I would like some further clarification on this point (if possible) because I want to make sure that I don’t misunderstand.
I cannot observe large quantities of rather pure diamond forming from excess carbon and tremendous atmospheric pressure deep within a gas giant planet, but I can know (with reasonable certainty) that this is occurring even though I cannot observe, and/or measure this directly.
I imagine the situation is similar to the existence of quarks. Quarks (by the more common understanding of particle physics) can never be observed directly, because it is believed that they can’t exist outside of a subatomic particle . . . while I reserve judgment on this, because I think of the strangeness (not to be confused with a “strange quark”) of the logical conseqences of quantum mechanics, and I take it on faith that we don’t know and/or understand what we think we do.
So my point is that you aren’t excluding that which is inferred? Even if it’s impossible to directly observe (like mountains of pure, or perhaps a beautiful aquamarine blue) diamond forming deep in a gas giant? We can still reasonably infer it.
With the understanding that I’m not being snide, I am having trouble sorting out your argument, and I’m wondering if cultural differences are interfering with our communication.
So much that you are completely ignoring it, time and time again. Time to piss or get off the pot, not just breeze in here every few days and make the same claims, adding Pascal’s wager now.
Not exactly Kevin.
Or at least, not intentionally. If I’ve goofed about this then I’m sorry and I’ll try to clarify.
I picked those three examples (the Big Bang, black holes and the edge of the universe) because they seemed like things which were clearly beyond our physical ability to directly investigate. That seemed like a useful thing to do because Smr and I were discussing whether the universe had a beginning or not and I was informing him that it was physically impossible to observe whether it did or not.
But you are exactly right with what you say about inferring the conditions inside a gas giant planet. In fact, the very point you make about the inaccessibility of its deep atmosphere also applies here of Earth, but in a slightly different way. We cannot directly access the asthenosphere, the mantle or the core of our planet. We can only go a few thousand feet deep into the crust. Beyond that it’s impossible to directly investigate the conditions that prevail there.
So, we either have to use indirect methods of investigation, like seismology, or we have to make informed inferences about is deep underneath our feet. And there is nothing wrong or flawed in doing this. This is exactly how science proceeds.
I believe that somewhere in this thread I’ve already made the point that all of astronomy and cosmology rely upon inference. For two reasons. First, we cannot go to a distant exoplanet or a distant galaxy, set up our instruments and take readings. Second, because of this limitation we are obliged to rely on telescopes to observe these distant locations. But when we do that, because of the speed of light, we are looking further and further back into the past.
So, when we see a distant galaxy we aren’t seeing it as it is now but as it was when its light left it and began to make its long journey to us. Therefore, we can only infer what conditions prevail in that distant galaxy today. That’s the twist. The very distant galaxies observed by Hubble and the JWST appear to be more primitive and unevolved than, say Andromeda or the Milky Way.
But we infer that today they must be just as evolved as the galaxies in our region of the universe. That’s all we can do and that’s the best we can ever do.
So you are spot on Kevin.
A helluva lot of science proceeds by inference. As you say, quarks and other sub-atomic particles. But also the way that dinosaurs lived, by inferring things about their behaviour from the fossils. And what’s going on twenty miles under the Rocky Mountains. And the bright, twinkling frosting of Tellurium crystals on the highest peaks of the planet Venus. And aqua blue mountains of diamond deep inside gas giants.
All of it is informed inference. This is how science works.
I would rather say the argument is that luck does not have anything to do with it. Our place in this solar system, in this galaxy, in this part of the universe, and perhaps even in this particular universe, is conducive to self-replicating carbon based life forms. So we are a consequence of the particular conditions. Since luck is a subjective term, it has nothing to do with the conditions, as we were not there to experience it. Rather, we are a result of the conditions, the environment, and selection pressures. You might say it is a subtle difference, but it is an important one.
I am pretty sure that @Smr will have no problem with an infinite future involving human immortality, so why at the same time is there incredulity about there being an infinite past?
I suggust that it is because @Smr presupposes a particular narrative common to all the Abrahamic faiths: a singular act of creation as a point-in-time origin for all things, coupled with an open-ended future for human consciousness (be it in heaven or in hell). This causes a failure of imagination regarding anything that doesn’t fit the dogma. It’s why atheists value freethinking and theists don’t even see their own chains.
It’s amazing how many people don’t understand this, highly improbable events occur all the time, our perception of them as lucky / unlucky is utterly irrelevant.
