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What Happened Before the Big Bang?


RichP714

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Meh - it doesn't even touch the Big Question.

 

I'm still waiting for a scientist to explain where the laws come from. It's one thing to go on and on and on about smaller and smaller causes and effects, which philosophically, will never stop ('matter is that which has parts'). The nature of energy and time are what make the Big Bang worth thinking about. How is it that the universe obeys such immutable and predicable laws? The complexity is so profound that the existence of the universe is observed and studied by itself (us). Then again, subjective phenomena may not be created, but uncreated.

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1 hour ago, Nahash5150 said:

I'm still waiting for a scientist to explain where the laws come from.

 

Did you catch the part about  the inflaton field?  Combined with 'slow roll' inflation, it accounts for how something came from nothing, why it expanded so suddenly and the same math used to describe the inflaton field yields hot dense expanding universes like the one we are in.  That seems comprehensive to me.

 

 

1 hour ago, Nahash5150 said:

Then again, subjective phenomena may not be created, but uncreated.

 

He doesn't get into it specifically (he alludes to it), but one of the inflationary theories (the one that yields empty multi-verses) describes a situation in which the precursor to our universe wasn't an inflaton field, but rather a condensing universe, resulting in the 'big bounce'.  That idea isn't as well regarded as inflaton field theory though.

 

There's another idea; that our expanding universe (that began as a singularity) is the 'exhaust port' (white hole) of a black hole (condensing universe).  

 

Then there's Hawking's idea; conditions prior to the big bang are undefined (like dividing by zero, or taking a point on earth that is south of the south pole) and therefore meaningless.

 

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11 hours ago, RichP714 said:

Did you catch the part about  the inflaton field?  Combined with 'slow roll' inflation, it accounts for how something came from nothing, why it expanded so suddenly and the same math used to describe the inflaton field yields hot dense expanding universes like the one we are in.  That seems comprehensive to me.

 

That's no different than a scientist saying it came from primordial egg. I'm not doubting there were fields and quantum mechanical things going on, that is obvious because there is nothing else we know of more fundamental. It's not comprehensive if you ask the real question: How does a field create itself?

 

If the field must exist, because it cannot not exist, then what is it's nature?

 

11 hours ago, RichP714 said:

There's another idea; that our expanding universe (that began as a singularity) is the 'exhaust port' (white hole) of a black hole (condensing universe).  

 

That doesn't explain anything. It just doesn't. It's easier to accept the Big Bang is the result of an extra-dimensional collision of some kind.

 

11 hours ago, RichP714 said:

Then there's Hawking's idea; conditions prior to the big bang are undefined (like dividing by zero, or taking a point on earth that is south of the south pole) and therefore meaningless.

 

Hawking was an asshole, but this is one of his more meaningful statements. It's an honest acquiescence to the idea that the origin is beyond our comprehension. It alludes to the very plausible idea that our brains might not be able to understand everything in existence.

 

The Big Bang theory has to account for everything, because that's where everything came from. It's not the fault of science, but scientists trying to sound as if the universe is a solved puzzle. You can't say 'all chickens came from an egg' and then when asked about where the egg came from the answer is 'egg materials'. The headlines about the Big Bang are always more profound than conjectures that follow, in my experience. The problem is, they seem to insist that the early universe was basically unintelligent. It can't be. Nature and everything in it has incredible intelligence. But even with all the intelligence that governs all interactions, we know that cause and effect, the very basis of all scientific thinking, is immutable. Nothing causes itself (Hawking tried to sidestep this with that whole idea about particles popping into and out of existence...we all know that scientists are NOT satisfied with the idea that fundamental particles just 'happen'. If particles can cause themselves to 'blink in' randomly, then everything we think we know about physics is completely wrong). Some may resort to 'well, the laws of physics break down at a certain point'. Okay so was it pure chaos then? It's actually a decent starting point, because in all infinities a chaos system has no limits, including the possibility of becoming a very strictly ordered and ordinary universe.

 

It only had to happen once.

