Does Evil Exist?

[bornagainathiest]

"There are limits to what science can know. Some people may then just let that question hang with no thought beyond that. That does not mean the question is not worth asking and profound. It is a deeply meaningful question to ask, "How did the singularity arise?" "

 

This sounds reasonable on the surface but belies the actual position of cosmologists. Before Planck time there is no way (at the moment) to KNOW what was there before the expansion of our universe, and no credible scientists claims such. As B.A.A. stated there is an inference, but that inference and the lack of knowledge is the impetus that drives scientific inquiry, it doesn't shut it down. I submit that many cosmologists and astrophysicists are most likely deeply involved in asking this question.

 

Ravenstar,

 

You are quite correct.

There is no way that humans we can currently KNOW (by empirical means) what caused our universe to inflate 13.8 billion years ago.  If there was such a thing as the Singularity, we will never be able to directly observe it - therefore, we are required to infer it's past existence from the phenomenon that we can observe today. 

 

As such, the Singularity is a theorized entity, invoked and used to best explain what we can observe.   The Singularity is the argument to the best explanation that cosmological science can currently provide.

 

But utilizing such an argument requires strict adherence to the rules and regs of the science used to infer it's existence.  If you invoke the Singularity, you are obliged to also accept much, much more.  This other 'stuff' doesn't seem to get mentioned when the topic of the Singularity comes up, here at Ex-C. 

 

I wonder why that is?

 

 

Here is where it gets tricky, in our history the human urge to have answers (to feel secure, basically - because the unknown can be dangerous in a survival sort of way) has created a cultural matrix where philosophers and theologians attempt to fill those gaps in our knowledge. Sometimes using logic, sometimes imagination, sometimes both and frequently applying 'common sense' to problems that can not be approached that way. This is definitely the case with our cosmological origins, it's a very complicated problem and without a grasp of quantum mechanics is beyond the ability of most people to even speculate on.

 

Personally I am comfortable with letting science handle the 'how', and philosophy handle the 'why', (with the caveat that with the subjective nature of these things I will decide for myself if their ideas have merit). The question of evil is not one for hard science, it is one for the social sciences, philosophy and theology, and these disciplines are, by their nature, fraught with human error and bias.

 

Of course we must come to concensus on the definition of evil before any meaningful dialogue can even occur. I don't think we are anywhere close to that considering that 'evil' seems to be a highly subjective, nay individual, concept.

[Ravenstar]

Good point B.A.A.,

 

there are certain mathematical truths that have led to the inference of the singularity as our best hypothesis of what happened 'before' (and I use that term in the most colloquial sense because it's almost nonsensical) the inflation of space-time. I don't claim to grasp these higher notions... I don't, but I am aware that astrophysicists and such don't just wildly speculate without some theoretical or mathematical grounds.

 

I will hold up another science as an example, Biology...The neat thing about biological evolutionary theory, for example, is that so many different disciplines correlate with the theorem... it does not exist in a vacuum, nor does cosmology. We can't go back and observe the first primitive cells either, they no longer exist, but by using what we have observed of biology and chemistry we can infer how they might have worked. It's an analogy that I think fits.

 

It's an exciting field though and has generated some very provocative hypotheses, none of which seem to need a 'god'. I would love to hear about more of this 'stuff'...     see you in the science forum!

 

I'm going to stay away from the philosophy of cosmology    but this is interesting:

 

[bornagainathiest]

Don't turn away from cosmology, Ravenstar!

 

OrdinaryClay can help you. 

After all whenever there's a correct definition of anything, it's always his... right? 

And if anyone here knows about astrophysics, it'll be him and not the fully trained and qualified astrophysicist Bhim, right? 

 

Therefore, since he just won't respond to me on this Ravenstar, why don't you ask him to explain the points I've highlighted in red...?

