''TIME'' - definitions.

[RJM]

The most interesting property of energy, to me, is precisely that it is conserved.

But it originated 13.8 billion years ago. A precise amount of years. It came into being. What from? It may not make sense to some people to ask the question, but it does to me?

... don't think it makes sense to think of the universe as coming, originating, or otherwise being within, embedded, or emanating from something else.

Why not?

Why ask all the questions about nature and the universe but stop there?

Scientists always duck the question. The honest ones say "I don't know."

 

[RJM]

So in the end, the wisest answer we get from scientists to the big question is the anthropic principle: 'It is because it is, and if it wasn't, we wouldn't be here to ask.'

I didn't buy that from teachers and I'm not buying it now. The anthropic principle is a pathetic cop-out, imo.

The silly anthropic principle is actually a major part of science.

 

[Cino]

But it originated 13.8 billion years ago. A precise amount of years. It came into being. What from? It may not make sense to some people to ask the question, but it does to me?

By way of analogy, with all its limitations:

You can move north, until you hit the north pole. from there, you can only move south, there is no "north of the north pole". There is not even east or west. All directions seem to originate at the north pole, they organize geography, but at the north pole, they are not discernible. How come? Where do they come from? Where is the source of the four quarters? They can't just come from nothing...

Now generalize this mental picture to the "pole" of the big bang, where the symmetries (forces) are undifferentiated, where time seems to originate along with space... and yet, it is just anorher part of the universe, just like the north pole is just another spot on earth.

 

[RJM]

By way of analogy, with all its limitations:

You can move north, until you hit the north pole. from there, you can only move south, there is no "north of the north pole". There is not even east or west. All directions seem to originate at the north pole, they organize geography, but at the north pole, they are not discernible. How come? Where do they come from? Where is the source of the four quarters? They can't just come from nothing...

Now generalize this mental picture to the "pole" of the big bang, where the symmetries (forces) are undifferentiated, where time seems to originate along with space... and yet, it is just anorher part of the universe, just like the north pole is just another spot on earth.

The BB is 13. 8 billion years away in all directions. From wherever you are in the universe. It's a precise event, not an imaginary horizon that shifts forward as you approach it.

The universe is flat, and expanding, not curved. Time and space etc, don't just seem to originate at the BB. They do originate at the BB.

Energy, time and space and the four forces + gravity originated 13.8 billion years ago. Precisely.

A black hole singularity is a result of matter being compressed to infinite density. It has a cause.

'Since the beginning of time,' used to mean 'forever.' Now it means 13.8 billion years ago.

 

[Cino]

The BB is 13. 8 billion years away in all directions. From wherever you are in the universe. It's a precise event, not an imaginary horizon that shifts forward as you approach it.

The universe is flat, and expanding, not curved. Time and space etc, don't just seem to originate at the BB. They do originate at the BB.

Energy, time and space and the four forces + gravity originated 13.8 billion years ago. Precisely.

A black hole singularity is a result of matter being compressed to infinite density. It has a cause.

'Since the beginning of time,' used to mean 'forever.' Now it means 13.8 billion years ago.

The analogy has its limits, but spacetime is not flat, every little bit of mass messes with it, and the big bang was a lot of mass.

Flat-earthers, flat-universers...

Anyway. I find the observable, interactive universe infinitely (ha!) more interesting and meaningful than insistence and speculation that there must be something apart from everything. To each their own.

 

[RJM]

The universe is flat. There are spacetime hills and valleys, but the universe doesn't curve into a sphere like planets do.

It came into existence 13.8 billion years ago and has been expanding since then. It came from a singularity that had no cause.

Sorry some scholars like the facts that suit them and then get angry at the ones they don't like.

 

[Cino]

Answering to the best of my knowledge, which is a bit rusty, always happy to be corrected by those who know more about it than I do:

The BB is 13. 8 billion years away in all directions. From wherever you are in the universe. It's a precise event, not an imaginary horizon that shifts forward as you approach it

Not sure about the "precisely", but in that ballpark. Not hundreds of billions of years in any case, and not thousands of years, either

The universe is flat, and expanding, not curved. Time and space etc, don't just seem to originate at the BB. They do originate at the BB.

I thought actually, we don't know the sign of the curvature, measurements being close to 0, could be either side, or spot on...

Energy, time and space and the four forces + gravity originated 13.8 billion years ago. Precisely.

Well, gravity is one of the four in fact. Gravity, Electromagnetic, Strong, and Weak forces.

A black hole singularity is a result of matter being compressed to infinite density. It has a cause.

