Structures tugging at our universe?

[TheEgoist]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/9725235.html

This is pretty weird to someone who is just a laymen observer of the scientific community.

Is this a brand new idea? I'd like to hear the opinions of some more informed members here

[Jake_Ellison]

The article is horribly written: "In an attempt to simplify the mind-bending concept" or "On the outskirts of creation" don't exacltly inspire confidence in someone looking for science, but that's the National Geographic guy's fault.

Here's a link to the actual study, but it hasn't been reviewed yet, and it's not exactly something we can verify.(There are claims that it contains errors.)

Visit My Website

I don't think it's appropriate to speculate and come up with theories before the evidence for the existence of anything at all has been reviewed.

If somewhere in this study there's an error, then there is no reason to have the discussion. The next step is someone reviewing the study (maybe replicate the observations, but I'm just guessing) , and only then should there be a third step, which is trying to come up with explanations for this supposed "dark flow".

I think it is unscientific to even mention "unknown structures" which could be "tugging on the Universe", before the evidence for this abnormality (at least I think that's what it is supposed to be) is reviewed.

Edited November 6, 2008 by Jake_Ellison

[Grames]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/9725235.html

This is pretty weird to someone who is just a laymen observer of the scientific community.

Is this a brand new idea? I'd like to hear the opinions of some more informed members here

There is an equivocation in the article between "universe" and "visible universe."

Given the inflationary Big-Bang theory, the universe has an age. The speed of light multiplied by that age gives the size of the visible universe, and it is presumed that the universe is larger that the visible portion. An astronomer has detected irregularities in the cosmic microwave background that he proposes to explain by gravitational influences on the visible universe from mass beyond the visible universe. This is analogous to deducing the presence of an undiscovered planet from the motions of a known planet.

In no sense is this evidence of anything "outside the universe" even in the original astronomer's own words.

[EC]

There is an equivocation in the article between "universe" and "visible universe."

Given the inflationary Big-Bang theory, the universe has an age. The speed of light multiplied by that age gives the size of the visible universe, and it is presumed that the universe is larger that the visible portion. An astronomer has detected irregularities in the cosmic microwave background that he proposes to explain by gravitational influences on the visible universe from mass beyond the visible universe. This is analogous to deducing the presence of an undiscovered planet from the motions of a known planet.

In no sense is this evidence of anything "outside the universe" even in the original astronomer's own words.

The Big Bang theory is just an approximation of what really happened. The universe is eternal. What we call the "Big Bang" wan NOT a "creation" event but instead just a phase transistion that the universe underwent at a random point in time.

What is meant by the article is that the "expansion" of the universe seem to be accelerating rather than slowing down, which was expected do to gravitation. What this is implies is that on large scales a form of "dark energy" is actually causing a type of repulsive gravity--instead of the normally understood attractive version--to drive points in space apart at ever increasing velocity. There are several theories of why this is possible, with the most popular being M-theory--a newer theory that includes String Theory and Supersymmetry. By the way, the supersymmetrical breaking of the original single force into all the other known forces is what I meant by a phase change of an eternal universe.

M-theory requires 11 dimensions rather than the usual 4--3 spacial and 1 temporal--to fully describe the relative weakness of gravity in comparison to the other known forces. In it gravitons are free to travel through ALL of the extra dimensions, unlike the other forces which are bound to the standard 4 dimentions, thereby diluting its strength in our normal 4 dimensional spacetime. The normal 4 dimensions are said to "float" in the multi-dimensional "bulk". This bulk and it's resulting "dark energy" is what is meant by the hidden strutures that seem to drive the universes "expansion". Of course, the universe is not really "expanding" because it is "asizal" since size does not apply to the universe as a whole. However, points--such as galaxies and super clusters--in the universe are accelerating apart relative to one another, just remember though that this does not imply the actual "expansion" of the universe, as this would be a metaphysical impossibility.

[TuringAI]

The Big Bang theory is just an approximation of what really happened. The universe is eternal. What we call the "Big Bang" wan NOT a "creation" event but instead just a phase transistion that the universe underwent at a random point in time.

Okay, can you explain what random means in this context? I'm curious. I thought that everything had a cause and an effect. What makes the phrase transition event noncausal, IE random?

