newdealtn

I'm recalling off-hand, but I believe I heard a figure of 380,000 years after the Big Bang that light (photons) was first released from a bondage to matter--I have no idea what that was (?)--and the energy which is now remembered in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Radiation of some three degrees Kelvin was first illuminated into space. Has anyone else seen this figure or do you know the phenomenon to which it refers? Isn't Cosmology and Astronomy just fascinating?

Yeah, sigurdV, that's about it. Space-time begins with the universe and ends with the universe, because space-time is the universe--the arena in which matter and energy play out their activities. Before the universe, there was neither space nor time, but there was existence. As one of our posters has questioned, the idea of existence "outside" of space-time doesn't really make sense, does it? How can you exist outside of space since outside is a quality that is defined by space? Well, it's a simple linguistic problem. We mean more properly to say that existence is independent of space-time; that existence does not require space-time. But what can exist outs...oops! independent of space-time? To understand this, we must first understand what qualities of things are defined by space-time. We've already decided that "outside" is a no-no if there is no space. There can be neither outside nor inside, neither size nor shape, neither number nor division, neither size nor shape without space. Therefore, what exists independent of space is not only a single thing, it is one without other. It is indivisible, undifferentiated, neither this nor that, neither here nor there (did I mention that it can't have location?), nameless and unnameable. I like that because it sounds so much like a mystic describing the Brahman. I think what they are experiencing is their own existence independent of spacial context. Existence independent of space-time is also devoid of qualities associated with time. It is unchanging, without process or event, immutable, and without beginning or end. Because it is without beginning or end, whatever exists independent of space-time must be boolean, by which I mean that it must either exist or not exist. If it doesn't exist, it can never begin to exist. If it does exist, it can never cease to exist. And it must exist, because you and I exist. If I didn't exist, how are these words written? If you don't exist, how are these words read? In philosophy there is a term called "necessary existence", a term used often by people who are trying to prove the existence of God. I'm not trying to prove the existence of God, but I think that existence independent of space-time does, by its boolean nature, fully satisfy the definition of "necessary existence". I think "initial condition" is a scientific rather than a philosophical term, but I'm prepared to stand corrected if someone knows better. :-) When a scientist says that the universe comes from nothing, she is basically saying that nothing is the initial condition from which the universe comes. Nothing is precisely what existence independent of space-time would appear to be, but it would not be nothing. Existence independent of space-time is the potentiality for everything that will become the universe or a part of the universe. I have no idea what that potentiality is, what the nature of that potentiality is, I only know that whatever existed before the universe must have possessed the potentiality by which the universe is explained. In fact, if there is a multiverse of universes, that initial condition of existence independent of space-time must have possessed the potentiality adequate to explain all the universes of the multiverse. Because it is an initial condition, it remains immutable and changeless, undiminished by all the universes that may "awaken" from it--that is, have their origin from it. Existence is the initial condition, t=0; the universe is t=1...n and all the changes from t=0 that actualize it. Samm

If nothing exists, then there can be no explanation of the possibility that something might begin to exist. No explanation at all. Not even quantum uncertainty, since not even quantum uncertainty could exist. The absolute absence of any existence must necessarily preclude any possibility of something beginning to exist. Furthermore, if something appears to come from nothing, we must presume that the appearance of nothing has hidden within it the potentiality whereby the more obvious appearance of something has come about, there being no other possible explanation for the becoming of that something. Let me be clear here that I am not speaking of a local instance of nothing, but a nothing that is universal and absolute. The essential proposition is that something (that exists) cannot come into existence absent any adequate explanation of its doing so, from which we may conclude that the present existence of something entails the causally previous existence of something indefinitely into the causal past. More later.

I'm talking about existence itself. Not the bells and whistles that can also be experienced as hallucinations, not the "esse est percipi" of Berkeley. More like "the thing in itself". I'm talking about what it means to exist, to be real. Now you are right; it is by experience that we assess the reality of things, because experience is all that we can know. We can know nothing that we have not experienced. Thus, reality is communicated by experience. We cannot experience anything unless (1) we exist to experience it and (2) it exists to be experienced. In this way, experience validates existence, not because we actually experience the existence of things but because things must exist in order to be experienced; because experience derives from existence. And I'm talking about existence as a principle independent of and transcendent to space and time; space and time are only two other things that exist, elements of the set of existing things, so existence cannot be restricted by the qualities of space-time, although every observable and measurable quality we associate with beings in our experiences are space-time qualities and not existence itself. Hawking's something from nothing is virtual particle pairs created from an existing energy potency in space. This false vacuum sort of phenomenon is not a true "nothing" of course, although it appears to be nothing. What we think to be nothing is often only what is hidden. Such is the existence of things. Samm

