Did the universe exist for ever or does it have a beginning?

[Karpel Tunnel]

Quatum mechanics to this day has been demonstrated to make highly accurate predictions which far out way any other scientific framework we know of. There is no valid reason to suspect that the plank epoch is not an accurate model of the early Universe, furthermore cosmologists have made precise measurements of the CMB which are consistent with predictions of the plank model e.g spectral radiance.

Except there is no consensus that the universe had a beginning amongst cosmologists and astrophysicist. In fact a great many think that the Big Bang was not the beginning.

[Sy Borg]

Why must that which exists within something else share all of its qualities?

Humans emerged from quantum foam you say, so I would conclude humans inherit all of the qualities of quantum foam in some form (maybe many aspects are disguised though Schrödinger’s cats are not observed in nature).

A possible counter argument is the simulation hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis).

But even with the simulation hypothesis, my argument above is argued from base reality so still stands.

Well, we emerged from bacteria and archaea. Do we share all of their properties? Radial symmetry? A nucleus full of DNA? Mitosis? No nervous system?

Obviously not all properties of the emergent are the same as the "emerged from" - otherwise the emergent would be exactly the same, in which case no emergence happened :)

[devans99]

We inherit these properties from bacteria at a microscopic level, but true some of our properties are different but still emergent from the properties of bacteria.

So we could suppose that Time is emergent from some other property of the early universe. But that’s just another way of saying Time was created by some other property of the early universe which is what I’m arguing.

If time emerged from something else, we’d expect something or things with time-like chararistics in the early universe in which case my argument applies to ‘meta-Time’.

I take it you don’t buy my argument that time is a physical law required for a consistent universe (speed limit) so cannot of been emergent.

[ThomasHobbes]

1) Speculation upon theory upon guesswork with NO empirical evidence possible.

Quatum mechanics to this day has been demonstrated to make highly accurate predictions which far out way any other scientific framework we know of. There is no valid reason to suspect that the plank epoch is not an accurate model of the early Universe, furthermore cosmologists have made precise measurements of the CMB which are consistent with predictions of the plank model e.g spectral radiance.

2) Just a human construct by which we attempt to describe it.

All descriptions of things are Human constructs, how else can we describe reality?

But the abstract with which we are dealing is not a description of anything that exists. So no not really.

QM "predictions" cannot be used to determine what the "start of the universe" looked like. What you need is retrodiction and nothing is capable of that.
All cosmologies up to date have been shown to be faulty; it is only a matter of time before QM enters the dustbin of out of date cosmologies.

[Sy Borg]

We inherit these properties from bacteria at a microscopic level, but true some of our properties are different but still emergent from the properties of bacteria.

So we could suppose that Time is emergent from some other property of the early universe. But that’s just another way of saying Time was created by some other property of the early universe which is what I’m arguing.

If time emerged from something else, we’d expect something or things with time-like chararistics in the early universe in which case my argument applies to ‘meta-Time’.

I take it you don’t buy my argument that time is a physical law required for a consistent universe (speed limit) so cannot of been emergent.

Time is basically just change, Devans.

In the quantum foam time can only be measured in terms of the fluctuations, each popping in and out chaotically, and it ultimately doesn't make sense. Imagine measuring time if people simply chaotically popped in and out of existence like the smallest elements of reality. How would you measure time when you exist for (maybe) a Planck second? How could anyone or anything asses your time? Only you could (albeit very briefly).

So time is change and we can only measure it via consistent regularities - rotations, orbits and radioactive decay. However, we carry our own subjective time that is a function of where we are and our acceleration. Based on what we know, as you say, time seemingly emerged from the foam as patterns arose, such as the structuring of atoms and cosmic bodies and galaxies.

The other question is: did anything precede the quantum foam? If so, it would seemingly be another dimension of existence. However, the LHC still has found no evidence for superstring theory. The trouble with imagining a beginning - complete nothingness from which one perturbation triggers a chain reaction to create the quantum foam - is that there can be no trigger for action in complete nothingness. That would take a miracle. Then again, the notion of anything being eternal is about as miraculous. Neither notion makes logical sense.

The notion of "eternal" is weird when it comes to state of reality with no measurable time like the quantum foam because there's no way of telling a nanosecond from a billion years.

I am aware that this will be in part unsatisfactory, but all discussions about time are necessarily so. I enjoy chatting about time (and other things) so as to bounce my unsatisfactory ideas off the unsatisfactory ideas of others to see what slightly less unsatisfactory insights might be found :)

[Thinking critical]

Except there is no consensus that the universe had a beginning amongst cosmologists and astrophysicist. In fact a great many think that the Big Bang was not the beginning.

When cosmologists and astrophysicists speak of the beginning of the Universe it is in the context of a scientific framework which describe the "knowable Universe".
If individual scientists want to subscribe to a hypothesis which preceeds T zero, that's fine, however it doesn't change the fact that there is little if any evidence to support these ideas.

As for the BB being the beginning, this type of statement can be misleading. The Big Bang should be seen as a scientific model not a description of an event or beginning.