[EC]

Okay, can you explain what random means in this context? I'm curious. I thought that everything had a cause and an effect. What makes the phrase transition event noncausal, IE random?

I was being a little loose in my wording here, I guess. I didn't mean that it actually happened randomly, noncausally. It should have read more along the lines that all the causes that lead to this event at a specific point in time are not yet fully known or understood.

[Grames]

The phrase "random point in time" means "cause unknown".

[TuringAI]

I was being a little loose in my wording here, I guess. I didn't mean that it actually happened randomly, noncausally. It should have read more along the lines that all the causes that lead to this event at a specific point in time are not yet fully known or understood.

I've been considering this for a while. Perhaps it's not just that we can't fully know or understand all the causes that lead to this event, but that there is no causal significance to any particular event before the Big Bang. That is, no PARTICULAR event happened before then to which we can attribute a cause.

This means the description of the events before the Big Bang is simply that there is no unique cause amongst all entities having existed before then which led to the Big Bang. So the Big Bang is as far back as we can trace the causal chains of events leading to the entities we know today.

Of course, this would mean that as a whole, the events before the Big Bang weren't properly unique events, and thus the law of entropy increase would not apply, nor is there any bearng on proper time without reference to the Big Bang.

That is to say, the events before the Big Bang were in all possible senses Arbitrary, and we can assign only the most basic definitions to what constitutes the system before it.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

That is to say, the events before the Big Bang were in all possible senses Arbitrary, and we can assign only the most basic definitions to what constitutes the system before it.

I strongly disagree with this conclusion. For one thing, it is based on the idea that causation is one thing acting on another, rather than the more correct view that causation is an entity acting according to its nature.

So, assuming there was such a thing as the Big Bang, whatever that was that existed before matter as we know it today was something, and the law of identity and the law of causality applied to it. One might say that the evidence for what that was became totally destroyed in the Big Bang and none of it survives today for us to investigate to find out what it properties were, but that is not the same things as saying that it had no identity and therefore could act arbitrarily. To act arbitrarily, taken literally is an anti-causal statement -- that a thing can act contrary to its nature, which isn't true.

In other words, due to the lack of evidence does not give any grounds for saying that gremlins did it, if one has no evidence, one cannot come to a definite conclusion as to what its nature was, but that does not mean that it did not have a nature.

Edited to add: The fact that existence exists as we know it today whereby the law of identity and the law of causality apply everywhere, is proof that whatever existed before had an identity and acted according to its nature. In other words, so far as the theory goes, all of the hydrogen and some helium and lithium were formed during the Big Bang, and then everything else followed from that. But the fact that it was hydrogen and helium and lithium that were created, according to this theory,proves that whatever did happen took place according to some law of nature in the form of whatever it was it was something specific acting according to its nature.Otherwise, the consistency of having all of that hydrogen would not have occurred all over the universe.

Edited November 24, 2008 by Thomas M. Miovas Jr.

[TuringAI]

I strongly disagree with this conclusion. For one thing, it is based on the idea that causation is one thing acting on another, rather than the more correct view that causation is an entity acting according to its nature.

So, assuming there was such a thing as the Big Bang, whatever that was that existed before matter as we know it today was something, and the law of identity and the law of causality applied to it. One might say that the evidence for what that was became totally destroyed in the Big Bang and none of it survives today for us to investigate to find out what it properties were, but that is not the same things as saying that it had no identity and therefore could act arbitrarily. To act arbitrarily, taken literally is an anti-causal statement -- that a thing can act contrary to its nature, which isn't true.

In other words, due to the lack of evidence does not give any grounds for saying that gremlins did it, if one has no evidence, one cannot come to a definite conclusion as to what its nature was, but that does not mean that it did not have a nature.

Edited to add: The fact that existence exists as we know it today whereby the law of identity and the law of causality apply everywhere, is proof that whatever existed before had an identity and acted according to its nature. In other words, so far as the theory goes, all of the hydrogen and some helium and lithium were formed during the Big Bang, and then everything else followed from that. But the fact that it was hydrogen and helium and lithium that were created, according to this theory,proves that whatever did happen took place according to some law of nature in the form of whatever it was it was something specific acting according to its nature.Otherwise, the consistency of having all of that hydrogen would not have occurred all over the universe.

