Incidentally edges are pretty interesting: the definition of the edge of the universe actually has to do with maths, since it is unobservable, distance and time taken concerns the area a sphere covers, and all that sort of stuff. Let's just say if you place an area concern over a sphere say on the Earth you have a certain area covered, if you do the same thing assuming mathematical laws apply to a cosmic picture you get an area likewise. It's not that complicated, but it is pretty easy to assume given x, the area covered by a sphere will be y, and that the area of that coverage when shown in images that can show visible space that you can move forwards and backwards in time will be the same.
Suffice to say we could be wrong about the concerns, we cannot see them, but we assume such mathematical laws are pretty good over all, being as they don't seem to be broken anywhere in science. It's not a done deal of course in science anything you can't experimentally measure never is, but it's a done deal in terms of logic and maths and extension therein to reality.
The extent of the solar system is a little different because some don't always agree where it starts and finishes, but such arbitrary concerns although interesting are probably unimportant as it goes... It can't be to do with gravity as it's never zero in its extent, it can't be to do with the percentage of an exploding suns matter that covers an area because we can't know exactly if it's all that suns matter. It just seems to be a nice idea to say, beyond the oort cloud at x it is the edge of the solar system. It's kinda irrelevant it's extent, but the sort of lengths people will go to to be anal about such things can never be underestimated, and in a way that's not a bad thing, it keeps an open dialogue going. When science isn't discussing pointless minutae it has the picture covered. When it stops considering the big issues with such vociferous differences of opinion amongst the bag of cats it is, it is of course dead.
Shut up your all ferking wrong, is science in a nut shell.
No. What is of course science is a will to disagree, it thrives on that. I'm pretty sure that was made clear, some how though it was confusing, so let me iterate by saying "you are full of crap" is what science is about. Mindlessly agreeing what science is about probably not so much. Why this is hard to grasp, I don't know, but it's fairly simple nonetheless. You probably have got used to saying I agree with such and such, and not got into the habbit of saying I don't agree because hell there must be some exceptions. Science thrives in and of itself on people saying that's ok but it's just not right, philosophy I don't know any more, to me it seems to be holding on to outmoded and outdated ideas like they matter and then chastising others for it, it seems to have got stuck in the past.
I think if philosophy is ever going to get anywhere it needs to stop preaching at people according to its bible and start thinking for itself. Haven't seen it so far it seems to be about who and what you have read and how hence you are told to think, sadly that is all it is, if you don't think like a book you have read you are wrong. Do these people even know how to think for themselves, I doubt it quite frankly, they are I think just regutgitating words others said like it somehow is something new, I think how they are told to think is how they think and do no more than that.
It's genuinely depressing to watch people spout other peoples ideas as if they matter, in lieu of their own, but that is apparently philsophy now, you engage if you have read the right material, if someone hasn't you don't, it seems to me it's a matter of repeating other peoples ideas like a clockwork orange. And they wonder why philosophy is dead, they just can't and wont learn to think for themselves, they just have to have it spoon fed to them as if somehow by magic that makes them a philosopher.
Disgusts me to be frank, it's all it is did you read this or did you read that, or have you not become a drone, can you think for yourself, no. Do you even bother having your own ideas no, it's all regurgitated shit from the past now. Difference between a philosopher and a Philosopher is clearly someone who can think about new ideas, clearly most of the so called philosophers on this forum just spout what they heard other philosophers say and can't be assed to actually think. I will mindlessly just talk about other peoples ideas, my own ideas are by the by, if you don't know these peoples ideas that are not mine you don't qualify as a person who can be talked to because the only way I can talk to you is if I can regurgitate what I was spoon fed by someone else, at you because you were also spoon fed it. Waste of space idiots taking up room, think for yourself, it's not that hard, why do you have to know who read what, why are you so inured, why do you even matter?
We know the earth is one of 8 planets that all revolve around the sun.
The sun makes up some 98% of the mass of the solar system. For that reason alone, the sun must sit at the center of our system because that's where it should be found gravitationally.
We know the position of our sun within the Milky Way galaxy, and it is not the center. Not even close.
When Stephen Hawking refers to homogeneity of the universe, he is referring to scales that are far larger than galaxy clusters.
