I see you haven't understood Kesh's post at all. Please leave religion / atheism out of your posts. If you want to discuss it, you can go over to FWIS, but here it is off-limits, certainly in the rather offensive way you discuss it.

__________________
Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

Semantics.

The Universe is defined as all there IS.
Therefore only ONE thing needs to be for the universe to exist.

Cogito ergo sum. I am therefore the universe is.
The properties of the universe are irrelevant to the discussion.

In analogy: If I am inside the Forrest all I see is trees.
The part that I can see is a Forrest, it doesn't matter if it the rest of it is only a 100 meter across or covers the whole planet.
#-o

8) Im not talking about religion.

No, im talking about the fundamental effect that a belief in big bang does for or to a typical low income child..

Mind you these ideas.. are taught from the pillars of genius in our communities and they carry great weight, most especially to children who desire intelectual power.. and as such must be regarded as a powerful influence.

and to much are the influences in our society habitually negative, and leads to establishing mind sets which allows for alot more negative socail behavior than would have been had in the absense of the negative influences...

Poker is all the rage on Tv and cable.. and what has happenned??

they say poker and gambiling is up, most especially in children.

Think about it.

-MT

Fortunately belief in the BB doesn't seem to harm middle- and upper-income kids. Whew!! What a relief! 8)

Actually, I don't think very many children at whatever income level think a lot about the origin of the universe. They are mostly content to parrot what their parents and/or clergy have told them. And if you're a low-income child, you have bigger and more immediate concerns than "how did the universe get here?". :-?

And before the BB, what do you think was the cause of all of society's problems? Darwinian evolution? And what about before that? Copernicanism? Rubbish! Our social problems are caused the the conditions of our society, not by any particular scientific theory that happens to be in vogue. Of course, this isn't to say that a scientific theory can't be twisted and misapplied with horrible results, but again it is a problem with the people misapplying the science, not science itself.

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

8) you guys are smart.. sociology 101.

desicions are directly effected by attitudes.

attitudes are directly linked to our beliefs.

Our beliefs are bases on our education, and all the inlfuences found and gaind from it, including bias and delusion.

So if we believe that the universe began in a big bang.. and random action made everything.. and life is just a freak accident.

and so there is no meaning to all this, then why should i believe any of this religious stuff?? i wont... you dont.

and so if these are my core beliefs..

Then as young male punk, when it comes to making a desicion about killing the clerk he's robbing or not.. that punks mind searches for reasons not to kill....
he find science from school.. and he realise in what seems like logic, that theres no God.... so just kill this guy and get outta there... bamm.

If only that kid had better influences, then we could feel safe in all neigborhoods.. and walking down our streets.

You are all victoms of that same educational system.

-MT

which of course is nothing, compared to how it used to be.. with no educational system at all.... so dont get me wrong.
But few people want to discuss the power of influence and are willing to try and combat it.
people get scared of the word censorship.. which i dont advocate..
I advocate warnings.. loud and clear warnings, all the time.

You are just being silly. :roll:

The number one guide to human behaviour is not reason but instinct.
We are by nature social animals.
Most people know in their gut that certain things are not done.
Personal believe has little to do with it.

By definition anti-social behaviour undermines the social frame-work that helps us to stay alive in the first place.
#-o

Celestial Mechanic wrote:I cannot name any meaningful ideas or projects pushed aside. That was only mentioned as a possibility. As for the conclusions you draw from the Hubble Telescope, it can view all kinds of things, but not the universe itself. Certainly it can be used to determine the properties and histories of the things it can view. However, the connection between things observed and a thing not observed can only be arrived at mentally by the process of logical reasoning. Logic is one of the branches of philosophy. The situation is not one of science or logic; it is science and logic; it is science and philosophy.

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:The word ‘cosmos’ and the word ‘universe’, though now often used as synonyms for each other, did not originally have the same meaning. ‘Cosmos’ originally meant ‘the arrangement or order of things.’ ‘Universe’ originally meant ‘one turn’, what that shell of stars seemed to do: turn as one thing.

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:Don’t castigate all of philosophy because of some of Aristotle’s mistakes. While it is true that Aristotle made a mess of physics and cosmology, his three fundamental laws of logic (the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction, and the law of the excluded middle) have held up as the foundations of logic. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. Without non-contradictory identification there could be no scientific method, no objective science. Without philosophers like George Boole, Augustus DeMorgan, and John Venn, who contributed to our knowledge of logic, there could be no switching circuits, logic circuits, computers, computer programs, internet, or Hubble Telescope.

