Is there a center of the universe?

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 9, 2023

Big Bang, Intelligent Design}

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This very homogeneous image of the early universe is proof of two things we discussed. First, that the ‘bang’ was not triggered by something, and second, if there is no point of origin for an explosion, there is no center of the universe, no privileged spot.
There is another important characteristic of the universe, it does not indicate any relevant direction. In fancy words, the universe is isotropic in the big picture, meaning it doesn’t have a preferred direction. Roads are not isotropic, you have to be going in a direction, a sink is not isotropic, the water moves to the drain. – Paula Ferreira* (March 8, 2023)

How do we know that the Big Bang was not “triggered by something”? Do we know anything about what went on before that?

*Ferreira is a PhD student in physics.

Comments

I think that’s basically right: choosing to believe in a Creator God or a multiverse would be a “leap of faith” either way.
Nonsense.whistler_{March 12, 2023
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@21
Those who don’t believe in God, resort to “the multiverse,” as an alternative. However, there’s still no way to apply any scientific measurements or observations to the multiverse, so it’s really no different than a different version of theism.
I think that's basically right: choosing to believe in a Creator God or a multiverse would be a "leap of faith" either way. (This is why I like to call the belief in a multiverse "faitheism".) If one were to limit oneself to what is warranted by science, agnosticism is the only reasonable option.
Nicely stated. And it leaves a massive, unanswered question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” It’s provocative, but not subject to any scientific investigation.
Agreed. And I suspect that even a change in scientific theory would not really answer the metaphysical question. That is, even if we were to solve the problem of quantum gravity with a theory that replaced both general relativity and quantum mechanics, it is doubtful that such a theory would bring us any closer to a scientifically tractable answer to "why is there something rather than nothing?"PyrrhoManiac1_{March 12, 2023
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BA @32 I guess we will never know. It's not that they are able to articulate what's driving them.Origenes_{March 12, 2023
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"Suppose you are right, why would anyone be hostile (to the point of accepting the most insane proposals) towards God in general?" LOL, if you had the simple and pat answer for that question, I reckon you could cure much of ill, not only in science, but in the world. :) But alas, I am not a psychologist.
“I maintain that whatever else faith may be, it cannot be a delusion. The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health - preface “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health – page 100
bornagain77_{March 12, 2023
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BA 30
I would hold that Everett and Deutsch are just hostile towards God in general and not towards Christianity in particular.
Suppose you are right, why would anyone be hostile (to the point of accepting the most insane proposals) towards God in general?Origenes_{March 12, 2023
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Well Origenes, although many Darwinian atheists here on UD are certainly overtly hostile towards Christianity in particular, I wouldn't hold that hostility towards Christianity in particular is driving all these atheists in cosmology who are making these insane postulations. For instance, Lawrence (something from nothing) Krauss hates all religions, not just Christianity. "So Judaism, Christianity, Islam, all of those are from a scientific perspective, nonsense." - Krauss https://iscast.org/watch-and-listen/interview-with-lawrence-krauss/ Likewise, with MWI, I would hold that Everett and Deutsch are just hostile towards God in general and not towards Christianity in particular.
The Atheist War Against Quantum Mechanics – Nov 28, 2021 Excerpt: A dyed-in the-wool nihilist, Everett is known for ordering that his ashes be dumped into a trashcan when he died—a practice that Everett’s daughter later copied upon committing suicide. Everett brought this same dedication to bear in his scientific career. Today, Everett’s disciples praise him for bringing an atheistic scorn of the immaterial back to quantum mechanics. As a graduate student in the 1950s, Everett was alarmed to discover that traditional quantum mechanics did not line up with his materialist commitments. He was repulsed by the fact that the human mind seemed to be given a special role—a conclusion that Everett thought smacked of the supernatural. There seemed to be “a magic process in which something quite drastic occurred, while in all other times systems were assumed to obey perfectly natural continuous laws.”[4] In Jonathan Allday’s words, Everett firmly believed that such a “‘magic process’… should not be considered in quantum physics.” Everett therefore devised the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics—perhaps the most widely-known interpretation in contemporary popular culture. The purpose of the interpretation was, in essence, to create a consistent model of quantum mechanics that would preserve Thomas Huxley’s materialistic dismissal of the mind. Everett’s model continues to be extremely influential. David Deutsch, a militantly atheistic contemporary physicist, regards himself as a sort of apostle of Hugh Everett. “Everett was before his time,” says Deutsch. Before Everett, “things were regarded as progress which are not explanatory, and the vacuum was filled by mysticism and religion and every kind of rubbish. Everett is important because he stood out against it.”[5] Deutsch’s words of praise are important: Everett’s greatest achievement is not the elegance of his mathematical model, but that the fact that his model pushed back against “religion,” which is of course false. https://www.staseos.net/post/the-atheist-war-against-quantum-mechanics
bornagain77_{March 12, 2023
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BA @28 Their insane behavior indicates they are in some perceived existential struggle with Christianity. Christianity is absolutely unacceptable to them, so gloves are off. What fuels them is the underlying assumption that if atheism fails, Christianity is true.Origenes_{March 12, 2023
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Well Origenes, besides those two, there are a few more attempts by atheists to avoid God that are also certainly in the running for the most insane postulation from atheists to avoid God. As Sheldon Glashow remarked to Max Tegmark's postulation of a mathematical multiverse, (i.e. a "set of all mathematical structures, each of them constituting a universe unto itself"), "there must exist a slightly different mathematical structure, whose equations are emblazoned on another T-shirt, wherein I am Tegmark’s psychiatrist rather that a physicist. I do not believe a word of it. Paraphrasing Danny, I may be a blockhead but I am certainly not a mathematical structure akin to a triangle."
