the origin of the universe .....

i have no explanation for the creation of the universe, for its sheer size and complexity gives one with any whit whatsoever considerable pause.  but, here it is, and the "is" is not only almost impossible to conceive, but equally resistant of measure by our limited means.

i find "the big bang theory" more persuasive evidence of our naivete and sense of humor than anything else, as everything (as much as it is) coming from nothing (as little as that may be) is a bit of a stretch intellectually, as far as i am concerned.

science is arrogant.  it says one thing, and means another, and challenges anyone who points out the problems as being ignorant.  (sort of like "typepad," "facebook" and "google" in that regard, but that is for another day.)

take "black holes," of which recently we have our first picture of something that is "invisible."  that is pretty funny.   but, one of the cardinal tenets of science w/ regard to "black holes" is that "once in, never out."  in other words, if i comprehend everything correctly, that the gravitational forces from such immense mass is so little space, (comparatively speaking) allows no escape of anything attracted in.  over the "event horizon."  (why anything cannot be sucked in from just any old place around what seems by necessity to be a sphere, ...  most "dealings" with gravity seem spherical, and has to come in from a giant sucking tube (the "event hozizon") is not explained, now, is it.  seems an obvious issue.)

but, then, science turns around and talks about the enormous amounts of radiation and ejecta that comes out of the black hole, from the "event horizon," and how some of these streams of ejecta oscillate: you know, wiggle.  well, even if these items are sub-atomic particles, it is something, it is matter.  e=mc(c).   that means if it is energy, it is matter, and if it is matter, it is energy.  it's that little "=" thingie bobbie that causes all the mischief, for energy and matter are the same.   consider sunlight, and other forms of radiation.  are they little bits of goop, are they material, or are they simple motion and movement, expressed as waves.  goop, protons, neutrons, electrons or photons or smaller, or are they vibrations and wave forms, simply movement and wave forms.  well, they are both, or so it would seem.  eisenberg and uncertainty, and all that fun.  (you talk about a guy with a sense of whimsy, transcending mere humor.  a very clever guy, tongue firmly in cheek, that eisenberg.)

that is why i think science is so funny, because at its very root is whimsy, that being the naivete and humor that supposes that contradiction, unexplained, resolves everything: explanation that does not explain: confusion, that elucidates.  (sorta along the lines of energy & matter.)  we are still, for all of our arrogance and naked ambition, not so very far removed from witch doctors spattering chicken blood and entrails over the assembled throngs, who gape in awe.

yep, we can make things go "boom" in rather impressive ways, but we are still removed from having vehicles that can climb gravitational fields into space obviating the need for all of the propellant to climb from earth's gravity  ....   whatever gravity is.  we can describe fairly accurately what it does, (thank you very much mr. newton, but we still haven't the foggiest why or how it does what it does.  trust me on this, this is the current "state of our knowledge" on the matter, in spite stephen hawking's best efforts.  (do you do that voodoo which you do so well, and i love so well, .... , so to speak.)

to me, the "big bang theory" is science encapsulated.  it explains everything out of words which explain absolutely nothing.  phfffffttt!!  and there it is.    a rabbit, out of a hat, now for my next trick.

and, thereby, or so it is claimed, exists a science which absolutely destroys "simplistic" views relying upon the existence of god to explain things.  it sort of reminds me of dueling wizards in harry potter books throwing balls of magic at each other.  can anyone explain to me, why "let there be light" is any less compelling an explanation for things than e=mc(c), or the "big bang theory?"   as for me, i will stake my money on the poetry of genesis over the arrogance of science, such as it exists, for right now, and for so long as i am likely to be still around.  (as you get older, and accumulate more illnesses, you edge quite a bit closer to "mere belief," in the lexicon of the age.  well, i am leaning over "the event horizon" at the bottom of the digs at the cemetery, and god seems quite reasonable to me.)

i've an open mind on things.  if science truly gets beyond parlor tricks and splattered chicken guts, maybe i'll go with it.  but, for right now, the metaphysical transcends the merely physical.  faith in observed things and events, miracles even in every day, as opposed to "theory."

take birth, and life, for instance.   explain that.

john jay @ 03.03.2021

 

p.s.   the science types ask of "black holes," "what do it do?"   well, i'd say the answer is pretty damned obvious.  "black holes" are at the center of almost everything that is great big and is comprised of stars, as the main component of interest.   it is, therefore, quite obvious to me that what "black holes" do, is to make stars, and that the stuff of such construction is the stuff that black holes spew out into space  .....   just think of it as building materials.   nascent matter, waiting to attract other nascent matter to build on, waiting for gravity to do its tricks and make stars, and waiting for stars to build more complex atoms before the stars go nova and spew the heavy elements into space.   earth for instance, has a whole lot of iron, and heavier particles.  the witch doctors explain that such things are manufactured only in the cauldrons of heat and gravity present in stars, just before the go "boom."

it all takes time.   but, time is what the universes seem to have plenty of.   maybe black holes make time?  who knows?

it's as plain as the nose on my face.   even simple.   just quite logical.   pretty much inescapable and unavoidable.    now, as to "who" or "what" made the whole mess?  ....   that is quite beyond me.   and, quite beyond anyone else, regardless of their pretension.   those who "explain" such matters are, for the time being, just engaging in word games.  along the lines of "nothing" makes "something."  word play.