You're quite right, maddog. But "outside of" is just language that's easy to use. I do not mean it to be accurate. The most correct phrase I can think of would be "independent of", existence independent of space-time is more precise. As to the bubble reference, I often call the universe an inside with no outside, a space-time bubble inside a singularity. We must remember that space and time both exist, according to most theories, only as elements of the universe and not as elements of the multiverse. Samm

I guess existence itself is as close as you can get to nothing. It can't be seen or felt or heard. It has no size or shape or location or motion, no beginning or end. It only has boundless and immeasurable potential. Samm

Most physicists place little credence in the many worlds interpretation, since an uncountable number of events that would generate alternate universes are happening every nano-second in this universe alone, and a similar number would be happening in every one of the alternate universes. The concept is based on a faulty understanding of quantum events to begin with and builds quickly to complete absurdity. There may indeed be many universes in the multiverse, but they have no relationship between them other than their source, a single initial condition adequate to explain all the universes that arise from it. The Big Bang is not that source; it is a secondary event. I don't know more than anyone else here, but I do know that space-time establishes a cause-effect protocol that cannot be escaped by anything existing within space-time (e.g., within a universe). The initial condition is outside of space-time, which means that whatever exists in it can have no size or shape, no inside or outside, no motion or location, nor any other quality associated with space; neither can it have any quality associated with time, no change or process, no beginning or end. But something must exist outside of space-time universes and that something must have the capacity, the potentiality, to serve as a catalyst for the "birth" of universes without being directly involved in the process of those births; that is to say that whatever initial condition universes come from must not be changed or diminished in any way by those universal births. The ground-state of existence, outside of space-time, is ideally suited to this because it cannot be caused, it has no beginning, it simply is or is not. If it is not, then all universes lose their source, nothing can come to be because only nothing can ever come to be from nothing. Existence or non-existence, whichever occupies the initial condition of the multiverse can never be replaced by the other. Since we now exist in a space-time universe, it follows that existence is the initial condition of the multiverse, from which all universes are "born". It also follows that existence as the initial condition of the multiverse must incorporate the potential from which universes arise, and that such potentiality cannot be manifest in any form requiring space-time since space-time too can only have latent existence in the initial condition. I am bothered by M-theory and the concept of membranes explaining the Big Bang because membranes exist in both space and time, so we must ask where did the space and time come from. Any ultimate explanation must explain all manifest being including space-time. The only ultimate explanation I can find is this explanation that existence itself is outside of space-time, as surely it must be since it is not an element of space-time--rather space-time is an element of things that exist. In some ontologies, existence is seen as some manner of property or quality belonging to each being, but existence is a universal and belongs to no particular thing. That's one reason we have such trouble understanding non-existence, nothingness. What does not exist can have no properties or qualities or attributes, so it cannot be identified or conceived or specified in any manner. We say that unicorns don't exist, but they do exist, if not as substantial beings, then as conceptual beings, objects of nature or objects of imagination. Everything we can think of or speak about exists in some fashion; we must only discern whether it is part of nature or contingent upon something that is a part of nature. Sorry if this gets on toward metaphysics. Samm

maddog, my only knowledge of these things is from Science Channel specials, but I was thinking that gamma ray bursts were the events that occurred when massive (galactic) black holes were feasting on a bounty of nearby materials, when they ejected focused streams from their two poles of spin. These beams are common to quasars for example. Most are quite distant but are so focused as to retain immense power over long distances, being narrow beam ejecta rather than spherical radiations like sunlight. Am I thinking about the wrong thing then? Samm

Here's my guess, Borealis. My understanding is that gamma rays are about the most energetic levels of radiation. It would depend on how much got to us, but if I may assume that by "moderately powerful burst" you mean an average exposure--that's the iffy part; what is average for a power that can be the most powerful force in the universe?--I think you're looking at something that would scorch the earth. A good hit, from what I've gathered, would maybe destabilize the planet structure like a direct hit from a planetary object. But if you're talking about a hit that some humans somewhere on earth could survive, I think you're talking about a burst that would damage some or most man-made objects and kill many trees but would probably spare a greater percentage of those than humans. You might want to consider how you can more precisely state your question. Samm

I can't get enough of this stuff, guys. Ya'll just keep on talking about Higgs and mass-energy coefficients and how mass can warp space and all this other good gravity stuff. I don't know what it all means, but I'm lovin' it! :) Samm