The mind operates on knowledge. Similar to a computer, it is a GIGO machine: garbage in – garbage out. So how do we know if the knowledge we give the mind does not include bad stuff? Knowledge of logic lets us weed out the bad stuff.

Epistemology, one of the branches of philosophy, deals with the nature of knowledge and how we know what we know. Surely epistemology should be of special interest to scientists who use old knowledge and create new knowledge. Our predecessors have handed down much of our knowledge. Some of that knowledge has been around for a very long time. Frequently new evidence forces us to rethink and abandon some old knowledge. Galileo Galilei’s new evidence about falling objects resulted in the trashing of Aristotle’s physics. Tycho Brahe’s careful astronomical measurements, and especially those of comets, cast serious doubt on the shell of stars idea. The subsequent invention of the telescope led to the measurements of star distances, confirming that the shell of stars idea was false. Yes, the universe idea is a given, given to us by our predecessors. But, were they less prone to error than we are?

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:The universe itself cannot be observed directly or indirectly. Therefore, there cannot be an experiment to justify the universe idea. The only other way to justify the universe idea is to think about it.

Thinking consists of identification and assimilation. When an idea is defined it is identified. However, an idea can only be defined in terms of other ideas. Therefore, to be assimilated an idea must not contradict any previously held idea, else its definition would be self-contradictory and violate Aristotle’s second law of logic. Usually such contradictions only become evident after successive substitutions of meanings for terms in the definition. When there is such a contradiction one must seek to determine which of the two contradicting ideas is false.

To justify the universe idea one must show either that there is no self-contradiction hidden in its definition or, if there is a hidden self-contradiction, that it can be eliminated. To eliminate such a self-contradiction, one of the contradicting ideas must be replaced by another that does not lead to a self-contradiction and does not destroy the original intent of the definition. I have not been able to logically justify the universe idea; perhaps someone else can.

Ahh, but the thing is, the universe isn't a container for stuff. It IS the stuff. You've gone from asking whether or not the universe is a thing to straight out telling us it isn't, while acknowledging the things that supposedly exist within it. But those things ARE the universe. A universe is a set of objects that interact in some way, be it electromagnetically, gravitationally, or by the strong or weak nuclear forces. The Universe is the set of all things that interact with us.

Either that, or cognito ergo sum.

__________________
"The plan does not involve mayonaise."
"... I knew there was a catch."

You can't take the sky from me.

The above snippet of yours is a good example of what you've done this entire thread. Ever consider that you can't "logically justify the universe idea" because you are over-analyzing a word? I don't need to justify the "universe idea" myself, the common dictionary definition works fine with me. "Hidden self-contradiction" in a word that basically means "everywhere?" Not to me. Then again, I'm sure we can have fun with the word "everywhere" if we put our minds to it .. and that's my point. I must've missed yours because I don't see where you are going with this outside of engaging in a semantical/philosophical jig.

Well, this is all pretty interesting for those interested in etymology and the history of science, but of what relevance is this to the actual question at hand, which is the existence/non-existence of the universe itself? Sure, people have had different ideas of what the universe is (how many elephants and turtles to support the Earth, etc. ) but the basic concept, that everything is a part of some much bigger thing has remained a constant.
So how do we know that we have knowledge of logic? :wink: Take a look at some of the postings of lyndonashmore and Lunatic. They obviously believe that their arguments are the epitome of reason.
Again, the details about the "shell of stars" concept is irrelevant. Why do you obsess about it?
I guess it's going to be word-salad then. I'll get some ranch dressing.
Or maybe you can justify it after all. Just hit your philosophy books again!

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

"The game" - an abstraction, like much of human language, to refer to the system of rules and results that we percieve.

The reality is immaterial, you see.
We either treat it as reality, in which case we try and figure out its rules, or we treat it as illusion, at which point any further speculation is pointless.

You either play the game or you don't. Further conjecture is a purely onanistic exercise in intellectual introspection, as any rules outside the game are imperceptable to those with senses limited by the rules of the game. Even our thinking processes are so limited.

Speculating what is outside the universe, whether the universe is or is not, or whether the outside the universe cosmistellar duck would like a cheeseburger are equally valid and at the same time pointless questions when looking for an accurate in-game description.

