owleye

Thiaoouba

"I see that some have already grasped, unlike other replies to my topic, "the fact that if the universe is expanding then it cannot be infinite" - so maybe we should concentrate on trying to persuade some others to the fact that "expansion of the universe rules out it being infinite". This is a fact."

It is sometimes reasonable to suggest that certain theories are so well founded that we may call them facts. For example, many think that Darwinian evolution is a fact. However, your use of fact is a quite different kettle of fish. First, it may be a fact that the universe is expanding though in order to understand this you would have to consider the universe in mathematical terms, and not intuitively. It is not a fact, however, that because the universe is expanding, it is therefore finite. This would reflect a conclusion of an argument that you think proves it. As it happens I have my doubts that you can demonstrate this.

"For you have to admit and let's follow some logic here: (and I think this debate should be interesting - it continues the one I started earlier on this Philosophy forum)."

What is it that I have to admit? You have a penchant, I think, for starting something and not realizing that your thoughts go faster than your fingers, which, coupled with a short memory, means you can't really finish a sentence.

1. Universe expands

Let me grant this, but only in conjunction with how cosmologists understand this term.

2. Therefore there was an initiation to the expansion.

Not so. The expansion need not have had a beginning, since it could have been expanding forever.

3. An expansion cannot happen without a causing impetus.

I believe you are thinking of 'expansion' in its ordinary sense and not in the sense that cosmologists understand it. If causation is a meaningful scientific term we may assume that no causal laws are being broken with respect to the expansion -- thus it is possible that when we extrapolate our currect conception back to some originating condition, this originating condition could very well be the result of what was going on prior to this state. (This makes certain assumptions about what time itself means under the condition of expansion. One needs to think of time as we ordinarily do, in relationship to the advance of a perfect clock within our own frame of reference.)

4. What is the causing impetus for the explosion called the Big Bang?

No one has any understanding of what the universe was like prior to its originating condition. Much speculation centers around some quantum perturbation. However, since the laws we have come to know that determine the course the universe takes can be suspended beneath the so-called Planck time horizon, time itself need not function in the way it does following that magical instant. Thus it could have taken an eternity to reach that instant.

5. The Universe is COMPLEX.

This needs to be explained. It is reasonable to suppose that the universe was not complex at the origin and will not be complex when it collapses or comes to a heat death. Complexity may have more to do with the quantum nature of existence, or alternatively, with neural networks like the brain. However, the universe itself may not be particularly complex it if is governed by relatively simple laws.

6. The universe is ORDERED, even if we cannot perceive this order in many instances.

Do you mean by this that there is a structure to the universe? If so, I suppose you would have to tell me what that structure is? I suspect you do not understand current cosmology well enough to be able to say how it is structured.

7. What can be a causing impetus to the Big Bang such that it produces a COMPLEX and ORDERED universe?

8. The chances of this happening by chance are ZERO. (eg. you don't see a complex human being suddenly creating itself at the corner pizza shop, in front of everyone, by 'chance')

This is a totally inane conclusion based on your assuming that the universe is like a pizza shop. It need not be suddenly created. Indeed it could have taken an eternity to create and an unlimited number of random attempts before this one happened.

9. if the universe was not 'created', we are implying that it is the only thing that was not created, while everything in it (after the initial Big Bang) actually follows a cause-and-effect pattern.

Causation is rather a tricky concept. Just because it applies to things in the universe doesn't imply that the universe as a whole had a cause. The universe is merely the name given to all that exists (in a material sense). If there was something existing prior to the big bang, it too would be part of the universe.

10. My logic says that if everything in the Universe, after its creation, follows a cause and effect pattern of being made (even if we cannot see 'the causes' often), then the act of this universe being created must also result from a cause-and-effect action.

If you wish to conclude this, that's fine, but why would the causal nexus of what is currently thought of as its origin not be part of what constitutes the universe as it existed prior to that origin?

11. Effect: big Bang, from a singularity

12. Cause: debatable, although logic suggests 'intelligence' rather than chance (as I already mentioned above)

Bringing in another unexplained entity is unwarranted here. I'm seeing a bias toward a conclusion when in fact there may be other explanations that you haven't considered. Does chance play any role at all in the way the universe proceeds or is everything that currently exists destined to exist from its origin? If so, it sounds like you believe in predestination.

13. Logic: if the universe began with an explosion, then, LIKE FOR ANY OTHER EXPLOSION - everything part of the explosion AFTER the initial moment of the explosion occurring - is already PREDICTABLE - from the NECESSARY initial conditions that MUST HAVE LOGICALLY BEEN THERE for the explosion to be made possible in the first place.

I don't think everything is predictable following an explosion. What makes you think this?

14. Logically, then, if everything after the Big Bang must have been predictable (since it was an explosion) then this NECESSITATES "a design" - otherwise you could not have an explosion.

