the big bang

keu

in the beginning (time) god(energy) created (action) the heavens (space) and earth (earth and all the other shiney bits called stars and planets and nebulas and)....


Creationism's willingness to unravel God still leaves a great big gaping void as to how it all began.
We are lead to believe that there was a big bang, a great event which brought about life as we know it, but what exactly banged into what?

any thoughts?

Tellox

Im not too into anything like this, but I was taught that it was the perfect combination of chemicals combining and from the explosion, the universe was created?

/me scratches head

keu

where did the (great big gaseous emissions)chemicals and atoms come from?
did God fart?

Fysh

As far as physics goes, there's no answer. Theoretically it can be argued that we can never know - we are within a closed system, and without a way of getting outside that closed system we cannot find out how it came into existence.

As far as the bible goes....it just passes the question of what happened onto God, and any further questioning tends to elicit either "god moves in mysterious/ineffable ways" or "you just have to have faith that he *did* it" as an answer. In my experience, at any rate.

Either way, we're stuck with no clear answer.

watty

Science and the Bible agree there was a start, when everything got created. I think Fred Hoyle's "Steady State" Universe arround for ever in the past, is seriously out of fashon.

But there is no "why" or "how" really to either explination. The Scientific one suffers too from a lack of detectable anti-matter (should be the same quantity as Matter, but where did it go?)

keu

cool...so there is still some mystery left in the universe.
I always considered God to be the conscious mind, or at least each human consciousness is the energy of the "eternal soul" and maybe all consciousness that ever existed/exists is God (infinite energy)
so..if you added all consciousness together you get this great big universal mind and then remove linear time, all things exist at once, wouldn't that suggest that I am really an alternate you exeriencing physicality via a different perspective?


God..the mystery of it all....

phi·los·o·phy ( P ) Pronunciation Key (f-ls-f)
n. pl. phi·los·o·phies
Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.
Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.
A system of thought based on or involving such inquiry: the philosophy of Hume.
The critical analysis of fundamental assumptions or beliefs.
The disciplines presented in university curriculums of science and the liberal arts, except medicine, law, and theology.
The discipline comprising logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology.
A set of ideas or beliefs relating to a particular field or activity; an underlying theory: an original philosophy of advertising.
A system of values by which one lives: has an unusual philosophy of life.

Fysh

Well, the imbalance of matter to antimatter is a problem only if you consider the two to have somehow existed outside of what we currently think of as the universe and then mixed.

It can be rather neatly stepped around if you imagine a universe with more anti-matter than matter with some sort of link, and then have the two as a total closed system.

Bear in mind that the above is something I've just thought of in the last five minutes - it may well (and probably does) have gaping theoretical holes in it. It is also something that I can't remember any specific theory suggesting.

Steady state universes have been out of vogue ever since it was realised that the universe is expanding. Typically we later find out that there is a series of factors (cant recall what they are, off hand) that decide whether the universe expands forever (heat death) or collapses in on itself (Big Crunch) and that our universe appears to be right near the borderline that separates the two.

keu

are you guys up on the m-theory?

keu

with regard to anti-matter..if gravity holds the same properties as light and you apply the str, than the anti matter is there, just "travelling at a rate" which makes it appear that it is not there.
The theory which suggests that there may be several universes Paralleling each other might explain "where it is".

Think dodecahedron. each face (pentagon) represents a universe ...and would suggest a fifth dimensional element to each existance...

Fysh

No. At least in so far as I don't know what you mean by M-theory.

Also - relating to remote viewer's comments - you're ascribing properties to God that have no way of being verified. Believe what you want by all means, but what you've said has no more intrinsic worth than me stating that our galaxy is actually on the inside of a jam doughnut of celestial magnitude.

Removing linear time would also remove the ability to experience anything, since experiencing something involves a change from an initial state to a final state. Change in our universe requires time. Thus any argument removing time from how we view the universe doesn't work. At least not on our current understanding of time. Never mind how you could "add all consciousnesses together". Or the fact that any definition of "you" or anyone else will call upon the sum total of experiences you have had throughout your life, which are by definition unique (when considered as being part of a physical configuration of the universe, that is).

keu

<I always considered God to be the conscious mind, or at least each human consciousness is the energy of the "eternal soul" and maybe all consciousness that ever existed/exists is God (infinite energy) >

just my thoughts, philosophy, like everything else, is just a state of mind.

