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Author Topic:   Time and Beginning to Exist
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 181 of 302 (642666)
11-30-2011 12:37 PM
Reply to: Message 173 by designtheorist
11-30-2011 11:38 AM


Re: Reply to PaulK #165
DT - Why do you think PaulK's argument is dependent on the non-existence of an "immaterial realm" (whatever the hell that means anyway)?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 173 by designtheorist, posted 11-30-2011 11:38 AM designtheorist has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 182 of 302 (642667)
11-30-2011 12:40 PM
Reply to: Message 176 by designtheorist
11-30-2011 11:48 AM


Re: Reply to Cavediver
designtheorist writes:
I have read a number of physicists who have described the big bang as a flash of heat and light.
I think you've been reading the wrong physicists. I can't imagine any responsible physicist giving so inaccurate a description. In simplest terms the Big Bang was a period in the early universe when it was very hot and dense, and was expanding very rapidly. Certainly photons were unable to travel freely at the earliest times, so there could be no "flash of heat and light", plus as the universe was very small there wouldn't have been much space to "flash" into anyway.
How many microseconds after the expansion begins would EM be able to appear in your opinion?
Son Goku or Cavediver will have to give the precise answer for when the energy level of the universe dropped to the point where EM appears. But I do know that the evidence indicates that the universe was opaque through its first few hundred thousand years because the energy level was too high for atoms to form. Once electrons, protons and neutrons were able to form atoms and become electrically neutral, photons could travel freely.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 176 by designtheorist, posted 11-30-2011 11:48 AM designtheorist has not replied

  
Larni
Member (Idle past 154 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 183 of 302 (642672)
11-30-2011 1:27 PM
Reply to: Message 162 by designtheorist
11-30-2011 10:10 AM


Re: Reply to PaulK #153
That's so stupid.
Refusing to admit the possibility of an unevidenced imaginary realm is in no way circular reasoning.
Yahweh being real because it says so in the bible and that must be correct because Yahweh 'inspired' it and Yahweh is always true because it says so in the bible which is 'inpsired' by Yahweh, ad nauseam: is circular reasoning.

The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer.
-Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53
Moreover that view is a blatantly anti-relativistic one. I'm rather inclined to think that space being relative to time and time relative to location should make such a naive hankering to pin-point an ultimate origin of anything, an aspiration that is not even wrong.
Well, Larni, let's say I much better know what I don't want to say than how exactly say what I do.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 162 by designtheorist, posted 11-30-2011 10:10 AM designtheorist has not replied

  
cavediver
Member (Idle past 3634 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


(4)
Message 184 of 302 (642692)
11-30-2011 4:09 PM
Reply to: Message 176 by designtheorist
11-30-2011 11:48 AM


Re: Reply to Cavediver
Reverse order...
I would like to see you evidence that the energy scale is way above where EM appears.
How basic are we here? Would you like me to "evidence" that the sky is blue as well? Anyway, SG has answered this. Other than that, go read a book on cosmology, there are many.
I have read a number of physicists who have described the big bang as a flash of heat and light.
They are not physicists. They are better described as idiots.
How many microseconds after the expansion begins would EM be able to appear in your opinion?
In my opinion? I don't have an opinion. I simply know the answer. At least, the answer as we currently accept it. In microseconds, much much much much much much less than 1 microsecond. Again, SG has provided a more precise answer.
However, from the perspective of a realm where we could watch colliding branes creating numerous universes, it would be theoretically possible but physically impossible. Do you agree or disagree?
It is not about agreeing or disagreeing with you. It is about *telling* you.
The singularity, as others have explained, is a *point* at which our modelling of spacetime becomes undefined. It is no more an object than the North Pole, which is also a singularity: that where the lattitude and longitude grid system breaks down.
If we have a larger playing field, such as the multi-dimensional space-time of M/String-Theory, then the time dimension of our Universe is inherited from the time-dimension of the larger space-time. In this case, there will be a temporal ordering of events, such as the collision of two branes that catalyse the "beginning" of our own little universe. But there will be no singularity; just a region of space that undegoes rapid expansion owing to the collision. So now we have an infinite space-time and no possible "point" of creation.
Alternatively, there may be no larger space-time in which our Universe is embedded. The singularity may be a point of topology change, where the Universe "rounds-off" and past directed time-lines flip around and become future-directed time-lines, just as north-directed lines of lattitude become south-facing lines of lattitude as you move towards and then across the North Pole. Rahvin has just mentioned this very point. Such topology changing points are not always handled well within classical General Relativity, and it is no wonder that the basic mathematics breaks down at this point. So we have a finite space-time, yet no possible "point" of creation.
In either case, we have no "cause" of the Universe. The Universe just is. And "causes" are things entirely constrained to be within these Universes.
Of course, there are other options: millions of them, and some even make some sort of sense. But the only one that looks anything like Biblical creation is the good-old classical Big bang cosmology, and that's the one we know for sure, thanks to its singularity and non-quantum nature, is wrong