Quoting Einstein admitting that any change of coordinate system is allowed, does not buttress these silly geocentric theories. It profoundly weakens them. Einstein's admittance that any change of coordinate system is allowed in fact forces us to admit that the universe must be, therefore, homogeneous in structure and isotropic in all directions. If the universe had a special center, and a particular anisotropy in direction, then changing a coordinate system would not be allowed anywhere. Einstein is saying precisely the opposite : that any change of coordinate system is allowed. The blogger was citing a piece of evidence that fatally destroys his own position on the matter. (pun intended)
We know the earth is one of 8 planets that all revolve around the sun.
The sun makes up some 98% of the mass of the solar system. For that reason alone, the sun must sit at the center of our system because that's where it should be found gravitationally.
We know the position of our sun within the Milky Way galaxy, and it is not the center. Not even close.
When Stephen Hawking refers to homogeneity of the universe, he is referring to scales that are far larger than galaxy clusters.
Quoting Einstein admitting that any change of coordinate system is allowed, does not buttress these silly geocentric theories. It profoundly weakens them. Einstein's admittance that any change of coordinate system is allowed in fact forces us to admit that the universe must be, therefore, homogeneous in structure and isotropic in all directions. If the universe had a special center, and a particular anisotropy in direction, then changing a coordinate system would not be allowed anywhere. Einstein is saying precisely the opposite : that any change of coordinate system is allowed. The blogger was citing a piece of evidence that fatally destroys his own position on the matter. (pun intended)
Einstein claimed that any change of coordinate system is allowed simply because... any change of coordinate system is allowed ! Just that.
Yes, the Sun is bigger than the Earth.
But so is a gianti rocket launched from NASA.
Do you observe the rocket as if you were... on the rocket because it is bigger?
You could choose any place and call it the center of the universe cos one place is as good as another in this respect.but the real center is your self the center of the experience of the universe.
jackles wrote:You could choose any place and call it the center of the universe cos one place is as good as another in this respect.but the real center is your self the center of the experience of the universe.
Indeed. Very well put.
It is YOU who experiences everything.
And in this way, the center is always you.
The earth nor the sun is the centre. Everything is at the centre of the universe, as we are all expanding out from the centre. This might be a little difficult to understand.
However this is not:
The sun is not static but moving through space. This animation is lovely.
The conclusion that this has something to do with shells and shit is BS. But the animation is worth a look.
jackles wrote:You could choose any place and call it the center of the universe cos one place is as good as another in this respect.but the real center is your self the center of the experience of the universe.
This is not just subjectively true but objectively true.
The BB means that all points at all times are still expanding in all directions at once.
Actually, the center of the universe cannot necessarily be 'known' for certain at this particular time in human kinds history, simply because we only have somewhat of a grasp of the currently 'observable' universe. The complete universe could tell a completely different story. Then maybe not, flip a coin! But that's not 'knowing,' is it?
Hobbes' Choice wrote:The earth nor the sun is the centre. Everything is at the centre of the universe, as we are all expanding out from the centre. This might be a little difficult to understand.
However this is not:
The sun is not static but moving through space. This animation is lovely.
The conclusion that this has something to do with shells and shit is BS. But the animation is worth a look.
Yes this is known to many I believe.
But again we are speaking in terms of what "IS" at the center, as if we have access to that special thing called "reality" and have looked inside...
If of course everyone is at the center then there no point in discussing.
However science - physics - works by defining the center in a system and analyzing it.
Hobbes' Choice wrote:The earth nor the sun is the centre. Everything is at the centre of the universe, as we are all expanding out from the centre. This might be a little difficult to understand.
However this is not:
The sun is not static but moving through space. This animation is lovely.
The conclusion that this has something to do with shells and shit is BS. But the animation is worth a look.
Yes this is known to many I believe.
But again we are speaking in terms of what "IS" at the center, as if we have access to that special thing called "reality" and have looked inside...
If of course everyone is at the center then there no point in discussing.
However science - physics - works by defining the center in a system and analyzing it.
I think you have failed to get it.
In empirical terms : The universe is edgeless, though finite. This is the thing most hard to understand. If you were capable of traversing the entire universe in a straight line then you would end up where you started. By the time you arrived the Universe would have continued to grow, from each point simultaneously.
The other completely different thought is the experiential terms: As reality is a notion generated in our minds and all experience of the universe is mediated by our perceptions, then we are at the centre of everything.