The common confusion I come across when reading discussions in regards to origins, is what is meant by the Universe. In the standard BB model the Universe is described in a relativistic sense as 4 dimensional Spacetime, in this sense, we can speak of the knowable Universe which fits within the framework of the standard model of physics.
I can certainly accept that some sort of eternal pre Planck state is possible, but in order to describe this state as "Universe" may require us to redefine what exactly it is we mean when we speak of the Universe.

[Thinking critical]

But the abstract with which we are dealing is not a description of anything that exists. So no not really.

Well obviously the past can't exist in the present, this however is the purpose of scientific models. We make observations gather data and look for consistent patterns - we then make predictions and do experiments to see if the predictions match the outcomes. If they do we can then use that knowledge to postulate laws and principles which describe the nature of the Universe. In order to debunk the theory the method needs to be proven insufficient or the data incorrect, saying that framework itself is just an abstract description, undermines the entire scientific discipline.

QM "predictions" cannot be used to determine what the "start of the universe" looked like.

Why not?

All cosmologies up to date have been shown to be faulty; it is only a matter of time before QM enters the dustbin of out of date cosmologies.

So you should have no problem explaining the flaws in redshifts and Doppler effects.
How bout the heliocentric model of the Universe will that end up in the trash bin?
QM predicted the existence of the particle which was fundamental to the entire model of physics, without it, the core model which describes the physical state of everything which can be said to exist wouldn't work.
I am of course referring to the Higgs particle.

[Steve3007]

The laws of physics are generalisations created by identifying regularities/patterns/invariants in empirical observations, and used to predict possible future observations. As a general rule, the utility of a law of physics is judged by the range and diversity of different observations that it describes and predicts, compared to the size and complexity of the law. A useful law of physics in one for which the range of observations is relatively large. Laws of physics are judged by their utility.

The laws of Quantum Mechanics are the most successful that have so far been devised. Like all the laws of physics, they are provisional. They are judged by the extent to which they continue to be successful according to the criteria described above. If a new set of laws is devised, the old laws are not suddenly "faulty". They don't suddenly stop correctly describing and predicting the observations to which they apply. What happens is that the older laws become a "special case", applicable to a subset of all possible observations - the subset for which they were originally successful. One of the fundamental requirements of the new laws is that, when the range of observations is restricted, they collapse back down to the old laws. They cannot contradict the findings of the old laws, within those laws' observational domain.

An example of this is Classical (Newtonian) Mechanics and Quantum Mechanics. Newton's Classical Mechanics is still just as valid as it was. It is still useful and it is still, therefore, used. The laws of Quantum Mechanics become the laws of Classical Mechanics and Classical Electromagnetism when the set of observations being described is restricted such that simplifying assumptions can be made to their mathematical descriptions.

[Eduk]

The laws of physics are generalisations created by identifying regularities/patterns/invariants in empirical observations, and used to predict possible future observations. As a general rule, the utility of a law of physics is judged by the range and diversity of different observations that it describes and predicts, compared to the size and complexity of the law. A useful law of physics in one for which the range of observations is relatively large. Laws of physics are judged by their utility.

The laws of Quantum Mechanics are the most successful that have so far been devised. Like all the laws of physics, they are provisional. They are judged by the extent to which they continue to be successful according to the criteria described above. If a new set of laws is devised, the old laws are not suddenly "faulty". They don't suddenly stop correctly describing and predicting the observations to which they apply. What happens is that the older laws become a "special case", applicable to a subset of all possible observations - the subset for which they were originally successful. One of the fundamental requirements of the new laws is that, when the range of observations is restricted, they collapse back down to the old laws. They cannot contradict the findings of the old laws, within those laws' observational domain.

An example of this is Classical (Newtonian) Mechanics and Quantum Mechanics. Newton's Classical Mechanics is still just as valid as it was. It is still useful and it is still, therefore, used. The laws of Quantum Mechanics become the laws of Classical Mechanics and Classical Electromagnetism when the set of observations being described is restricted such that simplifying assumptions can be made to their mathematical descriptions.

Can this be stickied as I think it answers 99% of genuine misconceptions, regarding the scientific method, which abound on this forum. Of course it doesn't answer the 99% of misconceptions, overall, which aren't genuine.

[ThomasHobbes]

But the abstract with which we are dealing is not a description of anything that exists. So no not really.

Well obviously the past can't exist in the present, this however is the purpose of scientific models. We make observations gather data and look for consistent patterns - we then make predictions and do experiments to see if the predictions match the outcomes. If they do we can then use that knowledge to postulate laws and principles which describe the nature of the Universe. In order to debunk the theory the method needs to be proven insufficient or the data incorrect, saying that framework itself is just an abstract description, undermines the entire scientific discipline.

QM "predictions" cannot be used to determine what the "start of the universe" looked like.

Why not?

All cosmologies up to date have been shown to be faulty; it is only a matter of time before QM enters the dustbin of out of date cosmologies.

So you should have no problem explaining the flaws in redshifts and Doppler effects.
How bout the heliocentric model of the Universe will that end up in the trash bin?

Yes, the sun is not the centre of the universe.
In fact everywhere is supposed to be the centre of the universe now.