A Hand-Waving Exact Science - Sheldon Lee Glashow In response to “It’s You, Again” Excerpt: And our ToE is just one among an infinity of mathematical structures, each of them its own universe. If Tegmark is correct, there must exist a slightly different mathematical structure, whose equations are emblazoned on another T-shirt, wherein I am Tegmark’s psychiatrist rather that a physicist. I do not believe a word of it. Paraphrasing Danny, I may be a blockhead but I am certainly not a mathematical structure akin to a triangle. - Sheldon Glashow https://inference-review.com/letter/a-hand-waving-exact-science
bornagain77_{March 12, 2023
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BA @20
Of note, Dr. Wiseman, with his new model, still holds that he exists in an infinitude of other universes and that his consciousness somehow ‘supervenes’ in each of those universes, (but not all of them at the same time). 24:42 mark https://youtu.be/92lCzlBCNgU?t=1482 This is insane. And I don’t care if a PhD is saying he exists in an infinity of other places. It is simply bark raving mad. And please note, MWI was postulated first and foremost to avoid God. So apparently it now comes down to choosing between God or insanity, And the atheist has apparently chosen insanity.
BA, in your estimation, what is the more insane attempt to avoid God: Paul Davies's proposition that human beings created the universe backward in time or the MWI?Origenes_{March 12, 2023
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As to "David Bohm’s postulate of an infinite-speed time-ordered “quantum potential”, Yet, "These predictions (of quantum mechanics) are completely independent of the relative arrangements of measurements in space and time. That tells you something about the role of space and time. There's no role at all.",,," - Zeilinger
"There's one important message I want to say here. When you look at the predictions of quantum mechanics for multi-particle entanglement,, so you could have one measurement here, one (measurement) there, an earlier (measurement), a later (measurement), and so on. These predictions (of quantum mechanics) are completely independent of the relative arrangements of measurements in space and time. That tells you something about the role of space and time. There's no role at all.",,, - Anton Zeilinger - 2022 Nobel Prize lectures in physics - video (1:50:07 mark) https://youtu.be/a9FsKqvrJNY?t=6607 Alain Aspect: From Einstein’s doubts to quantum technologies: non-locality a fruitful image John F. Clauser: Experimental proof that nonlocal quantum entanglement is real Anton Zeilinger: A Voyage through Quantum Wonderland - Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”.
Verse:
Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
As to free will,
“The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” Anton Zeilinger – Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437 Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars – Anton Zeilinger – 14 June 2018 Abstract: This experiment pushes back to at least approx. 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation, excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403
bornagain77_{March 12, 2023
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Bohm's "quantum potential" can be considered falsified by experiment Antoine Suarez - Oct. 2014 Abstract: A Michelson-Morley-type experiment is described, which exploits two-photon interference between entangled photons instead of classical light interference. In this experimental context, the negative result (no shift in the detection rates) rules out David Bohm's postulate of an infinite-speed time-ordered "quantum potential", and thereby upholds the timeless standard quantum collapse.,,, Page 3: 4. Discussion.—David Bohm’s assumption of an “infinite-speed time-ordered quantum potential” is generally supposed to reproduce the experimental predictions of quantum mechanics, and, so far, considered a possible causal alternative to the standard interpretation of the timeless wavefunction collapse at detection (see for instance [3, 5, 10–12]). Strictly speaking, Bohm’s time- ordered quantum potential implies disappearance of the quantum correlation in case the decisions at the beam- splitters BSA and BSB happen simultaneously in the assumed “preferred frame”, and hence it is actually at odds with standard quantum physics [13]. Nonetheless this prediction cannot be tested by a real experiment. By contrast, in the experiment presented in the preceded section Bohm’s assumption implies the shift in the counting rates predicted by (7). This prediction conflicts with relativity and is testable. Although a real experiment would be “nice to have”, it does not seem required if one considers that the falsification of the prediction (7) results by induction from the Michelson- Morley experiments repeatedly performed in the past. To this extent the negative result of these experiments can be straightforwardly extended to the entanglement version presented in the precedent section to conclude that shift predicted by (7) will not be observed. And this means that the Michelson-Morley entanglement experiment (Figures 1 and 2) rules out Bohm’s “infinite-speed time-ordered quantum potential”.,, Page 4: 5. Conclusion.—It is noteworthy that Bohmian mechanics conflicts with both, standard quantum mechanics and relativity. Whereas the conflict with quantum mechanics is not testable, the conflict with relativity can be tested through the experiment we have presented in this paper. Therefore Bohm’s “preferred frame” assumption can be considered falsified by experiment to the same extent as relativity is considered to be confirmed by it. By contrast, the standard quantum collapse at detection ignores the “preferred frame” (time-order) and thereby implicitly contains relativity. The proposed experiment confirms this view and highlights that relativity and quantum physics are two inseparable aspects of one and the same description of the physical reality. These two theories neither are incompatible with each other nor have a “frail peaceful coexistence”, but rather imply each other: we can’t have one without the other. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.2014.pdf
bornagain77_{March 12, 2023
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23:50 mark: "We've thought about how you generalize this beyond simple one particle in one dimension , and it becomes a lot more complicated. We don't have any explicit form of the potential that we know would work but the basic idea would be is captured by this equation here that every world again obeys a newtonian, this is this is just newton's equation, so the only thing which we're doing is adding some quantum force which is exactly the force from Bohm's quantum potential, but we're imagining that that quantum force is determined by some sort of local averaging of the the density of worlds uh in in the region for the where that particular world is" - Wiseman https://youtu.be/92lCzlBCNgU?t=1427
Here are a few more problems with Bohmian mechanics, that Dr. Wiseman did not mention,
