Models and theories about the origins of the universe or greater cosmos.

[shunyadragon]

The problem of infinite regression is a false pyramid problem. Infinite regression exists within infinites and does not define all infinities. The question of the existence of infinities was answered over 2,000 years ago and more Lucretius in De Rerum Natura poked holes in the older philosophical arguments for the necessity of the fine by Plato, Parmenides, and Aristotle, with the simple infinite path of a dart comparable to a special vector punching holes in all nine finite spheres. There will always be something beyond the path of the dart no mater how far it travels. There are many people who have yet to grasp this simple demonstration of the spatial infinite. For one of the best texts used at Princeton University classes is easy to read and understand: Infinity and the Mind by Rudy Rucker.

[shunyadragon]

Big Bang collides particles at record http://www.worldbulletin.net/science...t-record-photo

Physicists achieved high-power collisions of sub-atomic particles in their attempt to create mini-versions of the Big Bang that led to the birth of the universe 13.7 billion years ago.

Physicists at the CERN research centre achieved high-power collisions of sub-atomic particles on Tuesday in their attempt to create mini-versions of the Big Bang that led to the birth of the universe 13.7 billion years ago.

The experiment at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN), creating a record for the energy of particle conditions, will allow researchers to examine the nature of matter and the origin of stars and planets.


"This is a major breakthrough. We are going where nobody has been before. We have opened a new territory for physics," Oliver Buchmueller, one of the key figures on the 10 billion Swiss franc ($9.4 billion) project, told Reuters.

The collisions took place at a record total collision energy of 7 billion billion electron volts (eV) and at a nano-fraction of a second slower than the speed of light in CERN's 27 km (16.8 mile) Large Hadron Collider (LHC), about a hundred metres (330 feet) below the Swiss-French border.


The experiment was delayed for a few hours by a couple of technical glitches with the power supply and an over-sensitive magnet safety system. This led the physicists to suspend the mega-power particle collisions, the focus of the world's largest scientific experiment.

After the problems arose as beams were injected into the collider in the early morning, CERN officials were quick to dismiss any suggestion that it was a repeat of a major incident in September 2008 that seriously damaged parts of the experiment and delayed the full launch of the project until now.

During the coming months and years, CERN scientists expect the project to lift the veil on some of the mysteries of the cosmos -- how matter was converted to mass after the fireball of the Big Bang and what is the dark, or invisible, matter that makes up an estimated 25 percent of the universe.

Reuters

[37818]

shunyadragon,

Prior to the "Big Bang" theory there was the "Steady State" theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_State_theory

Paul S
aka 37818

[JonathanL]

Yes, Guth proposes a greater cosmos containing multiverses, and he does not propose that this represents an absolute beginning of everything. His proposal is that the individual universe have a beginning. your misquoting him, he does not propose that the greater cosmos that contain multiverses need a definite beginning.

Here's a interview of Alan Guth by Robert Lawrence Kuhn on the PBS show "Closer to Truth", where Alan Guth clearly states that there would be "a beginning someplace, if inflation was right" (Watch from 3:00 to 3:12). He says, and I quote (omitting all the uh's and stammerings): "The theory that I've worked on, called inflation, seems to imply that there almost certainly was a prehistory (to the Big Bang[my insertion]), but still there would be a beginning someplace, if inflation was right".

Also, beginning at 6:54 Kuhn says "Wow, and so these (the creations of pocket universes[my insertion]) are occuring now as a result of inflation and we have no reason to believe necessarily that ours was the first, but I think you said, that, based on the same theory we cannot extrapolate back in time infinitely the way we can into the future, is that right?" to which Guth replies, beginning at 7:17:

"That is exactly right. This process seems to predict that the universe will go on with pieces of it inflating forever, eternally into the future, and we refer to it as 'eternal inflation', but the word 'eternal' is being used slightly loosely, 'semi-eternal' might be more accurate. It's eternal into the future, we do not think that it's eternal into the past. Making assumptions that seem reasonable, we've been able, to quote, 'prove' mathematically that it's in fact not possible to extrapolate arbitrarily far into the past. There must somewhere, if you extrapolate backwards into the past, somewhere be the beginning of inflation and we don't really have a solid theory of how inflation began, the ultimate theory of the origin of the universe is still very much up for grabs."