Kristophe wrote:On page 2 of this thread, in my May 16, 2005 reply I wrote:Look what happens if we try to define a thing as a set. Let’s take the moon as an example. We can begin with ‘the moon is a set of atoms.’ The earth and sun are also sets of atoms, so our definition of the moon as a set is not sufficiently narrow. We could add another membership rule to define which atoms can be members of the moon set. Any way you try to define that membership you ultimately wind up with ‘the moon is the set of atoms that constitute the moon.’ Unfortunately a thing cannot be defined in terms of itself. In such a definition if we replace the word ‘moon’ wherever it occurs by ‘ the set of atoms that constitute the moon’ we soon have ‘the moon is the set of atoms that constitute the set of atoms that constitute the set of atoms that constitute the set of atoms …….’ without end, and we can never attain a definition. (The ‘fin’ in ‘definition’ means ‘end.’)

If you define the universe as a set, you deny it thinghood, and with that the physical properties and history that a thing can have. As a set the universe would be an abstraction existing only in the mind.

Archer17 wrote:and I will agree that there is no self-contradiction in the meaning of the word ‘everywhere.’ ‘Everywhere’ means ‘in all places’ or ‘in all positions in space.’ Are you proposing that the word ‘universe’ primarily means ‘in all places’ or ‘in all positions in space?’ Surely ‘everywhere’ is not the basis for defining the universe. What about ‘things?’

Here is where I’m going with this. If the universe were defined as the totality of all things that simultaneously exist and do not exist, the obvious self-contradiction in that definition would render it unreasonable. One cannot reason with a self-contradiction. Often self-contradictions are not so obvious. If in a cosmological context the meaning of the word ‘universe’ is not reasonable, it should be corrected to make it reasonable or else be abandoned. There is nothing terrible about abandoning an idea. Nobody is upset because the phlogiston idea was discarded.

In examining the meaning of a word or term, one deals with semantics. When examining an idea to see if it is reasonable, one deals with logic, which is a branch of philosophy.

Celestial Mechanic wrote:1. If everything is a part of some much bigger thing and
2. if the universe is a thing, then
3. the universe is a part of some much bigger thing, and the universe cannot be defined as the whole of existence or the totality of all that exists. That thing that is much bigger than the universe is also a part of some much bigger thing, and so on ad infinitum.

Let me caution you that if you try to modify that basic concept in order to break the otherwise infinite chain, I think you will run into serious problems. As that basic concept stands now, if premises 1 and 2 are both true then the universe cannot be defined as the whole of existence or the totality of all that exists. If the universe can be defined as in 3, then premise 2 is true and premise 1 is false.

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:To know something is to be aware of it. To have knowledge of something is to have recallable memory of it. If there is a thing you never learned and, hence, never put into your memory, or if a part of your brain holding or leading to a memory of that thing fails, you know that you have no recall of it, that you have no knowledge of it. If you can recall anything about logic you are aware of that recall and know that you have knowledge of logic.

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:It is known that some night-flying birds can see stars and navigate by them. If birds are aware of stars, then the first humans must have been aware of them. They would have seen the “shell of stars” and wondered about it. They would have known the shell or rind of a melon and would easily have made an analogy between the melon rind and the “shell of stars.” Just as the rind delimited the extent of the melon, the “shell of stars” delimited all that is. Their astronomers would have noticed that the stars all swung across the sky in unison in the course of a night. Since that “shell of stars” behaved as if it were a single thing, it was natural to have thought that it was a thing.

That is very possibly how the universe idea began. The idea of the universe as a thing has been handed down through at least 10,000 generations and is now so ingrained that it is difficult to conceive that the universe might not be a thing. That is why I think the “shell of stars” concept is relevant and why I frequently return to it.

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:If words get in your way when thinking then you must know some way to think rationally without using words. Please share your secret! Ranch dressing? Great! I like ranch dressing. It might help to make unfamiliar ideas palatable. Well-seasoned ideas, of course, require no dressing.

PatKelley in answer to my question about what he meant by the term “the game” wrote:What is the system of rules? How are we able to perceive the system of rules? From what actions, circumstances, or premises do the results arise? How are we able to perceive the results?

The answers are: physical constants and natural laws, through experimentation, the physical universe, and with our in-universe senses and minds making interpretations based on experimentation.

So, scientific inquiry is the answer. Other interpretations of physical reality have no meaning and are not testable or predictable, and all conjectures as to what lies beyond the boundaries of physical reality are not testable or predictable by definition. Even our inferences about this are bound by our physical reality.

In short: your pursuit is pointless, without end or answer, where all answers are as valid as no answer. A null set. A metaphysical pursuit guised as a conflict with science.

[edited to add] - Ah, a friend who has studied philosophy provided me with a succinct description of these arguments:

Solipsistic sophistry.

All right, RJH, how do you, a philosopher, in your near-infinite wisdom, "define" the Moon?