Bohmian mechanics, a ludicrous caricature of Nature – Lubos Motl – July 15, 2013 Excerpt: There’s no way out here. If you attempt to emulate a quantum field theory (QED) in this Bohmian way, you introduce lots of ludicrous gears and wheels – much like in the case of the luminiferous aether, they are gears and wheels that don’t exist according to pretty much direct observations – and they must be finely adjusted to reproduce what quantum mechanics predicts (sometimes) without any adjustments whatsoever. Every new Bohmian gear or wheel you encounter generally breaks the Lorentz symmetry and makes the (wrong) prediction of a Lorentz violation and you will need to fine-tune infinitely many properties of these gears and wheels to restore the Lorentz invariance and other desirable properties of a physical theory (even a simple and fundamental thing such as the linearity of Schrödinger’s equation is really totally unexplained in Bohmian mechanics and requires infinitely many adjustments to hold – while it may be derived from logical consistency in quantum mechanics). It’s infinitely unlikely that they take the right values “naturally” so the theory is at least infinitely contrived. More likely, there’s no way to adjust the gears and wheels to obtain relativistically invariant predictions at all. I would say that we pretty much directly experimentally observe the fact that the observations obey the Lorentz symmetry;,,, and lots of other, totally universal and fundamental facts about the symmetries and the interpretation of the basic objects we use in physics. Bohmian mechanics is really trying to deny all these basic principles – it is trying to deny facts that may be pretty much directly extracted from experiments. It is in conflict with the most universal empirical data about the reality collected in the 20th and 21st century. It wants to rape Nature. A pilot-wave-like theory has to be extracted from a very large class of similar classical theories but infinitely many adjustments have to be made – a very special subclass has to be chosen – for the Bohmian theory to reproduce at least some predictions of quantum mechanics (to produce predictions that are at least approximately local, relativistic, rotationally invariant, unitary, linear etc.). But even if one succeeds and the Bohmian theory does reproduce the quantum predictions, we can’t really say that it has made the correct predictions because it was sometimes infinitely fudged or adjusted to produce the predetermined goal. On the other hand, quantum mechanics in general and specific quantum mechanical theories in particular genuinely do predict certain facts, including some very general facts about Nature. If you search for theories within the rigid quantum mechanical framework, while obeying the general postulates, you may make many correct predictions or conclusions pretty much without any additional assumptions. https://motls.blogspot.com/2013/07/bohmian-mechanics-ludicrous-caricature.html
A few more insurmountable problems with Bohm’s pilot wave theory are clearly elucidated in the following video:
A Critique of Bohmian Mechanics (Pilot Wave theory) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2hoU4jaQQ
bornagain77_{March 12, 2023
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Science is credible only about proximate causes that can be studied or repeated in lab. Big Bang and all other "scientific" hypotheses about the origin of the universe are just a secular type of religions that want to compete with theistic religions.Sandy_{March 11, 2023
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CR @18 What would a real fallibilist say about the first few lines of your post? Allow me to give it a try:
My criticism carries weight because it’s accurate.
By claiming that your criticism is accurate (not fallible) you go against the laws of fallibilism (which are also fallible, but a metacontext nonetheless). How do you know that your criticism is “accurate”? All knowledge is fallible, therefore all your criticism is fallible.
It’s independent of your belief.
How can be certain that it is independent of BA’s belief? How do you know what BA’s belief is? Maybe BA is lying to you about his beliefs. You are probably a very gullible person, easy to fool (not sure).
What you think is irrelevant …
Implicit is the claim to know what is relevant and what is not. No such infallible knowledge exists (not sure). And irrelevant to what? This claim is not clear and again does not make clear that all statements are fallible. Maybe you do not understand fallibilism (not sure).
... as your comment reflects a flawed understanding of science.
Here you assume that a perfect understanding of science exists by which you can measure the understanding of science by others. All understanding of science is fallible, therefore, according to fallibilism, only a flawed understanding of science exists (not sure).Origenes_{March 11, 2023
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Great observations, PyrrhoManiac1.
Within the framework of general relativity, it is logically impossible for the “Big Bang” to have “triggered” by anything.
Exactly. The SOURCE of space-time cannot have involved space or time.
This is because what we call “the Big Bang” is a badly chosen term for a mathematical truth — more precisely, a mathematical truth within the framework of general relativity.
Yes, "Big Bang" was initially a pejorative term. It would be more accurate to call it the stretching out of space-time by an unknown agent, postulated as "dark energy." But that's simply a way of giving a name to something about which we're clueless.
Since we can only asymptotically approach the singularity, the question “what caused the Big Bang?” is meaningless — as long as one is working within the basic assumptions of general relativity.
In traditional physics, events can be reversed in time. So one can imagine the Big Bang in reverse as a "big shrink" to a point. At T=0 (or more precisely at Planck time), causality as we know it from a naturalism world view stops at Nothing (haha). There's no cause to non-existence, so something outside of nature intervened. Those who don't believe in God, resort to "the multiverse," as an alternative. However, there's still no way to apply any scientific measurements or observations to the multiverse, so it's really no different than a different version of theism.
Hence, until such time as general relativity is replaced by a successor theory, the question “what caused the Big Bang?” has no meaningful scientific answer.
Yes, but I'd strongly question whether any scientific theory could be applicable. To have a change in the state of non-existent, one would need a source of time outside nature--a "supernatural" clock.
If one wishes to insist that it’s a meaningful question, by all means — as long as we’re clear that it is at that point that one has crossed over the border between science and metaphysics.
Nicely stated. And it leaves a massive, unanswered question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" It's provocative, but not subject to any scientific investigation. -QQuerius_{March 11, 2023
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CR, MWI apparently does not explain the evidence. Elsewise Wiseman would not have postulated the new "Many-Interacting Worlds" approach.
"In the well-known "Many-Worlds Interpretation", each universe branches into a bunch of new universes every time a quantum measurement is made. All possibilities are therefore realised – in some universes the dinosaur-killing asteroid missed Earth. In others, Australia was colonised by the Portuguese. "But critics question the reality of these other universes, since they do not influence our universe at all. On this score, our "Many Interacting Worlds" approach is completely different, as its name implies." Professor Wiseman and his colleagues propose that: The universe we experience is just one of a gigantic number of worlds. Some are almost identical to ours while most are very different; All of these worlds are equally real, exist continuously through time, and possess precisely defined properties; All quantum phenomena arise from a universal force of repulsion between 'nearby' (i.e. similar) worlds which tends to make them more dissimilar. Dr Hall says the "Many-Interacting Worlds" theory may even create the extraordinary possibility of testing for the existence of other worlds. https://phys.org/news/2014-10-interacting-worlds-theory-scientists-interaction.html
So I still hold the wave function collapse experiment to be a falsification of the original MWI. Of note, Dr. Wiseman, with his new model, still holds that he exists in an infinitude of other universes and that his consciousness somehow 'supervenes' in each of those universes, (but not all of them at the same time). 24:42 mark https://youtu.be/92lCzlBCNgU?t=1482 This is insane. And I don't care if a PhD is saying he exists in an infinity of other places. It is simply bark raving mad. And please note, MWI was postulated first and foremost to avoid God. So apparently it now comes down to choosing between God or insanity, And the atheist has apparently chosen insanity.
