Cuetek said:
By not formally assuming the higher probability that the Big Bang is a finite phenomenon in a much larger, materially hierarchical context, you assume the Big Bang is unaffected by larger forces of scale.
Absolutely. Then you do calculations, test that assumption against observations, and for the observations we can do, those assumptions seem to work. There are some "smoking gun" things that would lead people to reconsider that assumption, but right now we haven't found them.
It's like assuming a flat earth. For a lot of things, assuming that the Earth is flat works pretty well. For some things it works very badly. If you start out by assuming a flat earth, and then things don't make sense, then you change your assumptions. Also some assumptions that people make are clearly false, but useful. The standard models of the big bang assume that the universe is totally homogenous, which is clearly false. I'm staring at a computer screen which is different from the air around it, and the standard models of the cosmology just classify both as "baryonic matter" which are evenly distributed.
Your peers talk in terms of the universe being flat or convex when such curvature is almost certainly regional.
Since we have no data, saying whether something is regional or global is something that we can't say. However one of the cool facts about differential geometry is that it doesn't matter. Any smooth geometry can be approximated by a flat surface. If a flat surface assumption breaks down, then you can approximate things with a simple curvature. Now it's possible that if you look at large enough scales, that will break down, but at that point you are pushing observations past their limits.
Your peers talk in terms of the universe's fate from expansion, when such fate is more probably a function of structures you have yet to characterize. This is the more probable disposition. Just like the Copernican model was found to be under the larger influence of the Galactic "island universe" model the Big Bang will be subject to the hierarchical disposition at a greater scale.
You are making theological statements that are not supported by data. As I mentioned there is nothing particularly wrong with that as long as you realize that you are going past the available data. Ultimately, the problem is that you look at things, and you think "everything supports infinite hierarchy" whereas the astrophysical objects that I study tend not to have "infinite hierarchies." One example is the Kormogarov cascade. It turns out that turbulence is self-similar across a huge range of scales, but the hierarchy cuts out at extremely large scales and extremely small ones. The other thing to point out is that space is mostly nothing. If you look at the sky, you see mostly nothing.
Infinite is fine, but only in terms of an infinite context within which a hierarchical material disposition is assumed, at least with respect to what to expect in the near term for the next evolution of scale, until the data shows definitively *otherwise.*
The problem is that if you try to create this sort of cosmology you end up with something that just doesn't fit the data. Any cosmology that assumes larger structures at this point just ends up being either irrelevant or inconsistent with the data. If you assume a self-similar fractal distribution of galaxies, you end up with galaxy distributions that just don't match what we see.
Which it has not over the entire history of our investigations even though we terminated the hierarchy every time we ever made a new cosmology. It's time to break that bad habit.
Saying "I don't know" is not a bad habit. I think it's a good habit. If you can't see distant galaxies, you can't assume that anything is or is not there.
The only lower limit is one assumed at the plank length and that leaves enormous room for further infinitesimal hierarchy.
No it doesn't. The problem is that if you have something that is localized in space, then it's momentum becomes non-localized, and that means that any hierarchy gets washed out. Unless there is something basically wrong with our understanding of Heisenberg, then there are no new structures between the scales that we can see and Planck's length. Once you get to Planck's length, then quantum mechanics and GR become inconsistent, so there is new physics at smaller scales.
Also quantum mechanics imposes a lot of information limits. One electron is exactly the same as any other electron which means that there is no internal structure that you can use to mark an electron. The trouble with assuming structure is that you run into the Gibbs paradox. Basically the behavior of gases depends on the statistics of quantum mechanical structure. If there was structure, then gases would behave differently, because you could distribute energy across more states.
To think that we have a good idea of what all is happening in the material world at the scale of the quark is overzealous at best.
Actually, we *do* have a pretty good idea of what happens at the scale of quarks.
No evidence? The entire balance of all the universe we have examined is hierarchical, not homogeneous.
And I look at the universe, and it looks pretty homogenous to me. Unless you can come up some reason why I'm irrational, you have to take that into account.
All the evidence indicates a very high probability that it continues hierarchically, not homogeneously.
I think you aren't familiar with the cosmological evidence. The models that cosmologists use *assume* that the universe is homogenous with things like stars and subway trains being "irrelevant corrections." People make this assumption, because it happens to give answers that fit observations. Now you can assume otherwise, but there is no reason to do so.
Oh, sure, you may presume a limited range of homogeneity based on one scale of galactic observations, but not infinite. Even an ocean of trillions upon trillions of molecules of symmetry eventually ends just like every other material structure or phenomenon EVER OBSERVED.