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4 hours ago, Nahash5150 said:

 

That's no different than a scientist saying it came from primordial egg. I'm not doubting there were fields and quantum mechanical things going on, that is obvious because there is nothing else we know of more fundamental. It's not comprehensive if you ask the real question: How does a field create itself?

 

If the field must exist, because it cannot not exist, then what is it's nature?

 

Did you catch the part about self-induced fluctuations?  Somewhat like self-induction in electronics.  In this idea, the inflaton field (being a scalar field, like the Higgs field) self-induces what they call 'low roll inflation'; this happens of its own accord.  Similarly, the Higgs field tugs away at energy, giving it mass. The inflaton field doesn't have to have a beginning or end (which fits the idea that inflation never stopped, it just slowed WAY down); It's the 'let there be light' moment.

 

The nature of the inflaton field is that of pure massless energy, just waiting for the right self-induction to happen.

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Nahash5150 said:

That doesn't explain anything. It just doesn't. It's easier to accept the Big Bang is the result of an extra-dimensional collision of some kind.

 

If you think that the multi-verse  is on the right track, then one way for it to happen is this see-saw idea.  In it, a Universe's black hole's  singularity (which is the end of matter for THAT universe) dumps into a new Universe's white hole singularity.  It's not that this idea doesn't explain ANYTHING; it does fit several ideas about singularities and white holes, but there are other violations to the idea.

 

I'm not versed enough to say whether theses violations prove the idea is a dead end (sometimes there's an epiphany that changes everything in Physics), but it is an idea.  A ping pong idea, yes, but that alone doesn't rule it out.

 

Your extra-dimensional collision idea sounds very much like m-brane theory; positing that two 'branes' came into contact and sprouted the Universe.  I tend to like that idea as well, although most of it is based on unobservable ideas (currently unobservable I should say); the math is very elegant though.

 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Nahash5150 said:

Hawking was an asshole, but this is one of his more meaningful statements. It's an honest acquiescence to the idea that the origin is beyond our comprehension. It alludes to the very plausible idea that our brains might not be able to understand everything in existence.

 

Yes, there's a glass ceiling in there somewhere; some questions don't have meaningful answers.  I suppose the quest is to get our noses right up against the ceiling to see if we can see anything beyond it; even if its blurry and makes no sense.

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Nahash5150 said:

The Big Bang theory has to account for everything, because that's where everything came from. It's not the fault of science, but scientists trying to sound as if the universe is a solved puzzle. You can't say 'all chickens came from an egg' and then when asked about where the egg came from the answer is 'egg materials'. The headlines about the Big Bang are always more profound than conjectures that follow, in my experience.

 

Headlines about ANYTHING are always disappointing; the words allude to something, but the text is filled with caveats and sometimes reversals; That's not limited to talk about physics.  I don't read anything with the presumption that 'scientists are trying to sound as if the universe is a solved puzzle', as you say.  I don't expect that, and I don't read that into what I hear.

 

The thing I liked about this inflaton field theory is PRECISELY that it abandons the 'chicken-egg' questions and 'particle zoo' theories.  It separates itself from the standard model

 

 

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 The problem is, they seem to insist that the early universe was basically unintelligent. It can't be. Nature and everything in it has incredible intelligence. But even with all the intelligence that governs all interactions, we know that cause and effect, the very basis of all scientific thinking, is immutable

 

There are two typical responses from a physicists psyche.  They tend to either become more aqnostic or more 'pro'gnostic (?)  IOW they believe that it's all a bunch of sterile and random shit, or there's an intelligence behind it (in some form).  Not all scientists can be rolled into that pigenhole,  You brought up cause and effect; You'll LOVE the next video then (bringing up the issue of causality, why the arrow of time marches to causality's drum, and how it can be reversed).

 

 

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Nothing causes itself (Hawking tried to sidestep this with that whole idea about particles popping into and out of existence...we all know that scientists are NOT satisfied with the idea that fundamental particles just 'happen'. If particles can cause themselves to 'blink in' randomly, then everything we think we know about physics is completely wrong).

 

I don't think that Hawking came up with the idea of vacuum fluctuations, and I disagree that we all know that scientists don't like the idea.  Inflation theory suggests that the tug of virtual particles in otherwise empty space is responsible for the hubble constant.  Quantum tunneling,  (a known phenomenon that happens, for example,  inside simple transistors) depends on virtual particles.