I removed linear time as to enhance the quantum view of understanding the universe.


"the are more things in heaven and earth...than are dreamt of in your philosophy"-the bard

Fysh

Well, I was just trying to point out that what you've stated has no way of being verified until we have a major breakthrough in understanding consciousness. so there's no way of verifying it one way or another, which changes it from a philosophical to a spiritual matter.

I'd quote some Spider Jerusalem back at you, but I can't remember the exact line I want and I don't have my copy of the relevant issue to hand. Rest assured, however, that it would have been both big *and* clever

Capt'n Midnight

Nothing banged into anything.

There was a lot of energy in one place - too much to stay stable - it expanded rapidly and as it did the energy density dropped so that matter could condense (more or less only Hydrogen and Helium) and the number of dimesions fell from 11? to the present 4.

Now since our universe is not a series of concentric shells there must have been some asymetery at some point - this caused the distribution of H and He to vary - some of it aggregated together under gravity (which can only occur once there is a certain critical mass of matter) and formed stars - these burned H to form more He and in the heat and pressure higher elements formed, Iron would only form under very specific conditions. Some of these stars were so big they went Nova - this then got the heavy elements out of the gravity well of the stars and formed heavier elements too. Then this material condensed to form planets and new stars and life was composed of this material. This dual burn puts a time on the minimum age of the universe.

So the age and size of the universe MUST be within certain limits to allow carbon based life forms to exist on metal rich planets.

The maths that Mr hawkins used only work out if you use imaginary time ... (what does that mean philosophicaly ?)

mr_angry

Who knows where it all came from, but current scientific thinking suggests that an incredibly dense gas cloud collapsed upon itself, causing a massive release in neutrinos. While neutrinos have virtually no mass, they slow inexplicably over a period of time, causing them to condense into normal matter as we see it in the universe.

Some theories suggest that there are many big bangs, and that we perceive there to have been only one. Religions provide the alternative theory that an intelligence (God) created the universe.

What I can't get over is life, or consciousness itself. I know the universe is a big, big place with a lot of room for endless possibilities, but what are the odds on life forming from the basic elements? It has to be close to zero. If you accept that, then I think its almost logical to think that there must have been some kind of intelligence behind it. But then we're into faith.

Fysh

Well, the odds for the creation of a worldwide communications network to emerge as being relatively easily accessible and then end up being used mainly as a channel for the distribution of pornography must have seemed pretty small about two or three hundred years ago, and yet here we are using it to discuss things like the universe and how it started

Your comments about life's emergence are anthopic reasoning. We still don't have any idea as to the full scale of the size of the universe, nor have we had any chance to investigate non-DNA based lifeforms. Over a long enough time, with enough space, even events with infinitesimal odds for their occurence will eventually take place. The probability of it happening is just a scale to tell you how often. For want of a better example, look at how many different species we know to have existed on this one rock revolving around the sun. Then look at how many different stars we know of that might sustain planets like ours. Then account for the fact that we only know about a tiny fraction of the universe in any kind of detail.

There's no requirement to have an intelligence behind the universe and its origins. It's just a convenient way of ignoring the question.

Regarding the neutrinos - any links toward sources for further reading? I'm utterly unfamiliar with the theories you describe, unless memory is failing me fairly badly right now.

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by mr_angry
What I can't get over is life, or consciousness itself. I know the universe is a big, big place with a lot of room for endless possibilities, but what are the odds on life forming from the basic elements? It has to be close to zero. If you accept that, then I think its almost logical to think that there must have been some kind of intelligence behind it. But then we're into faith.

First the odds. So far we have evidence of life in all obseved universes

Biologically there is no disputing that given time and appropiate conditions macromolocules will self assemble , also mixtures of certain lipids (fat molocules) will form self replicating "cells" - nowhere near life - but a start. Also remember there was no free oxygen in earth atmosphere for the first two billion years - four times longer than it took life to go from single celled organisms to now. Amino acids, the building blocks of protein, have been detected spectroscopally in outer space.

The energy needed to create chemical bonds can come from UV (no ozone remember) heat, pressure, radioactivity (of which there was an awful lot more than today - eg: at least twice as much uranium) lightening etc. - as there were no bacteria to decompose the organic soup thus formed.

Many of the physical constants (speed of light) and ratios of the strengths of forces have to be within very fine limits to allow a universe like our to survive. I heard of one part in 10E10 in some cases - eg: if gravity was weaker then galaxies would not have condensed into existance, stronger and the whole universe could disappear into a black hole.