While we're at it, how do you define yourself? How do you know that you have properly defined yourself? How do you know that you are aware of properly defining yourself? How do you know that you have a recallable memory of being aware of properly defining yourself? When did you learn or put into your memory the awareness of a proper definition of yourself?

See, I can toss word-salad as well as any philosopher-chef!

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The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Yes it is.Maybe 'things' exist outside of your concept of 'everywhere' Mr. Hanak, but not mine.If you have a problem with "the universe," you need to do a better job of articulating it IMO. All l see from you is semantical obfuscation and philosophical irrelevancy. You can't use semantics or philosophy to debunk "the universe," at least with me. You don't have to agree Mr. Hanak and I think we both can live with that.

You can have the last word but I'm done here.

I don't think any of us defined the universe as "the totality of all things that simultaneously exist and do not exist", this is a deliberate attempt to create a strawman. You should know better. Some of us use the phrase "exists, has ever existed, will ever exist" as an acknowldegment of our finite temporal perception, but no one will say "simultaneously exist and do not exist", which is obviously absurd.

How do you propose to "correct and make reasonable" the concept of universe? What benefits will accrue to us from "abandoning" the idea of the universe? If we "abandon" the idea of a universe and of said universe having properties and a history, we can also abandon any idea of asking about its origins. Is that part of your agenda? Why is the concept of a universe so offensive to you that you periodically start threads on this topic, not to mention write books about it?

Nobody is "upset" about phlogiston being discarded. Something better (oxidation) was put in its place. Do you have anything better to offer in place of the universe concept you so earnestly wish us to abandon?

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

All my life I have been looking for proof that the Easter Bunny exists, and now I have it

You seem to be defining the universe as the current interpretation of the physical world, not the 'everything and anything' definition of the term Cougar and I prefer.

For what it is worth, I think inertia is a reaction of mass with it's own gravitational field...and every gravitational field physically close enough to effect it. So the answer to your question is yes, but since the local inertial effects are dominated by the sun, we wrongly assume all frameworks are governed by the 'local' universal Newtonian constant.

__________________
jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

=D>
Of course, all we really have is a visual representation of some object that is purported to be the Easter Bunny. But still this is a step in the right direction!

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The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

We could start a new thread, "Is the Richard J. Hanak" idea justifiable.

Yes Virginia, There Is a Universe. (Part One--Vocal)

In a BABB thread long ago, a now-banned poster named Yul claimed that Ptolemaic theory was easy enough that a 10 year-old could calculate it. I challenged Yul to produce this 10 year-old. He never did. But I did find her, a young lady named Virginia. (Not her real name, of course.) She's 17 years old now and in her senior year at an undisclosed high school where she attends several of the gifted/talented programs.

She no longer uses Ptolemaic theory for her ephemeris calculations, but that's a topic for another thread. 8)

One day she stopped by to see me after school and was visibly distraught. I asked her what was the matter.

"It's that horrid Jimmy K. in Physics class! He says the Universe doesn't exist and we're all a bunch of fools for believing in it and acting like we can assign properties and history to it!"

I said, "Where did Jimmy get this? I'm sure he didn't make it up himself". I mean, these are gifted/talented kids, but they're not gifted enough to come up with USDA Grade AAA drivel like this.

"He said that some philosopher named Richard J. Hanak wrote books on this and drops in at the Bad Astronomy Bulletin Board from time to time."

"Oh yes", I replied, "I've seen his 'work'. You know how I feel about philosophy and philosophers. Philosophers are people who are full of themselves and have this need to prove how frightfully clever they are by making rhetorical mountains out of conceptual molehills. Reminds me of when I was in college, a bunch of sophomore philosophy majors got together in the dorms. They discovered that they were hungry, but they could not prove on epistomological grounds that it was possible to know the phone number of a pizza place, or indeed to know anything."

"What happened?", Virginia asked.

"Well, I like happy endings as much as anyone. I wish I could report that they all starved to death, but one of their roommates picked up the phone and dialled the pizza place for them. Actually, it was I who made the phone call. I guess I'm just an old softie."

We both laughed.

So I fired up Gurnemanz, the computer, went online and went to this thread at BABB. I took notes on the thread.

"Well, RJH makes a number of flawed arguments. Where do I want to start?"

To be continued ... 8)

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The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Yes Virginia, There Is a Universe. (Part Two--Instrumental)

"Well, Virginia, here is a particularly stinky argument of RJH's:"

"Of course, it is that second meaning that people have in mind, but RJH attempts to muddy the waters by bringing in one of the other ones. It's all part of his dictionary-driven word games."

"This isn't the meaning we had in mind anyway."

