Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[TigerNinja]

The big bang. The one thing that was meant to have started everything from life to death to the causes of such. This spectacular even was supposedly like a silent explosion in space spreading and creating all of the stars which would then create matter that would form the universe.

There are some fatal flaws with the big bang, such as the either misconception or contradictory belief that it 'created' matter This creation defies science, as the laws of physics deem that no matter can be created, nor can it be destroyed. This means that the big bang could not have existed, as it contradicts the very things it creates. One interesting possibility to explore is the hypothetical idea that the big bang never occurred and we are living in an atom. Relative to us it is a huge atom although really, as we are the only people we know of who are able to judge the relative size of the universe.The way scientists look down their microscopes at atoms could be what is happening to us right now. It is just that our atom is so large relative to us that we cannot see- nor understand how insignificant and small we are.

The big bang then 'created' (for a lack of a better word without the same implication) the stars which in turn somehow formed new elements from the combination of the base chemicals first created in the big bang. These creations then in turn ended up forming our entire universe, but how was all of this matter simply created. If a physicist or astronomer or astrophysicist is here, please do correct me if I have any of my facts wrong. Aside from that, how would we explain the nature of the universe if its birth is confined to a shadowy corner of mysterious science? How could it have been formed otherwise? Confer below!

[Eduk]

Science doesn't claim to understand how the big bang occurred. Within the universe the conservation of energy has thus far been consistent with empirical evidence. It is a good solid theory. Outside of the universe however science makes no predictions so there are no contradictions.

[Steve3007]

This spectacular even was supposedly like a silent explosion in space spreading and creating all of the stars which would then create matter that would form the universe.

Not really. It is (not was) supposedly an expansion of the space containing the matter. It's not an explosion. That implies a rapid expansion of matter into space that already exists.

The matter and energy from which we're made supposedly already existed. It expanded and as it cooled it "condensed" into elementary particles and then atomic nuclei, then atoms then molecules.

Or something like that.

Whether or not you think the evidence supports this kind of model, there is no contradiction for at least two reasons. One of them is the one that Eduk gave: The law of conservation of energy (or mass/energy) like all other physical laws is a generalisation created from observations of things happening within the universe. It's descriptive not predictive, and it says nothing at all about the creation of the universe. The other, as I said above, is that the Big Bang Theory is not about the creation of something. It's about expansion and the consequent conversion of already existing matter/energy between different forms.

-- Updated Tue Apr 04, 2017 9:21 am to add the following --

Above, I meant to say "descriptive not prescriptive". i.e. if we discover at some point that mass/energy can actually be created or destroyed, and we're sure of our observations, or if we make any other observation that contradict the theories we've created based on previous observations, then it's the theories that need to be updated, not reality.

[A Poster He or I]

I can only restate what Eduk and Steve have already said. Science is first to admit that science falls apart if you try to apply it before the first 10^-47th second of our universe, so it isn't scientific to discuss "creation." Science is about deductive modeling of the behavior of our universe. The best models we have so far don't work for the so-called Planck Era. Maybe someday we'll have better models.

[Present awareness]

The Big Bang is a flawed concept. Something from nothing just doesn't work. Science is unable to explain it, all they can do is observe a result which appears to go back about 13.7 billion years. However, if you think of the Big Bang as a local event in an infinite universe, which has always existed, it begins to make more sense.

[Sy Borg]

The Big Bang is a flawed concept. Something from nothing just doesn't work. Science is unable to explain it, all they can do is observe a result which appears to go back about 13.7 billion years. However, if you think of the Big Bang as a local event in an infinite universe, which has always existed, it begins to make more sense.

However, something from almost nothing does work, at least in mathematical models. Many pundits think it likely that the pre big bang universe was not a true nothingness, but full of virtual particles aka vacuum fluctuations, popping in and out of existence quickly enough to be considered "virtual".

Lawrence Krauss and others posited that one of these Planck scale fluctuations did not immediately wink out of existence like the others and thus expanded unrestrained until its own emerging masses slowed the inflation for a while. This is where the eternal inflation multiverse hypothesis comes from, where hyperspace consisting of dark energy and virtual particles produce countless new universes in roughly the way described above.

Even if universes don't appear in parallel, it's possible that they are serial, in which case who can say which iteration our universe might be? The big bang would seem more likely to be a state change of reality, not its beginning. Then again, it might simply be a while hole at the other end of an ultramassive black hole, creating a new area of space through the inner horizon in, I suppose, a different dimension.

That's another possibility - that there are multiple dimensions, in which case our dimensions might be emergent from others. While string theory and its many dimensions are looking shaky after the LHC found no evidence of supersymmetry, the other main ToE contender, loop quantum gravity has its own problems that aspects of string theory may tidy up. That may involve adding at least one extra dimension.

So, no, science does not contradict itself. It's largely just exploring and reporting findings. The latter can be an issue because some educators and commentators, in an effort to not bore audiences with the "clutter" of qualifiers, make claims of certainty that are not logically supportable. That can give the impression of "science contradicting itself".

[Steve3007]

Present awareness:

Something from nothing just doesn't work. ... if you think of the Big Bang as a local event in an infinite universe, which has always existed, it begins to make more sense.

What exactly do you mean by terms like "doesn't work" and "...make more sense"? What are the criteria that an observed event, or set of events, has to meet to make sense? As far as I can see, the only criterion available is that it is consistent with, and doesn't deviate from, our experience over a few decades on the surface of the planet Earth. I've never seen something come from nothing so the universe as a whole cannot have come from nothing. Yes?

