Subj : The universe            4
To   : Jim Munden
From : Bob Eyer
Date : Fri Dec 22 2000 04:37 am

>Hello!  May I contribute a few cents from my meager knowledge
>bank?  :-)

No need to ask.  The answer always is: of course.

>>Yes, I understand that.  But the fact remains that if the universe
>>did not always exist, if it came into being by something else,
>>then it is perfectly valid to speak of that which came before it.

-Coming into being of the universe by something else is merely
-circumlocution for saying that something caused the universe to
-exist.
-
-But the concept of cause has no meaning unless it occurs in the
-world of appearance, i.e.  in the universe.  Therefore no
-empirical meaning can be attached to the question "What caused the
-universe to exist?" There is no logically possible way to answer
-such a question.
-
-Therefore, the universe did not have a cause.  It had a beginning
-which occurred some 15-20 billion years ago; and that beginning
-was the Big Bang.
-
-But it had no cause.  It began, simpliciter.

>This is certainly not an original thought,

True. My argument is a distillation of themes drawn from Kant's
critique of the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God
in his Critique of Pure Reason and modern British analysis such
as is found in the writings of Bertrand Russell.  All this
dovetails rather neatly with Einstein on cosmology. So I don't
see any need to get involved with the mathematics of General
Relativity and Cosmology, to which Dave Oldridge was alluding in
his previous messages on the same topic.

In addition, even if General Relativity were false, the
Kant/Russell argument would still apply: Causes always occur, by
definition, in the world of appearance (i.e.  in the universe);
therefore, it is self-contradictory to suppose that the universe
had a cause.

>but what if the "Big
>Bang" and the current expansion are but phases in an ongoing
>oscillation of energy converting to matter, and vice versa?

Opik's oscillating universe theory, no doubt.

>That
>is, an immense ball of pure energy explodes and condenses
>ultimately into cold, heavy matter.  Gravity eventually draws the
>matter back into a singularity, gradually converting it into
>energy through friction and tidal forces until it is once again
>the immense ball of pure energy, which explodes and starts the
>cycle anew.  Whew!

The problem here is how to get evidence of the previous states of
the universe.  The main weakness of the oscillating universe
theory is that it does not suggest any way to do this.

The Steady State theory is another theory which supposes that the
universe always existed.  And it achieved credence in the
scientific community for a substantial period just because it did
suggest empirical tests which would confirm or confute its own
hypothesis.  For example, this theory assumes the Perfect
Cosmological Principle, according to which the universe always
looks the same, regardless where the observer is located in it, in
space and time.  The consequence of this assumption is that
density of the universe is a universal constant.  In view of the
fact that the universe is expanding, the Steady Staters deduced
that there must exist a law of the continuous creation of the
hydrogen atom, and they actually calculated the rate at which this
creation must take place.  However, the practical problem with
this calculation is that the rate predicted is so small as not to
be measurable with existing technology.  (Something like one
hydrogen atom per year per some billions of cubic litres of
space).

There are several observational problems with the steady state
theory, not the least of which is new evidence that the expansion
rate of the universe is increasing (new evidence of
acceleration).  Any acceleration in the expansion rate obviously
is incompatible with the Perfect Cosmological Principle.

>I imagine the infinite void has always existed.

Very easy to imagine, but not so easy to justify.

>The unanswerable
>question, though, is "What was the origin, matter or energy, and
>what initiated the explosion?".

Correct.  That question is unanswerable, since the explosion
begins the universe, i.e.  everything.

Bob

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