"He's getting warmer. I'm going to skip over what he says next, but I will return to it later. The problem RJH seems to have here is that he understands that the various things in the universe have structure and that some things are components of other, and bigger things. Our Solar System is part of a galaxy, galaxies belong to clusters of galaxies, galaxy clusters belong to superclusters, and maybe ad infinitum. Ultimately RJH's arguments are a kind of argument from incredulity concerning infinities. Well, Zeno's paradoxes never stopped an arrow, much less a bullet, and a few paradoxes about infinity do not mean we cannot reason about infinities. But we do have to be careful about them!

"For example, he writes:"

I continued, "By 'present mainstream model of the universe' we pretty much mean General Relativity and some of its variants and extensions. From the Friedman-Robertson-Walker equations, open, flat, and closed universes are possible. It is not a matter "proving" finitude; it's a matter of "observing" the curvature contribution and determining whether the spatial slices of the universe are open, flat or closed. Open and flat mean infinite, closed means finite.

"But we can say something about average density. We can always imagine taking ever larger volumes of spacetime and averaging to arrive at an average density. Two things can happen: if with every larger three-volume we find a sequence of numbers converging to a limit then we may take that limiting value as the average density of the universe. If, as RJH suggests, we have a hierarchical universe in which ever larger and sparser structures are to be found, then at each scale we find a structure and an average density proportional to L^(-d) where L is the characteristic length of the structure and d is a number (not necessarily an integer) greater than 0. If this is the case, then we have a universe with a fractal mass distribution and we may speak of the average density as having a limiting value of zero."

"Are there any papers about this 'fractal universe'?", Virginia asked.

"I don't know, but I'm sure that fractal densities have been considered in cosmological models and there must be some papers about it by now.

"Oh, yes, and as for entropy, yes RJH is correct about entropy being meaningful only for a closed system. But the universe is the ultimate closed system! There is no escape from it! Here's a definition of universe that even Forrest Gump could understand:"
"All my remarks about average density also apply to entropy."

To be continued ...

Edited to change a sign in an exponent and fix the value thereof. #-o

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Yes Virginia, There Is a Universe. (Part Three--Dance Mix)

"I promised to return to a certain argument of RJH and here it is:"

"Why not? This, Virginia, is the fatal flaw in RJH's argument. It may be 'unwieldy' to think of the universe as a collection of 'protons, neutrons, and electrons' but we can. And that is where the answer lies.

"At the moment, we know the components of the universe at one level to be six quarks, six leptons, several kinds of gauge bosons such as photons, and possibly the Higgs boson and the graviton. Everything that we 'see' is because some particle or composite of particles emitted a photon which we either see with our own eyes or capture with a camera or a suitable device. This is 'direct observation' as RJH defined it in his original post. Some systems are 'pushed' around by other forces (like gravity) and we see that the system has been pushed around by observing the position from which the light comes. This is 'indirect observation'.

"So here's my definition of the universe: there are particles that interact with one another. Particles and interactions can be represented by Feynman graphs, with particles as the edges and interactions as the vertices. Everything that we see, directly or indirectly, is connected to everything else that we see in this graph. The universe is then the closure of this staggeringly large Feynman diagram."

"But what if there are other particles we haven't seen yet?", Virginia asked.

"We just add them and their interactions when we find them. There's nothing wrong with that. The thing that RJH has trouble understanding is that our concept of universe has changed, indeed has had to change, everytime new structures were found. The universe is not tied to our current understanding of what is in it."

"But what if the quarks and leptons are made up of smaller things?"

"Then we replace our composites with these more fundamental things and their interactions. Maybe one day string theory/M-theory/loop gravity/whatever will pan out and we will know the ultimate constituents of the universe."

"Do other universes exist?"

"They might. But we'll never know about them, because they have no interaction, no connection to our universe by definition. In the same way, it is meaningless to speak of travelling to another universe, because as soon as you interact with that other universe, everything that was 'there' is now connected to everything 'here' and vice-versa. It is all one universe, sort of like when you merge two water drops on a window into one."

"Wow!"

"Yes, Virginia, there is a universe!"

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Celestial Mechanic wrote:I am not a philosopher. To have wisdom is to possess discernment, judgement, and prudence. Wisdom is not needed to define something, only discernment.

In the quote CM refers to above, I tried to show the kind of problems that can arise if we try to define a real thing as a set or class. We have no such problems when real things are not defined as a set or class. Modern definition: The Moon is the Earth's natural satellite. Ancient definition: The Moon is the largest and brightest thing ever seen in the night sky.

