What is a true first cause?

[Greylorn Ell]

Can you show me where God appears at the Planck scale?

Ginkgo,

That depends upon your standards for "showing." If explaining why God found it necessary to digitize (i.e. quantize) matter would meet your standards, you could read my book. Not likely. Much more comfortable to promote a widely accepted belief system, even though it offers no explanation for the conscious and curious mind that shows up on this forum, now and then.

Greylorn

[Immanuel Can]

I appreciate your efforts to clarify.

Science is very good at explaining what happened less than a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.

Please, do continue. How does "science" explain it?

The assumption is...

"Assumption"? I thought we were talking about science...so who's doing the assuming, and why are they assuming it?

the universe was in a highly organized state

And this is descried...how? Because they need it to have been? I agree they need it, but how do they get it?

This all sounds like...well, not like faith, because faith requires some evidence...raw speculation, maybe? Forgive me, but I'm getting more skeptical by the minute.

Okay, then: if there was organization, then what "organized" it? If you say "pre-existing conditions," then we're in dangers of resorting to a "turtles all the way down" kind of explanation, a infinite regress.

But we already know we can't have an actual infinite, so...?

[Greylorn Ell]

Science is very good at explaining what happened less than a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. The assumption is that the universe was in a highly organized state prior to the Big Bang. Science cannot explain what the universe was like before or at the time of the Big Bang. The reason is the initial singularity problem. The singularity is the product of general relativity breaking down at tiny distances.

Ginkgo,

The last place I found such irrelevant, religious interpretations of "science" was on the Catholic Answers Forum.

If by "Science is very good at explaining..." you mean, cosmologists with their heads so far up their fat asses that a lucite navel won't help them see any better, have made up so much obfuscating bullshit that no one without a Ph.D can deal with it, and those with genuine science Ph.D's won't bother, you're right.

To explain what went on during the first picosecond after the Big Bang, a handful of nitwits with degrees in astrophysics who would be better employed as burger chefs, declared that matter started moving faster than the speed of light. They don't say what speed, though. Nor do they describe the source of infinite energy required to produce that sudden acceleration. Great "science!"

Nor do these pinheads explain why, with all newly-created matter moving faster than light speed, such matter would continue to move.

Suppose we suddenly accelerate a single neutrino, the smallest known stable particle, to light speed. Upon reaching that speed it will, according to the scientifically verified principles of Special Relativity, acquire infinite mass.

That infinite mass will exceed the mass of our entire universe, and produce an infinitely compressed gravitational force that will attract all matter in the universe, instantly.

The infinite mass of one neutrino, upon reaching light speed, will make all the supermassive black holes in the universe less powerful, comparatively, than you sucking on a soda straw.

How does anyone with a modicum of physics knowledge and a three-digit IQ figure that a universe trying to emerge from its singular womb would not immediately return there when every one of its newly created components, at least 10 exp80 of them, acquired infinite mass?

Greylorn

[duszek]

But these spectacular results of infinite mass are mere speculation.
Nobody has ever made an experiment and observed the process.

Does infinite mass (or the theory about it) change anything about the law of conservation of energy ?

[Philosophy Explorer]

This just came out:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science ... lider.html

PhilX

[Immanuel Can]

An interesting quotation from that article:

"This cannot be tested and so it is philosophy and not science."

It's funny...I've never seen "philosophy" posited as a strict opposite of "science." It makes me wonder what the respondent might have meant. It looks as though he's wanting us to assume, "That which cannot be tested is philosophy..."

[duszek]

There are specific requirements for scientific testing.

Einstein´s theory did not meet these requirements at first, so it was philosophy or theoretical speculation. Later on it was tested (I know from hearsay) and so it was promoted to "science".

But science can be wrong.

Scio = I know. I know for sure.
Says the scientist or the knower.

But can one be ever sure of knowing something once and for all ? asks the lover of wisdom (philo-sopher).

[Greylorn Ell]

But these spectacular results of infinite mass are mere speculation.
Nobody has ever made an experiment and observed the process.

Does infinite mass (or the theory about it) change anything about the law of conservation of energy ?

Duszek,

Your question is valid. The point of my post was to demonstrate the absolute absurdity of Big Bang theory, using basic relativistic physics.

Infinite mass has never been reached, which is a good thing, because it would become the great grandfather of all black holes and would devour the entire universe.

Relativistic calculations on the mass of a moving object were verified early in the development of particle accelerators. The cyclotron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclotron
accelerated protons (the nuclei of hydrogen atoms) to high energies. However, the relatively simple device had an upper limit set by Big Al's famous equation-- as its protons approached light-speed, their mass increased to the point where they could no longer be contained by the cyclotron's magnets.

Subsequent accelerators (e.g. the LHC) were redesigned to account for the effect of increased mass. That's why they are so big and costly, compared to the dinky cyclotron.

The energy conservation law is, of course, intimately connected to relativistic theory. The amount of energy theoretically required to accelerate a particle to light speed is infinite. The more massive the particle, the more energy was given to it. An infinite-mass would have absorbed all the energy in the universe. It all balances.

So, my post was merely another explanation of why Big Bang theory fails, because mass cannot move at
light speed. Anyone who actually believes that the Big Bang was a real event has been watching way too much Dr. Caca on the documentary channels.

Greylorn

[Greylorn Ell]

There are specific requirements for scientific testing.

Einstein´s theory did not meet these requirements at first, so it was philosophy or theoretical speculation. Later on it was tested (I know from hearsay) and so it was promoted to "science".