The Atheist War Against Quantum Mechanics - Nov 28, 2021 Excerpt: A dyed-in the-wool nihilist, Everett is known for ordering that his ashes be dumped into a trashcan when he died—a practice that Everett’s daughter later copied upon committing suicide. Everett brought this same dedication to bear in his scientific career. Today, Everett’s disciples praise him for bringing an atheistic scorn of the immaterial back to quantum mechanics. As a graduate student in the 1950s, Everett was alarmed to discover that traditional quantum mechanics did not line up with his materialist commitments. He was repulsed by the fact that the human mind seemed to be given a special role—a conclusion that Everett thought smacked of the supernatural. There seemed to be “a magic process in which something quite drastic occurred, while in all other times systems were assumed to obey perfectly natural continuous laws.”[4] In Jonathan Allday’s words, Everett firmly believed that such a “‘magic process’… should not be considered in quantum physics.” Everett therefore devised the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics—perhaps the most widely-known interpretation in contemporary popular culture. The purpose of the interpretation was, in essence, to create a consistent model of quantum mechanics that would preserve Thomas Huxley’s materialistic dismissal of the mind. Everett’s model continues to be extremely influential. David Deutsch, a militantly atheistic contemporary physicist, regards himself as a sort of apostle of Hugh Everett. “Everett was before his time,” says Deutsch. Before Everett, “things were regarded as progress which are not explanatory, and the vacuum was filled by mysticism and religion and every kind of rubbish. Everett is important because he stood out against it.”[5] Deutsch’s words of praise are important: Everett's greatest achievement is not the elegance of his mathematical model, but that the fact that his model pushed back against "religion," which is of course false. https://www.staseos.net/post/the-atheist-war-against-quantum-mechanics
Of further note, Since Dr. Wiseman apparently relies on Bohmian Mechanics to try to support his new model, here is a critique of Bohmian Mechanics
A Critique of Bohmian Mechanics (Pilot Wave theory) - (2018) video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2hoU4jaQQ June 2019 - Here are some of the ‘killer blows’ to Bohm’s pilot wave theory that the author failed to mention in his romanticized characterization of Bohm’s ideas: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-science-writer-considers-the-cost-of-science-functioning-as-an-inquisition/#comment-679138
bornagain77_{March 11, 2023
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CR at 18, "Then again, presenting an accurate version of the theory is yet another thing that does not suit your purpose." 'your purpose'? Can you explain what that is?relatd_{March 11, 2023
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CR, don’t you think your criticism of my post might carry much more weight with me if you yourself did not cling to MWI?
My criticism carries weight because it's accurate. It's independent of your belief. What you think is irrelevant, as your comment reflects a flawed understanding of science. Specially on one hand, you appealed to multiple theories predicting the same empirical outcomes. Yet, on the other hand, you continue to claim that experiments in quantum mechanics prove conciseness is prior to physical reality. But the empirical outcome in the experiment is also what the MWI predicts, given that observers also evolve according to the wave function. It's simply the results of taking the wave function seriously. For example, you referenced...
Yet, directly contrary to what MWI holds, wave function collapse is now experimentally shown to be a real effect. As the following article states, experiments have now demonstrated “the non-local, (i.e. beyond space and time), collapse of a (single) particle’s wave function”,, “the collapse of the wave function is a real effect”,, “the instantaneous non-local, (beyond space and time), collapse of the wave function to wherever the particle is detected”,, and “Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong.”,, March 24, 2015 Quantum experiment verifies Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’ – March 24, 2015 Excerpt: An experiment,, has for the first time demonstrated Albert Einstein’s original conception of “spooky action at a distance” using a single particle. Professor Howard Wiseman and his experimental collaborators....
Yet Howard Wiseman, who you just referenced, has help develop the many interacting worlds theory of quantum mechanics. Which, you guessed it, proposes the existence of many worlds in which there is no collapse. Specifically, Wiseman has come up with yet another way to explain Born Rule in quantum mechanics without collapse. Here is a video where Wiseman himself gives a talk about the theory in more detail. This is in addition to the MWI's explanation of the Born rule. See this overview, which includes links to entries on how the use of decision theory and the MWI explanation of the "Delayed-Choice Quantum Eraser" experiment. So we have at least three theories that are empirically indistinguishable. IOW, your own reference explicitly acknowledges this false dilemma. It's just inconvenient for you. So, you've just claimed there is proof to the contrary, while ignoring alternatives. At best, this reflects a flawed, arbitrary understanding of science. At worst, it's a disingenuous presentation of a falsehood. Again, you continue to pick and choose references, apparently unable to tell when they actually support your position. You didn't even check to see if Wiseman's position supposed your own. Apparently, you're wiling to appeal to Wiseman as a logical, sane physicist that proves consciousness is prior to reality, until such time that you discover he disagrees with you, in which point he will become a crazy person? So, it seems you have the question backwards. Why should your criticism hold weight? And, no, BA. The MWI does not propose that atoms are constantly being created. You might want to take the time to actually understand the theory you're criticizing. After all, I posted the link to a video that points out this is a misconception. Apparently, you haven't watched it.
How is energy conserved is completely clear in the math the energy of the whole wavefunction is a hundred percent super-duper conserved. But there's a difference between the energy of the whole way function and the energy that people in each branch perceive so what you should think of is not duplicating the whole universe but taking a certain amount of the universe and sort of subdividing it slicing it into two pieces the pieces look identical from the inside except that one has spin up the one has spin down or something like that. But they're really contributing less than the original to the total energy of everything.
