Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

The Origin of the universe

Rate this topic


Recommended Posts

This isn't any attempt to question the nature of Objectivist Metaphysics, I am simply genuinely curious about the nature of the origin of the universe. I read A BRIEF HISTORY IN TIME a long time ago, but I have forgotten much of it, and to be honest, I do not think I grasped as much as I should have.

Ok, when we take these two notions as absolutes,

A: The Cause must be greater than the effect (something can't come from nothing)

and

B: The second law of thermodynamics is that order tends to break down.

where did the matter of the universe originate from, and what established the universe as orderly?

I make no delusions about being an expert in the physical sciences (I am better at the social sciences like history and economics) so if there is a flaw in my reasoning, by all means make the correction. But because I am not very good at it doesn't diminish my interest in science, particularly on the astronomical level. I love this forum and have read nearly all of the threads therein. Call it a bit of a hobby.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 98
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

The Second Law of Thermodynamics actually states that entropy increases over time. It's basically the same thing that you said, but indicates a little better what type of "order" was present at the beggining of the univers.

It doesn't mean that all particles were arranged in some sort of clear pattern. It means that all matter was contained in a specific area. For instance, if you have a box containing some gas, any arrangement of the molecules is possible, including an arrangement in which all of the molecules are on the left side of the box. Such an arrangement is said to have less entropy than one in which all of the molecules are scattered throughout the entire box. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that, if you start with all of the molecules on one side of the box, they will tend to scatter out and have a more random positioning.

According to the Big Bang Theory, the universe did begin with all matter contained in a very small space - a condition of extremely low entropy. Over time, particles have scattered about, increasing entropy. Entropy continues to increase today.

Most of that I learned from watching the Science channel, and may not be completely accurate. It's also only a very basic model of what I think you were asking. If anyone cares to correct me or expand, feel free.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, when we take these two notions as absolutes,

A: The Cause must be greater than the effect (something can't come from nothing)

I agree that something can't come from nothing, but did you consider the possibility that there never was nothing, that the universe has always existed?

Where did this idea that it started come from? I don't think it's self-evident that it must have started...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll add another note that may be of help. There is a fairily new theory of Physics which hints at an explanation for the Big Bang. I don't know a lot about it, but it is called "M Theory." It is a multidimenstional physics in which the universe can be mathematically represented in terms of a "sheet" or "membrane." One of the hypotheses I have heard is that when two membranes collide, you get a singularity. A singularity is that phenomena that exists at the center of black holes, and is said to have been the state of the universe just prior to the Big Bang.

As I said, I don't know a lot about it, certainly not whether it has been accepted as a valid Theory, but it may be a good place to start looking for an answer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

M-Theory is a variant of string theory and, unless I'm mistaken, it is not taken seriously by most physicists. The reason for this is that it is not testable or observable. If an atom were blown up to the size of our solar system, a string would be about the size of a tree. However, there are lots of people working on it, using mathematical equations. If you want to read about it, try The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

String Theory is worked on by alot of physicists but seems to be rejected by most Objectivists as rationalistic. One of my goals in life is to fix that. String Theory and M-theory contain no singularities that's part of their beauty. By the way, the "big bang" in M-theory is the result of two four-dimentional membranes or branes "smacking in each other" in a higher dimentional space or "bulk" to create all matter in the universe. It happens everywhere at once unlike the "singularity" of the big bang theory.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why would Objectivists reject something that is rationalistic?  What does that word mean anyway?  Also, it sounds like this theory suggests alternate universes...does it, or am I wrongly coming to that conclusion?

Rationalistic in the sense of mathematics divorced from reality. Which I don't think is true. They are getting closer to being able to carry out some experiments of some of the components of the theory such as supersymetry. And no the theory doesn't propose other universes, but our definition of what the universe is composed of my need to be revised to include more "stuff".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, what happens if there are two four-dimensional membranes out there right now, that smack into each other tomorrow...would that just add matter to our universe? Most theories I've heard that sound like that involve an infinite number of universes that are constantly being created.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, what happens if there are two four-dimensional membranes out there right now, that smack into each other tomorrow...would that just add matter to our universe?  Most theories I've heard that sound like that involve an infinite number of universes that are constantly being created.