Comments

[john jay]

friends:

"take birth, and life, for instance."

science can describe "how" things occur, in terms of sequence and all that. pretty accurately.

as to "why," science has no more ready answer than the poorest human intellect ever conceived and given life.

in some thing, "smart" counts for absolutely nothing. "just cuz" serves as well, in this instance, as all the degrees harvard or yale can bestow. or, even snhu.

john jay

[Paul Albers]

I believe Scientists are still are debating which way current flows in an electrical circuit. I think you can blame Old Ben for that.
I really do not know much about the Big Bang, but if true why isn't every thing the same age? Maybe I am oversimplifying everything. I guess I fit into that category that a little bit of knowledge is dangerous.

[jj]

paul:

laughing.

1.)thanks for the visit.
2.)ive never let a little thing such as not knowing very much, frighten me off a topic.  i always figure that if i am talking complete nonsense, someone will inform me of such, in no uncertain terms. ...  people are very obliging like that.
3.)i read an article that other day explaining why a theoretical physicist is explaining to other like persons why time is real.  to me, if is simple.   time is a physical occurrence  .....  you are born, you get older, you eat proteins and turn it into muscle, fat and a silly way of looking at the world, there are wars, car wrecks, and pumpkins rot after thanksgiving, but it takes a long time.  (i know this, because i watched on rot on a balcony just to see how long it would take  ....  more than several months, as it turned out.)   and, then you die, and your little bits and pieces that put you together amble off somewhere else.   this is not imagination, it is real, and it depends upon the sequence of physical occurrence, and this is time.
some scientists are not convinced of this.
then, again, science used to argue that critters cannot think, that their behavior was instinctual.   they obviously never hunted elk, which are clever enough, by any measure.
4.)some scientists argue that the big bang is still banging, and creating more at an ever increasing pace.  on the other hand, i havent noticed more land around these parts, so this creating part must be taking place some place far away  ....   how convenient for the theorists.   laughing.

well, enough of this.  i am sticking with let there be light.   would the scientist have been have been satisfied had god shouted bang!!! after let there be light.  let there be light, bang!!!    just like emril lagassee.    laughing.
again, well enough of this.   see ya, and hows the weather in houstan, besides wet and horrible?

john

[Paul Albers]

More horrible and severe next week. Not as cold but windy and wet with possible scattered Tornadoes.As far as animals go I can only vouch for dogs. They are clever, they have so many human like emotions it is hard to not treat them as human beings' The Border Collie we have now walks slowly in front of my wheel chair. I think he is guarding me and herding me.Constantly at my side. When I get on the exercising
bench he is right there with me with a worried expression.

I know of which you speak about people that cannot wait to correct others when they hose up. So I will not mention that it is Houston.

Stay safe.

[ajacksonian]

What science attempts to do is find a way to explain how things work around us. The concept of being able to have results when we ask questions of the universe relies on the universe telling us no lies. If we cannot understand the results then we can hypothesize how things could work in a system, and a system must include more than just the anomalies but include all prior known viewpoints or give reasons as to why prior views didn't work and offer a framework that explains the problems of prior work and then offers new venues to test the hypothesis put forward. Einstein's relativity system was built to explain problems in Newtonian mechanics, offer a framework that could be tested against and then it explained problems that even Einstein hadn't thought about. Gravity bends light, and Einstein had a colleague point out that his math was incorrect and he corrected it in time for measurements taken during a solar eclipse actually verified that light was bent by gravity. By analyzing the orbit of Mercury, the effect of frame dragging was able to explain its orbital path that was non-repeating, and it utilized the sun's gravitational influence at close range to show that frame-dragging via gravity was an actual and measurable phenomena. Black holes have immense gravity, but that is not suction, just the bending of space-time to a singularity that has an event horizon around it. Light passing into this gravity well that does not intersect the event horizon comes out of the black hole's gravity well, but is bent and at long range this is known as gravitational lensing to observers. By utilizing the concepts presented by Einstein and working with quantum mechanics, and such things as the conservation of energy, there is the hypothesis (which we can't test at present) that information in the universe is conserved (just like angular momentum) and that anything that goes into a black hole has the information about it conserved, because there is no way to destroy it. While we can't test this directly, it is a useful concept that can be utilized for such things as information passed during quantum entanglement.

