A philosophical problem of the Big Bang theory

[Freddy]

Freddy:

It’s not an infinite regress. Which would be linear. This is cyclical. Which is not.

If this universe causes the next one, it should have been caused by another one, wich should have been caused by another one, wich should have been caused by another one, and we could go on and on and on. If this isn’t an infinite regress, I don’t know what is.

The concept is that this universe wasn’t started by a previous one. It was started by this one. It’s one universe repeating itself.

 

[Freddy]

Wesrock:

if the existence of our current cycle were dependent on one previous cycle

Which is why I said that it’s a misnomer to call it cyclical. What’s really happening is that each iteration begins from a certain state, and then returns to that exact same state. Now those two states are going to look exactly the same for every iteration. So it’s impossible to determine a cycle. Thus it’s a misnomer to call it cyclical, or to determine any actual causal order at all.

And absent space and time, it would also be impossible to distinguish the beginning of one iteration from the beginning of any other iteration. So they would all appear to arise from the exact same cause, and at the exact same time.

People call it cyclical because that’s the way that they mistakenly envision it. But in fact, you can’t really distinguish any causal order at all. So you can’t say that this one was the cause of that one, even accidentally.

But what you can say…is that each iteration would appear to have the exact same cause. You could discern a cause for the iterations as a whole, but not between iterations.

The very concept of a causal cycle would be meaningless…therefore a misnomer.

What you have posted is correct. But the term cyclical is used by Sir Roger Penrose in explaining the concept. If it’s good enough for him, then I am happy to use it.

 

[Freddy]

itsjustme:

But what about a series that isn’t temporal? In which the cause doesn’t precede the effect. In fact, any theory that posits the existence of God is just such an atemporal series. Because the “ first ” cause…God, doesn’t precede the first effect, but is instead cotemporal with it.

LeonardDeNoblac:

This would cause an infinite regress, wich is logically impossible.

One thing we know about physics is that what is possible is not bounded by what those with logic think is possible. The world is far stranger than logic would ever allow it to be.

It’s not logically possible for something to be in two places at once. Or for a son to be older that his father. Or to observe things that no longer exist.

‘It’s not logically possible’ doesn’t have a lot of traction these days.
There are further problems. If the series is atemporal, how do you distinguish between cause and effect? You cannot say “the cause came before the effect” because in the absence of time, “before” is meaningless. How else can you distinguish between “A caused B” and “B caused A”?

Penrose suggests that the universe expands to a point where it effectively dissipates to virtually nothing. And as time is a measure of change and there is nothing to change then there is no time. And no distance. So we return to a condition where it is timeless, and dimensionless which matches the conditions where the universe came to be. And off we go again.

This would be so much easier to keep track of if I didn’t keep getting suspended. You never know who I’m going to be next.

Tell me about it…

 

[itsjustme]

Penrose suggests that the universe expands to a point where it effectively dissipates to virtually nothing. And as time is a measure of change and there is nothing to change then there is no time. And no distance. So we return to a condition where it is timeless, and dimensionless which matches the conditions where the universe came to be. And off we go again.

Sure, Penrose’s CCC, which is exactly what I was thinking of, except that I’m not convinced that information can pass from one iteration to the next. But other than that I like the idea.

Tell me about it…

For those who are new here, I’m an epistemological solipsist. Unfortunately I keep getting suspended and/or banned for what I think are very trivial reasons. Now every time that I create a new user name I don’t just come out and say “Hey everybody it’s me again” the crazy solipsist.

But me and Wesrock have a history, so he deserves to know who he’s talking to, because I respect him. I don’t know if the feeling is mutual, but that’s okay.

So anyway, that’s the backstory…I’m not supposed to be here. And that admission alone may be enough to get me suspended. If so, I’ll probably be back. I’m not like a lot of other people…I’m stubborn. And just technologically adept enough to get by a ban.

 

[LeonardDeNoblac]

You need to look more closely at quantum mechanics. An electron can be in many different places simultaneously. Schrödinger’s cat can be both alive and dead simultaneously.

It’s important to note that I wrote “properly understood”. Now, the Law of Non-Contradiction, properly understood, states that a proposition (“A”) and the contrary proposition (“not-A”) can’t be both completely true at the same time and in the same sense. And such a principle is not violated by the phenomena you mentioned.
An electron may be in different places simultaneously, but this isn’t a real logical contradiction, because it is completely true that the electron is in a specific place and it is also completely true that the electron is in another specific place, at the same time; there would be a real logical contradiction only if it was completely true that the electron is in a specific place and it was also completely true that the electron isn’t in the same specific place, at the same time and in the same sense. An alternative is to consider the position of the electron undetermined (because a quantum state is a superposition of classical states ); this would place quantum phenomena in the context of a polyvalent logic, wich doesn’t really undermine the Law of Non-Contradiction (properly understood ), because in an undetermined state no proposition is completely true. The same solution can be applied to the Schrödinger’s cat paradox.