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:Word salad? Not at all. The words are precisely arranged according to the rules of grammar into properly put questions. Perhaps CM will be surprised to find out that each of those questions is meaningful and answerable. However, since those questions are outside the intended scope of this thread and in the interest of brevity I will only answer the first question.

My self is the self that belongs to me. The self is a re-entrant neurological function of the brain. Because of that re-entrancy, the self is comparable to the type of computer programming function known as a self-recursive function. A self-recursive function can initiate multiple instances of itself.

The self is the awareness one has whether awake or dreaming. That awareness can be aware of its own awareness (self-awareness or self-consciousness), can be aware of its own self-awareness, and can even be aware that it is aware of its own self-awareness. I would imagine that chess masters could hold many more such levels of awareness in mind at one time. The objects of that awareness also include ones sensory perceptions, ones own actions, and ones own thoughts. Awareness of those objects enables the most important functions of the self: the direction and control of ones thoughts and actions.

Archer17 wrote:The basis for the definition of a noun is one or more other nouns and meaning delimiters such as adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. An adverb alone cannot be the basis for defining a noun. The adverb 'everywhere' cannot be the basis for defining the noun 'universe.'

I wrote: To which Celestial Mechanic repliedI did not say that anyone proposed an obvious self-contradiction. I said "If the universe were defined….. ." That was not an attempt to create a straw-man, but was an illustration of an obvious self-contradiction. Self-contradiction = illogical = absurd = contrary to all reason and common sense.

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:The intent of this thread, as its title indicates, is to explore whether or not the universe idea is justifiable. If the intent were broadened to include all aspects of the universe idea, it would soon be too lengthy and unwieldy for a bulletin board thread. Therefore, I will not answer CM's questions in detail. I will, however, present my immediate observations about CM's questions.

If I could correct and make reasonable the concept of universe, then it would not have to be abandoned. Therefore we can, for the moment, skip questions of abandonment and go to CM's last question. My threads about tides, red shift, inertia, and centrifugal force were not motivated by any offensiveness of those ideas. The concept of universe is not offensive to me. I do not understand why CM assumes that it is.

I hope CM's use of the word "origins" is an oversight or a typo; I don't think that a thing can have more than one origin. It is true that if we "abandon" the idea of a universe and of its having properties and a history, we can also abandon any idea of asking about its origin. But that only means that we would adopt the idea of asking about the origins of the things that exist (past, present, or future). Modern genetics supports the idea that each human on earth today has a common African ancestor who lived about 200,000 years ago. It is possible, likewise, that each thing that exists today shares a common ancestral origin. We can ask about that origin. I think that what we would ask would be much the same in both cases.

Jerry wrote:Indeed you do have proof of the Easter Bunny's existence. But, that existence is only in the mind of the artist who copied a mental image of it to create a visual representation of that image. Of course if the artist says "No! No! The Easter Bunny was painted from life," shouldn't we ask the artist to verify that claim?

Jerry also wrote:Ah! Company at last.
I proposed http://badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2013&postdays=0&postorder= asc&start=0&sid=823d7419b55d1b530ea06a339b ab7c3b]that idea [/url]here on ATM a few years ago and in a book published in 2001. From time to time I still try to produce the equations.

Celestial Mechanic wrote :[quote] Here's a definition of universe that even Forrest Gump could understand:"So the universe it that which I cannot leave is it? Let's see, what is it that I cannot leave? I cannot leave myself. I cannot leave my true love I cannot leave well enough alone. I'll bet if CM asked Forrest Gump what he cannot leave, Forrest would answer "Well, Mama said I cannot leave without saying goodbye."

Of course I know that was not what CM meant. CM must have meant that which I myself cannot leave. If I were a felon in a prison, had never heard of the word 'universe' and looked it up in CM's dictionary, I would think that the universe was the prison. But what about my trying to leave something on a cosmological scale? It would take so long for me to leave the local galaxy that I would be dead long before that. My dead body could conceivably make it out of the local galaxy, but my dead body is not the same as myself. So I myself could not leave the local galaxy. Does that make the local galaxy the universe?

I have never read a scientific definition that contains the word 'cannot' or that defines by exclusion. Somehow it reminds me of a favorite comic strip episode that I have mentioned before. In the comic strip BC, prehistoric Thor, with chisel and mallet in hand, is making a statue of Peter, who stands before him. BC asks "Thor, how do you get such a perfect likeness of Peter?" Thor replies "It's easy. I just chip away everything that doesn't look like Peter."

