The Start of the Universe?

[nice2day]

Well I know the regulars on this Forum like to have something to read:

I just wanted to air an idea that I had a couple of days ago that I had as I wandered through the woods with my little dog. I always let my mind wander on these walks and the subject of what started the universe held my thoughts and I came up with my own little theory. I just wanted to air it on here so someone could read it and maybe laugh scoff or enjoy the concept. It's about the start of the universe or the Big Bang as is commonly called.

So .... You all know that absolutely everything has a scientific law that governs rigidly its behaviour, the speed of light, gravity, molecular attraction, electricity magnetic and all the other scientific laws that exist within the universe. We don’t know why these parameters exist and why everything “knows” what it should be doing as regards obeying these laws. They are not physical and have no mass yet they are an immense force. These natural laws or commands do exist but where are they "written"?...Well nowhere, but they do exist so they have been created at some moment. So I was thinking what if these background laws started to occur BEFORE anything existed, spontaneously in a "nowhere" created by no-one or by nothing. In effect they existed, as they do now, being inflexible and all powerful in their control of matter but completely intangible, the difference being they were innumerable and random with different versions and variations of their laws being continually created and then changed just as quickly, turning over like the tumblers of an incredibly huge lock. At one moment though, something magical occurred; the lock opened. Just by utter random chance, just for that one instant, the single correct combination and formulation of all these random laws were such that their collective existence were all linked together and completely dependent on each other causing them all to interact instantly. The outcome of this spontaneous reaction dictated that energy must exist simply to comply with this one freak instantaneous combination. This all powerful, chance compilation of scientific laws at that micro-instant would have to result in every action and reaction and event that there is to create the big bang. It was forced to occur, there was no other option. This one pure chance event set off the universe. The universe thus created would entrap the complete set of rules permanently somehow bringing an end to the random “machine” that created them and the possibility of these scientific laws ever being changed again.

Hope you enjoyed that little read?..
Les

[Blurredman]

WTF I didn't post this here surely.

[Puffs]

Ta for sharing your reflections on this Les.

It makes me wonder if maybe your dog is called Albert, and if maybe at home you have a cat called Niels.

However, some of the things you say are disputable, for instance "everything has a scientific law that governs rigidly its behaviour". This is indeed Einstein's position: "Gott würfelt nicht!" he told Bohr in their discussion on matters like this. But Einstein was wrong here: there are numerous experiments that irrefutably demonstrate that certain matters can not be accurately predicted, and that instead the best we can fundamentally do is describe a system by it's wave function, which gets projected to one of it's eigenvectors under the measurement. The exact outcome of the measurement can not be predicted, only in terms of probabilities. Bohr was one of the founders of quantum mechanics.

Anyway, another worry I would have is this: how can these background laws exist BEFORE anything existed? When these background laws exist, something exists, to be specific: those background laws! This cake too can not both be had AND eaten. We need to be clearer on what we mean by a number of concepts, like 'exist', 'anything', and 'before' (or wider: 'time'), and define those unambiguously.

It has been suggested that a near infinite number of universes has started, governed by different laws, and that only those which resulted in relative stability continued - we would be in one of those. To me that is an appealing idea.

Life & reality might be more complicated than we can fathom, and if there is anything that quantum mechanics has shown us, it is that our views and concepts are very much driven by how we, as a species, have lived & evolved over the last few million years, and that those may not be directly adequate to understand everything. Try to explain the working of an internal combustion engine to a squirrel & you'll see what I mean.

Or maybe we do not have enough background info, a possibility of which BM's post is a case in point.

[Blurredman]

Aha.
A philosopher!

To me:
Whatever happens, happens. You can have a change in certain outcomes. God has made us- but he has made us self controlling too, and 'logical', indeed, illogical sometimes too. Illogical happens when you lose control and animal instinct come out. Of course, to be as 'base as an aminal' makes you not a good subject for entry into heaven. Animals cannot get into heaven, so someone who cannot control their animal instincts cannot either.

So---- Yes I have to maintain my motorcycle, that is up to ME. I must change the oil, or pay someone else to do it. If I do not then problems can occur, it is in our instinct in life to make things 'easier on oneself' and maintain your motorcycle foremost before failure and yet things are 'tried to test us' anyway, like things breaking regardless of maintenance.


Anyway- As I say, I am torn between the bible, and books about the laws of life.

[nice2day]

Many thanks for reading my conceptual idea Puffs. This makes the typing of such things worthwhile, there is so much pleasure in sharing thoughts with someone. Without there being a "someone" would any of us bother to do what we do? Would we create art if we, the maker, were the only one to gaze upon it? Maybe we would. Perhaps the universe and its powers created humans out of its own vanity, to have something to behold its magnificence and would the universe even exist without eyes to view it?.

In reply to what you say, I did have a problem with the Quantum theory and the variable probability but maybe this unknown behaviour of events is simply that we do not understand or know of all the rules of the universe (I'm absolutely sure we don't). Maybe there are rigid laws at work it is just that they are so complex we don't know their formulas and equations....yet, but if we did than even random events would not be random and could be calculated...God does not play dice! (Einstein Dec. 1926)

The notion of there being something (laws) before anything existed is the very heart of what I am suggesting. We see anything and everything as objects but everything is simply energy in all shapes and sizes. What is energy, does it actually exist? Maybe energy is just the bottom line of a set of scientific rules and the behaviour of all matter (energy) is further back from the bottom line as we view it. This is the unknown I am suggesting; there can be scientific rules that exist but do not actually exist and at one time they existed in infinite amounts. They are an invisible power that simply exist...I know you will say "where? " but they don't exist anywhere they just exist but they have to be obeyed...A very weak analogy would be a road maximum speed limit. We are all under its laws when we drive but it does not exist in any presence, it is just a command from a power. I realise this concept of scientific laws existing before the Big Bang is beyond normal logical thinking but before the happy accidental random coalition of these laws that actually produced a "something" might explain that there WAS "nothing" or "nowhere" and no time before the Big Bang...apart the laws of science which are a force made of nothing. Yep I know this is hard to grasp.