 

There are two ways to describe a spacetime with a horizon: locally and globally. The local picture includes only what is (potentially) visible from a given point in spacetime, while the global picture includes unobservable regions beyond the horizon. The two perspectives are related by a process of extension: wherever there is a horizon, a particular solution of General Relativity can be extended beyond it by assuming that nothing special happens there (i.e., that it "looks like" the region within the horizon). The local and global points of view have different notions of time. From the local point of view the horizon is infinitely far in the future and nothing ever arrives at it, whereas from the global point of view the horizon is an ordinary surface at finite time, and both space and time extend beyond it. Ignoring quantum mechanics, the two pictures are equivalent: any physical statement can be translated freely back and forth, and both pictures agree on the results of all physical experiments.

For cosmology in the global point of view, the observable universe is one causal patch of a much larger unobservable universe; there are parts of the universe which cannot communicate with us yet. These parts of the universe are outside our current cosmological horizon. In the standard hot big bang model, without inflation, the cosmological horizon moves out, bringing new regions into view. As we see these regions for the first time, they look no different from any other region of space we have already seen: they have a background radiation which is at nearly exactly the same temperature as the background radiation of other regions, and their space-time curvature is evolving lock-step with ours. This presents a mystery: how did these new regions know what temperature and curvature they were supposed to have? They couldn't have learned it by getting signals, because they were not in communication with our past light cone before.

Inflation answers this question by postulating that all the regions come from an earlier era with a big vacuum energy, or cosmological constant. A space with a cosmological constant is qualitatively different: instead of moving outward, the cosmological horizon stays put. For any one observer, the distance to the cosmological horizon is constant. With exponentially expanding space, two nearby observers are separated very quickly; so much so, that the distance between them quickly exceeds the limits of communications. In the global point of view, the spatial slices are expanding very fast to cover huge volumes. In the local point of view, things are constantly moving beyond the cosmological horizon, which is a fixed distance away, and everything becomes homogeneous very quickly.

In either view, as the inflationary field slowly relaxes to the vacuum, the cosmological constant goes to zero, and space begins to expand normally. The new regions which come into view during the normal expansion phase, in the global point of view, are exactly the same regions which were pushed out of the horizon during inflation, and so they are necessarily at nearly the same temperature and curvature, because they come from the same little patch of space. In the local point of view, the cosmological horizon still is at the big bang, and inflation is always going on in a thin skin where time is nearly stopped, and the same process produces new regions as it always did, up to small fluctuations.

Inflation from the global point of view is often called eternal inflation. On a global constant-time slice, regions with inflation have an exponentially growing volume, while regions which are not inflating don't. This means that the volume of the inflating part of the universe in the global picture is always unimaginably larger than the part that has stopped inflating. If the probability of different regions is counted by volume, one should expect that inflation will never end, or applying boundary conditions that we exist to observe it, that inflation will end as late as possible. Weighting by volume is unnatural in the local point of view where inflation is not eternal—it eventually ends as seen by any single observer. This picture gives a meaning to the probability distribution on the anthropic landscape.

 

This is from the Wiki page on Cosmic Inflation, btw.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

[Ravenstar]

Oooookay... I read that twice and still didn't get it. I think. LOL

 

 

Soooo, I'm going to do some armchair speculation...

 

first I need to get my definitions correct. K,

 

Global: encompassing the whole of something

 

Horizon: The furthest we can sense, because of curvature (I say sense instead of see because visible light is a very small part of how we explore the universe)

 

I would think that a global view of our universe would be practically impossible (and I will state later why), but theoretically possible.  Our ability to perceive the universe only goes to the horizon (the edge of our ability to sense, in whatever form... x-ray, thermally, whatever... 

 

The concept I can't quite get my head around is that in an inflationary universe all points are 'center'... and all matter is being moved away from each other by the expansion of the space between. Does this happen locally as well? Are galaxy clusters moving apart?