It’s the difference between thinking critically and projecting the bias of a priori religious beliefs into highly improbably events, in the mistaken belief that these events must be guided if we perceive that they favour us in some way.
There is no objective evidence that the odds of dying in a plane crash will vary one iota, if you pray to any deity. Now if you design the plane using no objectively verifiable data, but only religious faith, then those odds just changed drastically.
Of course, when I said ‘we’ I wasn’t referring specifically to the human race or even to life on Earth. I was simply saying that conditions inside our universe are conducive to life (of any kind if, it exists on other planets or in other galaxies) purely as a function of the random way in which the Inflaton field decayed prior to our hot Big Bang.
Which as you rightly point out, we were not there to experience and which was also not decided by any intelligently designing agent but by pure random chance.
If calling that blind process luck is too anthropocentric, then I accept the accusation. I suppose I was trading in accuracy in favour of readability and putting the idea across easily. But I do see and accept your clarification.
I think some more clarification is needed here. Yes, random bulk processes (as in e.g. statistical mechanics) and random macroscopic single events (as in e.g. a thermal vent appearing in a place with favourable chemical conditions) and the presence of a suitable collection of elements and chemicals are at play. But equally important is physical and chemical law, which can create order from disorder when the conditions are just right for a favourable energy flux through the system that can create pockets of reduced entropy, which eventually can lead to complex chemical compounds that can self replicate.
In short, I tend to subscribe to the idea that when the chemical and physical conditions are right, life in some form is likely to appear.
Ok Stevil, as far as I’m aware the idea of the universe ‘popping’ into existence can be traced to this paper by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, which they published in 1970.
Assuming that this incredibly long link works you should be able to bring up a .pdf file showing the paper in full. If it doesn’t work, I’ll copy and paste only the abstract of the paper. Really, all we need to know can be found there.
ABSTRACT
*A new theorem on space-time singularities is presented which largely incorporates and *
*generalizes the previously known results. The theorem implies that space-time singularities *
*are to be expected if either the universe is spatially closed or there is an ‘object’ undergoing *
*relativistic gravitational collapse (existence of a trapped surface) or there is a point p whose *
*past null cone encounters sufficient matter that the divergence of the null rays through p *
*changes sign somewhere to the past of p (i.e. there is a minimum apparent solid angle, as viewed *
*from p for small objects of given size). The theorem applies if the following four physical assumptions are made: *
*(i) Einstein’s equations hold (with zero or negative cosmological constant), *
*(ii) the energy density is nowhere less than minus each principal pressure nor less *
*than minus the sum of the three principal pressures (the ‘energy condition5), *
*(iii) there are no closed time-like curves, *
*(iv) every time-like or null geodesic enters a region where the curvature is not specially aligned with the geodesic. (This last condition would hold in any sufficiently general physically realistic model.) * In common with earlier results, time-like or null geodesic incompleteness is used here as the indication of the presence of space-time singularities. No assumption concerning existence of a global Cauchy hypersurface is required for the present theorem.
It all looks very complex and exotic, but I will explain as best I can.
Through the use of pure math Hawking and Penrose were able to demonstrate that when a very massive star reaches the end of its life it undergoes a catastrophic implosion that causes the core of the star to shrink down to zero size and become a black hole with a space-time singularity at its centre. While this is happening the outer layers of the star undergo an equally catastrophic explosion, which can be seen blazing in the skies as a supernova.
In a nutshell they showed that the entire mass of the star’s core becomes something with no size at all. This is what a singularity is theorised to be. A point of infinite density. Hawking and Penrose used Einstein’s equations of General Relativity to do this. In GR space and time are not treated separately but are fused together into what is referred to space-time. This has an important consequence for the singularity.
Because it has no physical dimensions in space (no height, width, diameter or volume) it therefore also has no temporal dimension either. The passage of time comes to a complete stop at the singularity. Time is frozen. Or rather, that is what is theorised to happen if Einstein’s equations hold good. Just as is mentioned in the Abstract. Hawking and Penrose’s theory and the mathematical proof within it all depend on the equations of GR remaining valid. Nobody knows if they will do, but this is a theory about things that cannot be observed, so all we can do is to go with the math and the logic of theory.
Anyway, Hawking and Penrose realised that if time and space come to a complete end and cease to exist at the singularity, they could reapply this process in reverse when it came to the origin of the universe. Doing this doesn’t violate GR. Those equations hold in scenarios where time move forwards or when it moves backwards. The direction of the flow of time makes no difference.