Then again, presenting an accurate version of the theory is yet another thing that does not suit your purpose.critical rationalist_{March 11, 2023
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CR, don't you think your criticism of my post might carry much more weight with me if you yourself did not cling to MWI? i.e. a worldview where an infinitude of other CR's are constantly being created every time an electron and/or photon is simply observed? :)
Atheist Physicist Sean Carroll: An Infinite Number of Universes Is More Plausible Than God - Michael Egnor - August 2, 2017 Excerpt: as I noted, the issue here isn’t physics or even logic. The issue is psychiatric. We have a highly accomplished physicist, who regards the existence of God as preposterous, asserting that the unceasing creation of infinite numbers of new universes by every atom in the cosmos at every moment is actually happening (as we speak!), and that it is a perfectly rational and sane inference. People have been prescribed anti-psychotic drugs for less. Now of course Carroll isn’t crazy, not in any medical way. He’s merely given his assent to a crazy ideology — atheist materialism —,,, What can we in the reality-based community do when an ideology — the ideology that is currently dominant in science — is not merely wrong, but delusional? I guess calling it what it is is a place to start. https://evolutionnews.org/2017/08/atheist-physicist-sean-carroll-an-infinite-number-of-universes-is-more-plausible-than-god/
Of note: In order to try to avoid the Theistic implications that are inherent in quantum wave collapse, many times atheists will appeal to the ‘Many-Worlds’ interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics. In the ‘Many-Worlds’ interpretation of quantum mechanics the reality of the wave function collapse is simply denied as being a real effect.
Many-worlds interpretation Excerpt: The many-worlds interpretation (MWI) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts that the universal wavefunction is objectively real, and that there is no wave function collapse.[2] – per wikipedia Quantum mechanics – Philosophical implications Excerpt: Everett’s many-worlds interpretation, formulated in 1956, holds that all the possibilities described by quantum theory simultaneously occur in a multiverse composed of mostly independent parallel universes.[52] This is a consequence of removing the axiom of the collapse of the wave packet. – per wikipedia
Yet, directly contrary to what MWI holds, wave function collapse is now experimentally shown to be a real effect. As the following article states, experiments have now demonstrated “the non-local, (i.e. beyond space and time), collapse of a (single) particle’s wave function”,, “the collapse of the wave function is a real effect”,, “the instantaneous non-local, (beyond space and time), collapse of the wave function to wherever the particle is detected”,, and “Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong.”,,
Quantum experiment verifies Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’ – March 24, 2015 Excerpt: An experiment,, has for the first time demonstrated Albert Einstein’s original conception of “spooky action at a distance” using a single particle. ,,Professor Howard Wiseman and his experimental collaborators,, report their use of homodyne measurements to show what Einstein did not believe to be real, namely the non-local collapse of a (single) particle’s wave function.,, According to quantum mechanics, a single particle can be described by a wave function that spreads over arbitrarily large distances,,, ,, by splitting a single photon between two laboratories, scientists have used homodyne detectors—which measure wave-like properties—to show the collapse of the wave function is a real effect,, This phenomenon is explained in quantum theory,, the instantaneous non-local, (beyond space and time), collapse of the wave function to wherever the particle is detected.,,, “Einstein never accepted orthodox quantum mechanics and the original basis of his contention was this single-particle argument. This is why it is important to demonstrate non-local wave function collapse with a single particle,” says Professor Wiseman. “Einstein’s view was that the detection of the particle only ever at one point could be much better explained by the hypothesis that the particle is only ever at one point, without invoking the instantaneous collapse of the wave function to nothing at all other points. “However, rather than simply detecting the presence or absence of the particle, we used homodyne measurements enabling one party to make different measurements and the other, using quantum tomography, to test the effect of those choices.” “Through these different measurements, you see the wave function collapse in different ways, thus proving its existence and showing that Einstein was wrong.” http://phys.org/news/2015-03-quantum-einstein-spooky-action-distance.html
So, regardless of how atheistic materialists may feel about not splitting into a infinitude of new copies of themselves every time a particle is simply observed, wave function collapse is now shown to be a real effect and, as such, the MWI is now experimentally shown to a false interpretation of quantum mechanics.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
bornagain77_{March 11, 2023
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Bornagain @2 Thank you for yet another very informative post. I especially enjoyed the video:
Cosmic Microwave Background Proves Intelligent Design (disproves Copernican principle) (clip of “The Principle”) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2AwSIbtv38
Origenes_{March 11, 2023
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@BA77 # 11 And here I wasn’t sure if BA had an understanding of how multiple theories can be empirically indistinguishable from another. Whether BA has just grasped the concept, while collecting these quotes, is unclear, but he is appealing to it in #11. For example…
And as George Ellis, (a former close colleague of Hawking), stated, “I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations… You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds…”
However, BA seems to have a rather short memory when it suits his purpose. And this comment is no exception, as he has totally forgotten about it mid-comment! Specifically, he turns around and claims that experiments in quantum mechanics proves that consciousness is prior to physical reality.
Likewise, the following violation of Leggett’s inequality stressed ‘the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.’
But, the appearance of collapse is precisely what we would predict if the many world interpretation of quantum mechanized is true. It too is empirically indistinguishable from the Copenhagen interpretation. So, where are the quotes that point out how the MWI can explain the same outcomes? There are none. BA just continues to ignore this inconvenient fact going forward. In multiple subsequent comments. Is his memory really that short? Or perhaps, not unlike how he thinks reality doesn’t exist if no one is looking at it, he thinks the concept of being empirically indistinguishable doesn’t exist if unless it suits his purpose?critical rationalist_{March 10, 2023
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CD at 8, No, no. That's wrong. It's in a garage owned by two Welfare cheats in New Jersey... :)relatd_{March 10, 2023
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PM1@
General relativity does not have the conceptual resources to make any claims about what “preceded” this initial state. That’s why it’s not possible, within the framework of general relativity, to say anything at all about what “caused” the universe.