 

My instinct is that the Hubble deep space field is, though amazing, just the beginning... that the universe is ultimately fractal and self created (more on that later as well). I know the common view is that it is a 'bubble' (so to speak, but I guess... speculate that it is not) Another concept that boggles my mind is that space is curved... I have a hard time envisioning a 3d (4d actually) universe that curves but if it is curved, it is conceivable that it curves back on itself at some vast distance or time - and we could be viewing our own cluster in one of those dots in the deep space field. This would make sense if we perceive the background radiation in all directions. It also gives some credence to a holographic reality... but I haven't looked into that deep enough to expand on it (hahaha, I made a funny!)

 

I remember a thread in the science forums which discussed some of these things in great depth. BlackCat's thread.

 

A VERY simple analogy of our 'view', it's like an ant walking on the surface of a great ball suspended in the air.. to the ant it's place seems like the center of it's world from whatever point it is at, and the horizon of the ball is the 'edge of the universe' (which it can never reach), it only perceives a flat featureless plane, no matter how far it travels, it appears uniform... and at some point it will cross it's own path, curving back on it's travels but not realizing it.

 

I read many years ago about the 'speed' of objects at the edge of known space, and how they seemed to be accelerating, exponentially...having almost reached the speed of light... these objects were vast and bright and unbelievably powerful (pulsars, I believe, of immense magnitude... pulsars the size of galaxies), but so far away as to be almost unimaginable.. and I thought, if they are almost at the speed of light now and they are accelerating, then soon they will be beyond our ability to perceive them, having moved into a reality where we can't follow - and that there must be a place beyond our view where the universe's expansion takes these things into a great dark ("The Great Dark Beyond the Rim" to quote Babylon 5, poetically) Sort of a black hole, but not of matter - of spacetime itself! (Black hole are created by immense gravity... I suggest that the black space/time is created by inflation beyond the speed of light, or something along those lines.)

 

Now we know of two instances where the laws of Newtonian physics break down... the moment before the Planck time, and inside black holes. (oh.. wait... 3 - the subatomic level too)

 

Now go back to space/time curving in on itself...  Ta Da!!!!    

 

 

(A self-contained and eternal universe that works with the big bang(s) theory and maybe even the multiverse theory. and what happens when a black hole reaches black space/time? hmmm....) Of course then there is the mystery that is gravity, does it play a part in this? Is inflation the other side of gravity?  Like light is to dark?

 

One more query... how many objects have already passed the barriers of our perception? The universe is probably, as the above post suggests, much much larger (and much stranger) than we know.

 

 

How I wish I had the education and opportunity to pursue these celestial ruminations!

 

Now when I contemplate the universe like this.. I am awestruck, and humbled... But I still can't see the hand of god in it. Just more questions to be asked, problems to be solved, and vistas to be explored.

 

Of course this is just my layman's grasp of very difficult concepts, and I could be totally off.  But I'll just keep trying until I get it!  

 

Sooo, in a nutshell.. what I think is being said here is by B.A.A. is that without a global view of the inflationary universe all we have left is the anthropic principle, and this is a local view not justified by the reality of eternal inflation. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[slave2six]

Definitions from Webster:

• morally reprehensible 
• arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct

So, are the following things morally reprehensible or demonstrate bad character?

1. Human sacrifice to appease a god
2. Cannibalism
3. Killing children
4. Advocating slavery
5. Killing people for being gay
6. Hardening the king's heart so that you can send plagues on his people
7. Genocide
8. Sending your people into exile and slavery because they weren't paying you enough attention
9. Letting a murderer/adulterer off scot-free but killing his lover's baby instead
10. Threatening people with eternal torment if they don't do as you say

The list goes on and on.

 

"Does evil exist?" I suppose it does otherwise we would not have a name for it. And this god person seems to fit the bill rather nicely.

[slave2six]

 

 

 

Although, I'm sure all of the ex-christian's figured this one out some time ago .

That's what separates the ex's from the Christians. We're just that little bit more intelligent. 

There are many very intelligent people who believe in Christ and the Bible.

OrdinaryClay actually speaks the truth here.

