Acausality, the ultimate belief in magic

[DrProctopus]

Many beliefs, including most materialist perspectives on reality, depend upon Acausality. That is, they depend upon the idea of a time where T = 0, a starting point.

 

I find acausality to be utterly unintuitive, which doesn't mean it isn't true, just that I cannot get my head around it.

 

Acausality has 100% explanatory power (depending on what you mean by that phrase) and 0 predictive power.

 

Materialists say there is no 'before' the big bang, because that is when time began. Thus they believe in a set of conditions without a cause. When asked how it got that way, they respond with 'it just is' - but this just really seems like a cop-out to me, like a misbegotten appeal to occam's razor or something.

 

If you reject acausality, then a number of complex possibilities come to mind, including the idea of a multiverse with multiple, nested dimensions of time.

 

Is there anyone here who believes in acausality, and if so, can you explain how this is more sensible than an infinitely regressing chain of cause and effect?

[alxian]

there is no universal constant called time, there never was a start to the universe, it has always been, the big bang may only have been a local event of mind boggling proportions but aspects of the universe appear much older than can be accounted for by our currnet model.

 

 

magic perhaps will find an analogue in times to come, however the mind controlling matter and elemental forces may never happen without ourmind evolving and becomming infinitely more complex.

 

technically speeking and in all fairness, time is defined as the interaction between particles where each interaction can be measured. if before the bigbang time was inert, nothing happening, as implausible as that is then sure you can state that time began at the theoretical big bang, for now we ave no way of determining what the universe was before in our local area of it nor what caused the inert universe to become active. what initiated the complexification of energy and matter (or if it was infinitely complex before what caused the universe to cool into matter/energy systems).

 

creating a ball of plasma with ones hands, anto gravitation, teleportation, transmografication, divination, etc would all be cool but not if everyone could do it.

 

as for the multiverse theorem i'd rather keep my universe simple, its infinite, thats all i need to know.

[Buffy]

Well, insofar as you are describing acausality as a belief system, yes, it comes off sounding like a religion. Those who "believe" in acausality do not describe it as a "better" explanation than any other about what "caused" the big bang. While it may sound arrogant or stupid or oblivious to say "it just is" there's a strong scientific argument for this position: there is no known testable scientific hypothesis that could be posed about what happened prior to the big bang! If there is no way to test any such theory, then there's no way of knowing and from a scientific perspective, any such theories are "metaphysics" (i.e. "religious beliefs").

 

Now that's just to say there are no *known* testable theories, and there are plenty of theories (and I like Andre Linde's Multiverse theory, personally): someday some smart gal may figure out a testable hypothesis and that would be cool. But in the abscense of such a hypothesis, its pointless from a scientific perspective to enunciate anything other than "acausality" as part of *science*. Acausality has no more "predictive power" than any other theory. It could be God, a black hole imploding, an alien scientist or some kid peeing into a flask with a chemistry set: whatever you wanna believe works fine as a belief system because no one can *prove* you wrong. Not choosing any explanation at all, is no more wrong than any other choice, but its the only one that fits within a scientific context.

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[DrProctopus]

Not choosing any explanation at all, is no more wrong than any other choice, but its the only one that fits within a scientific context.

 

This seems more honest.

 

This is not the same thing as claiming Acausality, or even claiming that it is the most probable explanation. It is simply saying "I don't know" - intellectual honesty is always preferable, in my opinion.

 

Am I correct in my understanding, however, that many physicists profess a belief in Acausality, rather than in stating "I don't know"?

[Buffy]

Am I correct in my understanding, however, that many physicists profess a belief in Acausality, rather than in stating "I don't know"?

I'm sure some do, but a lot don't (I've never seen a poll with this specific question). But remember that you've again invoked the word "belief" and in that respect, Acausality can be also used to describe a metaphysical view of "how it all began": an interesting side effect of Einsteinian-inspired cosmology is that at instant of the big bang, there was not only no space but also *no time*, and one argument states that because of that there could be no "before" t=0: time did not exist then! Again, since there's no way to show this (at the moment) its all still metaphysics, so in that respect, its still a belief system...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[DrProctopus]

an interesting side effect of Einsteinian-inspired cosmology is that at instant of the big bang, there was not only no space but also *no time*, and one argument states that because of that there could be no "before" t=0: time did not exist then!

 

I think this belief involves a subtle bit of bait-and-switch with the definition of the word "time" - I am not referring exactly to what you said - but to when people claim that there could be no cause for the big bang, because there was no time before the big bang, and causality requires time.

 

Time is sometimes defined as a component of spacetime. If the big bang gave birth to this reality, and if time is a component of the spacetime which defines this reality, and if the spacetime which defines this reality was created in the big bang - then it would seem that time began at the moment of the big bang, and thus there could be no 'before'...

 

However, this assumes that defining time as a component of spacetime is the only valid definition of Time. Time can also be thought of in the common sense definition of the word - as the progression of events.