Thanks again Puffs I always respect and enjoy your excellent knowledge of science.

Les

[Puffs]

Ta BM.

Raises the question: Who made God? Or how does that work otherwise?

In the end we all place the world within our own personal believe system, but we agree that if you don't put fuel in your bike, you don't ride!

Les, I'll get back to you on that tomorrow

[nice2day]

Thanks Puffs...please note I have edited it a few times to make it clearer so you might have to read my last post again...Much obliged...Les

[Puffs]

People are social beings, meaning that they react to each other. And to some extent, this forum is a form of social media. That interaction influences part of our behaviour, but not everything. Yes, I think that if you're into that you'll also make art in the absence of an audience. I do play the double bass without an audience, and I can still enjoy that. But interaction adds another dimension.

For instance, if you were to cook a magnificent meal, could you also enjoy it eating alone? Do you need someone to watch you when you take that curve perfectly, or can you just enjoy it on your own?

I'm not sure if we should project human character traits onto 'the universe and its powers'.

Indeed, we do not know everything about the universe. I mean that in the sense of having a theory which answers all questions. This is something else as knowing everything in the sense of having a theory which predicts everything accurately. The latter is even at a higher, stronger, more complete level, and it is what you seem to want; you and just about every physicists at the end of the 19th century (including Einstein). The search was on for the 'Weltformel', the 'Theory of Everything', from which everything could be predicted. Unfortunately, the validity of QM, which has been tested at length, entails that such a theory can not exist. Indeed, Einstein did not accept that, but there he was wrong. The search for the Weltformel has ceased, and the focus of research in modern physics has shifted to other areas.

The concept of 'energy' is defined in various theories, have a look in classical mechanics, QM, relativity, ... But in addition to that, there are also structural concepts, like 'entropy' and 'information'. Laws quite clearly exist in that form. But I'm guessing you mean something like gravity, which is governed by a law like Newton's (and Einstein's work also gives some clues in a wider context). So then the question is: does this gravitation law still exist in the absence of matter? Well, I don't know, but if 'exist' means 'have validity', I would say it doesn't matter. In the absence of matter. It is fundamentally impossible to assess any law on gravity in the absence of matter, and therefore the issue is entirely irrelevant. And not part of any physical theory. Note that this is at quite a different level from asking if the light in the fridge is really off when the door is closed (or other solipsistic malarkey).

Our brain may not be suitable to place & understand these matters properly, as they are quite distant from what our species was busy with during it's development.

Similarly the character traits that helped us through evolution are likely to encourage the demise of our species.

[nice2day]

That was very interesting Puffs and I enjoyed absorbing what you say. I am very appreciative of you taking the time to read and engage your thoughts with me (us) it as it would be so easy to not bother and move on. The ultimate question of what started the universe and what was there before it just crept into my head as I wandered in a relaxed state of mind, perhaps using the the thinking process to blur and pass the time that I spend daily as I walk my dog through the hills and woods. It's such a powerful and intriguing question and so easy for ones mind to latch onto and think really deeply about it. The final result of my thinking was based on trying to suggest something different could exist before anything in a material form that we can normally visualize did, so the unknown "thing" might simply be information rather than any material substance. Basically a message rather than a fact.
Many thanks Puffs I enjoy a good chat with you.

Les
PS: After writing the above I once again thought of what I was trying to describe at the start and distil it a touch more and describe how it manifests itself in our current world. And to simplify it all down into an easier concept to imagine (or not)
Everything that exists is a “description” rather than being a simple solid object or matter. This also includes non solid things such as electromagnetic waves, light, mass, gravity and energy absolutely everything. The description creates the recipe to create the cake of the universe in which we exist. The description existed somehow and was created before the big-bang.

[Blurredman]

http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

[Puffs]

Thanks for the link Blurredman; indeed there are several views on the matter.

Les, general relativity entails that there is no 'before the big bang'. When imaginary viewing the film backwards towards it, not only the spacial dimensions (length) collapse, but also the temporal dimensions (time). Consequently the concept of 'before the big bang' has no meaning.

Again, the intuitions our brains developed are not optimally suited to grasp these matters, which are quite different from what we were exposed to during our development.

On your PS: OK, so that's the 'book-of-the-world' then, but that raises the question: what is that book written on? Even thoughts have a physical form (neural patterns in one's brain). Infinite recursion? Time for Hofstadter's 'Gödel, Escher, Bach'?

[nice2day]

Hi Puffs...Well it was interesting to focus on the subject, I wonder if humans will ever know what how the universe came into existence?*

My guess is that there was always one (or many) and we will have to accept that somethings have no start or finish and simply "are"...They exist, always have existed, have no reason or purpose and that things change within them but have done and will do for an infinite infinite amount of time...so really it's not worth even asking any questions about it, just accept it.

Maybe I will get round to posting the explanation of human consciousness and how to achieve it within an Artificial Intellligence...I have worked it out...honest!

* I shouldn't be asking this should I...

Les

[Puffs]

That sounds ominously like Fermat's conjecture...