So, they postulated that all of time and space originated in a singularity at the birth of the universe. That made excellent sense when you think about what happens when a star collapses and implodes. The core becomes denser and hotter and the energies involved rise as the core contracts more and more. Eventually the values rise off the scale and space itself is dragged inward, forming a singularity.
The reverse of what I’ve just described is expected to happen in the Big Bang. As we go back further and further in time the universe becomes denser and heats up until time and space themselves become infinitely curved and shrink down to zero size. Or, going forward in time, the entire universe and all of space and time appear to originate from a zero sized speck of infinite density - which is called the initial singularity.
So Hawking and Penrose’s theory appeared to show that the universe ‘popped’ into existence out of nothing. Space and time didn’t exist before they emerged from out of the initial singularity. This is literally everything coming out of nothing and the math appeared to be rock solid.
Needless to say this idea caught the public imagination and was quickly seized upon by Christian apologists who pointed out the science of the theory exactly matched Genesis 1:1, where god speaks the universe into existence from nothing at all. This apologetic argument has now become firmly lodged in consciousness of Christians and many now naively believe that science confirms scripture.
But this is not the case.
A mathematical proof like the one in this theory is only as good as the assumptions it is based on. If we now look at the abstract Stevil, we can see that Hawking and Penrose listed four physical conditions that must hold if their theory is valid. Of interest to us is the first one…
Einstein’s equations hold (with zero or negative cosmological constant)
In 1998 it was discovered that our universe doesn’t have a cosmological constant with a zero or negative value. In fact our universe has a small, but positive cosmological constant.
In 1998, two teams of astrophysicists, the Supernova Cosmology Project and the High-Z Supernova Search Team, carried out measurements on distant supernovae which showed that the speed of galaxies’ recession in relation to the Milky Way increases over time. The universe is in accelerated expansion, which requires having a strictly positive Λ (cosmological constant). The universe would contain a mysterious dark energy producing a repulsive force that counterbalances the gravitational braking produced by the matter contained in the universe.
This was a disaster for the Hawking - Penrose Singularity theorem. It meant that one of the basic assumptions the mathematical proof and the theory was built upon was false. No proof is ever valid if any of its assumptions are shown to be false. So the theory has been refuted and has failed. It was discarded by both scientists and they both moved on to newer theories.
This explains the origin of the idea that the universe came out of nothing, Stevil. The trouble is that most people still think it did, even though the theory failed and both Hawking and Penrose have publicly stated that it has done so.
We are just focusing on different aspects of the same thing. Your focus appears to be upon the physical conditions within our observable universe with regard to the appearance of life. Nothing wrong with that.
My focus on the other hand, because I’ve been explaining the nuts and bolts of inflation theory, has been mostly on the decay of the energy field responsible for determining the physical conditions in any volume of space (universe). In terms of the theory, this and this alone is the sole determining factor for the viability of life in any universe.
How the field decays is not determined by whatever happens later, within a given universe. It decays according to random factors generated by quantum indeterminacy. Nothing more.
So, perhaps the only difference here between us is one of scale and focus.
So a really really slow drive by proselytising then.
I sometimes wonder what goes through the mind of an apologist who can’t fathom why anyone doesn’t share their unshakable belief in a deity, when they come here, and it’s explained to them.
Is it like a cat driven to distraction by a spot of light moving on a carpet. You can’t explain to the cat why the light is not worth chasing?
I think it is very difficult for people to listen, consider and understand an opposing viewpoint, especially one that opposes long held beliefs. Everyone ends up talking past each other, no one learns anything, nor gains any level of understanding of the other side.
I myself was once an agnostic atheist. However, as I continued to investigate the question, I found myself increasingly convinced that God exists. There is something deeply compelling and fascinating about this truth.
And several times during this thread he points out that arguments for the existence of God must be based upon reason and also be supported by empirical evidence and scientific conclusions.
Which begs the question, what reasonable and scientific evidence could that be? Because what he presented fell well short of the standard he claimed was needed.
Could it be that, despite giving lip service to reason and science, Smr actually came to believe in the existence of Allah by another path or paths? The same ones that every theist usually uses to arrive at their belief?
Namely, cultural influence and emotion.
For the record, I’ve yet to encounter, either in real life or online, a theist who came to believe in a god by following the path of pure reason and scientific evidence. Human’s being what they are, are emotional creatures and I suspect that it was emotion that was a factor in Smr coming to believe in Allah.
But that is just a suspicion so it amounts to no more than speculation.