 

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Some may resort to 'well, the laws of physics break down at a certain point'. Okay so was it pure chaos then? It's actually a decent starting point, because in all infinities a chaos system has no limits, including the possibility of becoming a very strictly ordered and ordinary universe.

 

 

That's a neat thing about this inflaton theory; it recognizes the fact that only unobservable assumptions can be had when staring at a blank wall (the universe was opaque to light when it was so tiny and dense, so nothing can be seen of its beginning).

 

This idea abandons all that trying to peer through the CMB; it accepts that the 'big bang' standard model can only be walked back to a certain point before it gives no more traction, and it approaches the known conditions it tries to model from the other direction.

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8 minutes ago, RichP714 said:

Did you catch the part about self-induced fluctuations?  Somewhat like self-induction in electronics.  In this idea, the inflaton field (being a scalar field, like the Higgs field) self-induces what they call 'low roll inflation'; this happens of its own accord.  Similarly, the Higgs field tugs away at energy, giving it mass. The inflaton field doesn't have to have a beginning or end (which fits the idea that inflation never stopped, it just slowed WAY down); It's the 'let there be light' moment.

 

The nature of the inflaton field is that of pure massless energy, just waiting for the right self-induction to happen.

 

I would be willing to look into this further, but there is no 'ah ha' moment here for me. Nothing like the Unified Field Theory, which was a major break-through in our understanding of the universe. It brought us much closer to 'seeing' what the universe is made out of. It's a clear idea about how the universe evolved over time, even if its fundamental origin (that is, what was the universe really like under Super Unity) is not understood. We still have nothing that unifies gravity with the other forces, though it seems appropriate that it should somehow.

 

Perhaps I'm just looking at this incorrectly. There was a time when talking about the Big Bang was synonymous with the question of existence. But perhaps 'science' has finally come to realize that it's really not interested in explaining that, and I feel that is a HUGE step forward to better science. 

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1 hour ago, Nahash5150 said:

there is no 'ah ha' moment here for me. Nothing like the Unified Field Theory, which was a major break-through in our understanding of the universe.

 

Sure, and this idea doesn't intend to replace any of the Unified Field Theory attempts; it recognizes that you can only look back in time 'so far' (down to the planck length, which is pretty fantastic) to see what came 'before' and approaches things from the other side of the wall.

 

It was a new idea to me as well, but it's not really more complicated or inscrutable as looking for ever more short lived and exotic particles in the early universe; the standard model has enough of that.

 

It's all just people with math skills trying to curve fit with what's observable, looking for purchase in the soil of many different thought vectors.

 

I'd rather read about that than how Amazon doesn't pay any corporate taxes.

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The purpose of these shows is to create a sense of awe and wonder about science, while providing entertainment so no one will change channels..

The problem with these hypothesis is the lack of any verifiable experiment for confirmation.  I would add to Hawking that conditions prior to the 'Big Bang'  (if there was one) are unverifiable, therefore meaningless.

 

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16 hours ago, jvandyke_texas said:

The purpose of these shows is to create a sense of awe and wonder about science, while providing entertainment so no one will change channels..

 

 

Maybe that's why it's called 'programming'.  Yes, I agree, this show's intention is to garner interest, and to point to references for further exploration; for the actual supporting math, one would have to take action; this show aims to motivate that action, and so does 'The Outer Rim'  I think if it stuck only to hard truths and math, it would not meet its goal of expanding interest.

 

16 hours ago, jvandyke_texas said:

The problem with these hypothesis is the lack of any verifiable experiment for confirmation.  I would add to Hawking that conditions prior to the 'Big Bang'  (if there was one) are unverifiable, therefore meaningless.

 

Yes, currently unverifiable, but epiphanys happen.  The Inflaton field theory at least tries to approach the brick wall from a different perspective.  If we manage to discover a method for measuring scalar fields directly (rather than our current method of having to detect a particle interaction), then new science will emerge; some of which is very likely to be observable.

 

 

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