awuh1

ZamZam, I suspect that many who come here to post and who ask for help want to draw on the experience (power) of others who have more of it than they do. No shame in that. Many in AA have Group Of Drunks as a power greater than themselves. It's all good.

Shockozulu, Early in sobriety, I told my sponsor that I did not believe in any sort of god or higher power. He asked me, “Don't you think anything is more powerful than you are ???”

My self assured response was “Ya, gravity. A piano hanging over my head”. As I look back on it, this was the very beginning of an extensive investigation into the nature of things.

Imagine my surprise when I learned what Einsteins general theory of relativity is all about... you guessed it.... gravity lol

dwtbd

And what blows me away , is to think that at the time Einstein(and his ilk) were developing the 'maths' to try and explain how it all works, based on the technology and observable data , they thought the Universe consisted of ' just' the Milky Way.

awuh1

dwtbd, We take it for granted that there are countless other galaxies, mostly because we have seen the pictures. But before 1925 the telescopes could not resolve the fuzzy images which the astronomers then called "nebula". They thought these things were within our galaxy. Finally in 1925 Hubble got a clear enough image of a galaxy (Andromeda?) that he could make out individual stars in the previously observed 'cloud'.

At first they called galaxies "other universes" because in 1925 our galaxy was all we thought there was! The "red shift" of these "other universes" indicated they were moving away from us at hundreds of thousands of miles per second! This meant they were incredibly far away.

It took a catholic priest by the name of Lemaitre to tell us that the the Galaxies were not moving away due to their own momentum but because space itself was being created between us and it . Yes, it was a priest who gave us the theory of the big bang.

The big bang is not something that took place in the past, its something that's happening right now.

dwtbd

Can't wait til they figure out what banged.

awuh1

THIS is an interesting question. Here are a few thoughts.

The big bang was not an "explosion" in space and time, but rather an explosion OF space and time.

If that thought is not mind blowing enough, consider what happens when you rewind the clock. As you go back in time the universe gets smaller and smaller until it reaches a point where it can get no smaller. There is also a state of things 'before' which there is no time. This is (quite naturally) very difficult to imagine, but observation of the physical universe leads us to this unmistakable conclusion. (The big bang is now considered mainstream science). Space and time did have a beginning.

There had to be a "cause" (for lack of a better word) that existed "before" there was such a thing as space or time. Something outside of both time and space. Something that 'transcends' it.

The only thing we know of that exists outside of space-time is light itself (at least from lights own point of view). If you could travel at the speed of light, time would stand still and the beginning and end of the journey would be coincident.

Well, I think that's enough out of me. Except to point at my signature lines.

dwtbd

At some points I think the maths become or revert to philosophizing.
I have a hard time , with time.(sorry didn't want to avoid such an obvious pun). I can't quite grok how physicists use time all the time(s?). In one sense it is a relational concept ie to describe a duration , but they seem to use it differently as it approaches quantum levels and to me it then 'morphs' into an attribute almost a force.
Creatio ex nihilo seems to be proven with the 'advent' of time, anyway still trying to grok it all, I'm only 49 there's still time

shockozulu

Bing bing! We have a winner ;-)

Time is actually seen differently by philosophers than physicists as if it wasn't already complicated enough.

Here's an interesting article about time in Quantum physics
Time’s Arrow Traced to Quantum Source

Boleo

There is a chance that Big Bangs are as common as Galaxies, Black Holes and even Super Novas. It's entirely possible that Big Bangs are just the flip-side of Black Holes. According to NOVA, our Universe just might be contained inside of a Black Hole.

"When are you earthlings going to figure out that big and small don't mean anything."
(Men In Black)

Db1105

Ive been using the good olde group of drunks (and addicts) for onver 38 years now, so....

dwtbd

Yep, it can be quite torturous to wrap our heads around and conceptualize at times, just consider what we would have to do with "our universe" and " inside"

fini

we live in a Klein bottle!!

JeffreyAK

As it turns out, I'm a Physics Ph.D. working in research, and also a part-time Astronomy professor, so I could go on and on about this topic.

The big bang is fascinating and a great mystery, perhaps the greatest mystery there is. It's certainly not evidence for a God. It is however evidence that we don't know nearly as much as we'd like to know about how our universe came into being.

The complicating thing is, we'd like to ask something like, "What was there before the big bang?", but that question is ill-posed. There was no "there", because space as we understand it was created by the big bang. There was no "before", either, because time as we understand it was created by the big bang. We can't even wrap our brains around what questions to ask, that make sense. There are speculative theories that our universe is a kind of bubble in a multiverse, but that only sounds plausible because it reinforces our natural comfort in linear space and linear time, and causality. It may be that those concepts are an illusion derived from our utter insignificance in space and time, and our inability to comprehend The Big Picture.

Physicists generally (there are exceptions) are atheists, as I am, and I think there are a couple reasons. One, the universe is complicated and awesome enough all by itself, without complicating it even more by invoking the existence of a God (Well, who created God? If he always existed, why not dispense with him and just become comfortable with the concept that the "multiverse" has always existed?), and two, we tend to be pragmatists who spend energy worrying about solvable problems, and not so much energy pondering unsolvable (to us) problems like the origins of the universe. It's kind of the physicist view of one day at a time, where expanding your view too much just leads to confusion and spinning wheels - better to focus closer to home.

