Universe: Created or Eternal?
Posted by j_IR1776wg 11 years, 7 months ago to Philosophy
I wondered as a child whether the stories I was hearing in church (RC) were true or just stories. After many decades of research and reading, I am convinced that these two: Created or Eternal are the only two possible reasons for the Universe to exist. In another venue, I expressed my thoughts as follows:
It doth puzzle me
That the universe can only be
Created or here eternally.
Someone or something
Had to supervise diligently,
Was it God or Gravity?
The problem you see is that
No one understands infinity.
No Theologian, Philosopher,
Physicist or Mathematician has
Ever claimed to see forever
Forward or backward infinitely,
That is why I'll neither Theist nor
Atheist be till someone can enlighten
Me on this matter of infinity.
Since I believe that our five senses along with
Aristotle's logic and Galileo's scientific method
are all we have to correctly identify the universe,
I'm at roadblock. Has anyone in the Gulch thought this through to a more certain conclusion?
It doth puzzle me
That the universe can only be
Created or here eternally.
Someone or something
Had to supervise diligently,
Was it God or Gravity?
The problem you see is that
No one understands infinity.
No Theologian, Philosopher,
Physicist or Mathematician has
Ever claimed to see forever
Forward or backward infinitely,
That is why I'll neither Theist nor
Atheist be till someone can enlighten
Me on this matter of infinity.
Since I believe that our five senses along with
Aristotle's logic and Galileo's scientific method
are all we have to correctly identify the universe,
I'm at roadblock. Has anyone in the Gulch thought this through to a more certain conclusion?
I don't want to oversimplify the conundrum or claim to have any answers... I used to wonder what was beyond the universe if it is, in fact, bounded. The, very strange, and obviously silly, answer I came up with was "blank paper". No better, really, than "turtles all the way down" in reference to that which a flat earth might rest upon.
If our fundamental epistemological tools are integration and differentiation, and we apply differentiation to the question, I think there is at least a proper definition of "infinite".
To perceive light, one cannot fail to perceive lack thereof..
To perceive heat, one cannot fail to perceive lack thereof.
In theory, every perceptual/conceptual differentiation simultaneously co-creates 2 opposite percepts/concepts... We can say: light and not light or dark and not dark, hot and not hot or cold and not cold, etc. In this context, the concept of "finite" was co-created with it's opposite. "Finite" is defined as "having limits or bounds". The concept of "finite" is definitely abstract in reference to something like the circumference of the earth - we cannot perceive it directly, but we can infer from more basic epistemological concepts that the earth, does, in fact, have a circumference.
At any rate, this line of thought leads to the conclusion that "infinite" is an abstract concept defined as "having no limits or no bounds".
Because there are finite things that we can perceive and finite things we can only conceive, "finite" should be just as troubling as "infinite". I don't find either to be very troubling these days, knowing that their conceptual structure is well grounded in epistemology.
Everything is conceptually infinite until we can identify its limits or bounds, so while nothing may actually be infinite, there is still utility in the concept.
I hate to say it, but you may have to wait for infinity to get a satisfactory answer... Wouldn't it be more productive to make a study of the finite in the meantime?
As always, I'm open to comments and constructive criticism. Don't go easy on me if you disagree with my reasoning.
Is it poor form to cite a dictionary?
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/finite
Finite - 1.a. Having bounds; limited
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/infinit...
Infinite - 1. Having no boundaries or limits.
Very likely a Universe does not have a beginning. Why is that harder to comprehend than if it had a beginning? Because then you would have to answer the questions of what caused, came before the beginning?
How does one comprehend their own death-and why is that any harder to comprehend than the whole of time before you were born?
What is north of the North Pole?
What happens below the temperature of absolute zero?
What came before the start of time?
If logic points in a certain direction, one must accept the direction it's heading in even though they do not have the "next" answer. Too often,, even our most celebrated scientists and mathematicians ignore evidence because they were uncomfortable with the implications. Why does Time have to have a beginning or start?
Good point! Would time exist if we humans weren't here to measure it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kab9dkDZ...
You made me have to spell that word and I do not know how. twice. so now you get this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N_tupPBt...
There are 3 known forces which account for all known physical phenomena in the universe;
Strong force
Gravatational force
Electroweak force.
There is no time force.
Acceleration requires TIME.
See Olbers' Paradox here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_p...
Multiple Universe are okay because it allows you to then predict anything you want because ultimately there's a universe that exists that allows for it. Why so many like this idea is because then you no longer have to prove it, because it's in another universe that we don't have any hope of detecting or seeing.
(One of the reasons I hate philosophy and prefer hard proof, you can literally reason anything into existence)
(One of the reasons I hate philosophy and prefer hard proof, you can literally reason anything into existence):-)
Philosophy (Aristotle's logic for instance) must precede Science or you'd have no way to get your hard proof.