 

 

That's not an argument. That's like saying, "There are highly intelligent people who cannot properly match their clothing, therefore mismatched clothing is fashionably appealing."

[bornagainathiest]

Easy!  Easy, Ravenstar!

 

You're trying to juggle too many balls, too soon.  Let's back up a bit and deal with the issue of Inference first, ok?

 

There are two ways to describe a space-time with a horizon: locally and globally. The local picture includes only what is (potentially) visible from a given point in space-time, while the global picture includes unobservable regions beyond the horizon. The two perspectives are related by a process of extension: wherever there is a horizon, a particular solution of General Relativity can be extended beyond it by assuming that nothing special happens there (i.e., that it "looks like" the region within the horizon).

 

 

This process of extension is logical inference.

The Singularity is posited to have been the point of origin for Time, Space and the entire universe by using logical inference.  We will never be able to investigate it directly, but we can build up our ideas about it by indirect lines of evidence.  Just as a sailor in mid-ocean can infer the presence of an island over the horizon by a grouping of clouds, so we can infer certain things about something we can never see and never reach.  That analogy ok with you?  So, we can extend our thoughts into places that we cannot go or see, by using logical inference.  But there are guidelines as to how we should do this.

 

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

In a nutshell, this is the working assumption that all of the forces we see at work in the universe today work uniformly and that no particular place, no particular time and no particular observer is special or enjoys preferential status.  This principle is applied equally to all observers, no matter where they exist.  This includes us.

 

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

Unlike the previous principle, this one applies specifically and only to us humans, here on Earth.  It is an implicit part of modern cosmological science and can be summed up as the working assumption that we (as observers) do not occupy a special, central or privileged position within the universe.  So, should this planet be instantaneously be moved a trillion light years in any direction, we would still find the universe functioning just as normal. 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsimony (A.k.a, Occam's Razor.)

"In the scientific method, parsimony is an epistemological, metaphysical or heuristic preference, not an irrefutable principle of logic or a scientific result. As a logical principle, Occam's razor would demand that scientists accept the simplest possible theoretical explanation for existing data. However, science has shown repeatedly that future data often supports more complex theories than existing data. Science prefers the simplest explanation that is consistent with the data available at a given time, but the simplest explanation may be ruled out as new data become available. That is, science is open to the possibility that future experiments might support more complex theories than demanded by current data and is more interested in designing experiments to discriminate between competing theories than favoring one theory over another based merely on philosophical principles."

 

Using parsimony, scientists try to make the fewest assumptions about whatever they are investigating and they also try to find the simplest explanations that are consistent with the current data.  Ok Ravenstar, these guidelines hold good in cosmology and are used and applied across the board.  They are SOP. (Standard Operating Procedure)

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Now for the $1,000,000 question!

 

Can the existence of anything else, besides the Singularity, be inferred by using the above guidelines and the current data?

 

The answer is YES.

 

Yes, we can logically infer the existence of regions beyond the limits of the observable universe.

 

This is what is meant by the words, local and global, on the Wiki page about Cosmic Inflation.  Just as our sailor sees a visual horizon from his yacht, so we see a visual horizon when we look out into deep space.  This isn't a real, physical edge where everything just stops.  Nope!  A local view of the universe means everything within our horizon.  A global view means not just everything inside our horizon, but everything else beyond it. Just as we did with the Singularity, we can logically infer what lies beyond our visual horizon, provided that we follow the guidelines and apply the three listed principles correctly.

 

So, using the Cosmological principle, we can logically infer that conditions beyond our visual horizon are the same as those inside it.  Using the Copernican principle, we can logically infer that all of the regions beyond that horizon DO NOT owe their existence to us, here on Earth.  Claiming a central or favoured position (either spatially, temporally or hierarchically) is totally disallowed by the Copernican principle.  And lastly, using the principle of Parsimony, we must avoid invoking or positing unnecessarily complex explanations. 

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Ravenstar, not only can we legitimately infer the past existence of the Singularity, but we can also infer the current existence of the Multiverse. 