Do we know that time is a stream of moments, each linked to and following upon the one immediately before it? I think that my senses perceive only one single moment at a time, and that moment for so brief a duration that I can't measure it, then that moment is gone and the next moment is perceived. I'm quite sure that I don't perceive multiple moments at once; I live in the now of time, not in the past, not in the future, only in the now of the present. But if I live (and perceive) only in a single moment comprising the present moment (the now of time), how can I realize motion or change, how can I think? In any single moment of time, there is no motion, no change, no process (like thought). So I must live in more than one moment. Do I perceive both the present and the past at once? Would that not necessarily create a blurring of images and other perceptions? How could it not? It can only be then that perception occurs within the moment, and that the information of the senses is continually streamed to the brain, but consciousness and understanding incorporate very short-term memory that allows us to be aware of a brief stream of moments at once. Each moment of perception registers on the brain and fades from this immediate memory slowly (maybe several fractions of a second) while subsequent perceptions overlay and update it. There is thus a sequence of momentary perceptions in our immediate memory that allow us to conceive an actual stream of moments of time. It is the brain and its memory that allow us to perceive a series of interlinking moments and thereby experience motion, change, thought. We exist then in only one moment of time, the now of time, in which there is neither motion, change, nor process. Only because our brains are capable of holding memories are we able to string together several adjacent moments of perceptions to create a stream of memories in which we can realize motion, change, and process. Hence, only by the retention of perceptions (memory) can we be aware of time; and we aren't really aware of time as such, but we are aware instead of change across our stream of remembered perceptions. Change is the reality. Time is only how we have come to understand the volume of change that rushes through our conscious perceptions. Now we may further ask, are the moments of time discrete and separate or are they continuous and analogous? Do moments of time have a size unto themselves (for example, 10^-32 seconds?) or is time an analogue process in which moments are only abstract notches on a clock face and not actual discrete units of time itself? Here, I think it's important to remind ourselves that time is not the reality; it's actually only a conceptual measuring device whereby we order and measure the changes impinging upon our consciousness relative to artificial mechanisms, clocks and calendars. The clock cycles twice around a twelve hour face from one day to the next; each hour is divided into sixtieth parts called minutes, and each minute divided as well into sixty seconds. The reality measured by the clock is the day; the reality measured by a calendar is the year. The reality is change. I'm guessing that time is not dimensional, that only the now of time has any substance to it. The dimensions of space, you see, are real, each point is just like the other, although the contents of each point will vary. But with time, only the now is substantial. You can't point to the past; it's only a concept to explain what happened to previous moments of time. The reality is that the past is nothing more than memory. By memory, I mean not only common old human memories but more abstract kinds of "memory". The trashcan beside you as you read these words...memory is the explanation of how it comes to be there, the record of changes that account for its presence, whether those memories are in your head or not. There is no past but memory; there is no future but anticipation and momentum. Thus time is not a reality, not a dimension. Change is the only reality. Samm

I read some of Einstein's work, and he did talk about four dimensions of space-time, three dimensional space and one dimension of time. There was little or no discussion of eleven dimensions in his time. His point was that, while the single dimension of time is very different in nature from the three dimensions of space, the fabric of space and time are interwoven in the ways illustrated by relativity. If he meant more than that by his assertions, it certainly was not evident to me in my reading. You know, the three dimensions of space are extremely interwoven. We can see indefinitely in all directions. We can move through them. We do not move through time; rather we fall through it, unable to stop our fall, unable to see ahead or behind (but only to anticipate what may be and remember what has been). Perhaps time is not a dimension, or if it is, it is only a collapsed dimension having only quantum measure. Any way, it certainly is not what we mean when we speak of spatial dimensions. Samm