The two branes could really be just one that folds back on it self. The process is supposed to be cyclical, and we still have a very, very long way until the process would happen again. All the stars will have died out by then, the density of the universe will be spread out so much by then that particles that are part of the same atom today will be spread out past the edge of the visible universe from each other. Protons will have decayed by then. To say that this is in the distant future would be an understatement. Essentially, this is what the universe could be imagined to be like pre-big bang. You would have an unperturbed brane. A gravitational type force then pulls the branes together for another impact, and the energy from the impact creates particles to fill the universe again. Don't think cyclical means the same thing EXACT thing happens though. There is an unlimited quantity of states that the universe can possess with no need for repeats.

Oh yeah I should put here as a disclaimer that all this is highly speculative, but there a lot of very smart people all over the world working on these sorts of things every day, for whatever that's worth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As long as string theory is incapable of making empirically verifiable predictions it is not physics.

String theory is just metaphysics, mythology, theology, mathematical poetry, whatever. It doesn't make ANY predictions, it just gives warm fuzzy mythical descriptions of things.

If we actually want to discuss PHYSICS then that is going to be General Relativity and quantum theory in the form the Standard Model at this time.

But the fact is that neither of these really explains WHY there is a universe and where it came from, but they do describe how the universe we observe appears to evolve.

If you look at what a physical theory IS, then there doesn't seem to be anyway that it could account for the beginning of and or existence of our universe without positing some sort of bigger universe our universe is embedded in. But if we have to posit this bigger universe we will then be back to where we started in asking where the bigger universe came from, which would only be answered by positing that it is embedded in a yet larger universe, and so on.

Physics is only really capable of describing how the universe runs, but not why the universe exists.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As long as string theory is incapable of making empirically verifiable predictions it is not physics.

If it describes existing phenomenon with tidier and more elegant math than any competiting theory, why shouldnt it be classed as physics? If the math works as well as many who champion string theory claim, I would take that as prima facie evidence of its validity - if things are that neat, there's probably some underlying reason. What new predictions does TEW make, out of interest?

Edited by Hal
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The two branes could really be just one that folds back on it self. The process is supposed to be cyclical, and we still have a very, very long way until the process would happen again. All the stars will have died out by then, the density of the universe will be spread out so much by then that particles that are part of the same atom today will be spread out past the edge of the visible universe from each other. Protons will have decayed by then. To say that this is in the distant future would be an understatement. Essentially, this is what the universe could be imagined to be like pre-big bang. You would have an unperturbed brane. A gravitational type force then pulls the branes together for another impact, and the energy from the impact creates particles to fill the universe again. Don't think cyclical means the same thing EXACT thing happens though. There is an unlimited quantity of states that the universe can possess with no need for repeats.

Oh yeah I should put here as a disclaimer that all this is highly speculative, but there a lot of very smart people all over the world working on these sorts of things every day, for whatever that's worth.

What are these branes composed of? And why is it that there can't be other branes somewhere that have created other universes?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, so who wants to explain what proton decay and supersymmetry are?

A proton is a stable particle which means it's not supposed to decay and has never been shown to. By decay I mean break down into its constituent parts, quarks or some combination of them. Some theories posit that this will happen in the distant, distant future. The studies from the '90's and later the other guy was talking about and others later have never shown a single proton to decay. But this just shows what we already know to be true, the protons are stable particles. It also put limits on when they could still possibly decay. It would be in a nearly inimaginibly distint future. In other words, you don't have to worry about the protons in your body breaking down any time soon. :)

Supersymmetry(SUSY) is a theory that is needed for String theory, all modern string theories are Superstrings. To describe what SUSY is one must first understand what the point of string theories is. The point is to unite all the known forces of physics, EM, weak, strong, and gravity in one theory that shows these force's to actually be one force that appears different to us because they have simply undergone phase transitions, analogous to water freezing. Without SUSY this can be done at very high energies but if one where look at a graph of the relative strengths of the forces one one say they never actually meet but come very close. SUSY is a theory that makes the forces meet at a certain point and become one, become symmetric. For this to happen new supersymmetric particles must be introduced. There is a new supersymmetric particle for each standard particle with the main difference being that each new particle has a difference in spin of 1/2. This means for every fermion there is now a SUSY boson, and for every existing boson there is a SUSY fermion. These new particles end up with some funny names the eletrons partner is the seletron. Anyway when these new particles are introduced the graph meets perfectly and all forces are shown to actually be the remnants of one superforce.