Einstein hated quantum mechanics and the 'spooky action at a distance' of quantum entanglement, and the concept of probability as a whole. Einstein put forward that god doesn't play dice with cause and effect, while the quantum view is that probability is a phenomena that can be measured, and understood to a degree as having actual physical effects. Wave/particle dynamics and the observer effect allow for the two slit experiment, demonstrating wave activity of photons, and then singular emission of photons which demonstrate particle activity. Both are forms of energy expression and are a deep way of expressing energy in our universe. Quantum mechanics goes against all that we observe at the large scale, though it does have some large scale effects, and basically puts down the concept that Nature plays no favorites, and the physical reality around us is the results of all the possible outcomes that cohere into our universe when observed. Yet quantum mechanics has its own framework that obviously has intersection with the larger scale framework started by Einstein, and through testing of both we gain understanding of our physical reality. Physics, by the view of everyday life, is weird. That doesn't mean its wrong, it is just weird and getting something out of nothing is just one part of the weirdness of it.

All of physics breaks down at the big bang due to the process of the universe gaining physical laws. There was no limit on information speed or the speed of light, and at the smallest level everything was interconnected in a way that we cannot comprehend easily. Why don't other universes suddenly appear within our own? No idea save lots of handwaving. Why did the physical laws come out the way they did? Unknown. The question of 'why' is suitable to science, the question of 'how' is primary, and the form of language that is utilized is mathematics. Mathematics has gone far beyond simple system and Euclidean geometry and those who study math to find out new ways to express it find that physicists start to catch on to their ideas when there are phenomena that cannot be explained by use of known mathematics to explain the rest of the phenomena going on. The great imaginative systems of strange forms of mathematics are torn down to help explain how our universe works. From mathematical information theory we get implementation in physics on the conservation of information as something that can be researched and utilized as a concept. If it is verified and new ideas about it discovered that can also be tested and verified, then it is seen as a valid implementation and the extent of that new field are then examined for other effects it should have. Invalid concepts are tossed aside for the present, though they may be reutilized later at a different scale. Science often finds itself visiting the trash heap of discarded ideas and finding systems that do work, just not at the original scale or scope they were first utilized before being discarded. From this we know that science is weird. Math is weird. And our everyday perceptions work within a weird universe, not because we are dull or ordinary, but because we are part and parcel of this strange thing known as 'reality'. I have no problems with science dealing with the 'how' of things and trying to find out how everything fits together. I doubt that an actual 'why' of everything will ever be discovered, but that is just a personal opinion. If we could comprehend the 'why' then we will transcend all knowledge and everything will be known. I don't see that happening any time soon, if ever.

[john jay]

ajacksonian:

well, that clears everything up.

and, science does posit that "things," planets, suns and the like fall over the "event horizon" and enter into black holes. they even has offered pictures and graphic representations of such things happening.

where they go, no one knows. as popeye would say, they just "disk-appears." phfffffttt!!!

light bends, that seems observable.

you note that science is hesitant to get into the why of things. maybe so. but, if so, why is science so hostile to those who do wish to delve into the "whys and wherefores," and why is leftist politics so cozy with "science" (which postulates all the reason we need government to run thing to the exclusion of all other moral & ethical considerations), and again, so hostile to other sources of ethics and value, such as religion and philosophy not based on marx, lenin and hegel.

and, donald trump intimated that he has seen little green men, and got nothing but opprobrium from leftists and no interest at all from science.

in my view, scientists should stick to science, and stay the hell out of politics and religious views. (and, maybe the opposite is a good idea, too.)

btw, thanks for the visit. thanks for the comment, and your views on the functioning of scientific inquiry.

and, we must never loose sight of the "why," else we slide toward a viscous reductionism, such as nazi experimentation during (and before) wwii. i don't know if you know this, but nazi experimentation on jews, gypsies, roman catholic priests was all known by german universities and institutes, and overseen by same. science is very close, at all times, when it forgets the "why," and human values and ethical systems. there can be no neutrality on this issue.

john jay

[john jay]

friends:

on quantum physics.--

to make things work, they make things up, like "imaginary" numbers.

it's true.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/imaginary-numbers-may-be-essential-for-describing-reality-20210303/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

"imaginary numbers may be essential for describing reality," by charlie wood, 03.03.21, quanta magazine.

in short if you cannot prove it by mathematics, you make something up to prove it.

very clever. these people may be smart, (they say they are, and they give each other credentials to prove it), but i wouldn't trust them to build a bridge over a very deep chasm, if i had to drive it to get to work.

now, how much of this enters into the "proof" of covid-19? or, biden's election?

john jay