Actually, Time_Travel, I was hoping you could tell me. :) First, I think something must exist outside of space-time. Any time we try to explain the ultimate origin of anything in space-time we are forced into infinite regress, which I think is a sorry place to be, don't you? But existence can only be explained by existence; non-existence can explain absolutely nothing except non-existence. But if existence is greater than space-time, what is the nature of existence beyond space-time? We can know this much by definition, as it were. If there is no space, there can be neither size nor shape nor location, no inside (undifferentiated) and no outside (unbounded), hence a one without other. There can be no multiplicity, no number, no measure, no relation or experience, no motion ergo no heat. Existence outside of space must be indiscriminate, ineffable, beyond knowing through experience as we know the things of our world. And if existence is outside of time, then there can be no beginning or end, no duration. There can be no events, no process or change. There can be only one thing, a thing which must be, there can only be potentiality, the limitless potentiality of which universes may be born. What I am describing is the ground-state of existence or being, the initial condition from which all universes that may be must have as their origin and initial impulse. Because their can be no beginning or end of it, then it is what I call a boolean being, it either is (1) or isn't (0), and whichever is the case is forever the case. Because we are here, I suspect that it is. Because change is impossible outside of time, I believe that this ground-state of being is not diminished or disturbed by the awakening of universes from its boundless storehouse of potential. Because location is impossible outside of space, I believe the bubbles of universes, however vast the distances within them, occupy no location within the body of that existence beyond space-time. As you can see, those who have described mystical experiences often describe such a reality, but they flower it often with images from their religious experience. It is really nothing but pure existence in its ground-state, unmanifest and frothing with potentiality. If it is not God, it is what God would wish to be. Samm

infamous, if space-time is a property of the universe, then the universe is an expanding space-time bubble that is all inside with no outside. So maybe our universe is sort of a black hole, only inside out, a vast and expanding bubble of space-time inside a singularity, a bubble in which, if you could go beyond the domain of matter and energy within, you would arrive at a threshold (surface?) of which every possible point is the same, identical point. This added trick to your black hole game would explain our increasing velocity of expansion as the effect of falling deeper into the rim of the bubble. Regarding the rest, we must consider our measuring devices and means of measure, don't you think? We're not using a ruler to measure astronomical distances, so the shrinking of our yardstick may not apply. We measure large distances often by calculating red shift. How would red shift be affected by a massive gravity well? I know Einstein equated gravity and acceleration. Would increased gravitational tidal forces have an effect similar to doppler shift due to expansion? What causes the black lines in prism light associated with the elements? Could the black line for sodium for example be relocated by the effects of the compression of matter at the atomic scale? I'm at a loss. Samm

Time_Travel, I think you're spot on in feeling that something cannot come from nothing. When scientists talk of nothing, they often think of a roiling false vacuum full of all manner of quantum particles, photons, neutrinos, and virtual particles. Philosophically, the term nothing I think connotes the absence of any existing thing. Anything we can even imagine must be an object with some manner of properties and attributes. Therefore, it is impossible to imagine nothing. Nothing is not capable of having any property or attribute, including causal efficacy or the potentiality that produces it. That is why something cannot come from nothing, that is why not even God can bring something forth out of nothing, it resulting therefore that whatever God creates "from nothing" as some propose must instead come from the creator, which is not what those proposers would have us believe; for then we creatures of God are ourselves made from God. That is why creationists say that God creates us from nothing. But its a flawed argument. The scientists who say the universe came from nothing know better and do not mean true nothing, as I explained above. But if by nothing they mean a false vacuum roiling with quantum particles, they must still explain where that false vacuum and spatial extension holding the false vacuum and all the energy supporting those particles came from. It's as bad as membrane theory. We are not back to the beginning of things as long as something is moving or changing in some manner of space-time. Scientists are apparently unwilling to consider an existence outside of space-time and other scenarios of extension and dimension. Space-time is the very superstructure of the universe, but existence is not contained or restrained by space-time, existence is possible outside of space-time, but mathematics is not, and frankly this is unacceptable to many scientists. This is a world philosophers may stumble blindly around in, but scientists will not go there. Existence beyond space-time is beyond their scope and they rightly know it. It may be beyond the realm of scientific consideration, but it is possible and probable and is likely the ground-state of being from which all observable being comes. What do you suppose existence outside of space-time would be like? What can you tell me about such a place or thing? A number of people have "observed" this ground-state of being, but they have often had prior biases that affected their understanding of what they observed. Can you imagine it as Einstein might have imagined it in one of his thought games? More later. Samm

If it's anything we can know about, it's part of our universe. The multiverse is by definition beyond our knowledge. When I check that I believe in the multiverse, I certainly mean that I believe in it, not that I think we'll ever know it. It seems to me that space and time must be seen as things that exist, as members of the set of existing things. While the definition of the set may establish certain limits for the members of the set, I don't think the members of the set may establish any limits or other qualities of the set. Existence is not limited to space or time. What then is the nature of existence beyond the realm of space-time? We can say that it is beyond our knowledge since we are space-time beings and can have no experience or knowledge beyond space-time. But we may understand existence outside of extended dimensionality by eliminating the qualities that may belong to existence where space-time are not. Who then believes that the source of the universes in the multiplex might be a dimensionless state of being beyond space and time? Samm