It's fairly easy to define something that can be observed. It's not so easy to define something that cannot be directly or indirectly observed. It seems that CM would like the universe to be the one thing that no other thing can leave. Why must there be a thing that nothing else can leave? Why must there be an ultimate largest structure in nature?

If Forrest Gump understood the intent of CM's definition and were to ask CM why he couldn't leave the universe, I think CM couldn't answer him without redefining the universe.

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:There is a flaw in my above quoted argument, but it is not fatal. It is a language flaw in the phrase "think of an automobile." It should have been written as "think about an automobile" to have the same sense as "reason about the universe" in the next sentence.

Thinking of something and thinking about something are not the same thing. In the 'of' case, 'think' is a transitive verb meaning to have in mind, to hold in ones opinion, to believe, etc. In the 'about' case, 'think' is an intransitive verb meaning to bring the intellectual capacities into play, to reason, to use the mind for arriving at conclusions.

I do not think that anyone can reason about an automobile if it is considered to be merely a collection of protons, neutrons, electrons, etc. How could we explain that some of the automobile's protons, neutrons, and electrons produce light, that some produce sounds, and some provide traction? The properties of an automobile cannot be explained from the fact that it consists of sub-atomic particles. Automobile properties can only be understood in terms of its larger scale components such as engine, frame, transmission, tires, steering assembly, headlights, etc. One need not know that bolts and nuts hold the engine to the frame in order to understand or reason about an automobile. One only needs to know about those bolts and nuts if one wants to understand or reason about the engine mounting.

One can think of the universe in any way one wishes: as that which one cannot leave, as everywhere, as the totality of all that exists, as the whole of existence, etc. However, to think about the universe, to reason about the universe, as a particular kind of collection ignores the fact that the universe is many different kinds of collections. It is a collection of sub-nuclear particles, it is a collection of atoms, it is a collection of stars and dust, it is a collection of galaxies, it is a collection of galaxy clusters, etc. The universe, then, is also a collection of collections. That last definition of the universe is the definition of a set or class rather than the definition of a physical thing.

Reasoning about sub-nuclear particles explains the properties of atoms. Reasoning about atoms explains the properties of stars and dust. Reasoning about stars and dust explains the properties of galaxies. One explains the properties of a cosmological thing by reasoning about the largest aggregates of which it is composed. If the universe is a physical object, why, unlike atoms, stars, or galaxies, should its properties be explainable by reasoning about aggregates that are not the largest of which it is composed?

Celestial Mechanic next wrote:Note that Celestial Mechanic no longer views the universe as a collection of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Now Celestial Mechanic views it as consisting of quarks, leptons, etc. Next, in order to explain the emission of photons Celestial Mechanic hops a few rungs up the aggregate ladder to "some particle or composite of particles." Further on Celestial Mechanic takes a big jump up the aggregate ladder and invokes "some systems."

Celestial Mechanic objected to my statement that "It would be equally impossible to reason about the universe as an assemblage of atoms, or stars." However, Celestial Mechanic's need to invoke other rungs of the aggregate ladder while reasoning about the universe contradicts his own objection.

Celestial Mechanic next wrote:Here we have what are purported to be two new definitions of the universe. The first sentence is "So here's my definition of the universe: there are particles that interact with one another". That sentence taken literally would mean 'the universe is defined as there are particles that interact with one another.' That first definition is meaningless. I doubt that CM intended to define the universe that way. That sentence should have been broken into two sentences as: So here's my definition of the universe. There are particles that interact with one another".

The second definition is so esoteric that not only would it be beyond Forrest Gump's comprehension, it would also be beyond most people's grasp. Furthermore, there are several problems with CM's second definition as it stands. There are no problems with the claims "there are particles that interact with one another" and "Particles and interactions can be represented by Feynman graphs, with particles as the edges and interactions as the vertices." However, in the next sentence ("Everything that we see, directly or indirectly, is connected to everything else that we see in this graph".) CM makes an unexplained switch from particles to things. Although all particles are things, not all things are particles. The definition presented of a Feynman graph is in terms of particles and interactions. It has not been made clear how objects other than particles can be represented on a Feynman graph. Note, also, that an undefined term 'this graph' has been invoked.

That sentence "Everything that we see, directly or indirectly, is connected to everything else that we see in this graph" has more problems. If the statement is true for everything that we see directly or indirectly, then it must be true for the moon in the sky, which we certainly can see directly. According to that sentence, then, the moon in the sky is connected to everything else that we see in this graph. That seems to mean that the moon seen in the sky is connected to the non-moon things seen in the graph. That cannot be CM's intent. Perhaps CM's intent is better expressed as "This graph represents the connections between anything that we see and everything else that we see." Note that CM's sentence does not include unobserved things of the universe.

