A philosophy thread.

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Avatar of Ziggy_Zugzwang
Treesong wrote:

Think about this....in nature nothing just happens one time only...everything repeats it self for billions of times...that also could apply to the big bang...so it could be that there is more than one big bang ...that again would mean that there are multiple universes.

 

 

I don't think there is more than one big bang. I think there is less than one big bang. I believe the universe has always been here and infinite and as such represents the physical manifestation of 'God' - and preserves ideas of omnipotence and everlasting in plain view.

 

The 'BIg Bang' was promoted by a Catholic priest who needed to match a definite point of creation with the Christian narrative. The 'tired' theory of light IMO explains background radiation better than the 'red shift'/expansion idea - one reason being the anomalous 'red shifts' from galaxies and neighbouring quasars, whose photons  differ in wavelength/energy.

 

...But with all paradigms, people are being employed to carry on 'work' with this and pay their mortgage and help support part of the overall package of mainstream thinking. Science and history , to name but two disciplines are driven by politics rather than truth.

 

 

Avatar of Flank_Attacks

My ideal, 'cover-all-your-bases'.. modern philosophy course.. would entail about, 3 years of study.. Review, All the Great 'philosophers' throughout history.. {and, several of lesser note}.. How those 'philosophers' were influenced, by the eras, in which they lived.

 

.. Along with, a 'walk-down-memory-lane,' re. 'Murphy's Law'.. 'Shit{e}' Happens.. The "Believe it, and Claim It' 'Gospel'.. {according to some}.. and, the late Rev. "Robert A. Schuller" course, {along with his 'mentor' whose name escapes me} - "The Power of Positive Thinking."

Oh yeah.. The Great 'Jewish' and 'other religion' philosophers, of many-Many years ago.. Should also, be a part of the university, study.. Which it probably, is already! -- What am I 'writing' this for?! .. <- My depressive, 'little matters,' alter-ego.

Avatar of Tomtalk
Dr 265. I love that post. I've catching up to do I know.
Avatar of Betluca

yessssssssssssssssssssssssssss i am agree 100%

Avatar of Tomtalk
Treesong 243. Self conscious animal. Those terms I accept I think.

So long as you are willing to accept that animal is part of the evolutionary chain and nothing more.

As you say it's in the DNA.

Nature is an incredible creator. We human beings can tinker but we can't hope to ever create anything like a human being through a way that isn't something that naturally happens.

And even if we could it would even then be a part of nature for that's all we are. It would be nature being aware that's all.

Hmm. It is interesting though nature isn't a being there can be truth experienced.
Avatar of Tomtalk
See there is this idea nature shouldn't be aware but why shouldn't it? I think our view is conditioned.

Like I couldn't see how the universe came into being. How could matter suddenly exist? I realise now that's because I was conditioned to believe that matter comes from matter. Why shouldn't matter be created by natural forces?

And I think consciousness is the same in that we are conditioned to associate consciousness as part of a being but why shouldn't it be a part of nature? It is.

Everything is natural!
Avatar of Optimissed

I visit Newcastle between 10 and 15 times a year. Usually stay at the Vermont Hotel, sometimes drive the round trip in a day, though. My son finally moved back to Newcastle from Bath last month, 7 1/2 years after finishing his maths masters degree at Ncle University.

Amazing there are three people who've lived in South East Northumberland here. It's so different from Newcastle. The people, the way they speak, the countryside ....  I still like to get up to Morpeth and walk in the woods around the Wansbeck near the Mitford road, or visit friends or visit Druridge Bay.

Avatar of Optimissed
Tomtalk wrote:
See there is this idea nature shouldn't be aware but why shouldn't it? I think our view is conditioned. >>>

Either the universe came into being or it didn't. If it didn't it could be eternal. If it's eternal, we can't really envisage what that means, can we? If it came into being then matter would appear to create itself out of nothing. I'm totally happy with that and always have been. I don't believe in the Big Bang as such. I think most likely, matter and space both originate in the cold, intergalactic regions and then the matter congeals into galaxies. It appears that believing the cosmologists have the answers is a bit naive and foolish. Scientists haven't even worked out what thoughts are yet and they're trying to use them to envisage something they've never seen, which isn't even strongly indicated. I'm talking about the Big Bang here. The accelerating expansion of the universe is damning evidence against the Big Bang and yet they don't see that. Again, as you say, because they're conditioned. And when the paradigm changes because someone's different insight is accepted, they'll condition themselves to believe that also. Believing in the multiverse is also due to a willingness to be conditioned.

 

Avatar of Optimissed

Multiverse, Anyone?

In my view, the universe came about according to a set of properties that are necessary, meaning that "multiverse" is exacly the opposite of the way we need to be thinking. There is nothing at all of chance in the way the universe came into being and chance is only applicable to individual particles, rather than to the overview of what makes the universe tick. The entire structure is delicately balanced in that it can only work one way .... and that's the way it works. So the idea of multiverse with an infinite set laws of nature cannot be so, if only from the idea of parsimony of unknowns (Occam's Razor). That is, it's procedurally incorrect in scientific speculation to hypothesise more unknowns than necessary: and a multiverse hypothesises an infinity of unknowns.

