race has come from shared accumulated knowledge, which requires at least some trust of others' expertise.

Here you imply that I neither am a "serious researcher" nor have "expertise", and I disagree.

Greta wrote:Still, like you, I have done my own speculating, some of which I have now mentioned twice on this thread but seemingly yet to hit the mark. However, not only does all the math and observations point to a beginning and end - at least of what we call the universe today - but it strikes me as intuitively more logical than anything else I've heard. After all, everything else is subject to entropy and has a beginning and an end, so why not the universe?

Prove that "everything else" has a beginning and end, starting with a very, very simple premise. What is the beginning of life? Conception? Birth? Your first birthday? Your wedding day? Give me one, just one, solid, simple answer. Tell me the (objective) beginning of life. If you cannot do this then I will disregard all the statements you just made. This should be a very easy test.

Greta wrote:Once we thought we lived on a flat Earth surrounded by a canopy of stars. Gradually we broadened our conception to realise that our solar system is a minuscule part of a vast galaxy. Then we found that there are billions of galaxies. So I figure there's a decent chance that our conception will be expanded again, and String Theory suggests that the Universe is just one amongst many.

This raises the question of defining "universe". As I've said here before, the title may be a misnomer, given that "universe" is supposed to mean everything, not just a vast array of galaxies and dark matter and energy amongst billions of other such entities. M-theorists refer to this larger entity containing the theoretical billions of "universes" unglamorously as The Bulk. For the purposes of this conversation, I have referred to the Universe as per the common conception, not The Bulk.

For all I know, The Bulk is eternal, and that intuitively fits for me but, again, it can only be guesswork.

And humanity eventually will agree with me, that the Universe neither has beginning nor end.

All in due space-time.

As humans, we tend to use our physical body as the yardstick in which we measure everything else, so that things smaller then our body, like a pebble, are considered to be small and things bigger then us, like the universe, we considered to be vast. However, if we remove our physical body from the equation, and could travel by changing our size, we find that we could go infinitely smaller or larger, in either direction! An entire universe is contained in a single pebble and all the galaxy's that we see, could be nerve cells in the brain of some cosmic creature.

Wizard wrote:

Greta wrote:Still, like you, I have done my own speculating, some of which I have now mentioned twice on this thread but seemingly yet to hit the mark. However, not only does all the math and observations point to a beginning and end - at least of what we call the universe today - but it strikes me as intuitively more logical than anything else I've heard. After all, everything else is subject to entropy and has a beginning and an end, so why not the universe?

Prove that "everything else" has a beginning and end, starting with a very, very simple premise. What is the beginning of life? Conception? Birth? Your first birthday? Your wedding day? Give me one, just one, solid, simple answer. Tell me the (objective) beginning of life. If you cannot do this then I will disregard all the statements you just made. This should be a very easy test.

[...] stars and planets have a beginning and end, as do galaxies. We are born and we die. Each entity's component parts were around before its birth and continue on in changed energetic form as per Newton's first law of dynamics but the patterns through which energy flows that we call "us" for the blink of an eye in geological time do have a beginning and end.

The machine breaks down. Ultimately entropy breaks everything apart. What parts of that pattern of life that may persist in other dimensions is anyone's guess - and we are inclined to guess, hence the existence of religions.

It could be said we are all part of one larger entity and our little beginnings and ends are merely movements in that one entity. However, that begs the question as to why the nature of the Universe would differ so markedly from its component parts. Possibly via emergence, but generally I'd apply Occam's Razor here and consider unknown emergent qualities to only be a possibility in lieu of evidence.

Wizard wrote:

Greta wrote:Once we thought we lived on a flat Earth surrounded by a canopy of stars. Gradually we broadened our conception to realise that our solar system is a minuscule part of a vast galaxy. Then we found that there are billions of galaxies. So I figure there's a decent chance that our conception will be expanded again, and String Theory suggests that the Universe is just one amongst many.

This raises the question of defining "universe". As I've said here before, the title may be a misnomer, given that "universe" is supposed to mean everything, not just a vast array of galaxies and dark matter and energy amongst billions of other such entities. M-theorists refer to this larger entity containing the theoretical billions of "universes" unglamorously as The Bulk. For the purposes of this conversation, I have referred to the Universe as per the common conception, not The Bulk.

For all I know, The Bulk is eternal, and that intuitively fits for me but, again, it can only be guesswork.

And humanity eventually will agree with me, that the Universe neither has beginning nor end.

All in due space-time.

Theoretically you have a 50% chance, which are decent odds.

Wizard wrote:All in due space-time.

Once we can understand spacetime then all will be infinitely due. Don't know what that means but figured it was due or die?

Present awareness wrote:... all the galaxy's that we see, could be nerve cells in the brain of some cosmic creature.

It's such a fun notion. I've felt on the way to swooning, thinking about the scales involved, like standing on a ledge over a cliff and feeling the vastness drawing you in.

Certainly nature is full of fractals and certain themes keep cropping up, such as bursts like the BB, supernovas, fireworks, water spurts, the wind, inspiration). Then there's branching, as observed in galaxies, species, trees, bodies (incl. neurons), the Internet, body of knowledge. There is also rotation, as seen in celestial bodies, cyclones, blood, storms, wheels, electrons and philosophical debates

So why couldn't the multiverse be part of a larger branch, or be rotating around something, or be blown out of other dimensions? Any of these would not only change our conception of what a universe is but also the age of the newly defined universe.

Well said Greta. Everything in the universe seems to be relative to everything else, and that which we see on a microscopic scale is also witnessed on a cosmic scale. The Big Bang may have happened, but perhaps after so many billions of years, the universe contracts back into itself and then starts again, like a giant lung, breathing in and out?

Greta wrote:We are born and we die.

Is birth the beginning of all life?

Are bacterium, fungus, viruses, and cells "born"? So you, Greta, were born, and all life came into existence revolving around you? If you die then all life dies???

Also it merely is your subjective opinion that "life begins at birth". I know many Conservative, Traditional, Fundamentalist religionists who staunchly disagree with you, and claim life begins at conception, not birth.

And I personally disagree, maybe your life "began" on your 10th birthday, how do you know otherwise?