Not being able to "say anything at all about what 'caused' the universe", is a far cry from saying that it is "logically impossible" for the universe to have a cause, wouldn't you agree?Origenes_{March 10, 2023
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On top of all that, and completely contrary to the Copernican Principle and/or the Principle of Mediocrity, in quantum mechanics we also find that humans, (via their free will), are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. As the late Steven Weinberg, who was an atheist himself, stated in the following article, “In the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,”
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg – January 19, 2017 Excerpt: The instrumentalist approach,, (the) wave function,, is merely an instrument that provides predictions of the probabilities of various outcomes when measurements are made.,, In the instrumentalist approach,,, humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. According to Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”11 Thus the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else. It is not that we object to thinking about humans. Rather, we want to understand the relation of humans to nature, not just assuming the character of this relation by incorporating it in what we suppose are nature’s fundamental laws, but rather by deduction from laws that make no explicit reference to humans. We may in the end have to give up this goal,,, Some physicists who adopt an instrumentalist approach argue that the probabilities we infer from the wave function are objective probabilities, independent of whether humans are making a measurement. I don’t find this tenable. In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,, http://quantum.phys.unm.edu/466-17/QuantumMechanicsWeinberg.pdf
In fact Weinberg, again an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” and because it undermined the Darwinian worldview from within. Yet, regardless of how Weinberg and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave. As recent Nobel Laureate Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, “what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
“The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in a certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” Anton Zeilinger – Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437
In fact, Anton Zeilinger and company have recently, as of 2018, pushed the ‘freedom of choice loophole’ back to 7.8 billion years ago, thereby firmly establishing the ‘common sense’ fact that the free will choices of the experimenter in the quantum experiments are truly free and are not determined by any possible causal influences from the past for at least the last 7.8 billion years, and that experimenters themselves are therefore shown to be truly free, (as common sense dictates), to choose whatever measurement settings in the experiments that he or she may so desire to choose so as to ‘logically’ probe whatever aspect of reality that he or she may be interested in probing.
Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars – Anton Zeilinger – 14 June 2018 Abstract: This experiment pushes back to at least 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation, excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403
Thus regardless of how the late Steven Weinberg, and other atheists, may have preferred the universe to behave, with the closing of the last remaining ‘freedom of choice’ loophole in quantum mechanics, it is now empirically demonstrated that “humans are indeed brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level”, and thus these recent findings from quantum mechanics directly undermine, as Weinberg himself stated, the “vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.” As well, to state the glaringly obvious, this is yet another VERY powerful line of empirical evidence that directly falsifies the Copernican Principle and/or the Principle of Mediocrity. Because of such consistent and repeatable experiments like the preceding from quantum mechanics, Richard Conn Henry, who is Professor of Physics at John Hopkins University, stated “It is more than 80 years since the discovery of quantum mechanics gave us the most fundamental insight ever into our nature: the overturning of the Copernican Revolution, and the restoration of us human beings to centrality in the Universe.”
“It is more than 80 years since the discovery of quantum mechanics gave us the most fundamental insight ever into our nature: the overturning of the Copernican Revolution, and the restoration of us human beings to centrality in the Universe. And yet, have you ever before read a sentence having meaning similar to that of my preceding sentence? Likely you have not, and the reason you have not is, in my opinion, that physicists are in a state of denial, and have fears and agonies that are very similar to the fears and agonies that Copernicus and Galileo went through with their perturbations of society.” – Richard Conn Henry – Professor of Physics – John Hopkins University http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/quantum.enigma.html Proverbs 15:3 The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
Moreover, when we rightly allow the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, (as the Christian founders of modern science originally held with the presupposition of ‘contingency’), and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands with the closing of the “freedom-of-choice” loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), then rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and provides us with an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”
Oct. 2022 - although there will never be a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ that bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between quantum mechanics and general relativity, all hope is not lost in finding the correct ‘theory if everything’. https://uncommondescent.com/cosmology/from-iai-news-how-infinity-threatens-cosmology/#comment-766384 Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
To go a but further, and to further solidify the fact that humans have far more significance in this universe than atheists have falsely presupposed, (with their erroneous presumption of the Copernican principle and/or principle of mediocrity), in the following video physicist Neil Turok states that “So we can go from 10 to the plus 25 to 10 to the minus 35. Now where are we? Well the size of a living cell is about 10 to the minus 5. Which is halfway between the two. In mathematical terms, we say it is the geometric mean. We live in the middle between the largest scale in physics,,, and the tiniest scale [in physics].”
“So we can go from 10 to the plus 25 to 10 to the minus 35. Now where are we? Well the size of a living cell is about 10 to the minus 5. Which is halfway between the two. In mathematical terms, we say it is the geometric mean. We live in the middle between the largest scale in physics,,, and the tiniest scale [in physics].” – Neil Turok as quoted at the 14:40 minute mark The Astonishing Simplicity of Everything – Neil Turok Public Lecture – video (12:00 minute mark, we live in the geometric mean, i.e. the middle, of the universe) https://youtu.be/f1x9lgX8GaE?t=715
The following interactive graph, gives very similar ‘rough ballpark’ figures, of 10 ^27 and 10-35, to Dr. Turok’s figures.
The Scale of the Universe https://htwins.net/scale2/
And while that finding by Dr. Neil Turok is certainly very interesting, that finding is a bit disappointing in that is just gives life in general a ‘middle’ position in the universe, and still does not give humanity in particular, a ‘middle’ position in the universe. Yet, Dr. William Demski, (and company), in the following graph, have refined that estimate of a ‘geometric mean’ with better data, and have given us a more precise figure of 8.8 x 10^26 M for the observable universe’s diameter, and 1.6 x 10^-35 for the Planck length which is the smallest length possible.
