Cause of origin of Universe

Pitstopped

This is what I mean by my earlier comment about finding it amusing to read these replies. Another person saying they know what was there in the beginning (even if they say it was nothing)

Is it so hard to comprehend that "you don't know, and no one does?"

elegysix

I agree that I don't know, but I have to assume that there is not a first cause, nor t=0, because our logic and all our knowledge is built upon everything having cause and effect.


So the first cause, which caused itself, created causation in the process?
Does that make any sense?

Cosmo Novice

It does make a bit of sense. However it only makes sense judging from the current metric and laws governing the existing Universe. Without time - or time as we experience it in the given metric of our universe - the fundamental laws of reality cannot be attributed to any given event. Cause and effect are very much embedded laws in our reality, I dont think we can say they are fundamental prior to the beggining of reality. If reality does not exist then cause/effect have no meaning.

elegysix

Cause and effect have always held for everything. Even if things appear to be expanding from a point, that does not imply there was a t=0 or first cause. There is no scientific foundation for such a conclusion.

Remember this law? Energy cannot be created or destroyed.

This is fundamental in physics. To suggest a creation, would be to contradict one of the most fundamental rules we have.

The only logical conclusion we may draw is that: If things are expanding from a region, things must have been contracting to that region prior to its expansion. Or that it was in some stable higher energy density state, which became unstable and then expanded.

Either way, there is no scientific reason for assuming it was at 't=0' and the 'first cause'. To further that, there is no foundation for believing a 't=0' or 'first cause' even exists, aside from religion/philosophy. Which are not scientific by the way.

'Our reality' has existed for as long as we have known and can observe. There is nothing observable in 'our reality' which suggests it did not exist, and therefore the idea that 'our reality' did not exist, cannot be supported scientifically.

BB is the result of observing that all bodies in space are expanding from a region. We have no way of measuring space itself, and there is no reason to believe space or time would be expanding just because the bodies within it are.
Space and time must extend infinitely - if they did not, you would be implying that we would 'hit a wall' going far enough out into space. And that is illogical.

GarryS

WHY IS EVERYBODY BOTHERED ABOUT TIME?

Let’s consider the following:

A body moves from point A to B.

In the meantime, hands of a clock move by some distance and the caesium atom also vibrates much. We say that time has passed when the body moves from A to B.

Actually, no time has passed but only motion has happened in the clock as well as the atom. We are just describing one motion (of the body) in respect of other motions (of the clock or of the caesium atom). It’s very surprising that the other motions (of clock and atom) are called time, when in reality they are simply motions.

To my mind Time is just a mental construct that finds much use in equations and so it is considered to be a reality. However, certain unification equations ( of all the forces) find time to disappear from them.

So, I think we should not talk about anything like T=0 when talking about origin of universe because time doesn’t seem to exist.

Cosmo Novice

True - in the current metric and fundamental laws acsribed to our Universe, however; you are ascribing this attribute to a priori - I would argue that cause/effect are not background independent.

Theres is no conservation of energy at cosmological scales - energy momentum conservation in GR is something entirely different. Although I am no expert this is how I understand it.

This section doesnt make much sense - to "hit a wall" would require a pre-existing space. This is not how BBT works. Space "must extend indefinetely" would only be true in a spatially flat topology and even if space did not extend indefinetely and was finite it would not require a wall! It would be embedded in higher dimensions and would not have a wall or edge.

DaveC426913

So is the law of gravity. Surely you are not suggesting that all our laws apply unilaterally, even at a time when space time did not exist as we know it.

As fundamental as conservation of energy is, it not as fundamental as the creation of he very universe in which those laws come into being.

elegysix

You are all missing or avoiding the point I wish to make. I will write this out as simply, and as directly as I can.

I will tell you my conclusion, and my basis for that conclusion.

I ask that you provide the basis for your conclusion, not just speculation and arguments against mine.
I ask that you state a logical basis for your conclusion, grounded in observable evidence and scientific principles which are well known.

My conclusion:
There is no scientific basis for the concept of creation.
Therefore, creation cannot be part of any scientific theory - such as BB.

My basis:
Conservation of energy.
Newtons third law: cause and effect.

These principles have been observed, are well known, and have proven to be universal and infallible so far.
Everything we have ever observed has obeyed these principles.
Because of that fact, I claim that BB is not creation, nor is creation possible, as it would violate both of these principles.

Your turn.
Do not use reasoning based upon different universes or things which extend beyond ours, unless you provide observable evidence that such a thing exists.

phinds

As Carl Sagan was fond of saying, absense of evidence is not evidence of absence.

elegysix

Dude... Did you read anything I wrote? that conclusion is not based on lack of evidence. That conclusion is based on the fact that it contradicts two fundamental laws, when everything we have observed always obeys them. I thought I made that pretty clear.

Pitstopped

[QUOTE=elegysix;3585719]You are all missing or avoiding the point I wish to make. I will write this out as simply, and as directly as I can.

I will tell you my conclusion, and my basis for that conclusion.

I ask that you provide the basis for your conclusion, not just speculation and arguments against mine.
I ask that you state a logical basis for your conclusion, grounded in observable evidence and scientific principles which are well known.

My conclusion:
There is no scientific basis for the concept of creation.
Therefore, creation cannot be part of any scientific theory - such as BB.

My Conclusion:

There is no scientific, religious, philosophical, commonsensical, or any other basis for the concept of creation. However; WE ARE HERE.

Therefore, creation or something else we don't even have a name for yet happened.


My Basis:

We are here.

Not one person in our history has explained it. And neither can I.

Chronos

Assumes facts not in evidence.

phinds

Well, I'm very happy for you. Since you have conclusively solved a problem that has mystified every physist who's ever looked at it, and that has give rise to numerous theories (none proven) and everyone can now stop worrying about it, I predict a Nobel Prize for you very soon.

DaveC426913

OK, but you're not done. You must provide a better theory that what we currently have.

jackmell

May I attempt to put some closure on this matter?

I believe there are hints of origins all around us. You just need to know how to look: Our Universe is filled with shock phenomena, dynamics which are not smooth but rather reach a critical point and then change often abruptly and qualitatively. I do not feel it is an unreasonable stretch of imagination to suggest these are "aftershocks" of a likewise shock phenomena that gave rise to our Universe. And if this turns out to be close to what actually happened, then because of the qualitatively different nature that often follows a critical-point breach, then phenonema in our world, our laws of physics, cause and effect, gravity, thermodynamics, relativity, may not be suitable for describing the pre-existence which gave rise to our Universe. And so the very question of "cause" may not be applicapble.

Therefore I feel the question is ill-posed because it attempts to use our laws of Nature across a critical point in the same, albeit more simple, way of trying to apply the concept of swimming across the critical point of freezing.

What we need is something qualitatiively different that what we have now, something which goes beyond our current laws of physics just like 2000 years ago what they needed was something else qualitatively different: a spherical earth.

phinds

jackmell, I have no issue with what you said, but I think you are wildly optimistic if you think it will bring closure to the topic.

jackmell

Well not in this discussion perhaps but for me, the concept of critical-points and qualitative change that often surround them offers a very satisfying possible explanation of origins which I am optimistic will have some relevance in the ideas that one day better explain the origin of the Universe.