 

These are two logical and consistent inferences we can make about reality.

 

The Singularity and the Multiverse stand on equal footing.

 

Please take some time to think about, absorb and digest that thought.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ravenstar]

I most surely will!  

 

Query... are the terms 'past' and 'current' accurate for the purposes of delineating the singularity/multiverse? Or are they for ease of description?

[Ravenstar]

hmm. back to the 'evil' question. I have a hard time with the 'evil' and 'natural world' concept. Technically we are part of the natural world so I guess yes, one could consider evil to be natural... BUT, there seems to be a distinct difference between volitional evil and just unfortunate natural occurrences that are interpreted as 'evil' by those beings with volition (because of that natural events effect on said beings... not in and of itself). Natural events have no intrinsic meaning apart from what we judge them with, so the classification of an event as good or evil is one we attribute it with, it's not the essence of the event.

 

Think of it this way... an advanced species with self-awareness and volition is space-faring... their home world sun goes supernova, destroying their entire section of their galaxy.. effectively wiping out their entire history and a large part of their population as a species. (some survive because they left their system) Now that event could be considered a great evil... to them. To us, looking on 10,000 light years away it's a marvel (planetary nebula being so darn beautiful and creative in the long term) The actual supernova itself is neutral... it's how it is judged by sentient beings that gives it it's meaning.

 

The same principle applies to disease, hurricanes, volcanoes, etc... so no, the natural world is not evil, it's neutral.. the rain falls on all equally. By this reasoning I have to side with evil being the construct of sentience.

[bornagainathiest]

hmm. back to the 'evil' question. I have a hard time with the 'evil' and 'natural world' concept. Technically we are part of the natural world so I guess yes, one could consider evil to be natural... BUT, there seems to be a distinct difference between volitional evil and just unfortunate natural occurrences that are interpreted as 'evil' by those beings with volition (because of that natural events effect on said beings... not in and of itself). Natural events have no intrinsic meaning apart from what we judge them with, so the classification of an event as good or evil is one we attribute it with, it's not the essence of the event.

 

Think of it this way... an advanced species with self-awareness and volition is space-faring... their home world sun goes supernova, destroying their entire section of their galaxy.. effectively wiping out their entire history and a large part of their population as a species. (some survive because they left their system) Now that event could be considered a great evil... to them. To us, looking on 10,000 light years away it's a marvel (planetary nebula being so darn beautiful and creative in the long term) The actual supernova itself is neutral... it's how it is judged by sentient beings that gives it it's meaning.

 

The same principle applies to disease, hurricanes, volcanoes, etc... so no, the natural world is not evil, it's neutral.. the rain falls on all equally. By this reasoning I have to side with evil being the construct of sentience.

 

Like this?

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"The Star" is a science fiction short story by English writer Arthur C. Clarke. It appeared in the science fiction magazine Infinity Science Fiction in 1955 and won the Hugo Award in 1956. The story was also published as "Star of Bethlehem".^{[citation needed]} It is collected in Clarke's book of short stories, The Other Side of the Sky. Later it was also reprinted in the January 1965 issue of Short Story International as the lead-off story for that issue.

 

A group of space explorers from Earth return from an expedition to a remote star system, where they discovered the remnants of an advanced civilization destroyed when its sun went supernova. The group's chief astrophysicist, a Jesuit priest, is suffering from a deep crisis of faith, triggered by some undisclosed event during the journey.

The destroyed planet's culture was very similar to Earth's. Recognizing several generations in advance that their sun would soon explode, and with no means of interstellar travel to save themselves, the doomed people spent their final years building a vault on the outermost planet in their solar system, whose Pluto-like orbit was distant enough to survive the supernova. In the vault, they placed a complete record of their history, culture, achievements, and philosophy, hoping that it would someday be found so that their existence would not have been in vain. The Earth explorers, particularly the astrophysicist-priest, were deeply moved by these artifacts, and they found themselves identifying closely with the dead race's peaceful, human-like culture and the profound grace they exhibited in the face of their cruel fate.