So, I'm not sure if Guth believes that there must have been a definite beginning of absolutely everything in existence (there could have been something else before the process of inflation), but he does believe that the theory of inflation cannot be extrapolated "arbitrarly far into the past", but that there must somewhere be "the beginning of inflation".

[klaus54]

What do you mean by "Greater Cosmos"? Is this a scientific or philosophical notion?

"Infinite regress" doesn't exist in our (visible) universe. You eventually run into quantum foam at the Planck Length. As far as other universes go, that's only a conjecture not an hypothesis. And "infinity" is a mathematical notion added by axiom to set theory, which is distinct from the concept of limit.

[shunyadragon]

Here's a interview of Alan Guth by Robert Lawrence Kuhn on the PBS show "Closer to Truth", where Alan Guth clearly states that there would be "a beginning someplace, if inflation was right" (Watch from 3:00 to 3:12). He says, and I quote (omitting all the uh's and stammerings): "The theory that I've worked on, called inflation, seems to imply that there almost certainly was a prehistory (to the Big Bang[my insertion]), but still there would be a beginning someplace, if inflation was right".

Also, beginning at 6:54 Kuhn says "Wow, and so these (the creations of pocket universes[my insertion]) are occuring now as a result of inflation and we have no reason to believe necessarily that ours was the first, but I think you said, that, based on the same theory we cannot extrapolate back in time infinitely the way we can into the future, is that right?" to which Guth replies, beginning at 7:17:

"That is exactly right. This process seems to predict that the universe will go on with pieces of it inflating forever, eternally into the future, and we refer to it as 'eternal inflation', but the word 'eternal' is being used slightly loosely, 'semi-eternal' might be more accurate. It's eternal into the future, we do not think that it's eternal into the past. Making assumptions that seem reasonable, we've been able, to quote, 'prove' mathematically that it's in fact not possible to extrapolate arbitrarily far into the past. There must somewhere, if you extrapolate backwards into the past, somewhere be the beginning of inflation and we don't really have a solid theory of how inflation began, the ultimate theory of the origin of the universe is still very much up for grabs."


So, I'm not sure if Guth believes that there must have been a definite beginning of absolutely everything in existence (there could have been something else before the process of inflation), but he does believe that the theory of inflation cannot be extrapolated "arbitrarly far into the past", but that there must somewhere be "the beginning of inflation".

This beginning Goth refers to is the beginning of each possible universe, and not the 'greater cosmos' that would be the medium of universes which have beginnings.

[shunyadragon]

What do you mean by "Greater Cosmos"? Is this a scientific or philosophical notion?

It is the scientific notion of the medium from which universes originate.

"Infinite regress" doesn't exist in our (visible) universe.

Well . . . "Infinite regress" is human construct to describe one concept of Infinity. Time, space nor infinities do not have numbers nor limits on them naturally. I guess I would consider this statement true.

You eventually run into quantum foam at the Planck Length. As far as other universes go, that's only a conjecture not an hypothesis. And "infinity" is a mathematical notion added by axiom to set theory, which is distinct from the concept of limit.

The above is a bit confusing and needs more explanation. I guess it would be distinct from the concept of limit, but then again the concept of limit would be a human notion also.

[shunyadragon]

More on Borde Guth Velenkin misrepresented by Craig. This actually a little old. We need to deal with new stuff.

Whenever William Lane Craig is forced to retreat from his use of the Standard Big Bang model, he will often cite a paper by Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin:


…three leading cosmologists, Arvin Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin, were able to prove that any universe which has, on average, been expanding throughout its history cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past space-time boundary.