 

Think of it with this analogy:

 

1) I create a reality within an excel spread sheet (not a very complex reality, but you get the idea)

2) I define the columns to be months, spread out over a year

3) I set it up so that you enter a set of starting values in column 1, and then the results cascade from one month to the next

 

In this analogy, the spreadsheet is spacetime. Time is a component of spacetime (the spreadsheet) - specifically, time is composed of individual time units (the columns of the spreadsheet). In this spreadsheet world, we have defined time as a component of spacetime - the columns - thus time has a beginning. However, this does not mean that there is no cause for the spreadsheet world to come into existence.

 

Instead, we would have two dimensions of time, one nested inside the other. The nature of these nested dimensions of time would be quite different. The inner dimension of time would be columns in the spreadsheet. The outer dimension of time would be time as we experience it in our world.

 

So, say you have a value of a cell in month 2 of the spreadsheet - the cause of that value would be conditions contained in column 1 of the spreadsheet. But, what causes the conditions in column 1? It would not be correct to state that those conditions have no cause, because column 1 is when time began. Instead, the cause lies in the outer dimension of time - that cause being the person who typed the information in to begin with.

 

 

So, by the same reasoning - to state that time as we know it begain with the big bang does not at all establish that some sort of time did not exist, perhaps of a nature completely different than we experience it.

 

I have no problem getting my head around nested dimensions of time - but I cannot get my head around Acausality. This doesn't prove anything, of course - it is just that an infinite regression of cause-and-effect seems more intuitive to me than Acausality.

 

If an infinite regression of cause-and-effect is correct, then it leads to all sorts of interesting speculation. If the probability of the occurrence of an event during a finite interval of time, no matter how crazy that event might be, is greater than zero - then given forever, that event will occur. Not only will it occur, but if the event's occurrence does not prevent the future occurrence of the event, then it will occur an infinite number of times.

 

So, has everything that we are experiencing right now already happened at some point in the unimaginably distant past?

[Buffy]

I think this belief involves a subtle bit of bait-and-switch with the definition of the word "time" - I am not referring exactly to what you said ... So, by the same reasoning - to state that time as we know it begain with the big bang does not at all establish that some sort of time did not exist, perhaps of a nature completely different than we experience it. .... This doesn't prove anything, of course - it is just that an infinite regression of cause-and-effect seems more intuitive to me than Acausality. .... If an infinite regression of cause-and-effect is correct, then it leads to all sorts of interesting speculation.

Rather than "bait-and-switch" it can be argued that this definition is merely "strict". I would agree that it definitely is hard to imagine a view of "can't know" implies "don't want to even speculate", but I'm willing to give people the latitude to think that way if they want because I certainly can't claim that they're wrong. I'm a curious person, so I think about it all the time, especially the infinite regression issue (or the Hindu notion of unending cycles in both directions). Its essential to note though that your point of outside-the-spreadsheet-time and inside-the-spreadsheet-time are fundamentally different concepts, and the "outside" version could be completely incomprehensible within the context of an "inside" individual. Who knows?

So, has everything that we are experiencing right now already happened at some point in the unimaginably distant past?

Sure! If its truly an infinite regression and all universes are finite, then its *necessary* for them to repeat over "Time" (big "T", is this a new term?)....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[DrProctopus]

Sure! If its truly an infinite regression and all universes are finite, then its *necessary* for them to repeat over "Time" (big "T", is this a new term?)....

 

Sigh - this means that in some other version of events, I married (name not included to protect the uninvolved) and never met my wife! I feel so very sorry for this other me.

 

There is one possible exception to the idea that events must have occurred before...

 

Consider the set of whole numbers: ...-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3...

 

It extends infinitely in both directions, but the value never repeats. So, if the number of possible configurations of reality is infinite, then you can have infinite regression and progression with repeating events. Meaning, once certain events occur, they cannot occur again.

 

Now, if the amount of stuff in the total of existence is finite, then given forever, you would eventually run out of stuff with which to store information. Thus, even if all of this did happen before, there might not be any record of it.

 

However, if the number of possible configurations of reality is infinite, and the total amount of stuff is infinite, then you could have both infinite regression/progression and unique events. For this to be the case, though, I would think that some mechanism would need to be in place to actually prevent the re-occurrence of the exact same event.

[alxian]

if matter is over abundant now

 

-3,-,2,-1,0,1,2,3

 

and at the point of the big bang everything was (as far asa theory goes) neutral

 

could there have been a point where anti particals were in abundance?

 

from what we know about them could structures such as those that exist in our universe exist in an antimatter rich universe?

 

and the cycling between a complimentary system of matter and anti matter abundance be a natural as a yoyo on a string? up and down?

 

when our cycle ends there will perhaps be a universal immergence of antimatter

[infamous]

if matter is over abundant now

 

Here is a good link alxian that may have some information you'll be interested in:

 

http://epsc.wustl.edu/classwork/classwork_210a/pdfs/cb5_2002.pdf

 

Fixed the link, it should work now - pgrmdave

 

Ok there seems to be a problem with this address, I'll try to send this as an attachment.

[infamous]

Here is a good link alxian that may have some information you'll be interested in:

 

http://epsc.wustl.edu/classwork/classwork_210a/pdfs/cb5_2002.pdf

 

Fixed the link, it should work now - pgrmdave

 

Ok there seems to be a problem with this address, I'll try to send this as an attachment.

Thanks pgrmdave, should we then delete the attachment to save bandwidth?