I have met theists who think of themselves as (and sometimes even are) of a more intellectual inclination, who do make an effort to reason their way to theism. But at one or more points along the journey, motivated reasoning comes into it. They want / need certain things to be true, and they succumb to what subjectively feels “truthy” to them and begin to ignore or reject contrary data. It may not be very obvious to them, it may be a gradual accumulation of squinting a certain way when evaluating information, but at some point they are invested and now they’re contemplating a sunk cost should they change course. Thereafter, they become open to more egregious forms of misrepresentation and bad judgment and blind spots and deflections and equivoations.
In literally all cases of theist interlocutors here that I recall, what to me is the most obvious common thread is responding to arguments or objections we make very selectively, or often, not at all. They either deflect or repeat the same arguments, as we see here. Because they have come up with a particular rationalization from a particular angle, they will only address that, in the hope of pulling others along the same line of thought until they also become too invested to readily “see” anything else.
I assume that Smr or any other theist debater, when they ignore any point I make, it is because they have nothing to answer it with. And by “ignore” I don’t mean they don’t make some vague hand-waving statement in response, such as, “you are mistaken” without any specifics as to exactly what is mistaken or misunderstood and then providing correction from something other than their Holy Writ of choice. By “ignore” I mean that they don’t or can’t or won’t respond with a specific good-faith counterargument to each argument given. They almost always try to force the direction of discussion into their chosen guardrails, if you will, most often by trying to reverse the burden of proof – often by mischaracterizing our position or perverting our definitions (or even commonly accepted definitions).
I can count on one hand the times I’ve been asked by a theist here or anywhere what I mean by what I say; they always want to inflict some kind of tortured presupposition on it. They tend to assume ignorance or hostility on my part, for example.
In fairness, this happens with a handful of unbelievers sometimes too. Assume way too much on some pet topic and then fault me for not hyper-qualifying everything I said in the flow of conversation as proof that I hold some view or attitude that I don’t remotely hew to.
But it happens almost universally with theists; you can pretty much take that to the bank. I think that theism requires a certain “language” and conceptual framework within which it “works” and we pesky unbelievers just don’t play ball. Theists tend not to see their own presuppositions any more than a fish sees the water they swim in.
I can count on one hand the times I’ve been asked by a theist here or anywhere what I mean by what I say; they always want to inflict some kind of tortured presupposition on it. They tend to assume ignorance or hostility on my part, for example.
I wholeheartedly agree with your entire post, Mordant.
But I would like to add two things. The first relates to the part that I’ve quoted above. In my opinion and in my experience there’s a third kind of assumption theists tend to make about atheists, sceptics and non-believers. Beyond the assumptions of ignorance and hostility.
They assume that we are choosing to sin because we love our sins more than the truth they are messengers of.
The other point concerns Smr’s use of the KCA.
Even if he won’t reply to our questions and won’t alter his arguments in the light of our corrections to them, he’s still done a useful service. Well, to me at least. Before this thread I tended to take a more relaxed view of the KCA, because, even if it did successfully argue that the universe had a beginning, there were still several hoops the theists had to jump through before they could get to the god of their choice, Jesus or Allah or whoever.
But in recent days, as you can see from the pattern of my posts about the KCA, I’ve been more proactive, not letting the theists dictate what it means and questioning the truth of its premises. The second premise is the weakest and easiest to challenge and overturn. All that needs to be done is ask the theist, as the claim maker, to present scientific evidence that the universe had a beginning.
Of course, there isn’t any.
So the very best they can do is to declare that the evidence suggests that the universe had a beginning but isn’t definitive and final on the matter. This means that the second premise changes from being an absolute and unchallengeable statement of scientific fact to a tentative proposal that it might have had a beginning.
And so the KCA loses all of its power and can no longer be of any use to theistic apologetic arguments.
If Smr hadn’t used it and also asserted that reason requires that claims be accepted only when they are supported by sound empirical and observational evidence, then I wouldn’t have thought about the the premises of the KCA in those terms. So he’s certainly done me a service - even if that wasn’t his intention.
That link doesn’t work, it seems to have a time limit on it. But doing a search on the title, I have managed to get to the pdf. Thanks.
Yes, I’m not up with all the lingo and so it is very hard to follow.
In my uneducated viewpoint, I can’t see how singularities can be real. Infinities and infinite density seems to be absurd to me. That doesn’t mean it’s not true, just that I can’t see how it can be true.
Yeah, I understand that the math predicts a singularity, But also I understand that GR seems to breakdown beyond the EH and so perhaps it isn’t a reliable model from that point on.