This message is a reply to:
 Message 176 by designtheorist, posted 11-30-2011 11:48 AM designtheorist has not replied

  
apoptosis
Junior Member (Idle past 3961 days)
Posts: 4
Joined: 11-30-2011


(3)
Message 185 of 302 (642712)
11-30-2011 7:03 PM


Cavediver,
I think i read these forums just to read your replies. Both very informative and entertaining.

Replies to this message:
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DWIII
Member (Idle past 1743 days)
Posts: 72
From: United States
Joined: 06-30-2011


Message 186 of 302 (642719)
11-30-2011 9:40 PM
Reply to: Message 162 by designtheorist
11-30-2011 10:10 AM


What of this "immaterial realm", anyway?
designtheorist writes:
No, I couldn't. The existence or non-existence of an immaterial realm is irrelevant to the argument in the OP.
It is not irrelevant as you have already admitted in Message 124 where you wrote:
The argument deals with the case where there is no prior time in any time dimension. Assuming otherwise creates a contradiction.
As I made clear very early on, one does not have to assume the existence of an immaterial realm - only the possibility of an immaterial realm. As long as you refuse to admit a possibility of such a realm, then you are committing circular reasoning. If you admit the possibility of such a realm, then the issue you are discussing is immediately resolved.
You keep going on about this "existence of an immaterial realm" which you allegedly deduce. What is currently known about this immaterial realm? What else can be known about this immaterial realm? What specific properties (physical or metaphysical) would this immaterial realm possess? Can there be more than one immaterial realm, or must it be all one monolithic piece?
How big is this immaterial realm? How many entities (intelligent or otherwise) may comfortably reside in this immaterial realm? (Feel free to select from the various transfinite cardinalities for these last two questions.)
If this "immaterial realm" is so easy to grasp, as you say, you should be able to answer a few of these questions.

DWIII

This message is a reply to:
 Message 162 by designtheorist, posted 11-30-2011 10:10 AM designtheorist has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 194 by Rahvin, posted 12-01-2011 12:13 PM DWIII has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 187 of 302 (642730)
12-01-2011 5:01 AM
Reply to: Message 167 by designtheorist
11-30-2011 11:12 AM


Re: Reply to No Nukes #164
But let's say, for the sake of argument, the singularity was real and the laws of physics were suspended. What triggered the change? Why would the universe, stable for aeons, suddenly expand in a flash of light and heat generating the cosmic microwave background radiation we see today? Did the laws of physics just get tired? Did gravity finally just give in to the push to expand?
What you call the laws of physics are our description of what happens. They are not some magic that makes the universe work. We express those laws in mathematics. So it is impossible for the math to break down and for the laws of physics as we understand them, not to not break down. We don't have any clue how particles behave in situations that aren't even at the point of singularity.
Secondly, the point remains that you are criticizing a point of view that no poster who knows what he is talking about endorses. You seem to have a rational mind, but you don't seem to know much about cosmology. I suspect if you learn some cosmology, you'll be able to create better attacks on the arguments presented to you.
You also have a Buzsaw like tendency to jump on things that seem to agree with your position. One thing that might arm you against that is knowing just a little more about the physics and people you are citing.
But currently you are speaking nonsense.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 167 by designtheorist, posted 11-30-2011 11:12 AM designtheorist has not replied

  
cavediver
Member (Idle past 3634 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 188 of 302 (642744)
12-01-2011 8:38 AM
Reply to: Message 185 by apoptosis
11-30-2011 7:03 PM


I think i read these forums just to read your replies. Both very informative and entertaining.
Very kind of you to say so. It would be rather self-agrandising to give you a "cheer" for that, but what the hell