But science can be wrong.

Scio = I know. I know for sure.
Says the scientist or the knower.

But can one be ever sure of knowing something once and for all ? asks the lover of wisdom (philo-sopher).

Duszek,

Your statement is absurd. Einstein's theory was born ready to test, but the technology for doing so was limited. Its first test required a total solar eclipse on a sunny day, so testing was a matter of timing.

Consider eschewing more posts about physics until you actually learn some physics, "O Lover of wisdom."

Greylorn

[duszek]

Thank you for the explanations.

I was a little suprised by this statement:

An infinite-mass would have absorbed all the energy in the universe. It all balances.
Greylorn

All the energy in the universe ?
All ?
That would presuppose that the amount of energy was limited but it isn´t, as far as I know.

[duszek]

Your statement is absurd. Einstein's theory was born ready to test, but the technology for doing so was limited. Its first test required a total solar eclipse on a sunny day, so testing was a matter of timing.

Greylorn

And how can you be sure that the total solar eclipse on a sunny day is really taking place and is not a delusion of senses ?

As Descartes pointed out in his meditations.

[Immanuel Can]

And how can you be sure that the total solar eclipse on a sunny day is really taking place and is not a delusion of senses ? As Descartes pointed out in his meditations.

I think this is an abuse of Descartes. Descartes was not promoting positively the view that we do not know anything for sure. And he certainly was no epistemological relativist. He was a Theist, at the very least, as the subtitle of his Meditations reveals, which reads: " In which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated." You may not concede that he succeeded in that, but that was his project -- not the undermining of knowledge per se.

He was using radical skepticism merely as an heuristic device, a way of conceptually testing to see if there's anything that does *not* have the property of being rationally dubitable. He disclosed thereby that even scientific knowledge is probabilistic, not certain. But he did not prove -- nor did he try to prove -- that nothing was knowable at all. He merely uncovered that it wasn't *perfectly* knowable.

He also showed quite clearly that radical epistemological relativism is irrational, since it reduces everything in the universe to a sort of free-floating monadic consciousness with absolutely no properties or objects upon which to work. Quite simply, then, no one on earth lives on the basis of Cartesian skepticism.

Anyway, epistemological relativism is so obviously self-defeating it's not worthy of anyone's belief.

[Greylorn Ell]

Thank you for the explanations.

I was a little suprised by this statement:

An infinite-mass would have absorbed all the energy in the universe. It all balances.
Greylorn

All the energy in the universe ?
All ?
That would presuppose that the amount of energy was limited but it isn´t, as far as I know.

Duszek,

You might find the mathematics of infinity interesting, as it differs from basic math. For example,
let's use "INF" as a symbol for infinity. Then,

INF + 1 = INF
INF + 1000000000 = INF
INF + INF = INF

likewise,

INF X INF = INF

Then there are some issues that seem unresolved. For example:
It would seem that INF/INF ought to equal 1. But does INF+1 / INF produce a finite number? Seems not. Infinity is the joker in mathematics' deck of card.

Personally, I prefer card games like bridge where the deck's jokers are discarded, or saved for children's games. Likewise I prefer finite mathematics, wherein the concept of infinity is not used.

You cannot play a solid game of cards when the rules change with every deal, and it is impossible to do physics under similar conditions. As a physics student I learned that exam problem solutions that could produce INF as a solution received an automatic F.

IMO the perfessers who show up on the Dr. Caca shows and talk about infinities as if the concept meant anything should have a cane wrapped around their scrawny necks and dragged off the stage.

Greylorn

[Greylorn Ell]

Your statement is absurd. Einstein's theory was born ready to test, but the technology for doing so was limited. Its first test required a total solar eclipse on a sunny day, so testing was a matter of timing.

Greylorn

And how can you be sure that the total solar eclipse on a sunny day is really taking place and is not a delusion of senses ?

As Descartes pointed out in his meditations.

duszek,

You've successfully demonstrated why pinheaded ersatz philosophers should stick to a subject trivial enough for their little minds to grasp.

You are just another argumentative jerk, someone with no interest in pursuing an intelligent conversation. I've had enough of you.

Greylorn

[Greylorn Ell]

And how can you be sure that the total solar eclipse on a sunny day is really taking place and is not a delusion of senses ? As Descartes pointed out in his meditations.

I think this is an abuse of Descartes. Descartes was not promoting positively the view that we do not know anything for sure. And he certainly was no epistemological relativist. He was a Theist, at the very least, as the subtitle of his Meditations reveals, which reads: " In which the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are demonstrated." You may not concede that he succeeded in that, but that was his project -- not the undermining of knowledge per se.

He was using radical skepticism merely as an heuristic device, a way of conceptually testing to see if there's anything that does *not* have the property of being rationally dubitable. He disclosed thereby that even scientific knowledge is probabilistic, not certain. But he did not prove -- nor did he try to prove -- that nothing was knowable at all. He merely uncovered that it wasn't *perfectly* knowable.

He also showed quite clearly that radical epistemological relativism is irrational, since it reduces everything in the universe to a sort of free-floating monadic consciousness with absolutely no properties or objects upon which to work. Quite simply, then, no one on earth lives on the basis of Cartesian skepticism.

Anyway, epistemological relativism is so obviously self-defeating it's not worthy of anyone's belief.

IC,

A passage in the New Testament about casting pearls before swine applies to your duzek reply.

Greylorn