I have a major problem with infinites, and infinite density. Lets say we have a twenty cent coin, made up of 11 grams of metal. We squish it down into a singularity and get an infinite density. We then take 11 grams away from that infinite density. The density is still infinite, because infinite - 11 = infinite. So we get a little cheeky and take away a metric tonne. We still have infinite density, Hmm, so we take away a billion tonnes, but we still have infinite density. This seems absurd to me.
While GR is a fantastic and accurate and reliable model in almost all things, I don’t think the model works beyond the EH and therefore should no longer be used to predict what happens inside the EH.
I whole heartedly accept this concept, and think this is the best way to view the universe.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I thought the passage of time approaches zero as we get to the EH rather than the singularity and that the singularity is supposed to be at a point well beyond the EH. The BH has a radius, The singularity does not.
OK. So we hold onto an “IF” rather than an “IS”
Sounds very interesting, and seems that Time and Space then are a consequence of energy/matter/low entropy rather than a neutral place where energy/matter was born into.
“IF” GR still holds beyond the EH.
What I can’t get my head around, is what is the difference between any black hole and the singularity that preceded the Big Bang.
Is a singularity of infinite density considered to be NOTHING?
Well, yeah, I can see why theologists like the idea that Science and evidence is saying that our Universe had a beginning. The science isn’t saying that god spoke words and the universe came to be, the science is saying that if GR holds then the expansion of our Universe began from a singularity about 14 billion years ago.
I can see why this has happened. This is an extremely complex scientific situation and simplified into common speak, it is saying that the universe had a beginning, and many religious folk are saying that their scriptures state that the universe had a beginning.
What I like about scientific papers is that they disclose the “IF’s”, they don’t try to hide them. They think about them, and they disclose them. It doesn’t stop them from writing the paper. The paper is valid, but based on some assumptions. Only if those assumptions are proved untrue, does the paper fall apart. i.e. it is falsifiable (perhaps).
Hence the ongoing inflation of our universe.
As they should. It doesn’t mean they are losers or stupid, their paper was really good, but ultimately proven to be false, so they adjust and move on, rather than keep fighting the fight to prove themselves correct on anything and everything they have ever said or thought.
But I don’t get it. Is an infinitely dense singularity considered NOTHING?
Thanks very much for taking the time to post this, provide the link and kindly explain it in common terms. Your’e a legend!
No, that is a misconception. The singularity at the event horizon is due to the coordinate system used. Change to another coordinate system and the singularity disappears. I am on vacation now and write on a small tablet, so doing links etc is a total pain. Do a search for e.g. black hole event horizon coordinate system (just guessing, because doing more than one thing at the time on this tablet is painful) or similar, and you will find sources. As an observer progresses in towards the centre of the BH, several other horizons will be found. In a non rotating BH (which is not very likely), gr gives you a point singularity, but once you introduce rotation, it will expand to a disk-like singularity. And here, where density is infinite, is probably where gr solutions break down.
Yes, it is absurd, because you confuse mass with mass density. If you remove 1 g form the point density, it will be 10 g, but it is still confined in a zero volume space, so mass density is still infinite. If you remove the last 10 g, there is no more mass there, so the singularity will cease to be.
There is more I could comment, but not from a tablet.
I’m going to have to break down my reply to you into three parts. One to cover the concept of infinity, one to cover the notion of the singularity coming out of nothing and the last to cover some details about the event horizon. Since the last is the easiest I’ll start with that one and because this forum doesn’t allow any member to make more than three consecutive posts, I’ll do that here.
It’s my understanding that time only appears to appears to come to a stop at the EH to any observer outside of it. So if Bob is falling into a black hole and Alice is some way off watching him, then as he approaches the EH he appears to Alice to be moving more and more slowly. If they are both in spacesuits then his radio messages to her become more and more red-shifted, as does his image.
Eventually Alice sees the image of Bob come to a complete standstill, right on the edge of the EH. As far as she is concerning he has become frozen in time.
But for Bob time passes as normal as he passes through the EH and approaches the singularity. Unfortunately tidal forces stretch him out in a process called ‘spaghettifcation’ killing him in a horribly painful way. Only when his remains reach the singularity itself does time come to and end for him. As explained earlier, the infinite curvature of space-time of the singularity equals the end of space and the end of time.
The key to understanding Bob and Alice’s different experiences is to remember that GR is relative and not absolute. There is no absolute frame of reference for time that applies to both of them equally. Their experience of time is relative to each other and not absolutely determined by any frame of reference that applies equally tot both of them.