You didn't listen carefully to my statement. I said that it was Arbitrary EXCEPT in the most basic sense. You have just reiterated what that basic sense is. IE it existed qua entity, had an identity and obeyed causality in its actions, and all that. What I'm saying is that we know nothing about it, and that to assign knowledge about it beyond the axioms is a contradiction, in the sense that we can't assign True or False to it without contradicting proper epistemological methods for gaining knowledge, therefore it was Arbitrary epistemologically.

[EC]

It is wrong to say that all pre-Bang events are and always will be unobservable. We currently can see the effects of pre-bang physics via gravitational influences on the structure of the universe itself. The remnants are there, however interpreting them are very difficult and we don't the proper theory yet to handle this problem.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

You didn't listen carefully to my statement. I said that it was Arbitrary EXCEPT in the most basic sense.

I guess I'm disagreeing with the way you use certain terms. The concept of arbitrary does not mean that we don't yet have evidence, it means that no evidence can be given for it or that the conclusion was not based upon any known evidence. If the Big Bang did occur -- and I'm not here saying it did or did not occur -- then all of the facts of the current universe are the evidence from which we could deduce what was there before the Big Bang and what led to it banging or exploding into our current universe. In this sense, it is certainly not arbitrary. The claim that we can never know what happened or what was there is arbitrary, in the sense that we have the evidence for the existence of the universe which could not have come about acausally -- by no means (assuming even that it came about due to some process).

As an example of this, when some of the Ancient Greeks proposed that there were atoms, they based it on the fact that things could be cut into smaller and smaller pieces, and they knew that the universe was specific and particular and limited, therefore they could conclude rationally that there must be some smallest piece of something --i.e. the atom of it. Now, for this proposal to have been arbitrary, the claim for the existence of atoms would have had to have been based on no evidence whatsoever -- rather like me saying that you must have gotten your pet zdervorgat to write that last essay, for which I have no evidence.

To make the claim that what happened before the Big Bang is arbitrary would be to claim that the universe is fundamentally unknowable and arbitrary in how it operates, but we have plenty of evidence that this is not true. I think what you are getting at is that we currently don't know what conditions where like before the Big Bang and what led to the explosion, but this does not make it arbitrary, it makes it an unknown. Now, if someone were to claim that gremlins were mixing zegotsers and yulonderite and it blew up on them leading to our current universe, that would be arbitrary.

[TuringAI]

To make the claim that what happened before the Big Bang is arbitrary would be to claim that the universe is fundamentally unknowable and arbitrary in how it operates, but we have plenty of evidence that this is not true. I think what you are getting at is that we currently don't know what conditions where like before the Big Bang and what led to the explosion, but this does not make it arbitrary, it makes it an unknown. Now, if someone were to claim that gremlins were mixing zegotsers and yulonderite and it blew up on them leading to our current universe, that would be arbitrary.

You are dropping context. We can know how the universe is NOW and make extrapolations for how it was from the Big Bang to that point, but by definition the Big Bang was the condition of the universe being in it's least entropy state with respect to entities and with all the same laws of physics we have now. Entropy always increases in a closed system. To say that it doesn't is a violation of the laws of thermodynamics, and thus physics. If entropy, and thus physics, were different it would have to be a pre Big Bang event.

There is a finite amount of entropy because entropy corresponds to information. There is not an infinite amount of things going on in this universe. Because of this, any time in the future there would have to be more entropy and any time in the past there would have to be less. Now you can't have less than zero entropy, not in the cosmos we know now with the laws of physics we have, therefore there has to be a point at which the universe changed.

I suspect the universe was relatively static before the big bang and not dynamic as it is now. If what you say is true, that is NOT an arbitrary claim. It may be true or it may be false. Furthermore, it can be modeled consistently such that there appears to be an origin of time and space. That's been proven and is based on mathematical modeling and scientific fact. At the point of origin, we don't know. Our mathematical and scientific models can't figure out what a singularity is since we have never seen one and thus would have no basis for differentiation and integration of that concept.