The question this raises - is our universe one of many or unique.

the really weird bit is quantum fluctations - if you have a tiny bit of energy averaged over time then for a brief instant a fluctuation can raise it's energy and then have it fall to almost zero so the same overall average is there. ie. a single photon could give rise to an entire universe, ok this would be for all intents 0 time - but since time is relative it will feel a lot longer than 0 for the inhabitants of the universe. (I think from this you can show that all the energy in the universe is not enough to break out into the photons univrse - speed of light thing ? - which means if we can't leave this unverse how can we prove the existance of others)

DMT

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
and the number of dimesions fell from 11? to the present 4.

Aren't the 11 dimensions still supossed to be there - we can only perceive 4...

Fysh

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
Many of the physical constants (speed of light) and ratios of the strengths of forces have to be within very fine limits to allow a universe like our to survive. I heard of one part in 10E10 in some cases - eg: if gravity was weaker then galaxies would not have condensed into existance, stronger and the whole universe could disappear into a black hole.

The question this raises - is our universe one of many or unique.

It doesn't *have* to raise the question. The suggestion of uniqueness only arises when someone suggests that these physical constants have the values they have (ie ones which allow life, including that on this planet, to emerge) for a reason.

I mean, all we're really saying is that, in a universe where the physical constants will allow conditions for life as we recognize it (which, in fairness, is still pretty limited, given our experience of other planets etc) to emerge, life as we recognize it has emerged. Something was possible, so it happened.

The question of whether our universe is part of a multiverse is totally separate.

the really weird bit is quantum fluctations - if you have a tiny bit of energy averaged over time then for a brief instant a fluctuation can raise it's energy and then have it fall to almost zero so the same overall average is there. ie. a single photon could give rise to an entire universe, ok this would be for all intents 0 time - but since time is relative it will feel a lot longer than 0 for the inhabitants of the universe. (I think from this you can show that all the energy in the universe is not enough to break out into the photons univrse - speed of light thing ? - which means if we can't leave this unverse how can we prove the existance of others)

I'm not entirely sure how your photon is creating an entire universe at the start here. You're spot on about the quantum behaviour - electron tunneling being another example. Something which is physically impossible can happen by becoming possible for a short time, happening, and then going back to being impossible. :eek:

Still not sure where the photon ==> universe transition comes into it, though...

keu

<Aren't the 11 dimensions still supossed to be there - we can only perceive 4... >

I know the m theory currently stands at 11, but I think it's 12, don't know why, i just do.

"Our 'reality' is a world of 3 Space Dimensions and 1 Time Dimension. We believe this because we can see 3 dimensions - up/down, left/right, and front/back. We can also believe that there is 1 time dimension - future/past. This is known as 1+3 dimensionality - 1 Time dimension and 3 Space dimensions."
this is our current perception

But could there be different dimensionality than what we perceive? Is it possible that there are 4 spatial dimensions? Or 2 time dimensions? Or more? These alternatives can be referred to as HyperDimensionality.

I suppose to even entertain the idea of the possibility of other dimensions takes a leap of faith...(or death) because it is beyond our current perception.

(...capt midnight your post was very enlightening)

joshcork

the big bang is a problem and has been scrubbeb a couple of times as it apparently formed out of a singularity and those thing just don't follow the same rules as we do. As far as life goes I do find it very coincidental that so many thing went in our favour. Since if you look real close at the energies that are necessary to create heavier elements you'll find that it was only by a couple of electron volts that allowed byillium to be formed as so on.

But the way I look on this is that the universe was not made around us but we were made around the universe since as was mentioned if it can happen it will.

So there is no divinity in our creation but a statisical probability of life in time.

mr_angry

1 statement, 1 question:

Life is possible, given infinite space and time.

But is life likely without divine intervention?

I really don't expect anybody to conclusively answer this question, but feel free to have a go!

WetDaddy

OK, first of all, I'm -ALREADY- in over my head here...

But is life likely without divine intervention?

Personally, I don't think it needs to be likely. Likelihood and the odds of something happening are concepts we humans invented, as is mathematics which is simply a tool we used to interperet and understand our universe.

(Am I gonna get in trouble for that last remark?)