The last sentence "The universe is then the closure of this staggeringly large Feynman diagram" is phrased as if it is a definition of the universe. The term 'Feynman diagram' has not been defined. Perhaps it is meant to be synonymous with 'Feynman graph.' Although the terms 'particles', 'interactions', 'lines', and 'vertices' appear in the description of Feynman graphs, the term 'closure' does not. How is closure represented on a Feynman graph?

CM's statement that begins with "Particles and interactions can be represented by Feynman graphs" defines a Feynman graph as a representation of particles and interactions. However, to represent a thing is not the same as to define it. One might be able to claim that the universe can be represented by a Feynman diagram, but not that it is a Feynman diagram, nor that it is the closure of such a diagram.

CM has not been able to present a new definition for the universe.

Celestial Mechanic also wrote:Let's examine what those two sentences have to say about the universe. The first sentence claims that our concept of the universe changed every time new structures were found. A concept is an idea of something formed by mentally combining all of its characteristics or particulars. Since a characteristic is a distinguishing feature or quality, we can rephrase the notion of a concept. A concept is an idea of something formed by mentally combining all of its distinguishing features or qualities. Although there are many kinds of structures in nature, no one of them is a distinguishing feature of the universe.

When Hubble discovered that other galaxies were outside the local galaxy, galaxies were the largest known structure. Galaxies were then dubbed the "building blocks of the universe." If they had been ultimate largest structures they would have been distinguishing features of the universe since only the universe would consist of galaxies. However, larger structures discovered since then have not been referred to as building blocks of the universe. I guess it is a case of 'once burned, twice cautious.' I do not think that there is any reason why there must be ultimate largest or smallest structures in nature.

The term 'all the things that exist' can be divided into two categories: the known things that exist and the unknown things that exist. The only thing that would have changed when a new structure was found would have been the transfer of one item from the 'unknown things that exist' category to the 'known things that exist' category. That is not sufficient to change our conception of the universe.

The second sentence is "The universe is not tied to our current understanding of what is in it." What does the second sentence mean? If it means that the universe itself is not tied to our current understanding of what is in it, that sentence, if true, is irrelevant; it is more likely that the sentence is false. Let's take that second sentence to mean that our concept of the universe is not tied to our current understanding of what is in it. An equivalent meaning is that our concept of the universe is independent of what is in it. That meaning agrees with my preceding analysis of the first sentence and contradicts CM's first sentence: "our concept of universe has changed, indeed has had to change, everytime new structures were found."

The discovery of new structures does not change our concept of the universe. Rather, it causes scrambling to modify universe theories.

P.S. Celestial Mechanic gets my thanks and an A+++ for a truly delightful, creative, and novel adaptation of Francis P. Church's classic

You might not believe that, but I've never seen a better example than in your posts.

Yet your arguments are based on your own personal philosophy, not on any sort of scientific reasoning...and surprise, this is a science board.

BOY...ain't that the truth.

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I thought I killed and buried this thread! Well, it was dormant for 16 days. This is the time of the month where I am busy editing a newsletter, so I can't get to this right away. I just read Herbert Dingle's Science at the Crossroads and I need to say a few words about that. But by Saturday 05:00 UT Virginia and I can return with salad dressing and take arms against the slings and arrows of outrageous word salad!

Edited to add:
Neither can I! :wink:

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Richard J. Hanek:
Solopsistic sophistry.

Chasing your tail is fine. Doing it in public, however...

I wore out such navel-gazing at about ten years old. I realized to get anywhere, I had to accept certain premises and reject others.


Good luck on finding yourself. Or whatever you hope to accomplish with this thread.

See, I'm just a figment of your imagination, after all. I don't exist, so why should you care about any of the replies you get? You have less proof for any of our existences than any of the universe hypotheses you hope to refute.

Universe = {U | U interacts with Earth in physical ways}
U = {All things}

This is my favourite working definition.
If Universe does not exist, => U does not exist, and since we all belong to U, then we don't exist, and so neither does this discussion.

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"The plan does not involve mayonaise."
"... I knew there was a catch."

You can't take the sky from me.

Agreed. =D>

I've just read through the majority of this thread (having bowed out at the beginning). I've concluded that this discussion would certainly would have been better if it didn't exist! Can we all say, "exercise in futility" three times fast?

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An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

That's why I dropped out.

But then I would never have written my "Yes, Virginia ..." posts. And there are more to come! It's a good thing these were inspired on page 4 rather than page 14 or even (ugh!) 40!

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.