The Origin of the Universe

[Brendan]

Greetings, all here.

I am interested in the question, "What is the origin of the universe?" It find it an interesting one for which I think I have found the answer. Currently, here, I would like to put it in a fashion as simple and clear as possible according to my power and inspiration.

I wish to pose an argument whereof I think that it cannot be refuted.

Anything that begins to exist, must have a cause.
The cause of such a thing cannot be the thing itself, thus the cause (or source) is outside of it and must be something else.
The universe is physical and cannot have caused itself. (Can X create X? No. X leading to Y, yes.)
Therefore, the cause of the universe must be outside of the universe.
Because the universe is physical, finite in time, has space, and its cause must be outside of it, the cause is non-physical, spaceless and independent of time.
(This cause has caused time, space and matter to exist, and therefore this cause could not be subject to these things it made to exist.)


(By the way, the universe must have a beginning, because the second law of thermodynamics state that the amount of useful energy is being used up. This implies time. If the universe were "infinitely old", it would have used up all the energy and would have arrived at temperature of absolute zero, but since there are many energy sources, for instance the sun, the universe must be finite in duration.)

Thanks for reading :)

[Strike For The South]

It does not matter

[gaelic cowboy]

Since the start of the universe creates the universe and all of our know laws of physics we cannot use these same laws to look outside the universe for its cause/start, this is purely because we are dealing with a story of nothing something happens universe

Therefore it could be quite possible the universe started itself, as it made the laws of physics at it's start therefore the laws of physics didn't create the universe they needed a universe to be laws in.

It does not matter

good one

[Strike For The South]

ashes to ashes, dust to dust

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashes_to_Ashes Just in case people dont get what I'm refrencing

[rory_20_uk]

I'm mainly with Strike on this one.

But I think that trying to discern the origins of the universe and using tools such as the second law of thermodynamics isn't possible. Where all the points of things going really weird (beginning of universe / black holes) we are not as sure exactly what laws do apply: does matter bleed out from one universe into another? Are different sets of dimensions different universes? Who knows?

Personally since we are stuck on the 3rd rock of a planet with no real way of even getting to the next decent solar system, everything else is about as useful as wondering how many fairies can dance on the head of a pin.

[Ronin]

It does not matter

/thread

- Physical evidence shows that at some point in the past an event - that we call the big bang - occurred that placed the universe in the state it is now...

we have no idea in what state - if any - the universe was in before.

given our life expectancy and comparing it to the time scale we are talking about when talking about the universe it really doesn´t matter.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I don't know about the origin of the universe.

As for the origin of the world, I must agree with Courbet.

[Strike For The South]

I don't know about the origin of the universe.

As for the origin of the world, I must agree with Courbet.

And after three hours of Cafe and Crosicants, Louis managed to convice himself it was art and their was meaning to it

Such is the life of a Frenchman, between strikes

[drone]

When the universe collapses back onto itself (prepping for the next big bang), doesn't the 2nd law reset?

[Rhyfelwyr]

You know, this thread made me think that nothing should exist at all. But I was kind of daydreaming, and staring at the "quick reply" text above where I'm writing this, and I thought about how it shouldnt' be there and how real it was, and I had a mini freak-out.

I need to get more sleep.

[gaelic cowboy]

You know, this thread made me think that nothing should exist at all. But I was kind of daydreaming, and staring at the "quick reply" text above where I'm writing this, and I thought about how it shouldnt' be there and how real it was, and I had a mini freak-out.

I need to get more sleep.

Maybe it's not we could be in the Matrix or even the dream of a sleeping dog

[Ronin]

When the universe collapses back onto itself (prepping for the next big bang), doesn't the 2nd law reset?

so far it shows no signs of collapsing.....recent investigations show that the expansion rate of the universe (given by the speed at which galaxies are traveling away from each other) is not slowing down like everyone expected they would but is in fact speeding up!
so the universe may become very spread out, rarefied, dark and cold instead of "blowing up" again.

[Viking]

Anything that begins to exist, must have a cause.
The cause of such a thing cannot be the thing itself, thus the cause (or source) is outside of it and must be something else.

From everyday life, we have no experience with things that "begin to exist", so it is not easy to say anything about it. The very notion of 'cause' stems from everyday life - you may end up comparing apples to oranges.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I'm mainly with Strike on this one.