In general the SUSY particles are very massive and therefore require large energies in our detectors in order to detect them. New particle detectors are set to come on line that should have the ability to detect some of these particles relatively soon. Now while this is not a direct test of string theory, you can have SUSY without strings, it's still a test of the theory because you can't have strings without SUSY. There are a few other test of the theory that are in the works, and I recommend that the interested reader do a little search of the internet to find them.

Oh yeah and if your interested, don't let any other Objectivists use the arguement from intimidation against you. Since string theory is an elegant way of describing physics my best guess is it will all be an elegant way of decribing TEW, the two don't have to and probally won't be incompatible. Some one else here mentioned Ockam's Razor and I think any rational thinking person should keep that in mind before they abandon a theory describes the universe as we know it now beautifully and simply just because we created a theory before our technology was advanced enough to fully test it. By the way remember string theory post-dicted everything that is known in physics, and describes all of it much more simply.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That clears up a lot. I was vaguely familiar with string theory, but didn't know much of the specifics. I knew about strings supposedly vibrating in multiple dimensions and I knew that it was an attempt to unify general relativity with quantum mechanics, along with the 4 different forces, but all the stuff about supersymmetry is new to me. Thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since the topic of this thread is the origin of the universe, I think we've drifted a little. The theory about these branes colliding and producing matter explains why matter exists...but, what is the explanation for the existence of space and the branes themselves? Or, is no explanation needed?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What you are basically asking is: Why does existence exist?

This question cannot be answered. An answer would amount to prove existence by means of non-existence, and there is nothing to be learned about non-existence, because (*changes into robe and wizard hat*) it does not exist!

Incisive comment Dondigitalia :)

These are questions that I get asked often by the religious. My answer is that we do not possess the means of answering them, but that doesn't immediatly prove the existence of anything supernatural.

I was simply curious if science and reason had any good theories on this other than the common mystic fallback answer of "God did it."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is only true for the moment, and that's only because we don't have the technology necessary to harness the power levels needed to test the predictions M-Theory makes.  Until then, if it explains a greater number of phenomena with less math, then Occam's Razor applies.

General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics conflict in certain ways (most notably at distances less than 10^-34 m or so).  The purpose of theoretical models like supersymmetry and it's sucessors is to resolve the conflicts without producing faulty predictions.

Oh, by the way, some one earlier mentioned proton decay.  There was an experiement back in the mid-90s in which they tried to find evidence for proton decay, they didn't find any.  The current position is that either it doesn't happen or happens much to slowly to help out the theories that predicted it.

I have yet to see string theory make a specific numerical prediction that can (in principle) be compared to experiment. In my understanding it is not merely a matter of lack of technology, it is a matter of the theory's inability to make such predictions.

If you know of such a calculation please point me to the source.

Minimal Supersymmetric QFT does make predictions that are testable by future equipment not available now, but let's not confuse the two. This theory though, still doesn't reconcile QM with GR.

As for GR and QM conflicting, I am fully aware of the intent of current theoretical research to find a theory to reconcile them. However as of now there is no such theory (that can be tested empirically).

It is the utmost in pointlessness to discuss the cosmological implications of a theory that cannot be tested against experiment. You may as well consult Greek Mythology and Genesis as well as your favorite Star Trek episode for all the good that does.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
I think this statement that i came to realize will sum this topic up.

The Universe is Infinite, it had neither a beginning, nor will it have an end.

No. Everything that exists is by definition finite. The Universe exists. Therefore, the Universe is finite. It is boundless though. But you are correct that it doesn't have a begining or an end, but that is simply because the Universe does not exist "in time" or "in space". These are simply relational attributes that exist between existents that make up the Universe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the universe were finite, wouldn't that mean that it would have a definite beginning and definite end? If that were the case, wouldn't that conflict with the conservation of matter theorem, that states that matter can not be created or destroyed, only converted?

perhaps the universe as we know it, with stars and black holes and planets and stuff has a finite beginning and end, but wouldn't existence be eternal?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...