In a multiverse, is there a universe that started first?

[JSS]

We have previously agreed that space is an illusion - simply a less concentrated state of matter than planets etc.

The fractal relationships are interesting - communities within communities - planet/moon systems → solar systems → galaxies → galactic super clusters → the cosmic web → ??

Ultimately, reality must surely just be all one thing - one thing with many orbiting, rotating, invaginating and expurgating, complexifying and dissipating areas of concentration and dispersion, with the approximate hierarchy above (I excluded life because most celestial bodies don't seem to have any).

That is exactly corect except that as Leo points out there is a provable limit to fractal behavior. There can be no particles smaller than the known subatomic particles .. period. It isn't that they haven't been found. It is logically impossible for them to exist due to the speed of light. And the speed of light does not scale down.

Planck intervals > subatomic particles > atoms > more complex atoms > molecules > chemistry > life > mind.

All of that is correct except for the first "Plank interval". There is no physically real Plank interval. Structure begins with the sub-atomic monoparticles.

[Obvious Leo]

Structure begins with the sub-atomic monoparticles.

This is a logical impossibility for at least two reasons. Firstly there was no matter present at the big bang and secondly these particles each have different physical properties. What is the origin of these properties?

[JSS]

Structure begins with the sub-atomic monoparticles.

This is a logical impossibility for at least two reasons. Firstly there was no matter present at the big bang and secondly these particles each have different physical properties. What is the origin of these properties?

I gave a very short briefing to Cerveny .. Affectance Briefing.

First, there was no Big Bang .. but that is irrelevant to this issue. Particles form due to the amount of slowing that EMR has on EMR. A very dense traffic jam of ultra-minuscule EMR noise ("Affectance") forms the spherical congestion known as an electron, positron, or neutrino. The briefing explains why they vary in "charge". Although that affectance noise has always existed, nothing can produce structure or form-through-time smaller than those specs of affectance noise, "monoparticles".

That is only a small part of why I know quantum physics to be absurd phantasy physics.

[surreptitious57]

The Big Bang was just local cosmic expansion so it was not the beginning of absolutely everything
But is currently as far back as physics can go. However absolute nothing can not exist indefinitely
because of quantum fluctuations so therefore there had to be something else before the Big Bang

[Obvious Leo]

The Big Bang was just local cosmic expansion so it was not the beginning of absolutely everything
But is currently as far back as physics can go. However absolute nothing can not exist indefinitely
because of quantum fluctuations so therefore there had to be something else before the Big Bang

This is now universally accepted as true, although the nature of such "quantum fluctuations" remains undefined because a quantum fluctuation is a mathematical construct and not a physical one. The evidence for the big bang is overwhelming but the evidence that this event was the beginning of existence is non-existent as well as a metaphysically ludicrous proposition which contradicts the first law of thermodynamics. Quite rightly physics merely claims that the big bang was the earliest moment in time from which its models can make meaningful statements about the behaviour of matter and energy. That only quanta of pure energy existed in the earliest Planck intervals following the BB event is logically unshakable, as is the proposition that this primordial fireball cannot have been perfectly isotropic or else matter particles could never have emerged from it. What this therefore proves is the non-existence of the singularity hypothesised by GR and nothing else. It is nowadays widely accepted that the singularity hypothesis of GR is an extrapolation of the model beyond its range of applicability and in the absence of a singularity time cannot stand still. Ergo this iteration of the universe was not the beginning of reality and the big bang did not occur in a single instant, thus explaining the "initial" anisotropy. The entropy of the earliest stage of this iteration was therefore maximal but not infinite, since infinity is an unrealisable mathematical abstraction which has no analogue in physical reality. In layman's terms we can think of the universe as kicking off with just enough order to set the self-causal ball rolling and after that it just made it up as it went along.

[surreptitious57]

A finite universe would indeed violate the First Law Of Thermodynamics so it cannot all just have begun with the Big Bang
And a singularity as a point of absolute mass compressed into zero volume is physically impossible. But that does not mean
that they cannot exist but just not as they are mathematically defined as every black hole supposedly has one in its centre

[Philosophy Explorer]

A finite universe would indeed violate the First Law Of Thermodynamics so it cannot all just have begun with the Big Bang
And a singularity as a point of absolute mass compressed into zero volume is physically impossible. But that does not mean
that they cannot exist but just not as they are mathematically defined as every black hole supposedly has one in its centre

Can you prove that a singularity as a point of absolute mass compressed into zero volume is physically impossible? I'm doubtful that can be done, but a doubt and proof are two different things.