-W.L Craig “Contemporary Cosmology and the Beginning of the Universe”

The 2003 Borde-Guth-Vilenkin paper (pdf) shows that “almost all” inflationary models of the universe (as opposed to Dr. Craig’s “any universe”) will reach a boundary in the past – meaning our universe probably doesn’t exist infinitely into the past.

Dr. Craig seems to interpret this information as “the universe definitely began to exist” although that is a bit presumptuous. For example, this theorem doesn’t rule out Stephen Hawking’s no-boundary proposal which states that time may be finite without any real boundary (just like a sphere is finite in surface area while it has no “beginning”).

Furthermore, the author of the Arizona Atheist blog asked Vilenkin if his theorem with Guth and Borde proves that the universe had a beginning, and Vilenkin responded:


[I]f someone asks me whether or not the theorem I proved with Borde and Guth implies that the universe had a beginning, I would say that the short answer is “yes”. If you are willing to get into subtleties, then the answer is “No, but…” So, there are ways to get around having a beginning, but then you are forced to have something nearly as special as a beginning.

[shunyadragon]

shunyadragon,

Prior to the "Big Bang" theory there was the "Steady State" theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_State_theory

Paul S
aka 37818

True, the steady state theory is old and obsolete, but also, the original 'Big Bang' theories are a little old and moldy.

[klaus54]

It is the scientific notion of the medium from which universes originate.



Well . . . "Infinite regress" is human construct to describe one concept of Infinity. Time, space nor infinities do not have numbers nor limits on them naturally. I guess I would consider this statement true.



The above is a bit confusing and needs more explanation. I guess it would be distinct from the concept of limit, but then again the concept of limit would be a human notion also.

It's confusing because it's part of formal set theory. Infinities don't exist in the universe and in mathematics one needs an axiom to "create" infinity -- in particular infinite (or transfinite) cardinals. The smallest transfinite cardinal is called a "countable" infinity because it's the cardinal number assigned to the natural numbers 0, 1, 2, ... . It's denoted aleph-null. The other mathematical notion of infinity is that of unbounded limits. E.g., lim x --> infinity exp(1/x) = 1. Infinity is not a number nor a "real" thing at all, it just means that the values of the function can be made as close to a limit (1 in this case) as one wishes by making x as large as needed.

And the Planck Length certainly limits the partitioning of the universe at the smallest scale. And at the largest scale the expansion of the singularity is also finite in extent. AFAIK there is no methodology for measuring anything beyond the extent of expansion (in fact we're limited in observation to the "visible" universe.) So unless there is methodology proposed to make observation outside of the expansion these "models" are just conjecture. I might as well say the transfinite cardinals are "real" things.

[shunyadragon]

It's confusing because it's part of formal set theory. Infinities don't exist in the universe and in mathematics one needs an axiom to "create" infinity -- in particular infinite (or transfinite) cardinals. The smallest transfinite cardinal is called a "countable" infinity because it's the cardinal number assigned to the natural numbers 0, 1, 2, ... . It's denoted aleph-null. The other mathematical notion of infinity is that of unbounded limits. E.g., lim x --> infinity exp(1/x) = 1. Infinity is not a number nor a "real" thing at all, it just means that the values of the function can be made as close to a limit (1 in this case) as one wishes by making x as large as needed.

And the Planck Length certainly limits the partitioning of the universe at the smallest scale. And at the largest scale the expansion of the singularity is also finite in extent. AFAIK there is no methodology for measuring anything beyond the extent of expansion (in fact we're limited in observation to the "visible" universe.) So unless there is methodology proposed to make observation outside of the expansion these "models" are just conjecture. I might as well say the transfinite cardinals are "real" things.

I understand this view with better explanation. If you take the 'conjecture route,' then any consideration whether the greater cosmos is finite or infinite is out of the question of conclusions. and any concept of limit remains a human construct. But if you consider the present physics and cosmology models, the best choice is an infinite greater cosmos.