That something is predictable means that we have discovered the ordered nature of things from which the prediction follows. To say it was designed that way speaks more about your bias than it does anything else. For example, the flow of the Nile is to the north. This is predictable from the looking at the watershed the originates the Nile and noting the path with least resistence leads into the Mediterranean Sea. That the Nile was designed to flow into that Sea cannot legitimately be made.

15. No design, or no 'cause and effect' pattern - no explosion possible. This is a very powerful statement, because it PROVES, at least logically, that THE EXPLOSION called Big Bang must have been DESIGNED - otherwise you could not get the necessary initial conditions that set out what the explosion will be like.

I suspect you will not find many on this forum who would agree with you here.

16. How can there be "complex initial conditions" without being designed? Complexity does not logically result from randomness. this would not make logical sense (also physical sense)

What makes you think that the initial conditions of the universe were complex? Secondly, what makes you think that randomness cannot create complexity? I think you are way off base here and revealing your prejudice.

17. Many people would say "simple, these initial conditions were 'random and unpredictable'". WRONG. If they were random and unpredictable, then there is no guarrantee that a Big bang would occur and THERE IS NO guarrantee that an explosion would occur at all!!!!!

Who is seeking a guarantee here? If the so-called big-bang occurred as a result of some random event, it doesn't matter in the least how long it took to reach just the right random event. An unlimited number of prior attempts could have occurred which produced different sorts of universes. If it was only by chance that this universe was kicked off in the way it was, it doesn't matter in the least how many prior attempts were made that failed. No one is counting.

18. Hence, to guarrantee the Big Bang happening, and, since it's an explosion with 'initial conditions' - then it must have, logically, been a case of 'Intelligent Design' - it is impossible to have an explosion without 'causing factors' - and you cannot have causing factors which cause an orderly universe without these being designed. Again, you cannot have order from randomness - the chances are ZERO - as we increase in complexity, chances of this complexity being as due to a radndom process decrease - to ZERO for the most complex event that is clearly the Big Bang.

19. And here's where i give you the pleasure of reading a masterpiece on more or less 'why did the
big Bang happen', and it's here:

<a href="http://www.thiaoouba.com/freedom.zip" target="_blank">www.thiaoouba.com/freedom.zip</a> (pdf file with a password "free")

Sorry, can't buy your characterization of it. I think you have very low standards if this is what you think of as a masterpiece.

owleye

mattmattmattmattv

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Thiaoouba:

"a causing impetus."

"The chances of this happening by chance"

"logical sense"

"And here's where i give you the pleasure of reading a masterpiece on more or less 'why did the
big Bang happen', and it's here:"

Repetitively redundant, isn't it?

~~matt

Typhon

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1270726.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1270726.stm</a>

.T.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Defiant Heretic

One thing that might be considered when discussing the cause of the universe’s expansion is the relatively recent discovery of dark matter. I don’t know too much about this but one property of it seems to be that it pushes matter away, instead attracting like normal matter does. It would also appear to exist in greater quantities than normal matter. It was originally theorized when astronomers discovered that the rate of the universe’s expansion is actually increasing.


Note: Everything in these next three paragraphs is my own idea (although I might not be the first one who thought of it-I don’t know) It is entirely theoretical.

This would suggest that at one time the universe was not expanding at all. Assuming dark matter only repels normal matter, and actually attracts other dark matter, it is conceivable that the singularity of the Big Bang Theory was actually composed of dark matter, and that somehow the dark matter began to be converted to normal matter, then the dark matter would push the normal matter away, and the universe would begin to expand. As the speed and quantity of the normal matter increased, inertia would begin to play a larger role in the expansion than dark matter. When all dark matter became converted to normal matter, the expansion would be a matter of inertia vs. gravity. If inertia had a greater effect than gravity, the universe would be open-it would continue to expand forever. If gravity had the greater effect, the universe would be closed-it would eventually collapse into a singularity-this time composed of normal matter.

If normal matter can be converted to dark matter (and I think it might have been done in a laboratory setting) then this might happen in the singularity of normal matter causing it to expand. Events would then proceed essentially the same as in the preceding paragraph, ending in either an infinitely expanding universes, or a dark matter singularity.

If these two events happen alternately (dark matter singularity expands into normal matter universe, normal matter universe collapses into normal matter singularity, normal matter singularity expands into dark matter universe, dark matter universe collapses into dark matter singularity, repeat) it would create a model for an infinite universe that both expands and does not rely on divine influence.


If anyone is an expert on this subject, please contribute something here. The premises I made here are:

• Normal matter attracts normal matter (I’m pretty sure this one’s already validated.)
• Dark matter attracts dark matter
• Dark matter repels normal matter and vice versa
• Dark matter can be converted to normal matter and vice versa
• Universe (in both dark and normal forms) is closed

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Defiant Heretic ]</p>

Shadowy Man

Can you please post the reference to the "discovery of dark matter"?

MadKally

Worked for me! I smile all the time now!

NialScorva

one thread too many on the same subject, T.