This message is a reply to:
 Message 185 by apoptosis, posted 11-30-2011 7:03 PM apoptosis has not replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 189 of 302 (642752)
12-01-2011 9:34 AM
Reply to: Message 178 by Son Goku
11-30-2011 11:55 AM


Appearance of Electromagnetism
I've been thinking my previous post was a little vague. One might wonder how exactly electromagnetism can just appear or disappear, since it's an entire force.
In quantum field theory we usually say that particles are small lumps in the fields and in this way the fields come first or are more fundamental than the particles. However there are actually special conditions on when exactly the lumps of a field will correspond to what we perceive as a particle. One of these conditions is that the field should have a value of 0 when the energy is 0. Or to put it another way, if there is no energy the field should be completely still at its lowest value (which is 0) everywhere.
If this doesn't happen, for example if at zero energy the field is still of strength 6 (let's say) at every point, then you can't associate its lumps with particles. The lumps are still there, but they don't manifest as particles.
So in the early universe we had the electroweak field, with its four particles, the three weak isospin bosons and the Hypercharge boson, along with the doublet field, which also has four particles associated with it. Physics at this time would have looked extremely different.
However eventually the doublet field acquired a value everywhere in space, even when it had zero energy. This basically meant that the lumps which used to manifest as particles, no longer appeared as particles. Instead different lumps of the electroweak field and the doublet field manifested as particles. These being the two W bosons, the Z boson (both responsible for radioactive decay), the photon, which is the particle of electromagnetism and light and the Higgs particle, which is the only part of the doublet field possibly still visible*. So these new particles would have come into existence after the doublet field settle into its particular value** everywhere.
*We know the above picture is true, the only doubt is the exact way it works out. I've given the standard picture here, where the doublet field is the one that settled into a particular value. However it's possible it was some other field instead. The reason we need to find the Higgs is to confirm it was the doublet field. If we don't find the Higgs, it means it was another field. However the basic model of some field settling into a value and shifting what field lumps were particles is correct. This is why if the Higgs isn't found it isn't "The End of Physics" as some news articles make out to be the case. It just means it wasn't the simplest guess of a doublet field, but some other field.
**The value is 200 GeV everywhere, or roughly a thousand times less energy than a mosquito spends when it flies for one second.
Edited by Son Goku, : Better Title
Edited by Son Goku, : To stress a point.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 178 by Son Goku, posted 11-30-2011 11:55 AM Son Goku has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 191 by Percy, posted 12-01-2011 10:05 AM Son Goku has replied

  
kbertsche
Member (Idle past 2122 days)
Posts: 1427
From: San Jose, CA, USA
Joined: 05-10-2007


Message 190 of 302 (642757)
12-01-2011 9:55 AM
Reply to: Message 159 by Dr Adequate
11-30-2011 9:13 AM


quote:
How about saying that the universe has a finite age?
Rahvin has a point: "begin to exist" does have its problems. Normally, when we say something begins to exist, we mean that there's a time when it didn't followed by a time when it did. But if, as many cosmologists seem to say, time is an aspect of the universe, then there was no time when the universe didn't exist, making it different from everything else that "began to exist".
I don't see how (A) "began to exist" implies prior time any more than does (B) "has a finite age". They seem pretty similar to me in this respect. Based on our normal experience, both would suggest prior time. But neither one necessarily implies prior time. Both imply a "zero-point" to the thing's existence, but neither one says anything about what happened "before" the thing's existence.
The main difference that I see between (A) and (B) is one of perspective. With (B), "has a finite age", one is viewing a thing's existence from the present, and looking backward toward when the thing "started" or "began to exist". With (A), "began to exist", one is viewing the thing from its origin or starting point.
Looking at the analogy of the North Pole, (B) is somewhat analogous to saying "this city is at a finite latitude", while (A) is somewhat analogous to saying "our latitude coordinate system begins at the North Pole". Both imply that there is a starting point to latitude coordinates. But neither one says anything about the possibility of negative latitudes.
{ABE: oops, I guess I wasn't quite awake when I wrote the above, and my latitude definition was off by 90 degrees. I was thinking more along the lines of a normal polar coordinate system. Instead of "negative latitudes" I should have said "latitudes greater than 90 degrees North". But the concept is the same.}
Edited by kbertsche, : Correction