The same principle applies to the creation of space and original, particular material in space as to the formation of molecules necessary for life and even to thought itself. The Big Bang is an incredibly naive and clumsy way of portraying it, especially the version of the BB that hypothesises that the universe was infinitely dense and hot in the past. But there are other versions of the BB that make slightly more sense. One of them is not too far off the mark ... that the expansion of the universe is from all points simultaneously and always has been, and the hot, dense beginning is a subjective illusion caused by the topography of the universe.

 
 
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Dan Rosenstein It's my understanding that the idea of the multiverse is a consequence of the mathematics of a certain direction of theorizing. So, while it has no empirical basis, it doesn't just come out of "thin air". (Which doesn't make it correct, just that it isn't totally arbitrary.)
Earnest Shoemate
 
Earnest Shoemate I use the term multiverse from time to time, not because I believe it exactly but because imagination makes it so, much like the way people use words for a deity. If there is a multiverse, perhaps the only connection is imagination, a concept that seems to be real for all of us as well as ethereal The problem I have with the entire concept is consciousness and awareness as me in only this particular place in infinity. Seem to be stuck here; even if imagination allows other views it's not the same.
Dan Rosenstein
 
Dan Rosenstein The idea of the multiverse is certainly good fodder for storytelling and imagination (a la sci-fi). Is it true? Who knows.... if it is, we have no direct physical access to other universes to prove it.
And if we did find ourselves in another one, would we actually know that we were in a different universe?
Some think so because of the so-called "Mandela effect" (people remembering historical events differently from the norm - i.e., that Mandela died in prison vs. that he lived to become president of S. Africa; or even physical items differently than they currently appear, such as the "Bearnstein Bears" vs. "Bearnstain Bears" children's books).
Hypothesizing that this phenomenon is real, however, doesn't necessarily mean a multiverse. Another possibility is that reality is more fluid than we imagine, and can "re-form" to match a different train of events - thus, it's only one manifest universe but different potentials that manage to become manifest. (In some sense, those potentials would have to co-exist in a higher dimension, but they do not constitute what we call a "multiverse" because they don't all come to expression physically.)
I.e., different "realities" but not different "universes".
But this is all imagination and speculation anyhow.
Rose Simone
 
Rose Simone There are different kinds of multiverse hypothesis ...

The most common is the eternal inflation variety ... the concept is that subsequent to the big bang, there was a period of "inflation" in which spacetime grew ....and that inflationary process may have had many branches or "islands" separate from our own. A bit like the process of blowing bubbles, where you end up with lots of separate bubbles floating about as you blow air through the soapy tube. Each bubble might be a universe.

But at this point, the multiverse is a hypothesis, rather than a theory, because of course there is no hard evidence .... there are intriguing indirect reasons to think it could happen... we have some evidence that inflation happened because the cosmos is smooth and flat, just like inflation says it should be ....

And philosophically, of course, the mutliverse is one way of explaining how we got the laws of physics that we have ...why we have an electron that’s not too big or a proton that has the exact opposite charge but the same mass as a neutron or why our four-dimensional spacetime ... some would argue that if there were a multiverse, then, out of zillions of universes, one should turn out like ours.

(Personally, I am not sure that philosophical argument is even necessary: I think once you have a spacetime in X number of dimensions, maybe there no other viable alternative than the laws of physics that we have. Maybe it's just the only way it can work. )

Anyway, as I said, it's just a hypothesis at this point, and it would need direct evidence to be an actual theory.

The multiverse does come out of certain physics models (when they run models making certain assumptions of the early universe, they can get the multiverse) but that of course is not proof.

There are people who are looking for more direct evidence, in things like the cosmic microwave background radiation that gives us a glimpse of the features in early universe. One notion is that maybe, if our universe was part of any other universe at any point, then there might be tell-tale signs of the bumping together or splitting off in cosmic microwave background. But so far nothing conclusive has been found.

It's all very intriguing. Personally, I see no reason why we should ***a priori*** reject the possibility of spacetime bubbles outside of the one we live in. They **could** exist. But it is just a hypothesis and I think it will be difficult, if not impossible, to ever get the proof.
Rose Simone
 
Rose Simone With the big bang there is more evidence ... like the redshifting that we see which indicates the far away galaxies are moving away from us, indicating an expansion ... and there is also evidence in the cosmic microwave background, which gives us a picture of the early universe that seems to show what you would expect if there were a big bang followed by an inflationary period. And there are other bits of evidence as well.
But you can also make that evidence fit other models, such as the one where the universe just eternally collapses and expands and collapses and expands, again and again.
Daniel Barenblatt
 
Daniel Barenblatt There's not just expansion, there is accelerating expansion, which can be taken as evidence against the big bang theory.
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Rose Simone
 