[Steve3007]

Can this be stickied as I think it answers 99% of genuine misconceptions, regarding the scientific method, which abound on this forum. Of course it doesn't answer the 99% of misconceptions, overall, which aren't genuine.

Thanks Ed. Precciate it.

[Sy Borg]

The laws of Quantum Mechanics become the laws of Classical Mechanics and Classical Electromagnetism when the set of observations being described is restricted such that simplifying assumptions can be made to their mathematical descriptions.

They have been trying to get QM to derive GR for decades without success.

Until a 'Theory of Everything' is devised then your comment would seem to be a statement of faith. Some researchers suspect that no TOE will be found. If that's the case then it would seem that the laws of QM did not become mechanics and electromagnetism but produced them. How can you assert this as fact without a workable TOE?

[Steve3007]

They have been trying to get QM to derive GR for decades without success.

Until a 'Theory of Everything' is devised then your comment would seem to be a statement of faith. Some researchers suspect that no TOE will be found. If that's the case then it would seem that the laws of QM did not become mechanics and electromagnetism but produced them. How can you assert this as fact without a workable TOE?

I wasn't talking about General Relativity or theories of everything there. I was just talking about the progression from Newtonian Mechanics and Electromagnetism to Quantum Mechanics. The progression from Newtonian Mechanics and Electromagnetism to General Relativity is a separate development, describing and predicting a separate set of possible observations, and you're right, one of the biggest unsolved problems is to find a further theory (of everything) that successfully describes and predicts the observations that are described and predicted by both GR and QM. If that is ever found then that further theory would be required to reduce back down to GR or QM when the set of observations is restricted.

As I said, the reason why I say that QM "becomes" Newtonian Mechanics and Electromagnetism when the set of observations is restricted is because that's one of the fundamental requirements of any new theory that purports to supersede a successful existing one. If it doesn't do that then the result is contradictions. Another way of saying it is that the old theories are contained within the new one as special cases when simplifying assumptions are made. This can be shown, for example, with the Standard Model of Particle Physics (the development from QM) and Maxwell's Equations.

One simple way to show an aspect of this with QM and Classical Mechanics would be to consider Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. That principle applies equally to all masses, but when the mass becomes larger than a tiny fraction of a kg, the uncertainties can be assumed to be near enough zero. In the "special case" of "large" masses, that aspect of QM reduces to the Classical Mechanics view of the world.

Similar with Relativity. According to Classical Mechanics, the kinetic energy of an object is ¹/₂mv². According to Relativity, it is not that. But in the "special case" of low energies (low speeds), when some terms in the equations are small enough to be ignored, the Relativistic kinetic energy simplifies back down to that classical equation.

[Atla]

1- the universe existed forever without any beginning,
--Why do we find only limited historical civilization evidence?
--If infinite time had passed before this point,wouldn't civilization had gone way ahead and alot of things would have already happened.

2- Universe does have a begining
--Lets assume the time that has elapsed from the beginning of the universe to be 1.5 billion years. So why did the universe wait an infinity to begin, and why at that particular moment.
--Logically speaking nothing stops it from being created 4 or 5 billion years ago, it had all infinity to begin.
--Any amount of time could have passed at this very particular moment of my writing this .


Please discuss.I am trapped in these questions. Can anyone point to philosophers who discussed these issues. Thanks

Ideas like:

- the universe existed forever without any beginning
- the universe does have a beginning
- there are cycles of crunches and bangs
- in the greater universe smaller universes like ours arise and disappear

are all ideas based on one-way-street time, which is how most of humanity thinks. The Bible also states that there was a Beginning, thus automatically implying one-way-street time. Maybe this is the case, but such a model can never make logical sense in my opinion.

Human thinking is basically linear, but the structures the world consists of (well at least from our point of view) are probably always circular.

An alternative idea would be circular time: time goes in circle from our point of view. The perhaps simplest example of this would be that the Big Bang at the "beginning" of our universe (/part of our universe) and the Big Crunch at the "end" of our universe (/part of our universe) are one and the same event, one and the same moment in time. The distant past and distant future are the same moment in time, a point on a circle viewed from two directions.
This solves all logical problems in my opinion and is also compatible with the apparently timeless nature of quantum behaviour (and compatible with the common insight that this moment is eternity, the eternal now).

[Sy Borg]

Ok, I can work with the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle example.

Re the thread generally:

Based on the reality we experience, both the notion that the universe had no beginning or that it did have a beginning are irrational and only saved by a lack of anthropomorphism from being as ludicrously miraculous as a mythical creator. Since it is impossible to imagine a "realistic" non-ridiculous model of how things came to be then that points to quantum phenomena not operating by our rules of reason and logic.

The formation of atoms seems one of the more crazy events in the universe's history. Why would there be three - always three - little chunks of insanely dense "big bang stuff" stuck together that accumulated particular types of perturbations in the fabric of emergent spacetime? Why did those configurations occur once the universe was cool enough to allow it? Without that event you just have a variant of quantum foam.

So let's say we have a quantum froth that periodically throws up universes. Is the froth eternal or did it too have a beginning and is it based on something more fundamental again?