The final paragraph of "The Star" reveals the source of the priest's pain. Determining the exact year of the long-ago supernova and the star system's distance from Earth, he calculated the date the emitted light from the explosion reached Earth, proving that the cataclysm that destroyed the peaceful planet was the same star that heralded the birth of Jesus. The scientist's faith is shaken because of the apparent capriciousness of God:

 

[O]h God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above

Bethlehem

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[bornagainathiest]

I most surely will!  

 

Query... are the terms 'past' and 'current' accurate for the purposes of delineating the singularity/multiverse? Or are they for ease of description?

 

Yes Ravenstar.

 

The Singularity responsible for the origin of our universe ceased to exist (in our frame of reference) at least 13.8 billion years ago, the instant Cosmic Inflation began.  I say, "at least", because as you know, all of time and space originated from the Singularity.  Therefore, it's only possible to talk about it existing before Inflation in the loosest sense of that word. On the other hand, the Multiverse can be looked at in two ways - the wrong way and the right way.

 

1: We are the First Cause of all things.

 

Here we deliberately violate the Copernican principle and treat our Singularity as the true point of origin of the entire Multiverse.   In this scenario, inflation began 13.8 billion years ago and is still continuing, somewhere far, far beyond the visual horizon of our universe.  This can be called future-eternal self-reproducing inflation.  Inflation continues creating new Singularities, which create new regions like our universe... forever.  Catch is, the correct application of the Copernican principle doesn't permit us to do that.

 

If we do that, then we are treating 'our' Singularity as special.  We are falsely conferring upon it the status of 'first'.  This Future-Eternal Inflation is self-reproducing, bringing new Singularities into existence all the time.  To the inhabitants of any region inflated from one of these new Singularities, theirs will appear to be the 'first' too.  That's because, for them, all of time and space in their particular universe sprang into existence from their particular Singularity.  To them, their Singularity looks like the point of origin of the whole Multiverse.  And so, in the same way, our Singularity appears special and first to us.  So who's right?  The answer is - nobody can possibly know.

 

This is an observer-based effect. Again.

Our sailor on his boat is not at the real center of his reality, which only goes as far as his visual horizon and no further.  So, he cannot correctly conclude that he is at the true center of his world.  Our universe doesn't end at the limit of what we can observe - it extends far beyond that.  We've made sound logical inferences to that effect.  The same principle applies here.  Our Singularity appears to be the origin, because to us all of the Space and Time we occupy came from it.  This is all we can observe.  But once again, we cannot correctly conclude that our Singularity IS the true origin. This is because we must now factor the self-reproducing nature of the Multiverse into the equation.  How do we know if our Singularity wasn't 'caused' by others 'before' it and they by others 'before' them?  And so on, back and back down the line.  The simple answer is that we cannot know.  No observer anywhere or anywhen can know.

 

Furthermore, as the Cosmological principle states, no particular place, no particular time and no particular observer can reserve for themselves any special, preferred or priveleged status.  Therefore, nobody can rightly claim that their Singularity is the very first one.  Therefore, scenario #1 must be discarded as biased.  Nobody, anywhere in the Multiverse can definitively say that their Singularity was the true FIRST cause of the entire Multiverse.  Both the Copernican and Cosmological principles combine to prevent all observers (including us) from knowing where and when they exist within the Multiverse.  This conclusion forces us to abandon the first scenario and adopt the second.

 

2: There is no First Cause of all things.

This is the only logical and sensible position to adopt.

We must conclude that from our p.o.v. the Multiverse is not just Future-Eternal, but also Past-Eternal.  Doing this satisfies both the Cosmological and Copernican principles.  At a stroke all Singularites (no matter where and when they existed, exist or will exist, in relation to us) are considered equal.  Likewise, all regions and all observers (no matter where and when they existed, exist or will exist, in relation to us) are considered equal.