[klaus54]

Shuny,

You're not using the terms "model" and "theory" in the scientific sense.

K

[klaus54]

I understand this view with better explanation. If you take the 'conjecture route,' then any consideration whether the greater cosmos is finite or infinite is out of the question of conclusions. and any concept of limit remains a human construct. But if you consider the present physics and cosmology models, the best choice is an infinite greater cosmos.

I don't agree with you. It's a philosophical position at this point. And the best current cosmology gives that nothing is knowable before one Planck Time after the expansion of the singularity.

And I still don't know what you mean by "Greater Cosmos". Is this a view as per your theology?

[JonathanL]

This beginning Goth refers to is the beginning of each possible universe, and not the 'greater cosmos' that would be the medium of universes which have beginnings.

Uh, no. Guth clearly says that he's referring to the "beginning of inflation" (watch from 7:17), i.e the inflationary process as a whole, not the "beginning of each possible universe".

[JonathanL]

More on Borde Guth Velenkin misrepresented by Craig. This actually a little old. We need to deal with new stuff.

So in order to malign Craig you resort to bringing up the author of the Arizona Atheist blog.

Dear Mark,

James Sinclair here. Dr. Craig forwarded me your concerns, and I'd be glad to answer them.

I was made aware of the Arizona Atheist several months ago by a commenter on the www.reasonablefaith.org forums. I maintain an account there and occasionally comment on the “kalam” thread when the particular subject line interests me. Beyond this, I generally adopt Dr. Craig's policy of not directly engaging online atheists, although there are several I like and appreciate. Part of the reason is just time. I maintain a full time job (and a full time family) quite apart from any activities in arguing for the existence of God. Another reason is the possibility of a misunderstanding (deliberate or otherwise). As you mentioned in your question, even the absence of a comment from me on the subject can be incorrectly read as having significance!

As you know, Dr. Craig and I coauthored an essay on the kalam argument for the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. The price of this volume is steep, and the number of folks who have seen it is limited. Even for those who have, the essay can be somewhat daunting. This may have been the issue for “Arizona Atheist” (mere speculation here). It should be apparent to someone who read the piece that my contribution is an exhaustive discussion of two singularity theorems (Hawking-Penrose and Borde-Vilenkin-Guth) and all the exceptions to the theorems. This latter comment is important; let me repeat it. The piece exhaustively covers all the exceptions to the theorems.

Nowhere (in our essay) do we employ a supposed quote from Alex Vilenkin to the effect that his theorem (by itself) demonstrates a beginning to the universe and merely rely on it as some type of argument-from-authority. That said, there is a particularly famous (or infamous) comment that Vilenkin made in his 2006 book Many Worlds in One to the effect that his theorem DOES prove that the universe has a beginning. Dr Craig sometimes mentions this in his public talks (it doesn’t appear in our essay). But in certain settings where brevity is necessary, or one does not wish to lose the listener, one cannot engage in a million caveats. The full case should and has been made in rigorous works of scholarship.

Also in an email-correspondence between Craig and Vilenkin, Vilenkin has this to say:

I think you represented what I wrote about the BGV theorem in my papers and to you personally very accurately. This is not to say that you represented my views as to what this implies regarding the existence of God. Which is OK, since I have no special expertise to issue such judgements. Whatever it's worth, my view is that the BGV theorem does not say anything about the existence of God one way or the other. In particular, the beginning of the universe could be a natural event, described by quantum cosmology.

In other words, while Vilenkin does not agree with the theistic conclusions Craig infers from the BGV he does think that Craig has represented his words about the BGV theorem "very accurately".

So please, stop spreading these lies about how Craig misrepresents the BGV theorem. It's simply not true, and it has no place in an honest discussion.

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/curre...f-the-universe

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/hones...nd-bgv-theorem