You are making philosophical arguments and not scientific ones. Also most physicists are aware of some blind spots. If you have something happen that is a one off event with no symmetry, then its something that will likely get ignored by physicists because there's no way of analyzing it.
One reason I look at things differently is that I study supernova. Every supernova that has ever happened is different from any other supernova that has every happened. You classify and analyze, but if you have something that is really, really different, it's going to get ignored.
When I say you can't rationally refute the finite rule or plurality principle, it is because they are true for every material phenomenon ever observed, not because they are theological.
And I say it's not true. Supernova 1987A was different from every other supernova that happened. The electric and gravitational field that an electron produces is not limited by space. Also the term "material phenomenon" is a interesting dodge, since it's not clear to me what is material and what isn't. Is light material? What about energy? What about money?
Look, you are on a bulletin board with people that have a lot of experience looking at astrophysical phenomenon, and no one other than you seems to think that the finite rule or the plurality principle is something that is an intrinsic characteristic of the universe. Unless, you want to argue that we are all irrational, then this means that those ideas are at least debatable.
You can't rationally refute the probability of a coin toss coming up heads at roughly 50% because it's true, not because it's religious.
I flip the coin. I've seen coins that *don't* come up heads 50% of the time.
I'm not saying it "has" to. I'm saying it is far and away more probable.
And I'm saying that it's a bad idea to assign probabilities to things that you know nothing about, whether it's the big bang or the odds of a failure of a major investment bank. Part of the reason this matters is that it impacts my day job. I'm very, very skeptical of assigning a single number to a one off event, since this really killed people when Lehman Brothers happened.
So if you can't assign a probability to a one time event, then how do you manage it? Not sure, but I get paid to think about stuff like that. The problem is when you say "this is more probable" what do you mean? The answer that I've come up with is that with one time events, "probability" is a measure of psychological certainty, which may have nothing to do with the physical situation or likelihood of the event. That definition of probability very, very nicely models things like credit default swaps (i.e. the probability is how likely the market thinks that Lehman will default which is a psychological measure that may have nothing to do with the likelihood that Lehman will actually default).
But if you use that definition of probability, then it tells you nothing about the real world (which is great since if there is a difference between psychological probability and physical probability, you can make tons of money).
It's not philosophical either. You are the one being philosophical by insisting that the homogeneous symmetry at one scale is more important than the hierarchical symmetry across all observable scales, even across those which show far more staggeringly enormous ranges of homogeneity than the one you call your "evidence."
One problem here is that you really can't avoid being philosophical, because ultimately you have to come up with some basic rules for evaluating evidence. What is truth? How do you evaluate data?
Something that should be very obvious by now is that the rules you are using to establish truth are very, very different from the ones that most physicists are using, which is the point that I'm trying to make to you.
But, I actually sympathize with your position. It is really difficult to realize the assumptions that are being made if everyone has been making them for a long time. Agreement is a very compelling social force. Religions get almost all their enormous social power from just such long held unwarrented agreement.
You have to make some assumptions about the world, but the thing that physicists (and for that matter Catholic theologians) try to do is to be explicit about those assumptions. What I'm trying to tell you is that the assumptions you are making and the arguments that you are trying to establish, simply will not hold water among most cosmologists.
It's useful to talk to people with radically different assumptions about how the world works, because then you figure out how you are seeing the world and why. Something that should be obvious to you is that if you are trying to create a moral or ethical code around science, you are likely to get nowhere. Science is all about doubt, and getting up in front of people and saying "I just don't know."
The observations are as follows. Every material phenomenon that humans have ever observed have proven to be finite in extent and multiply manifest. All of them.
You keep saying that and I say that's not true.
The only phenomenon that has not been proven to be finite or multiply manifest is the expanding profile of the galaxy cluster's which imply the Big Bang.
Supernova 1987A, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the electric field of the electron. Electric fields are not finite. Supernova 1987A and the collapse of Lehman Brothers are not multiply manifest. There are things that are finite and multiple manifest, but as far as "all phenomenon" that's not true, and that's not even close. Most of the things I study *aren't* multiply manifest or finite, and I think that's true for physicists in general, which is why no one seems to be agreeing with you.
Ask yourself, how do we usually find out that something we thought was the biggest object in the universe, turned out not to be? We find a way to see far enough that we see evidence of another example of what we thought the largest object, and collectively *those* objects form the next thing we call the largest object. See a trend here?
House prices between 2001 and 2005 were going up radically. See a trend here?
) Attempt to save my intellectual a*s.