Hobbes' Choice wrote:The earth nor the sun is the centre. Everything is at the centre of the universe, as we are all expanding out from the centre. This might be a little difficult to understand.
However this is not:
The sun is not static but moving through space. This animation is lovely.
The conclusion that this has something to do with shells and shit is BS. But the animation is worth a look.
Yes this is known to many I believe.
But again we are speaking in terms of what "IS" at the center, as if we have access to that special thing called "reality" and have looked inside...
If of course everyone is at the center then there no point in discussing.
However science - physics - works by defining the center in a system and analyzing it.
I think you have failed to get it.
In empirical terms : The universe is edgeless, though finite. In terms of the universe and it's shape, size, etc, there are absolutely NO 'empirical' terms!!!
This is the thing most hard to understand. If you were capable of traversing the entire universe in a straight line then you would end up where you started. By the time you arrived the Universe would have continued to grow, from each point simultaneously.
The other completely different thought is the experiential terms: As reality is a notion generated in our minds and all experience of the universe is mediated by our perceptions, then we are at the centre of everything.
skakos wrote:
Yes this is known to many I believe.
But again we are speaking in terms of what "IS" at the center, as if we have access to that special thing called "reality" and have looked inside...
If of course everyone is at the center then there no point in discussing.
However science - physics - works by defining the center in a system and analyzing it.
I think you have failed to get it.
In empirical terms : The universe is edgeless, though finite. In terms of the universe and it's shape, size, etc, there are absolutely NO 'empirical' terms!!!
This is the thing most hard to understand. If you were capable of traversing the entire universe in a straight line then you would end up where you started. By the time you arrived the Universe would have continued to grow, from each point simultaneously.
The other completely different thought is the experiential terms: As reality is a notion generated in our minds and all experience of the universe is mediated by our perceptions, then we are at the centre of everything.
For fuck sake you can be such a fucking moron.
Asking what is the centre of the universe is a empirical question. Want some empirical evidence? Get off your spotty behind and look up.
You are just contradicting yourself. Dickwad.
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Asking what is the centre of the universe is a empirical question.
Indeed it is but it is a question for which modern science has no empirical answer. If we use the spatial metaphors of physics then the centre of the universe is the observer of the universe because no matter whereabouts within the universe we place the observer he is equally distant from its "edge". Obviously the word "edge" is also a metaphor because the "edge" of the universe is actually the "beginning", which is also a metaphor for the big bang. Although it is not now and never will be possible to observe the big bang itself, if it were then it would be equidistant from any observer in the universe.
Physicists speak only in a mathematical language and don't use such spatial metaphors for good reason. Such spatial metaphors are far too confusing to be of much use to a layman either so I prefer to think of the universe as purely a temporal phenomenon. When we do this we place the observer on a wave of time which moves into the future at the speed of light, a perspective which I can illustrate with an elegant little thought experiment accessible to any layman.
The furthest it is possible for any of our modern telescopes to see is a region called the CMB, which is modelled as being almost 13.8 billion light-years in the "distance". 380,000 light-years "beyond" this region lies the big bang itself which will NEVER be observable, even in principle, for a host of technical reasons which are not germane to this thought experiment. Imagine ourselves standing at this gee-whiz telescope and observing the CMB. We take a photograph of it. We perform our measurements and note that it is 13.8 billion light years away from us and know that this would be equally true irrespective of whereabouts in the universe we place our telescope. Now we imagine ourselves coming back in a billion years time and making the same observation. What we will now see is this same CMB region utterly unchanged. When we take a new photograph we will discover that our two photographs are completely identical in every respect. However when we perform our measurements we will now discover that this region is 14.8 billion light-years away from us and once again this is irrespective of whereabouts in the universe we observe this from. In the space of one billion years we have moved one billion light years further away from exactly the same observation and once again the unobservable big bang will lie 380,000 light years "beyond" this region.
Physicists speak of their world in the language of mathematics and they model such observations in terms of an "expanding space". This is a convenient metaphor for them because they know what they're talking about (sic), but it is of precious little use to the layman. A space is purely a mathematical abstraction and not a physically real "thing" so for the layman to understand what's going on we need simply think of the universe as aging at the speed of light. Obviously the earth cannot physically move a billion light years away from the CMB through space in a billion years so this spatial extension is purely an observer construct.
