Did the universe begin???

[Joshpantera]

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning???????

 

 

 

 

[pantheory]

As Sir Penrose explained, the beginning of time has been, and still is a prime question is cosmology. In the original Big Bang model the question was answered. According to this model the beginning was the Big Bang. This beginning was first described by Lemaître in the 1920's. He was the founder of the Big Bang theory which he called his Fireworks theory. He proposed a 'primeval atom' or 'Cosmic Egg' exploded at the moment of creation. He then described his theory mathematically based upon an explosion and thereafter an expanding universe which fit well with Hubble's discovery of separate galaxies, the redshift of their spectrum seemed to correlate with their distances. Many believed this meant the expansion of the universe and that galaxies were moving away from each other. Following this hypothetical expansion backwards in time one would come to a single point in space and time which was believed to be the beginning point of the universe, the beginning of the Big Bang.

 

Following the 2nd world war a Russian-American theoretical physicist and newly practicing nuclear physicist, George Gamow, renewed popular interest in the Big Bang theory by publishing a popular book for the public entitled 1, 2,3 infinity. The book was based upon a nuclear explosion as the source of the Big Bang theory. This is where for a long time, and still to this day, one hears of the beginning of the universe in billionths of a second referring to a nuclear explosion, today referred to as the beginnings of Inflation (inflation theory).

 

In the mid 1960's there were two major theories for the universe. One was the Big Bang and the other was called the Steady State theory. Steady state theories in general were the old cosmology dating back to the 1600's where the universe was proposed to be both infinite in size and age and had no beginning. The latest version of this idea was developed by Fred Hoyle et. al., an English physicist, in the late 1950's. Hoyle at the time was also working in nuclear physics and the evolution of atomic elements via his theory, the creation of most all elements inside stars, today's theory. It was Hoyle who named the fireworks theory of Lemaître the "Big Bang," in his weekly radio commentary. Many believe this was meant to be a negative comment about the theory because he theorized the competing theory, the Steady State.

 

Religious people found some comfort in the Big Bang theory in that the universe accordingly had a beginning just as in the Bible. Pope Pius XII proposed a link between the beginning of the universe, it's expansion proposed by the Monk Lemaître, the first BB theorists – as being a possibility of being “scientific” evidence for the existence of God. Many atheists preferred the Steady State theory for the opposite reason.

 

Following the 1960's the Big Bang became the preferred model of the universe for many reasons but primarily because of the discovery of the microwave background radiation. For many years up until the late 1990's the universe was believed to have had a beginning of a Big Bang, then followed by Inflation. Thereafter in the 2000's Hawkings and others were proposing multi-verses and different beginnings before the Big Bang.

 

Today, including now Nobel laureate Sir Roger Penrose in the above link, proposes no beginning to the universe, a cycle of never ending universe cycles. Most of these theorists also believe in the present BB model but believe there was something before that.  Although maybe the majority of theorists believe the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe, a growing number theorize beginnings before the Big Bang, most of these are infinite beginnings. 

 

Many also believe there was a big theoretical advantage to the original Big Bang model concerning a beginning in time. In such a model there were the three dimensions of space and the dimension of time involving a beginning entity. Time within the beginning entity would have had the potential to change the entity in its form, size or both. Such a change, or incremental parts thereof, would accordingly define time. If so the beginning entity would then be time zero. There would be no such time, or no such entity before time zero. The word "before" in this context would have no meaning. This IMO is good theory. In such a theory infinity does not have to be a reality, just a useful mathematical concept. There would be no infinity of time, space, matter etc. Everything would be finite in quantity. Time would define change; space would simply be the distance between matter, no more than this. There would be nothing (no space) outside of the bounds of matter. The universe would therefore be much simpler to understand IMO.

 

As a formal cosmological theorist myself, I do not believe in the Big Bang model and most of its tenets, such as dark matter, dark energy, Inflation, an expanding universe, the beginning BB entity, a beginning of heat, etc., but concur with a beginning to the universe similar but simpler to that described above concerning a beginning entity. Such a beginning would be extremely simple in its elemental parts, and vastly slower in its evolution compared to mainstream theory.

 

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alternative_cosmology

 

 

 

 

 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

A very interesting concept.  But, hey!  If god has always existed, why not the matter around us?

[pantheory]

15 hours ago, Weezer said:

A very interesting concept.  But, hey!  If god has always existed, why not the matter around us?

 

There's a difference between "always" and "never existed" concerning God. Lucky for us at least we can be sure our universe has existed for some time, longer than thousands of years as for young Earth creationists, billions of years we can be certain of, possibly trillions of years, time infinite, cycles of universes, multiverses, whatever fantasies we wish to dream up.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

I decided several years ago that there are mysteries that we, with present abilities, will likely not figure out in our lifetime, and stopped worrying about them.  But it is interesting to see the theories that people come up with. A cycle of never ending cycles is intriguing. 

[pantheory]

On 10/10/2020 at 11:52 AM, Weezer said:

I decided several years ago that there are mysteries that we, with present abilities, will likely not figure out in our lifetime, and stopped worrying about them.  But it is interesting to see the theories that people come up with. A cycle of never ending cycles is intriguing. 

 

This is a common wide-spread belief, that humans are either not smart enough or presently not knowledgeable enough to figure out the mysteries of the universe in just a century, for instance.

 

IMO humans are smart enough, but the GroupThink undercurrents have F'ed up modern physics theory so much that little of it remains valid. Scientists have not necessarily wasted their time by their research since a number of great discoveries have been made. Technology, for instance, continuously progresses, mostly to the advantage of mankind IMO. It is just that many of the conclusions of scientific research have ended up with intractable theory.