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." — Albert Einstein
I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives us a lot of factual information, puts all of our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. — Erwin Schroedinger

This message is a reply to:
 Message 159 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-30-2011 9:13 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 193 by Rahvin, posted 12-01-2011 12:07 PM kbertsche has not replied
 Message 196 by NoNukes, posted 12-01-2011 1:46 PM kbertsche has not replied
 Message 197 by DWIII, posted 12-01-2011 9:39 PM kbertsche has not replied
 Message 199 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-01-2011 10:36 PM kbertsche has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 191 of 302 (642758)
12-01-2011 10:05 AM
Reply to: Message 189 by Son Goku
12-01-2011 9:34 AM


Re: Appearance of Electromagnetism
Hi SG,
So the field is a tuple of (strength, energy) at every point in space? If so, what's the strength correspond to?
And if a "lump" has a non-zero strength but a zero energy, which doesn't manifest as a particle, then what does it manifest as? In other words, if when we observe one of these types of lumps, what is it that we observe?
I don't usually try to understand this stuff, but your explanation was so simple and clear I feel like I almost have a chance.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 189 by Son Goku, posted 12-01-2011 9:34 AM Son Goku has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 192 by Son Goku, posted 12-01-2011 10:43 AM Percy has replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 192 of 302 (642760)
12-01-2011 10:43 AM
Reply to: Message 191 by Percy
12-01-2011 10:05 AM


Re: Appearance of Electromagnetism
I don't usually try to understand this stuff, but your explanation was so simple and clear I feel like I almost have a chance.
Brilliant!
So the field is a tuple of (strength, energy) at every point in space? If so, what's the strength correspond to?
It's basically how much of the field is present at the point. If you had some measuring device that measured how much field there was, like a Tesla meter for a magnetic field, it's the value that would appear on the meter. An example of such a quantity is voltage for a current, it's the "strength" of the field, but that's not exactly the same thing as the energy, since voltage is measured in volts, but energy in Joules.
And if a "lump" has a non-zero strength but a zero energy, which doesn't manifest as a particle, then what does it manifest as? In other words, if when we observe one of these types of lumps, what is it that we observe?
Basically, we actually can't observe them directly anymore. Think of the electroweak field like an ocean of four different types of liquid:
A,B,C,D.
A,B,C are the weak isospin fields and D the Hypercharge field.
There was also the doublet field, also an ocean of four liquids E,F,G,H.
Originally each of those liquids could come in discrete lumps, that we call particles. Think of particles as small parcels of these liquids (this isn't silly analogy by the way, thats pretty much what particles are.)
However this was only possible when the doublet field had zero strength at zero energy. Once the doublet field was no longer like this, it basically became impossible to parcel the liquids in the way they originally were. So, instead of the possible parcels being:
1. A
2. B
3. C
4. D
5. E
6. F
7. G
8. H
After the doublet field took its value, it would take an infinite amount of energy to make a parcel/particle of just A. So instead the parceling changed to a different system that took a finite amount of energy.
This system was:
1. A + B + E, the W+ boson
2. A + B + F, the W- boson
3. C + D + G, the Z boson
4. C + D, the photon
5. H, the Higgs boson
Which is the way it still is today. This shift in possible packagings is known as Spontaneous Symmetry breaking.
Please let me know if this is in anyway unclear.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 191 by Percy, posted 12-01-2011 10:05 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 234 by Percy, posted 12-13-2011 7:49 AM Son Goku has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4024
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 8.8


(2)
Message 193 of 302 (642767)
12-01-2011 12:07 PM
Reply to: Message 190 by kbertsche
12-01-2011 9:55 AM