Magnifying the Universe https://academicinfluence.com/ie/mtu/
And that more precise figure for a ‘geometric mean’ does indeed give humanity in particular a ‘central’ position in the universe. Specifically, Dr. Dembski’s more precise interactive graph points out that the smallest scale visible to the human eye (as well as the size of a human egg) is at 10^-4 meters, which ‘just so happens’ to be directly in the exponential center, and/or geometric mean, of all possible sizes of our physical reality. This is very interesting for the limits to human vision (as well as the size of the human egg) could have, theoretically, been at very different positions rather than directly in the exponential middle and/or the geometric mean. Needless to say, this empirical finding severely challenges, if not directly overturns, the assumption behind the Copernican Principle and/or the Principle of Mediocrity.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
bornagain77_{March 10, 2023
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As to establishing "true centrality' in the universe, and as far as Einstein’s general relativity is concerned, Albert Einstein himself stated, The two sentences: “the sun is at rest and the earth moves” or “the sun moves and the earth is at rest” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS [coordinate systems].”
“Can we formulate physical laws so that they are valid for all CS [coordinate systems], not only those moving uniformly, but also those moving quite arbitrarily, relative to each other? […] The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS could be used with equal justification. The two sentences: “the sun is at rest and the earth moves” or “the sun moves and the earth is at rest” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS.” – Einstein, A. and Infeld, L. (1938) The Evolution of Physics, p.212 (p.248 in original 1938 ed.);
And as George Ellis, (a former close colleague of Hawking), stated, “I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations… You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds…”
“People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations… For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations… You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds… What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.” – George Ellis – W. Wayt Gibbs, “Profile: George F. R. Ellis,” Scientific American, October 1995, Vol. 273, No.4, p. 55
And as Fred Hoyle, who discovered stellar nucleosynthesis, himself stated, “Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’ and the Ptolemaic theory ‘wrong’ in any meaningful physical sense.”
“The relation of the two pictures [geocentrism and geokineticism] is reduced to a mere coordinate transformation and it is the main tenet of the Einstein theory that any two ways of looking at the world which are related to each other by a coordinate transformation are entirely equivalent from a physical point of view…. Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’ and the Ptolemaic theory ‘wrong’ in any meaningful physical sense.” – Hoyle, Fred. Nicolaus Copernicus. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1973.
Shoot even Stephen Hawking himself stated that ‘our observations of the heavens can be explained by assuming either the earth or the sun to be at rest.,,, the real advantage of the Copernican system is simply that the equations of motion are much simpler in the frame of reference in which the sun is at rest.’
“So which is real, the Ptolemaic or Copernican system? Although it is not uncommon for people to say that Copernicus proved Ptolemy wrong, that is not true. As in the case of our normal view versus that of the goldfish, one can use either picture as a model of the universe, for our observations of the heavens can be explained by assuming either the earth or the sun to be at rest. Despite its role in philosophical debates over the nature of our universe, the real advantage of the Copernican system is simply that the equations of motion are much simpler in the frame of reference in which the sun is at rest.” – Stephen Hawking – The Grand Design – pages 39 – 2010
In fact, in the 4 dimensional spacetime of Einstein’s General Relativity, we find that each 3-Dimensional point in the universe is central to the expansion of the universe,,,
Where is the centre of the universe?: Excerpt: There is no centre of the universe! According to the standard theories of cosmology, the universe started with a “Big Bang” about 14 thousand million years ago and has been expanding ever since. Yet there is no centre to the expansion; it is the same everywhere. The Big Bang should not be visualized as an ordinary explosion. The universe is not expanding out from a centre into space; rather, the whole universe is expanding and it is doing so equally at all places, as far as we can tell. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/centre.html
,,, and since any 3-Dimensional point can be considered central in the expanding 4-Dimensional space time of General Relativity, then, as the following articles make clear, it is now left completely open to whomever is making a model of the universe to decide for themselves what is to be considered central in the universe,,,
How Einstein Revealed the Universe’s Strange “Nonlocality” – George Musser | Oct 20, 2015 Excerpt: Under most circumstances, we can ignore this nonlocality. You can designate some available chunk of matter as a reference point and use it to anchor a coordinate grid. You can, to the chagrin of Santa Barbarans, take Los Angeles as the center of the universe and define every other place with respect to it. In this framework, you can go about your business in blissful ignorance of space’s fundamental inability to demarcate locations.,, In short, Einstein’s theory is nonlocal in a more subtle and insidious way than Newton’s theory of gravity was. Newtonian gravity acted at a distance, but at least it operated within a framework of absolute space. Einsteinian gravity has no such element of wizardry; its effects ripple through the universe at the speed of light. Yet it demolishes the framework, violating locality in what was, for Einstein, its most basic sense: the stipulation that all things have a location. General relativity confounds our intuitive picture of space as a kind of container in which material objects reside and forces us to search for an entirely new conception of place. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-einstein-revealed-the-universe-s-strange-nonlocality// How Einstein Lost His Bearings, and With Them, General Relativity – March 2018 Excerpt: Einstein’s field equations — the equations of general relativity — describe how the shape of space-time evolves in response to the presence of matter and energy. To describe that evolution, you need to impose on space-time a coordinate system — like lines of latitude and longitude — that tells you which points are where. The most important thing to recognize about coordinate systems is that they’re human contrivances. Maybe in one coordinate system we label a point (0, 0, 0), and in another we label that same point (1, 1, 1). The physical properties haven’t changed — we’ve just tagged the point differently. “Those labels are something about us, not something about the world,” said James Weatherall, a philosopher of science at the University of California, Irvine.,,, The Einstein field equations we have today are generally covariant. They express the same physical truths about the universe — how space-time curves in the presence of energy and matter — regardless of what coordinates you use to label things.,,, as Einstein discovered,,, the universe doesn’t admit any one privileged choice of coordinates. https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-einstein-lost-his-bearings-and-with-them-general-relativity-20180314/
In fact, again according to the four-dimensional space-time of General Relativity, even individual people are allowed to be considered central in the universe,,,
You Technically Are the Center of the Universe – May 2016 Excerpt: (due to the 1 in 10^120 finely tuned expansion of the 4-D space-time of General Relativity) no matter where you stand, it will appear that everything in the universe is expanding around you. So the center of the universe is technically — everywhere. The moment you pick a frame of reference, that point becomes the center of the universe. Here’s another way to think about it: The sphere of space we can see around us is the visible universe. We’re looking at the light from stars that’s traveled millions or billions of years to reach us. When we reach the 13.8 billion-light-year point, we’re seeing the universe just moments after the Big Bang happened. But someone standing on another planet, a few light-years to the right, would see a different sphere of the universe. It’s sort of like lighting a match in the middle of a dark room: Your observable universe is the sphere of the room that the light illuminates. But someone standing in a different spot in the room will be able to see a different sphere. So technically, we are all standing at the center of our own observable universes. https://mic.com/articles/144214/you-technically-are-the-center-of-the-universe-thanks-to-a-wacky-physics-quirk
And to support the claim that even individual people can be considered central in the four-dimensional space-time of General Relativity, I note that when Einstein first formulated both Special and General relativity, he gave a ‘hypothetical’ observer a privileged frame of reference in which to make measurements in the universe.