 

A lot of detail without the proper organization and understanding of it leads to confounding theory.  It's only complicated because that's the way we have put the details together. Once we start seeing simple, logical, understandable theory, we will then be on the right track to understanding the general simplicity of reality and of the universe IMO. The old computer cliche comes to mind concerning theory, garbage in, garbage out: wrong conclusions going in, bad theory going out.

[WalterP]

Look at what I found!

 

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/bgv-theorem-and-penroses-conformal-cyclic-cosmology.994703/

 

This thread was begun at 08:44 today, so we can watch how it evolves from the very beginning.  (Pun intended!)

 

I'm a member of physicsforums and as far as I know registration and membership aren't required for non-members to see the contents of threads.

 

But, if it turns out otherwise, I'll be happy to copy over what happens there to here.

 

At a guess the content could be VERY useful indeed when it comes to counter-apologetic arguments.

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

[pantheory]

 

 

6 hours ago, WalterP said:

Look at what I found!

 

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/bgv-theorem-and-penroses-conformal-cyclic-cosmology.994703/

 

This thread was begun at 08:44 today, so we can watch how it evolves from the very beginning.  (Pun intended!)

 

I'm a member of physicsforums and as far as I know registration and membership aren't required for non-members to see the contents of threads.

 

But, if it turns out otherwise, I'll be happy to copy over what happens there to here.

 

At a guess the content could be VERY useful indeed when it comes to counter-apologetic arguments.

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

 

Your link discusses the BGV theorem. Allen Guth, of the BGV theorem, was a founder of Inflation theory. The BGV theorem states that while "eternal inflation" could last forever into the future, it still had to have some type of beginning to it.

 

Not that I understand much of such Inflation theories, or agree with expanding universe theories, I think that Penrose's version is a little different. His idea is that as the universe expands to the point where matter no longer exists, both time, space, and distances would no longer have meanings to them and therefore would not exist. In their absence one has collective energy as a single entity, but not necessarily spread out because distance would no longer have a meaning to it. Time also would have no meaning at this point in the absence of matter, according to Penrose.

 

In this scenario, according to my understanding of Sir Penrose, the universe could begin again as it did in the Big Bang scenario where matter again would be created in a energy interaction environment. With the new creation of matter, a new beginning of time, space and distances would have meanings again. Another expansion and Inflation cycle would ensue.

 

 

[WalterP]

Yes, that's right Pantheory.

 

 

Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC) theory is fully eternal, having no beginning or end.

 

But, according to the BGV, all models of Inflation (even the so-called eternal ones) must have had a beginning.

 

On the face of it, the two paradigms seem to be incompatible.

 

 

However, in the physicsforum site the member called Haushofer has asked if there's any 'fit' between the two.

 

So, this is our chance to observe what the scientists and experts there have to say about this question.

 

 

I've posted this here, because its of interest to those members of Ex-C who are interested in counter-apologetic arguments.

 

Any fully eternal cosmology totally destroys Christian apolgetics, which require that the universe have a true beginning.

 

Future-eternal Inflationary cosmologies also do that job, providing that the Copernican Principle is correctly applied.

 

 

Sadly, even though their belief system demands honesty from them, its necessary for us to keep the Christians honest.

 

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pantheory]

5 minutes ago, WalterP said:

Yes, that's right Pantheory.

 

 

Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC) theory is fully eternal, having no beginning or end.

 

But, according to the BGV, all models of Inflation (even the so-called eternal ones) must have had a beginning.

 

On the face of it, the two paradigms seem to be incompatible.

 

 

However, in the physicsforum site the member called Haushofer has asked if there's any 'fit' between the two.

 

So, this is our chance to observe what the scientists and experts there have to say about this question.

 

 

I've posted this here, because its of interest to those members of Ex-C who are interested in counter-apologetic arguments.

 

Any fully eternal cosmology totally destroys Christian apolgetics, which require that the universe have a true beginning.

 

Future-eternal Inflationary cosmologies also do that job, providing that the Copernican Principle is correctly applied.

 

 

Sadly, even though their belief system demands honesty from them, its necessary for us to keep the Christians honest.

 

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think we're generally lucky here in the X-Christ forum in that I've seen few corkscrew type Christians commenting here. We are not an easy flock to shepherd away.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

13 hours ago, pantheory said:

 

This is a common wide-spread belief, that humans are either not smart enough or presently not knowledgeable enough to figure out the mysteries of the universe in just a century, for instance.

 

IMO humans are smart enough, but the GroupThink undercurrents have F'ed up modern physics theory so much that little of it remains valid. Scientists have not necessarily wasted their time by their research since a number of great discoveries have been made. Technology, for instance, continuously progresses, mostly to the advantage of mankind IMO. It is just that many of the conclusions of scientific research have ended up with intractable theory.

 

A lot of detail without the proper organization and understanding of it leads to confounding theory.  It's only complicated because that's the way we have put the details together. Once we start seeing simple, logical, understandable theory, we will then be on the right tract to understanding the general simplicity of reality and of the universe IMO. The old computer cliche comes to mind concerning theory, garbage in, garbage out: wrong conclusions going in, bad theory going out.

Best wishes in getting it all figured out!

[pantheory]

10 hours ago, Weezer said:

Best wishes in getting it all figured out!

 

Thanks Weezer

[Joshpantera]

This is sort of like the Phoenix or Bennu. Always rising from the ashes of a previous incarnation. 

 

The biggest problem with trying to go in directions otherwise, is that they dead end. And dead ends don't seem to work out and aren't satisfying as credible sounding answers. Such as nothing magically becoming something. Only to then turn into nothing again, forever. These contrary concepts don't work out very well. So Penrose and others have moved on to new theories that flow, which come off as more philosophically sound.