So I don't have a clue how to think about the origins of our universe, and "what was there before", but I'm comfortable with not understanding it, and I don't feel a need to believe in a God who I wouldn't have a clue how to think about either. The universe just is, and I'll enjoy my tiny insignificant portion of it for as long I'm able.

awuh1

Jeffery I wish you would go on and on about this stuff. You have the credentials. My formal education involved only a minimal amount of training the physical sciences (something I have come to regret).

You're quite right. The theory of the big bang does not prove the existence of a God. Georges Lemaitre, the original proponent of the big bang theory and also a catholic priest, became quite upset when a Pope attempted to claim that his big bang theory gave solid evidence for a God. Lemaitre had a little talk with the Pope. The Pope stopped expressing this idea.

I think Lemaitre's big bang theory suffered a little in the beginning because he was a priest (in addition to being a physicist). To the credit of the scientific community, it largely came around to his way of thinking about the beginnings of the universe. In no small part because Lemaitre seemed to be instrumental in changing Einsteins way of thinking about the universe. It took Einstein a few years, but Einstein later changed his mind from a belief that the universe had always existed (in a steady state) to the idea that it had a definite beginning. In fact when Einstein was lecturing together with Lemaitre in California, he said of Lemaitre's theory; "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened." I find that a very interesting choice of words.

Anyway, if you will indulge me I have a question for you Jeffry. You state that physicists generally are atheists and you give several reasons you feel this is the case. I'm wondering if you also believe that it would be difficult for a physicist to express the belief in a God because of the possible social and/or professional consequences of doing so ( i.e, possible concerns about professional advancement for example). I'm hoping you feel free enough to answer within this thread, but if not I'd like to hear from you via PM if you care to respond.

Thanks

JeffreyAK

In my experience, I don't think so. Physicists tend by and large towards social ineptitude, or at least apathy, so I think most wouldn't consider possible status impacts of declaring themselves to be religious believers. I know several I can think of off-hand, including a couple religious Jews who always wear Yarmulkes, and no one talks behind their backs as far as I've ever heard. But, they are the exceptions, and the majority at least among physicists I know personally, are atheist or agnostic and don't spend time or energy on the matter.

I know from my perspective, I don't have any answers either, so if the next person wants to believe in a God and it makes him feel better for whatever reasons, that's fine. I view it as an unnecessary complication, and that does tend to run counter to the physicist attraction to the simplest explanation (or non-explanation!), but since I have no clue either, I can't argue against it other than by pointing out that it's an extra complication that adds more questions than it answers. That's not a strong argument, and more of an explanation for my own point of view.

Boleo

Somewhere between hard-core atheists and true believers there exists a group of people that are simply non-theists. Not all of them call themselves that nor do all of them know such a word even exists in the first place.

Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha) fell into this category. He simply believed that the existence, or non-existence, of a god, creator or deity was a "moot issue". Endless debates will never lead to any conclusions either way on the matter. Better to focus on more practical aspects of Spirituality, such as, Karma and Dharma.

I myself was a "true believer" for several decades when it hit me that labeling wrtu (Whatever Runs The Universe) was a complete waste of time. It is what it is without regard to popular opinion. That's why I now prefer to talk about the Tao:

"Tao that can be spoken of is not the Constant Tao’
The name that can be named is not a Constant Name.
Nameless, is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
The named is the Mother of all things. "
(Tao Te Ching)

Soberpotamus

Im comfortable with not understanding it, too, Jeffrey. Its ok with me that we have limited understanding.

I was a philosophy major.

awuh1

Thanks for your perspective on that Jeffrey. I have long wondered why there seems to be far more athiests/agnostics in the physics community than in any other discipline. I wondered if it might be the suject matter that attracted them to that field or the non diest culture (for lack of a better term) which might have served to perpetuate itself.

Recently I have even noticed a sort of anti-philosophical stance within the profession (from such people as Lawrence Krauss and Steven Hawking). It's almost like the the shut-up-and-calculate method of dealing with questions about the broader nature of reality is coming back in vogue. But perhaps that's just coming from my outsiders perspective. I need not be too concerned about the for-all-practical-purposes aspect because it's not my occupation.

I'm just fascinated by the very nature of the empirical data. I'm fascinated by how truly incomprehensible much of it is (e.g. the measurement problem). I have a feeling that the breakthroughs in our understanding for much of this data will ultimately come from people coming at these questions from a philosophical angle, even if this is only a starting point. But that's just my take on it.

Thanks again. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

Boleo

Werner Heisenberg spoke of the "Uncertainty Principle" as being a feature built into the fabric of the Universe rather than a flaw in man's technology. Even though he claimed to be an atheist, wouldn't that make him a believer in an intelligent Universe?

Boleo

duplicate

JeffreyAK

I don't know Heisenberg's religious philosophy, but I think he meant that the uncertainty principle is an objective reality, a fundamental limitation that is a consequence of quantum mechanics and the wave nature of everything in the universe. It does not arise from limitations on our human ability to make precise measurements, or any inability to make truly non-perturbative measurements.

As far as we know, it is a fundamental limitation based on every experiment we can throw at it, but we also know that quantum mechanics can't be quite correct since it's not consistent on a number of levels with general relativity, so there's a more-correct theory out there somewhere that reduces to general relativity and to quantum mechanics in the regimes of very large and massive, and very very small.

That incidentally is one of the challenges of the Big Bang, because in the earliest instances (whatever exactly that means) the universe was both extremely massive and extremely small - we don't have a basic theory of the physics for such an environment, so physics as we know it breaks down, and even if we understood enough to ask meaningful questions, we don't know how to answer them. More stuff to hurt the brain.