Rose Simone Not necessarily. There could have been a big bang AND some kind of negative pressure that is causing spacetime to expand at an accelerating rate now.
Roger Chapman
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Jayson MacMurray
 
Jayson MacMurray On a side note, what would happen if there were a limited amount of other universes? Would the multi-verse hypothesis still be relevant? It seems to me that in order for the hypothesis to work, you would need an almost infinite amount.
Rose Simone
 
Rose Simone If there were only two or three other universes, then of course you couldn't use the notion of the multiuniverse to back up the notion that we have the laws of physics that we have because out of zillions of universes, one should turn out like ours. ...See more
Jayson MacMurray
 
Jayson MacMurray Idk. I just think the whole concept is impractical. I mean, even if I thought there was a possibility that there may be a some number of universes, then I would have to start asking that one of those has to have one that would have come into contact with us. Presupposing, with that hypothesis, that life was just a random occurrence, than we also have to presuppose that other life, and that those have more advancements, etc. Random possibilities don't just stop with us, or to small minds.
Rose Simone
 
Rose Simone I am not certain I understand why you think the concept is "impractical."

Why should a multiverse be any more or less "impractical" than one universe?

As for *contact* from another universe.... I mean our own universe is HUGE in and of itself and there may very well be other planets with life on them but they might be just too far away, and too different from us, to make communication possible.

So of course we haven't heard from people in *other* universes ... if they exist, then from their point of view their universe is the only one that there is, and maybe there is no practical way to send a message from one bubble of spacetime to another.

I don't think the lack of communication is an indication that other universes don't exist.
Jayson MacMurray
 
Jayson MacMurray Impractical because it cannot be explained simply, when there are better explanations that do a much better job. Didn't Einstein say, 'If you cannot explain something simply, you don't understand it well enough'? There is no way to explain something th...See more
Rose Simone
 
Rose Simone But Jayson, I don't see why you figure a multiverse is more complicated than a single universe.

I mean, once you have the mechanism to create one universe (whatever the mechanism is, be it a God, or be it a quirk of the laws of physics) then why it would it be any more complicated for that same mechanism to produce more than one universe??
Jayson MacMurray
 
Jayson MacMurray It doesn't matter whether God made many universes or not. What matters is that to hypothesize something that isn't even practically testable, or provable, or even remotely describable, is impractical and next to nonsense, really.
Jayson MacMurray
 
Jayson MacMurray I share Neil Turok's feelings. The first two minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssfAZsmg7KQ
Rose Simone
 
Rose Simone Absolutely, unless there is a way to find some evidence or to test it then it is nothing more than a hypothesis.

Neil falls into the category of physicists who say it isn't "science" until you have something that can be tested ... you have to be able...See more
Roger Chapman
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Ziggy Davies
 
Ziggy Davies Chaos+infinity=every possible outcome
Roger Chapman
 
Roger Chapman Does every possible outcome = every outcome?
Edmund Bennett
 
Edmund Bennett Yes, that's the idea, as far as I understand it.
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Avatar of Optimissed

The above was what happened after I posted in a philosophy group yesterday. Last comment is my son, a person of fewer words than me.

Avatar of Gerberk8

God is mentioned a lot in one way or the other in this thread..Like God created the big Bang or God created the universe somehow...

You can t credit God for all the beauty and the awe of things and dismiss him of the misery in the world like  Aleppo Cancer  or  Auschwitz...to name but a few.The list is about endless.

 

Anyway that is the way i see it

 

Avatar of Gerberk8

So you have no trouble with his somewhat darker side as I understand it What kind of a God is that then..

 

Religion is not allowed in here but we call it philosophy to distract the moderators.

Avatar of Tomtalk
Ha ha. Good luck with that.

If I'm honest I find the whole does God doesn't God exist argument stupendously boring. I'm certainly not blocking anyone though.
Avatar of Tomtalk

Morality and ethics. The creation of the universe. Interesting.

Talking about what God does and doesn't want is about as interesting to me as putting a cheese grater on my backside.
Avatar of Tomtalk
Just saying.
Avatar of Gerberk8

You have every right to an opinion Tom... Tis is one of the essential questions of life

 

I would not know a cheese grater if i saw one...Then again i would not probably recognize God if he stood before me.

Avatar of MEXIMARTINI

because Tom you think you are a god.   I wonder if this is why the topic of God bores you. 

Avatar of Gerberk8

You could be right there Kay...

 

 

 

 

 

Avatar of Tomtalk
Hmm.

Why Mexi is this.

Because the arguments are uninteresting.

Firstly most of the arguments are from a position of accepting God. Such as God would do this or that.

Secondly I haven't in all the time I've been here heard someone make a sensible argument either way about the existence of God.

I suppose I'm like hawking. I think a God isn't required. Nature is enough.

Mexi I don't think I'm a god. People that believe in free will believe that.

I believe I don't exist. That all that exists is nature.

I am you and you are me and we are all together.
Avatar of Gerberk8

Maybe that s why I m afraid of him s23..you just don t know with him or her or it...