 

[PetraG]

Penrose suggests that the universe expands to a point where it effectively dissipates to virtually nothing.

I remember listening to two friends of mine, both graduate students at the time, arguing about whether each thought the universe expanded to some point and then contracted again down to a new Big Bang over and over again or whether the universe as we knew it had followed the first and only Big Bang and was going to keep expanding and expanding until it eventually reached super-cold utter chaos.

The discussion got quite heated, which was interesting to me because they were arguing about just two possibilities in an unimaginably distant future none of us would ever live to see. None of us could know what the future holds. I wondered why this discussion was getting so emotional!

It turned out in the end that the ever-expander was an agnostic and the explode-expand-contract-explode partisan was pretty much a pantheist. The pantheist finally admitted that an immense cold and utter chaotic universe was practically the same to her as the death of God. (The ever-expander didn’t see it that way and just liked what he thought was the simpler likelihood, I guess.) As for me, I trusted that God was in control of His creation and it would all work out gloriously however it worked out.

 

[Melodeonist]

Everything in life is a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. There had to be a universe before us before the big bang. Take forests for example. Trees grow. When they die, new ones die in their place. Animals. They’re born/hatched. They live their life, reproduce, die and are replaced by their offspring. Nothing is forever. There’s always a replacement. No new matter is ever created. Everything is recycled. Possibly even our conscious.

 

[Freddy]

The pantheist finally admitted that an immense cold and utter chaotic universe was practically the same to her as the death of God. (The ever-expander didn’t see it that way and just liked what he thought was the simpler likelihood, I guess.) As for me, I trusted that God was in control of His creation and it would all work out gloriously however it worked out.

If you haven’t read Asimov’s The Last Question, it’s somewhat applicable. About a 15 min read: The Last Question -- Isaac Asimov

Asimov nailed it years before Penrose. But with a twist…

 

[EndTimes]

The Big Bang theory accounts for the observed expansion of the universe. If the universe is expanding, then the further we go back in time, the smaller universe we find. Doing so, we eventually end up with the initial singularity, an infinitely small point of seemingly infinite density.

We can only go back in time to Planck time…
and not to the Singularity of which one can postulate about.

Again - we can explore back to 5.39 × 10−44 seconds and not before…

Big Bang Models go back to Planck Time

And… According to Stephen Hawking (The Beginning of Time)

“The universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down”
_

On that note … and starting with Infinity Distances per Second,
the Velocities of the Expansion of the universe from Zero – to the size of a grapefruit-which is known
exceeded the “Speed of Light” …

 

[mythbuster1]

Hilbert’s Hotel can accommodate any finite number of guests, or even a finite number of nested infinities of guests, but the notion of guest 1 being able to get a cigar from his neighbor presupposes the existence of any cigars anywhere in the hotel. Nothing intrinsic to the guests or the rooms implies that any of the guests brought cigars or that any of the rooms were stocked with cigars.

 

[STT]

The universe is infinite but that doesn’t mean that we need a singularity with infinite energy. That is true because the negative gravitational energy can cancel positive energy for the creation of matter.

 

[Freddy]

On that note … and starting with Infinity Distances per Second,
the Velocities of the Expansion of the universe from Zero – to the size of a grapefruit-which is known
exceeded the “Speed of Light” …

Call me Mr. Picky but it is not entirely correct to use the usual term ‘velocity’ when referring to the expansion of the universe. The units for velocity are set distance over time. Whereas the expansion is measured not over a set distance but as distance over time over distance. To be specific (if not entirely accurate) the expansion is around 70 kps per megaparsec. Which is 70 kilometres per second per 3.3 million light years. So the larger the distance the greater the velocity.

And it was the size of the OBSERVABLE universe which was described as being as large as a grapefruit at a given time. The size of the actual universe itself at that time may well have been infinite.

If the universe was the size of a grapefruit then it would have had a centre. Which it didn’t have. And doesn’t have.

 

[EndTimes]

Call me Mr. Picky but it is not entirely correct to use the usual term ‘velocity’ when referring to the expansion of the universe.

You’ve missed what I’d said: " the Velocities of the Expansion of the universe from Zero "

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Call me Mr. Picky but it is not entirely correct to use the usual term ‘velocity’ when referring to the expansion of the universe.

You’ve missed what I’d said: " the Velocities of the Expansion of the universe from Zero "

Velocities plural? In which case I stand corrected. My apologies.

 

[EndTimes]

Velocities plural? In which case I stand corrected. My apologies.

accepted…

starting_point mass distance velocity acceration rate_of_accelaration et cet et cet et cet ad infinitum … and let’s not forget space-time…

are manners of viewing/realizing - something… such as a facet of some entire pictures…