Remember, the Big Bang only happened(!) once (probably!), so it's not like you can apply odds to it. For all we know, the large majority of the universe could be covered in life, which means that the whole purpose (intent?) of The Big Bang could have been to create it. What I mean by that is, if we found out that in the entire universe, 3/4's say was populated with life. In that case, we'd probably say "hey, the chances of a Big Bang creating life are pretty damn good!".

If that's the case, then the "odds" would be fairly high. I completely understand where you're coming from though mr_angry, I don't think I would have thought about this unless someone had put the question to me.

Anyway, like I said, I'm out of my league here, so that's just the noise that went through my head and was subsequently spewed out onto the keyboard

joshcork

Well what do define as divine intervention is it God placing 2 molecules together starting it of or 'crack' we have adam and eve just like that.
since the building blocks were their through luck and perhaps a little divine intervention rolling the dice. life was inevitable

It's weather you choose a faith over chance and that at the moment can't be anwsered

Fysh

Originally posted by mr_angry
1 statement, 1 question:

Life is possible, given infinite space and time.

But is life likely without divine intervention?

I really don't expect anybody to conclusively answer this question, but feel free to have a go!

I don't think you're getting it. Given that life has a possibility of occuring that is greater than zero, if you then have test conditions which are infinite in space and time then there *will* be life in there somewhere. Otherwise life would be impossible, which is a somewhat different proposition.

Futhermore, since life can be (loosely) defined as a complex sequence of self-sustaining chemical reactions (this definition isn't complete, but it suffices for my point), divine intervention isn't a requirement. Sure, if there *is* a god (note - personally, I don't see any reasons to believe there's a god, but cannot convincingly refute claims made by the faithful) he might skew the odds, but that's about it.

keu

first you would have to define divinity or God.

divinity

\Di*vin"i*ty\, n.; pl. Divinities. [F. divinit, L. divinitas. See Divine, a.]

1. The state of being divine; the nature or essence of God; deity; godhead.
2. The Deity; the Supreme Being; God.
3. A pretended deity of pagans; a false god.
4. A celestial being, inferior to the supreme God, but superior to man.
5. Something divine or superhuman; supernatural power or virtue; something which inspires awe.
6. The science of divine things; the science which treats of God, his laws and moral government, and the way of salvation; theology.


1.-the nature or essence of God, sounds good to me.
If the essence of God is that singularity where it all began (the point of infinity/ alpha omega), and the nature of God is creation than life would be as a result of divine intervention.

this is just my perception. People have many ideals as to what God is to them but much of that idealogy is shared opinion over many areas, just using different words/symbols.
Physics can declare a single point of singularity, religionists (across the board) would recognise a single creator, or a great spirit, call it what you will, but as a point of definition, it was where it all began.
The word God tends to sum up a great deity sitting on a cloud, but the definition of a singular point of energy from which the universe was born is fairly good definition too.

keu

yea...this should really be on the philosophy board......

Redshift

Keep it on topic please.

joshcork

The thing is that when discussing the nature of the big bang it is difficult not to get into the nature of God as it's a point in which everything breaksdown. I don't think anyone asked the question of what was before either.

This is a more philosophical topic as there simply is no science only speculation

dictatorcat

From my vague hand-wavey understanding of m-theory, big bangs (there may be more than one) occur when to parallel branes in higher dimensional space collide and a massive amount of energy is released resulting in matter being formed (E=mc2 and all that). However m-theory relies on string theory which is still a theory and as yes has not been proved due to it's nature (the large hadron collider might provide answers when it comes online).

However on the philosophical point of god creating the universe, gos is just an easy way of explaining things without having to bother to prove anything. Philosophy came about by trying to explain why things are the way they are, science branched away from philosophy by trying to PROVE why things are the way they are. In our "enlightened" age of science god is nothing more than a relic of poverty and opression and is no more a likely reason for the creation of the universe than faries (and people strongly believed in them once too.)
/end rant.

albertw

Originally posted by joshcork
I don't think anyone asked the question of what was before either.

Before the big bang? There has been plenty of discussion from some cosmological camps. Most of the ideas were just plain wrong, but superstrings appear to be opening up the discussion again.

c.f. Scientific American May 2004

Cheers,
~Al

oscarBravo

Originally posted by dictatorcat
god is nothing more than a relic of poverty and opression and is no more a likely reason for the creation of the universe than faries (and people strongly believed in them once too.)

Some of us still do...

ob.buke: The Philosophers' Secret Fire by Patrick Harpur.