Introduction to special relativity Excerpt: Einstein’s approach was based on thought experiments, calculations, and the principle of relativity, which is the notion that all physical laws should appear the same (that is, take the same basic form) to all inertial observers.,,, Each observer has a distinct “frame of reference” in which velocities are measured,,,, per wikipedia “At that moment I got the happiest thought of my life in the following form: In an example worth considering, the gravitational field has a relative existence only in a manner similar to the electric field generated by magneto-electric induction. Because for an observer in free-fall from the roof of a house there is during the fall—at least in his immediate vicinity—no gravitational field.[36] Namely, if the observer lets go of any bodies, they remain relative to him, in a state of rest or uniform motion, independent of their special chemical or physical nature.5[37] The observer, therefore, is justified in interpreting his state as being “at rest.” The extremely strange and confirmed experience that all bodies in the same gravitational field fall with the same acceleration immediately attains, through this idea, a deep physical meaning. Because if there were just one single thing to fall in a gravitational field in a manner different from all others, the observer could recognize from it that he is in a gravitational field and that he is falling. But if such a thing does not exist—as experience has shown with high precision—then there is no objective reason for the observer to consider himself as falling in a gravitational field. To the contrary, he has every right to consider himself in a state of rest and his vicinity as free of fields as far as gravitation is concerned.” – Einstein https://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol7-trans/152
And whereas Einstein, when he first formulated both Special and General Relativity, gave a ‘hypothetical’ observer a privileged frame of reference in which to make measurements in the universe, In Quantum Mechanics we find that it is the measurement itself that gives each observer a privileged frame of reference in the universe. As the following article states, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”,,,
Experiment confirms quantum theory weirdness – May 27, 2015 Excerpt: Common sense says the object is either wave-like or particle-like, independent of how we measure it. But quantum physics predicts that whether you observe wave like behavior (interference) or particle behavior (no interference) depends only on how it is actually measured at the end of its journey. This is exactly what the ANU team found. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said Associate Professor Andrew Truscott from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering. http://phys.org/news/2015-05-quantum-theory-weirdness.html
Likewise, the following violation of Leggett’s inequality stressed ‘the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.’
Quantum physics says goodbye to reality – Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell’s thought experiment, Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it. “Our study shows that ‘just’ giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics,” Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. “You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism.” http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640
bornagain77_{March 10, 2023
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How a theory about gravity can show that it is “logically impossible” for the universe to have an external cause, is far beyond my imagination.
Perhaps that's because general relativity is not just a theory about gravity. It is a theory about the geometry of space-time. That theory can be used to explain gravitational attraction in terms of how mass affects the curvature of space-time. Since it is a theory about the geometry of space-time, it has logical entailments about what happens as one gets closer to the 'edges' of this four-dimensional object. One of those entailments is that the value of the curvature asymptotically approaches infinity. That is what allows physicists to conjecture that the initial state of the universe was an almost-infinitely small, almost-infinitely dense, and extremely hot region of space-time. General relativity does not have the conceptual resources to make any claims about what "preceded" this initial state. That's why it's not possible, within the framework of general relativity, to say anything at all about what "caused" the universe.PyrrhoManiac1_{March 10, 2023
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How a theory about gravity can show that it is "logically impossible" for the universe to have an external cause, is far beyond my imagination.Origenes_{March 10, 2023
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Researchers have just determined that the center of the universe is in the DI parking garage in downtown Seattle.....chuckdarwin_{March 10, 2023
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@5
So, this means that it is (somehow) “logically impossible” that our universe has a cause. Does this mean that the existence of our universe is necessarily unrelated to any proposed multiverse? IOW a proposed multiverse cannot be causally related to our universe.
This is all way outside my (very small) wheelhouse, so all I can do is respond based on my very limited understanding. My understanding of the situation is that the answer is "yes": as long as we are working within the conceptual framework of general relativity, the question "what caused the universe?" has no mathematically meaningful answer, hence nothing that could be confirmed or disconfirmed by any measurement. There have been some interesting speculations about how to make the question "what caused the universe?" into a scientifically tractable answer, but all of those speculations involve going beyond the limits of general relativity -- either by using quantum mechanics, or by using all sorts of advanced mathematics with a tenuous connection to physics. My main worry about using quantum mechanics to go beyond the limits of general relativity is that we would need a theory that explains how to unify them, and right now we just don't have any such theory (to the best of my very limited knowledge!). There are some intriguing proposals being floated by physicists, but I'm not sure any of them have convinced the intellectual community that the problem has been solved.PyrrhoManiac1_{March 10, 2023
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Was the original explosion homogeneous? Somehow I doubt it because what would cause it to become extremely heterogeneous now unless there were small differences present immediately after the initial expansion. These differences may be too small to discern with any measurement of the theoretical beginning. If it was different at the beginning, why? Were there any teleological objectives in these differences? Remember, the concept of infinity is an impossibility so everything is taking place within a finite time framework.jerry_{March 10, 2023
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