Infinity is a direction, not a number you can conceive of . As an a variable tends toward infinity, an expression may converge on a value. This does not mean we think of infinity as a number.
The question of whether the universe was created does not seem like a scientific question to me. Science does experiments on things in the universe. I don't see a way for it to step outside the universe.
Interesting point this. I'm not sure if I agree with it. After all, didn't Isaac Newton correctly and accurately determine the mass of the Earth without ever leaving the surface?
2. Of course it is a scientific question. It deals with the physical Universe.
Our current knowledge of the universe points to a "big bang" about 15B years ago. The question is what was there before that?
1) Nothing. (How did the universe come into being?)
2) A stable state of 'something'. (What destabilized it? Do Newton's laws apply in the metaverse, or only in this universe?)
3) A prior universe that ended in a 'big crunch', the 'big bang' is the rebound. (Are fundamental physical constants and laws the same in the two universes, or different?)
4) The universe is simulated, something analogous to a 'universe simulator program' running on some computer hardware somewhere; the question doesn't make sense, like "what program is running when the power is off?". (This begs the question: what about the next layer out. Is it also simulated? When do the layers of simulation end?)
I can't think of any experiment that could distinguish the above cases.
Matter and anti-matter are identical except they have opposite electrical charges.
They are anti-particles.
Einstein's equation reduces to its most famous form E = mc². In the 1930's physicists discovered the equation worked in both directions. That is, if enough energy exists in a given area, mass in the form of a pair of particles (electron and positron ) would be created, travel a short distance, then collide and annihilate each other with 100% of their mass would ending up as
energy (E). This process takes an extremely short time; about 0.000000000000000001 of a second.
Astronomers tell us that when big bang occurred there was an equal amount of matter and
anti-matter created. Now, however, the anti-matter is missing.
What if just prior to the big bang the only thing in existence was an enormous energy field and the universe is just an example of pair production writ large? Would the ratio of the combined masses of the pair to the time taken to complete the process be the same for the electron/positron pair as for the matter/anti-matter universe?
The mass for an electron/positron pair is ≈ 1.8 X 10 ^ -30 Kg.
The time span for an electron/positron pair from inception to destruction is ≈ 10 ^ -18 Sec
Estimates for the mass of the universe range from 8 X 10 ^ 52 Kg to 1.4 X 10 ^ 53 Kg. X 2 to account for the anti-matter universe.
The ratio for the election/positron pair is
1.8 X 10 ^ -30 Kg
------------------------- ≈ 1.8 X 10 ^ -12
1 X 10 ^ -18 Sec
Hence, the ratio for the matter/anti-matter universes is
2.8 X 10 ^ 53 Kg
------------------------ ≈ 1.8 X 10 ^ -12
1.6 X 10 ^ 65 Sec
And
1.6 X 10 ^ 65 Sec ≈ 5.1 X 10 ^ 57 years
Would be the time it will take for the matter/anti-matter universes to collide and disappear
back into the energy field.
Therefore, the universe has a beginning and an end, the missing anti-matter is accounted for,
and simplicity is elegant.
His only sticking point is combining positron to electron would not always happen in that time frame. for example, a PET scan uses positrons longer(before annihilating) than you suggest, in order to be of use. Inventors rely on this all the time.
So, to me, it requires a universe limited in size (present understanding does not square with).
There is no reason to suggest that the basic rules of Physics would vary from one Universe to the next.
Last comment is Platonic view of metaphysics. Rand does not prescribe to this, nor I.
What is one third expressed in decimal? There is infinity looking back at you. One cannot deny the logic of its existence.
No deity needed to explain the concept of infinity. But understand, there have been all sorts of mathematicians who felt uncomfortable with the concept of 0 and infinity. Which is why the number 0 was not in use until around the 12th century AD. Wherever the logic and evidence takes you-it's when people fight the evidence or logic, is when they fail to make the discoveries that are right in front of their face. Two books for your pleasure and comfortability:
http://www.amazon.com/Zero-Biography-Dan...
(I did not like the book Non-Zero by the same author)
http://www.amazon.com/Flatland-Romance-D...
where M = mass of an object, C = speed of light in a vacuum, and V = the velocity of an object clearly shows that as V → C, the denominator → 0 and Mm → ∞.
Therefore, he concluded that no object could travel at the speed of light and, in fact, could not even equal the speed of light. We still have no concept for infinite mass.
I don't believe anyone has wrapped their mind around the physical meaning of the square root of minus one since someone stumbled on to it in the Middle Ages. We use it because it works.
I still don't know if the Universe was created or is Eternal.
Phases in electrical signals are directly related to the the square root of negative one. That clearly shows people can "wrap their mind around the physical meaning."
In the meantime, thanks for the book recommendation.