But I think that trying to discern the origins of the universe and using tools such as the second law of thermodynamics isn't possible. Where all the points of things going really weird (beginning of universe / black holes) we are not as sure exactly what laws do apply: does matter bleed out from one universe into another? Are different sets of dimensions different universes? Who knows?

Personally since we are stuck on the 3rd rock of a planet with no real way of even getting to the next decent solar system, everything else is about as useful as wondering how many fairies can dance on the head of a pin.

The 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy) doesn't really explain the big bang, but rather why stuff didn't (and doesn't) stay put. As you will know it is also a stochastic process rather than the much simpler cause consequence model of say electro-magnetic fields or gravity. Much like why biochemistry doesn't really explain why we are actually living breathing individuals but rather explains that there is a good chance that we are.

Anyway we don't know if there ever was a big bang, rather with what evidence we have it appears that all matter in our current Universe was at some point concentrated in a very, very small volume and also that it wasn't matter as we know it. But what happened at t(0) we don't know, we have no explanation for nor any real evidence to suggest one. The most current idea about the universe is that there isn't any single one universe, but rather there is a multiverse. One particular variant of that says that black holes are basically the generators for a new universe to appear, because it arranges all matter into a low entropy configuration so a new arrow of time may be created there.

[ajaxfetish]

Greetings, all here.

I am interested in the question, "What is the origin of the universe?" It find it an interesting one for which I think I have found the answer. Currently, here, I would like to put it in a fashion as simple and clear as possible according to my power and inspiration.

Thanks, Aristotle.

Ajax

[gaelic cowboy]

Brendan didn't you say you had an actual answer for the origin of the universe at the start of the OP????

[TheLastDays]

[...] everything else is about as useful as wondering how many fairies can dance on the head of a pin.

17, yes, I tried it.

Since this is my first backroom post, I'll try to put more sense into it.

I think that to really grasp what happened at the beginning of time and space we need to go beyond the laws of natural science... As, in fact, we need to go when asking any questions, in my opinion.

Let me give a very simple example like, for instance, gravity:

Now since Newton's serious headache after being hit by a fallen apple we started to think about which laws apply to things falling down, or more specifically, two masses attracting each other.
Now, some time has gone by since good ole' Isaac's days and so we have found out quite a lot about it, can explain how gravity works and such...

What we can't explain is why. Why do two masses attract each other? And this "Why?" is the question that leads to meaningful answers, in my opinion, because just explaining the way something works doesn't suffice.

[naut]

When the universe collapses back onto itself (prepping for the next big bang), doesn't the 2nd law reset?

Except that the Big Crush is no longer the dominant theory, and the Big Freeze , Big Rip or Multi-verse are the main three theories these days.

so far it shows no signs of collapsing.....recent investigations show that the expansion rate of the universe (given by the speed at which galaxies are traveling away from each other) is not slowing down like everyone expected they would but is in fact speeding up!
so the universe may become very spread out, rarefied, dark and cold instead of "blowing up" again.

This. The expansion rate of the Universe means it is more likely that the Universe will reach a point where all matter either ends up so far apart that the temperature of the universe equals absolute zero everywhere or that the Universe expands at a rate that everything tears apart.

[gaelic cowboy]

Ah the heat death of the universe

[gaelic cowboy]

What we can't explain is why. Why do two masses attract each other? And this "Why?" is the question that leads to meaningful answers, in my opinion, because just explaining the way something works doesn't suffice.

to be honest we don't really know what mass is do we after all thats what that whole LHC looking for higgs boson was about was it not

[Viking]

Regarding gravity, I am totally going to discover negative mass. Planning to sell hovering devices in a couple of years time - watch this space.

[naut]

Regarding gravity, I am totally going to discover negative mass. Planning to sell hovering devices in a couple of years time - watch this space.

It'd be much more useful to discover a way to utilise and measure Dark Matter.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Regarding gravity, I am totally going to discover negative mass. Planning to sell hovering devices in a couple of years time - watch this space.

Actually, negatively strange neutrinos, and antimatter have been created already. Dark Matter could actually be simply the space itself, which is to say that “empty space” is not in fact nothing but rather contains a certain amount of energy (i.e. mass). Because there's such a lot of space to go around that energy amounts to quite a bit, i.e the dark matter.

EDIT: That theory would also explain why the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing (and so fast): the empty space itself drives the expansion as well.

[Viking]

The gravitational interaction of antimatter is not understood yet, is it?