Not infinite density, no, but in an interesting state nonetheless.

The event horizon is the defining feature of a black hole. In a sense, the "cause" of a black hole is the speed of light and the gravitational constant, which determine the Schwarzschild Radius of a mass. A funny way to put it is: If the escape velocity required to get away from a star is greater than the speed of light, then you can't escape it any more.

Of course, there is a lot more interesting stuff going on with black holes, especially with respect to the conservation laws, across the event horizon.

'Since the beginning of time,' used to mean 'forever.' Now it means 13.8 billion years ago.

Everything going down the drain. Not even time is as it used to be

 

[RJM]

later ...

 

[RJM]

Not sure about the "precisely", but in that ballpark. Not hundreds of billions of years in any case, and not thousands of years, either

It's precise enough. It's when time began. This thread is about time.

I thought actually, we don't know the sign of the curvature, measurements being close to 0, could be either side, or spot on...

It's pretty much agreed the universe is flat, like a pancake. Anyway, it's not spherical.

Well, gravity is one of the four in fact. Gravity, Electromagnetic, Strong, and Weak forces.

You could be right. Two weak force carriers: W and Z. Doesn't matter much. The forces are just there, is the point.

Not infinite density, no, but in an interesting state nonetheless

As close to infinite density as doesn't matter much. Again: the point is, black holes have a cause.

Everything going down the drain. Not even time is as it used to be

Not worthy of a response

 

[wil]

This is going exactly as expected. I detect an innate desire to answer one unanswerable unprovable question with another.

 

[RJM]

This is going exactly as expected. I detect an innate desire to answer one unanswerable unprovable question with another.

Or perhaps it's an effort to persuade those who think they have all the answers to admit they do not, and instead of trying to justify their ignorance, to admit: 'We don't know. We may never know.'

That's all I want to hear, lol.

EDIT: Instead what I'm getting is: 'You're just so ignorant and backward to even want ask those questions.'

 

[Cino]

That's all I want to hear, lol.

EDIT: Instead what I'm getting is: 'You're just so ignorant and backward to even want ask those questions.'

Let me put this to rest then. There are any number of things we don't know, or may never know, including the details of the big bang or the sign of the curvature of the universe.

Self-imposed ignorance is the only thing I regard as backward. Asking questions is the very opposite of this, it is the only way out. It is not my intention to belittle, and if my posts came across that way, I apologize.

I do not regard myself as an authority. I did formally study some of the subject matter we're discussing here, a long time ago, and I still remember a lot of it.

Man, we go through this every few weeks, RJM. Can't say what it is, but we sure know how to push another's buttons. Hope we got through this round by now. Have a pleasant weekend!

 

[Cino]

To get back on topic, let me introduce a concept we haven't yet covered in this discussion: The arrow of time.

Simply put, physical processes at the microscopic level work backwards just as well as forwards: An electron can be bumped up an energy level by absorbing a photon, or it can emit a photon, dropping down a level. This is the exact same process, forward or backward. We can't tell which way it went, just by looking at a hypothetical film of this process; there would be no way to tell if we were shown the film backwards. But if I stir some cream into my soup, stirring backward won't separate it again, and we can immediately tell if the film was run backwards.

So time's direction seems to be one of those "when does a lot of sand grains become a dune" type of things.

Obligatory Wikipedia Article:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time

(edited for clarity)

 

[OrtaYol]

I don't think it makes sense to think of the universe as coming, originating, or otherwise being within, embedded, or emanating from something else. But maybe we are using the word in different ways? To me, the universe is all there is. If there were something external to it, then we would not be talking about the universe, but about a subset of it. In the sense I am using the word, there cannot be multiple or nested universes, or places or conditions outside the universe - all of that together is the universe, to me. That does not mean I am not open to the possibility of discovering more about the universe, which is not yet covered by our understanding of it. I'm not saying there is not more to the universe than what we have found. Just that whatever we might discover, would also be part of the universe.

So do you believe the universe has no beginning?

That's why I said it would be fruitless to go there. After all, it's the same as asking who created the creator. Or where is the book that lists all the numbers in existence. In the end, we'd be bickering over definitions. I've done that only a million times in discussions such as this.

It's not really the same. Though I guess that depends on your beliefs concerning infinite regress.

 

[Cino]

So do you believe the universe has no beginning

Yes, I do think it has a beginning back in time. You must have misunderstood what I wanted to say.

 

[OrtaYol]

So then you believe the matter that makes up the universe had a beginning.

The question RJM is asking is where did it come from? Atheists seem to get confused here and come to the conclusion "the theist is saying we don't know where time and matter originated, they believe that since we don't know this proves that God must be the answer."