Greta:

However, something from almost nothing does work, at least in mathematical models. Many pundits think it likely that the pre big bang universe was not a true nothingness, but full of virtual particles aka vacuum fluctuations, popping in and out of existence quickly enough to be considered "virtual".

I think the key point here, and the meaning of the expression "...does work" in this context, is that what you've described (vacuum fluctuations) is consistent with laws of quantum mechanics that are themselves the results of observations. So it's not just mathematical models that lead us to believe that such vacuum fluctuations can happen. Those models do describe patterns in observations.

So I think the point you're really making to present awareness is that, perhaps, "something out of [almost] nothing" can actually "make sense" in the sense that I described that term above. It can be consistent with our other observations. They are grounded in empirical evidence.

The point I was making was that even if it wasn't - even if it broke a pattern that we think we've spotted - that wouldn't necessarily make it impossible or illogical, as many people often suggest. It would just mean that a pattern has been broken.

[Eduk]

I've never seen something come from nothing so the universe as a whole cannot have come from nothing. Yes?

Which ever way you slice causality you end with an infinite regression (a logically bad thing). If that's someone saying God made it and someone else saying who made God. Or if it's someone saying the big bang did it, ok what made the big bang. I mean I prefer the big bang theory but it still leaves the issue of what came before. Causality has this major flaw that makes it logically impossible, this does not mean causality is wrong as such, but it does mean it's not the whole story. It is a possibility that the whole story is incomprehensible to human life (possibly, pure conjecture on my part).
Statements like it always existed while removing the infinite regression only replace it with something else equally impossible and incomprehensible.

[Steve3007]

One thing I would emphasise is that the concept of causality is a model just like any other. It is a useful way to describe and predict correlations between events. It may be one of our mostly deeply useful and trusted models, but it's still a model.

I would then say that an indefinitely long series of causes and effects may indeed be impossible for us to comprehend but that's not the same as saying that it's illogical.

Personally, I'm not really bothered about whether our models represent the "real" story or whether we truly understand nature because I don't think it's possible to properly define what we mean by that. I'm more in favour of the "Shut up and calculate!" approach. Models are either useful of not useful for describing and predicting observations.

[-1-]

"Shut up and calculate!" approach. Models are either useful of not useful for describing and predicting observations.

That's the biggest divide between solipsism and a belief that we experience reality. Solipsism requires no model of causality. Reality, as we can perceive it, does.

My photo-model girlfriend can predict every time what will happen when I visit her in her boudoir. She has a 100% accuracy rate in the a priori general prediction, and a 76% precision rate in her a priori description.

My other, the run-way model, girlfriend is useless, like you said in this either-or applicability of usefulness, when it comes to solving second-degree three-unknown differential equations with imaginary numbers. She can't calculate; she can't even shut up.

[Present awareness]

Well said Eduk and Steve3007. I agree with both of your posts, because they point out the difficulty in regards to ideas about the Big Bang theory.

[Eduk]

I would then say that an indefinitely long series of causes and effects may indeed be impossible for us to comprehend but that's not the same as saying that it's illogical.

I think it is illogical. On the one hand causation says everything has a cause and on the other you say there is no end to the prior causes. Throws up a bit of a Zeno's paradox, if there is an infinity of time and events before us how the hell did we get here at this exact time, shouldn't we still be somewhere in that infinity of prior events infinitely far from our current time? Problem with the use of infinity is that it often seems like the words make sense, but when you define things by what they aren't you run into issues.
For example no where in the universe can you show me anything that is infinite, there is no reason to believe that anything is infinite if you go by the scientific standard of empirical evidence.

[Steve3007]

-1-:

That's the biggest divide between solipsism and a belief that we experience reality.

I've almost always found it useful to believe that I experience an objectively existing reality and that various things cause various other things. It's a huge help when I'm trying to make sense of almost everything.

I'm confused about your model girlfriends. Which one is most useful to you?

Eduk:

I think it is illogical. On the one hand causation says everything has a cause and on the other you say there is no end to the prior causes...

Certainly causation implies infinity if the the concept of causation can be summarised by a statement like: "everything, including causes, has a cause." or more simply: "every cause has a cause". Logically, anything that is self referential like that will generate an infinity - a stack overflow! turtles all the way down!

Is being self-referential and thereby generating an infinite loop illogical? I don't know.

Whether or not we call it illogical, I agree that by definition infinities are non-physical and will never be experienced in any observation. That's why, in physics, they appear as "limits" or in generalisations - laws. Take any law of physics and you will find implicit or explicit infinities because the laws of physics, being models, are not themselves observed reality but are idealisations. Take, for example, the ideal gas law. It makes certain properties of gases simple enough to model and predict by assuming such things as infinitesimally small point particles. All of these non-physical mathematical models that we call the laws of physics attempt to simplify things by allowing certain aspects of the problem to collapse to zero or to its reciprocal. And take any law of physics which is a generalisation and you'll find it purports to apply to an infinite number of possible observations. That's built into the inductive reasoning that is used to create those laws.

[Present awareness]

You bring up a good point about the concept of time, Eduk. Time does not exsist in reality, it is only a useful concept used by humans. All there ever has been or will be, is this present moment. "Now" does not arrive or depart since everything is contained within it. Regardless of how much distance between me and you, it is "now" for both of us.

[Steve3007]

Time does not exist in reality, it is only a useful concept used by humans.

Why single out time as merely a useful concept that does not really exist? If you say that about time then can't you say it about pretty much anything? Matter? Energy? Gravity? Electromagnetism? Aren't they (arguably) all just useful concepts used by us to explain various sensations that we experience? Conversely, isn't it convenient to think of them all as being just as real as anything can be?