[Tellos Athenaios]

What is known, though, is that you don't want it to touch your normal matter. The weight and power requirements of the kit used to suspend even the tiny particles put the kibosh on all hoverboard plans for now.

[Brendan]

Let me respond to a few and perhaps some more.

It does not matter

Does it not matter? If it does not matter, then do you matter? If it does not matter, do we matter at all? If so, then where are we heading? If so, why exist?

Since the start of the universe creates the universe and all of our know laws of physics we cannot use these same laws to look outside the universe for its cause/start, this is purely because we are dealing with a story of nothing something happens universe

Therefore it could be quite possible the universe started itself, as it made the laws of physics at it's start therefore the laws of physics didn't create the universe they needed a universe to be laws in.

Science is not the only way to discern things. There is for example philosophy, and even science has philosophy above it, because there is a certain philosophy of science. Without a philosophy of science, what kind of science will you perform?
There is a particular branch of philosophy, namely logic, that is very interesting and which I have applied in the argument.

So you yourself say that there is a story of something like "nothing, then action, then universe". And you say in your argument a conclusion after some statements that

"it could be quite possible the universe started itself, as it made the laws of physics at its start."

It does not follow.
In any case, the universe cannot make itself, because something cannot make itself. Something else, whatever it is, must make it. If the universe already contains the laws of physics, how can the universe make the laws of physics? Why, if something already exists, must it be created again?

Regarding the creation of something at all: can X make X? Can you make yourself out of nothing? This goes against science.

/thread

- Physical evidence shows that at some point in the past an event - that we call the big bang - occurred that placed the universe in the state it is now...

we have no idea in what state - if any - the universe was in before.

given our life expectancy and comparing it to the time scale we are talking about when talking about the universe it really doesn´t matter.

Physical evidence? What physical evidence?
What do you mean, "the state the universe was in before, if any" ? How can the Big Bang even be true? It sounds like a faerie tale. The Big Bang theory doesn't even sound like science. It sounds like science fiction. It assumes the whole universe was in a compact state, and suppose it is true, then the question arises, "Where did it come from?"

[lars573]

I'm fairly sure the universe started because Galactus let one rip.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Now to wait for Sigurd to discover this thread. Apparantly he spend most of his student days pondering this ancient argument of 'everything has a cause therefore my god is rationally proven'.


Personally, I'm still waiting for somebody to refute Lemur's Theorem of a sun made of cheese.

[Brendan]

Brendan didn't you say you had an actual answer for the origin of the universe at the start of the OP????

I have given my current answer in the argumentation I posed.

From everyday life, we have no experience with things that "begin to exist", so it is not easy to say anything about it. The very notion of 'cause' stems from everyday life - you may end up comparing apples to oranges.

What do you mean? No experience with things that begin to exist. Does an apple that grows from a tree not begin to exist? From whatever starting point in time? Did you yourself not begin to exist at some point in time?

Any way you turn it, and however you section it, something must have a cause and the cause must be outside the thing that is caused.

17, yes, I tried it.

Since this is my first backroom post, I'll try to put more sense into it.

I think that to really grasp what happened at the beginning of time and space we need to go beyond the laws of natural science...

This is highly important. You make a good point. Also, I have made the point in the first post.

---------
I still do not see how the first post is refuted. It is, in fact, not refuted at all.

[Ronin]

Physical evidence? What physical evidence?
What do you mean, "the state the universe was in before, if any" ? How can the Big Bang even be true? It sounds like a faerie tale. The Big Bang theory doesn't even sound like science. It sounds like science fiction. It assumes the whole universe was in a compact state, and suppose it is true, then the question arises, "Where did it come from?"

http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/cosmos_bigbang.html

read it if you want...you can find a whole lot more material with a simple google search.
-the main fact is the observable expansion of the universe....since the universe is expanding it is a reasonable deduction that going back in time and "reversing" the expansion you come to a compact state.

your 2nd question is why I said the big bang :

"occurred that placed the universe in the state it is now...
we have no idea in what state - if any - the universe was in before."

the big bang does not answer where the mass came from..in fact it doesn´t even try to handle that question.

I would pose the possiblity that matter didn´t come from anywhere...and that it could simply be the natural state of the universe and mass to exist.....like I said above...it's not really important or relevant really.

there are other largely theoretical theories that try to come up with a more detailed explanation, but this is not really something that can be tested or experimented...and frankly not something that I wast my time considering.