This is not what the theist is asking however. There may very well be some scientific, 'foaming multiverse' explanation to the big bang, but then what is the explanation to that phenomenon and so on. So what the theist is asking is "do you believe our reality is a result of infinite regress".

If no, then I can highlight why asking who/what created time/space/matter is not the same as asking who created the creator.
For one example time, space and matter are all contingent on the existence of other things as is everything in our universe as far as we know. If you do not believe in the possibility of infinite regress(outside of mathematical concepts) then for each one of the categories(time/space/matter) the logical conclusion is that they emanate from something that is prior to them and therefor not subject to them(timeless and immaterial), something completely not contingent to anything which all else is contingent upon. In this case asking "who created the creator" is really asking "who gave contingency to that which by the very nature of our existence is not contingent upon anything".

If yes, then I would like to know how you overcome the logical contradictions that arise from this?

 

[Cino]

So then you believe the matter that makes up the universe had a beginning.

If by "beginning", you don't actually mean "causal origin outside the universe", then yes.

The question RJM is asking is where did it come from?

It feels weird to talk about someone else in the same room. If RJM wanted to discuss something with me, I'm sure he'd do so himself.

In this case asking "who created the creator" is really asking "who gave contingency to that which by the very nature of our existence is not contingent upon anything".

That would be what I call "universe" - the totality of all that exists. It cannot be contingent on anything else, otherwise there would be something more than everything.

If something causes something else, then both are part of the same system.

 

[RJM]

So then you believe the matter that makes up the universe had a beginning.

The question RJM is asking is where did it come from? Atheists seem to get confused here and come to the conclusion "the theist is saying we don't know where time and matter originated, they believe that since we don't know this proves that God must be the answer."

This is not what the theist is asking however. There may very well be some scientific, 'foaming multiverse' explanation to the big bang, but then what is the explanation to that phenomenon and so on. So what the theist is asking is "do you believe our reality is a result of infinite regress".

If no, then I can highlight why asking who/what created time/space/matter is not the same as asking who created the creator.
For one example time, space and matter are all contingent on the existence of other things as is everything in our universe as far as we know. If you do not believe in the possibility of infinite regress(outside of mathematical concepts) then for each one of the categories(time/space/matter) the logical conclusion is that they emanate from something that is prior to them and therefor not subject to them(timeless and immaterial), something completely not contingent to anything which all else is contingent upon. In this case asking "who created the creator" is really asking "who gave contingency to that which by the very nature of our existence is not contingent upon anything".

If yes, then I would like to know how you overcome the logical contradictions that arise from this?

I seem to understand @Cino presents the BB as analogous to a point on a sphere; the sphere does not actually originate from that point, the point is really just a conceptual device to measure the sphere -- the measurement has to start somewhere.

Ok, so wherever I stand on the sphere, the furthest point from me will be 13.8 billion years away.

I think?

It sounds quite convincing, in the sense that the sphere was always there, but if we try to measure it will always appear to be 13.8 billion years old.

But I don't like it because it sounds like a cop-out. If we look at far away stars, we see them as they were back billions of years ago. It's like trying to have your cake and eat it: time/space (+energy and the four forces) are a necessary condition for nature to exist -- but they had no beginning? They always existed, but yet they originated exactly 13.8 billion years ago?

Paradox or pathetic? Which is it?

It's like the anthropic principle which states that we are here because we are here. Now this is the crowning discovery that is used as a definite principle in serious textbooks.

Because they cannot allow even the possibility of a greater directing intelligence they are forced to come up with the sort of answer an irritated mother gives to a child's persistent questioning.

No negative criticism intended to anyone here, unless they want to wear the cap, lol.

It doesnt work for me.

edited ...

 

[RJM]

All I ask is for them to admit: yes, 'God' is possible. Because we don't know and may never know, we have to admit the possibility.

Usually then the conversation is shifted to invisible pink unicorns and flying spaghetti monsters, lol.

 

[Cino]

All I ask is for them to admit: yes, 'God' is possible. Because we don't know and may never know, we have to admit the possibility.

Usually then the conversation is shifted to invisible pink unicorns and flying spaghetti monsters, lol.

Yeah, or undetectable teapots.

The thing is, this is about beliefs. Anyone can believe what they want, as long as they extend the same courtesy to me. I speak freely about my views and beliefs, and my answer to questions such as the present one is informed by my views and beliefs - same as with anyone else.

I don't ask people around here to admit that yes, it is possible that God does not exist. That's for everyone to believe, or not, as they see fit.