Are you familiar with the Banach-Tarski paradox? It says that you can take something the size of a pea and change it into the size of a sun. There doesn't seem to be a limit as to how small the starting object can be.

PhilX

[JSS]

Can you prove that a singularity as a point of absolute mass compressed into zero volume is physically impossible? I'm doubtful that can be done, but a doubt and proof are two different things.

I can. But a proof is in the eyes of the beholder. You have to be a reasonably bright philosopher to be able to comprehend with certainty what is being presented, otherwise you don't see anything as proof, but rather merely argumentation.

Are you familiar with the Banach-Tarski paradox? It says that you can take something the size of a pea and change it into the size of a sun. There doesn't seem to be a limit as to how small the starting object can be.

PhilX

That one I seriously doubt.

[Obvious Leo]

Can you prove that a singularity as a point of absolute mass compressed into zero volume is physically impossible?

It's logically impossible because the descriptor of "zero" cannot be applied to the concept of volume. An object without a volume cannot be said to have a spatial extension by definition. If this supposed mass does not exist in the Cartesian space then where is it?

Are you familiar with the Banach-Tarski paradox? It says that you can take something the size of a pea and change it into the size of a sun. There doesn't seem to be a limit as to how small the starting object can be.

There's a world of difference between a mathematical limit and a physical limit, a metaphysical first principle which dates back to the pre-Socratics and one which Leibniz did his best to remind Newton of, to no avail. Luckily Max Planck settled this question beyond all doubt.

[JSS]

Can you prove that a singularity as a point of absolute mass compressed into zero volume is physically impossible?

It's logically impossible because the descriptor of "zero" cannot be applied to the concept of volume. An object without a volume cannot be said to have a spatial extension by definition. If this supposed mass does not exist in the Cartesian space then where is it?

Good point.

Luckily Max Planck settled this question beyond all doubt.

But I don't buy that one.

[Obvious Leo]

A finite universe would indeed violate the First Law Of Thermodynamics so it cannot all just have begun with the Big Bang
And a singularity as a point of absolute mass compressed into zero volume is physically impossible. But that does not mean
that they cannot exist but just not as they are mathematically defined as every black hole supposedly has one in its centre

The singularity at the centre of the black hole fell out of favour a long time ago because it was effectively disproven by Hawking. He mathematically showed through QM that information cannot be destroyed, although the first law of thermodynamics could have told him that. However his mathematical treatment is a very elegant illustration of the limits of applicability of Einstein's field equations in GR because it shows that black holes have entropy and are therefore not dead regions of cosmic nothingness. Where it was once thought that falling into a black hole was the absolute end for a physical entity it now seems certain that black holes leak and the fundamental informational quanta eventually find their way out again, albeit only as the quanta of energy themselves and not as the emergent structures these quanta once encoded for. It's rather like shuffling the cards in the informational deck and starting all over again so big bang physics is just like black hole physics on a cosmological scale. This is why the bang/crunch model has nowadays come to be regarded as quite uncontroversial and even mainstream amongst a significant number of theorists. Black hole entropy is now one of the hottest research topics in theoretical physics and Hawking himself has unequivocally retreated from almost all of the statements which he once made about it. That's the way it is with science but the real big names in black hole physics nowadays would be Maldacena, Susskind and Rovelli. They politely acknowledge Hawking and Penrose for their past efforts while in fact they're ignoring practically everything they ever said.

[surreptitious57]

Can you prove that a singularity as a point of absolute mass compressed into zero volume is physically impossible

Anything that is of zero volume is by definition non physical and so therefore cannot logically or physically exist
Whilst anything that is fundamentally physical can only arise from something else that is fundamentally physical

[Obvious Leo]

Whilst anything that is fundamentally physical can only arise from something else that is fundamentally physical

So we can at least agree that Larry Krauss is a fuckwit, although he's never left much room for doubt.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Leo said:

"It's logically impossible [to prove a singularity] because the descriptor of "zero" cannot be applied to the concept of volume. An object without a volume cannot be said to have a spatial extension by definition. If this supposed mass does not exist in the Cartesian space then where is it?"

I don't buy this explanation because we can't go beyond Planck's constant to verify what you claim. It's an open question to me.

PhilX

[Greta]

So we can at least agree that Larry Krauss is a fuckwit, although he's never left much room for doubt.

Leo, which physicists do you like?