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So Ravenstar, the full answer to your question now reads like this.

 

While our own Singularity no longer exists and is no longer 'current' the Multiverse can be said to be simultaneously 'current' and 'past' and 'future'!

 

Head hurting yet?

 

Look... let's not go any further today.  Let's give ourselves time to think and regroup, ok?

 

Later.

 

BAA

[Ravenstar]

~ I will have to read that story, marvellous, and yes... exactly what I was thinking.

 

 

 

"While our own Singularity no longer exists and is no longer 'current' the Multiverse can be said to be simultaneously 'current' and 'past' and 'future'!"

~ Nope head not hurting, I actually get that. Thanks  

[bornagainathiest]

~ I will have to read that story, marvellous, and yes... exactly what I was thinking.

 

 

 

"While our own Singularity no longer exists and is no longer 'current' the Multiverse can be said to be simultaneously 'current' and 'past' and 'future'!"

~ Nope head not hurting, I actually get that. Thanks  

 

Great! 

 

So would you like me to apply myself to your questions and points in post #179, Ravenstar?

 

Since there's a lot of ground to cover, this would mean proceeding at a pace that you feel comfortable with.

 

Please lmk.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

[Ravenstar]

Yes, absolutely!  

[bornagainathiest]

Ok then, let's start off here.

 

Oooookay... I read that twice and still didn't get it. I think. LOL

 

 

Soooo, I'm going to do some armchair speculation...

 

first I need to get my definitions correct. K,

 

Global: encompassing the whole of something

 

Yes.

A global description of the cosmos describes everything.

The problem is that we cannot perform an accurate global description, based upon accurate global knowledge.  We only have incomplete and limited, local knowledge.  We can only see what lies within the observable universe.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe  This is why anything that lies physically beyond the limits of the observable universe must be inferred from what lies within that limit, using the guidelines of the Cosmological and Copernican principles. 

 

Horizon: The furthest we can sense, because of curvature (I say sense instead of see because visible light is a very small part of how we explore the universe)

 

Curvature?

If you mean the curvature of the space-time continuum R, that's not quite right.  Our yachtsman cannot see further than his visual horizon because of the physical curvature of the Earth.  He cannot see China from anywhere in the Atlantic ocean, no matter how much he tries.  The intervening bulk of the planet prevents him from doing so.

 

We can only see so far and no further in space because of the finite speed of light. 

That's why, when you look at the Hubble deep field, you are looking back in time as well as deeper in space.  Space and time are inextricably linked together and Einstein used the words, 'space-time continuum' to describe this linkage.  The important point to remember is that during the Inflationary Era of the Big Bang event time and space weren't stuck in lock-step, as they are now. The expansion of space rapidly outpaced the expansion of time.   In the first trillionth of a second, space itself expanded many millions of times faster than the speed of light. 

 

Think of it like this.

Q. If space is represented by the Enterprise (NCC-1701) and time is represented by a mildly-sedated geriatric snail, which one will outpace the other?

A.  The Enterprise will outpace the snail, of course.

 

But that mismatch only held true during the ultra-brief Inflationary period.  Once that era came to an end, the Enterprise (space) slowed to a crawl and was then forced to keep pace with Mr. Snail (time), even though it'd left the gastropod zillions of light-years behind.  Now, there's no way the snail (time) could make up the distance the starship covered in that blink of an eye, so that fantastic disparity will always be there.  This explains the incredibly vast diference between our universe's spatial and temporal dimensions. 

 

Since then 13.8 billion years have elapsed, during which light has been forced to crawl at a snailish speed.  This is why the light emitted from stars umpteen trillion light-years beyond our visual horizon hasn't been able to reach us yet.  Because it can only move at a snail's pace it can never make up the distance and cannot possibly reach us.  The universe's ultra-rapid burst of Inflation has inflated these regions far too far away for their light to have reached us yet - even after billions of years.

 

Does that help?

 

BAA