I don't see how (A) "began to exist" implies prior time any more than does (B) "has a finite age". They seem pretty similar to me in this respect. Based on our normal experience, both would suggest prior time. But neither one necessarily implies prior time. Both imply a "zero-point" to the thing's existence, but neither one says anything about what happened "before" the thing's existence.
The real root problem here is that the English language is not well suited to models of physics that do not correspond directly to everyday human experience. Talking about "the beginning of the Universe" when time itself is a property of the Universe is one of those cases - English just doesn't accurately convey the correct information, the words are too laden with additional connotations and baggage.
This is why physicists use math.
I don't even particularly like talking about "the beginning of the Universe," because that's already using an anthropomorphic view of time. Time is a dimension, and our perception of it as a sequence of events is an illusion caused by our entropy-driven brains, just as our perspective on matter as physical objects is an illusion caused by the fact that we don;t see on the subatomic scale. You think my fingers are touching keys on a keyboard? They're not - the repelling force of the electrons in the atoms that make us up prevent us from even touching. And even that is basically an illusion, because particles are just bits and pieces of various fields.
This is why people don't usually understand physics on the level that cavediver and Son Goku do - even the dumbed-down English descriptions require that you be capable of abandoning the conceit of the human experience and attempt to comprehend the Universe on its own terms, despite the fact that it will not at all be intuitive to human beings who grow up never seeing an atom or a proton or a quark.
What we call T=0 is not really a "beginning." Time is just a dimension. If you imagine the minimum value of time as analogous to "the farthest you can possibly move to the left, after that you find yourself moving in the direction you formerly identified as right," or the oft-used North Pole analogy, you might begin to conceive of at least one of the hypotheses based on the real Universe as opposed to the human-experience-based model in your head. The North Pole is no more the "beginning" of the Earth than literally any other point, and T=0 is not necessarily any more a "beginning" for the Universe. The Universe doesn't "come into being" at T=0 any more than the Earth "comes into being" at the North Pole.
The whole thing is a giant Outside Context Problem.
We know that the Unvierse hasn't reached heat-death (essentially, when we run out of negentropy, and all energy differentials are evened out, all potential energy is exhausted), and that entropy always increases as time moves forward, so there must be some mechanism to either restore negentropy (something like the Big Crunch model that doesn't look too probable right now) to provide for an infinite-past-direction time dimension, or there must be a minimum value for time, whether that means a wraparound like what happens to a north-bound traveler at the North Pole, or a true point-origin like a geometric ray, etc. If none of these were the case, then none of us would exist - an infinite past with no Big Crunch means an infinite amount of time for entropy to increase, which means the Universe would have reached heat-death an infinite time ago (isn't infinity fun?).
But in none of these are we talking about a "beginning" that is at all analogous to human-experienced events. It's difficult to separate from the anthropomorphic concept of time, but doing so is mandatory if you're going to try to understand the shape of the Universe. Time is just a dimension. It's no different from length or width or height. It's a continuum of coordinates. The state of the Universe in any specific coordinate of spacetime is related to its state at adjacent coordinates - which gives us the illusion of causality. When you talk about the "cause of the Universe," you're really talking about "the cause of the system that provides the illusion of causality," which immediately requires the assumption that there's an additional causality-system to the one we actually observe - an unfounded assumption based on human hubris rather than actual evidence.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 190 by kbertsche, posted 12-01-2011 9:55 AM kbertsche has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4024
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 8.8


Message 194 of 302 (642769)
12-01-2011 12:13 PM
Reply to: Message 186 by DWIII
11-30-2011 9:40 PM


Re: What of this "immaterial realm", anyway?
You keep going on about this "existence of an immaterial realm" which you allegedly deduce. What is currently known about this immaterial realm? What else can be known about this immaterial realm? What specific properties (physical or metaphysical) would this immaterial realm possess? Can there be more than one immaterial realm, or must it be all one monolithic piece?
How big is this immaterial realm? How many entities (intelligent or otherwise) may comfortably reside in this immaterial realm? (Feel free to select from the various transfinite cardinalities for these last two questions.)
If this "immaterial realm" is so easy to grasp, as you say, you should be able to answer a few of these questions.
You're asking "what" DT thinks he knows...but equally important is how he thinks he knows it.
Did DT make some observation of this "immaterial realm?" What [i]evidence['i] led to the conclusion that such a thing might exist? If this "realm" is "outside" of the Universe, how has this "realm" interacted with the Universe such that DT could possibly gain information about it?

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers

This message is a reply to:
 Message 186 by DWIII, posted 11-30-2011 9:40 PM DWIII has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 195 by NoNukes, posted 12-01-2011 1:31 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 195 of 302 (642771)
12-01-2011 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 194 by Rahvin
12-01-2011 12:13 PM


Re: What of this "immaterial realm", anyway?
What evidence led to the conclusion that such a thing might exist?
My guess is that DT is using the Hebrews 11:1-3 variety of evidence for the immaterial realm.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 194 by Rahvin, posted 12-01-2011 12:13 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
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