The first cause argument

[Polymath257]

One point to another, if the point is real, then it isn't empty space, it's an area with some points in it, and you are measuring the area between the points.

OK, so put a single point in it and move in some direction. Whether or not you can come back to your original point is a property of space: does it have closed geodesics or not?

 

[Polymath257]

If you envisage cosmological inflation, you will see what "nothing at all" means in a physical sense.
It simply means that our physical reality is bounded.

Actually, cosmic inflation does NOT mean that.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Actually, cosmic inflation does NOT mean that.

Oh?
We do not know for certain whether the universe is infinite or not.

All that is certain is that the manifold of space in which we live simply has the property that the distances between objects are getting larger as time goes on.
...
No "outside" or embedding in hyperspace is required for an expansion to occur. The visualizations often seen of the universe growing as a bubble into nothingness are misleading in that respect. There is no reason to believe there is anything "outside" of the expanding universe into which the universe expands.
Expansion of the universe - Wikipedia

 

[Kfox]

Nope, there is always *some* gravity. We say that gravity has infinite range.

So every inch of the Universe has some type of gravitational field to it? How about outside the Universe, or that 96% of the Universe we have no clue about? How do they know this?

 

[Kfox]

Actually yes, because it's a subset. However, the point still applies. What determines how large to expect the inside of a 3-d object to be is one particular type of 3-d geometry (flat or Euclidean). There is nothing unique about that any more than there is about 2-d geometry that applies only on a flat 2-d surface, as opposed to a curved surface.

Sorry; I'm not buying it. You can't build a house by doing geometric figures, there is a time when you have to put some boards to some nails and when you do this you will see your geometry doesn't work. If this were possible someone would have done it by now and become rich and famous, but the reality is that you cannot build a house that is larger on the inside than the outside; everybody knows this and you know it too.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..If this were possible someone would have done it by now and become rich and famous, but the reality is that you cannot build a house that is larger on the inside than the outside; everybody knows this and you know it too.

The only example I know of, is the TARDIS - Wikipedia

 

[ratiocinator]

Oh?
We do not know for certain whether the universe is infinite or not.

All that is certain is that the manifold of space in which we live simply has the property that the distances between objects are getting larger as time goes on.
...
No "outside" or embedding in hyperspace is required for an expansion to occur. The visualizations often seen of the universe growing as a bubble into nothingness are misleading in that respect. There is no reason to believe there is anything "outside" of the expanding universe into which the universe expands.
Expansion of the universe - Wikipedia

Cosmic inflation is not the same as the expansion of the universe in general. Neither have anything to do with whether the universe is bounded or not.

 

[ratiocinator]

Sorry; I'm not buying it. You can't build a house by doing geometric figures, there is a time when you have to put some boards to some nails and when you do this you will see your geometry doesn't work. If this were possible someone would have done it by now and become rich and famous, but the reality is that you cannot build a house that is larger on the inside than the outside; everybody knows this and you know it too.

Your again missing the point. The actual geometry in which we build our house it not something we can directly control (except to a tiny extent because mass does change it. The point is that the geometry is a property of space. There is nothing logically necessary about it being like it is (approximately Euclidean in most cases), or that it is limited to three dimensions (of space).

 

[muhammad_isa]

Neither have anything to do with whether the universe is bounded or not.

What does the concept of "bounding" mean to you, in the context of the universe?

 

[Polymath257]

Oh?
We do not know for certain whether the universe is infinite or not.

All that is certain is that the manifold of space in which we live simply has the property that the distances between objects are getting larger as time goes on.
...
No "outside" or embedding in hyperspace is required for an expansion to occur. The visualizations often seen of the universe growing as a bubble into nothingness are misleading in that respect. There is no reason to believe there is anything "outside" of the expanding universe into which the universe expands.
Expansion of the universe - Wikipedia

Yes, this is true.

But it does not distinguish between a bounded universe and an unbounded universe. So, yes, we do NOT know whether the universe is finite or not in extent.

 

[Polymath257]

What does the concept of "bounding" mean to you, in the context of the universe?

In cosmology, when we say that space is 'bounded', we mean that it is finite in extent. 'Unbounded' means that it is infinite in extent.

Generally speaking, 'bounded' means that space is negatively curved (like a sphere) and 'unbounded' means that space is either flat (zero curvature) or negatively curved (like a trumpet).

 

[Polymath257]

So every inch of the Universe has some type of gravitational field to it?

Yes.

How about outside the Universe, or that 96% of the Universe we have no clue about? How do they know this?

That 96% is all around us, not in some distant place (cosmologically speaking). The way we know about that 96% at all is because of gravity.

 

[Polymath257]

Sorry; I'm not buying it. You can't build a house by doing geometric figures, there is a time when you have to put some boards to some nails and when you do this you will see your geometry doesn't work. If this were possible someone would have done it by now and become rich and famous, but the reality is that you cannot build a house that is larger on the inside than the outside; everybody knows this and you know it too.

And the fact that this is impossible is a property of space.

Since we have been rather limited to building on the Earth, and such effects would not be expected until you get to cosmic sizes, our inability doesn't say much.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes.



That 96% is all around us, not in some distant place (cosmologically speaking). The way we know about that 96% at all is because of gravity.

Yeah and please don't bring up the cosmological principle:
Or question any of the axioms in science and ask if science can be done differently than currently, yet still be a variant of science. So we can't question that you and your tribe hold truth over what the universe is, because that is not useful to you. That is your trick.

 

[Polymath257]

Cosmic inflation is not the same as the expansion of the universe in general.

This is a very common confusion.

Cosmic inflation is about a *very brief* period of very rapid expansion at an early stage of the universe (before nucleogenesis). It was proposed to answer some persistent questions in cosmology, including why space seems to be very close to being flat and why things appear to be uniform in all directions. The period of very rapid expansion means that an initially curved region has expanded and 'flattened' to give all that we see currently.

Cosmic *expansion*, on the other hand, has to do with how the universe expands *after* the period of inflation. The expansion phase is much slower and is still going on.

Neither have anything to do with whether the universe is bounded or not.

Yes, I have no idea why that connection was made, except that they both have to do with cosmology and *maybe* some reference to the flatness question.

Whether space is bounded (finite in extent) or unbounded (infinite in extent) has to do with the curvature and thereby with the density of mass and energy in the universe (on average). That the universe appears to be very close to being flat is one of the reasons the inflationary model was proposed.

 

[Polymath257]

Yeah and please don't bring up the cosmological principle:
Or question any of the axioms in science and ask if science can be done differently than currently, yet still be a variant of science. So we can't question that you and your tribe hold truth over what the universe is, because that is not useful to you. That is your trick.

Propose a way of doing it differently and we can discuss the merits.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Propose a way of doing it differently and we can discuss the merits.

The universe can't be described without someone doing the description and you should always doubt what is taken for granted about the correct description, because correct belongs to the person doing the description and not to what is described.

So here it is for one variant of current science, that might be problematic in regards to false, fallible, falsification and the demand of observer independence.
"that this objective reality is governed by natural laws."

If you really are the skeptic, you demand of the rest of us to be, you can spot how that is maybe problematic. I am not saying it is true or false, but rather what if all the raw facts doesn't add up to a natural law.
But since you are better at the actual combination of formal abstract thinking and physics, you might be able to propose a way to make that assumption falsifiable?

But please don't insult me and yourself with that is useless, irrelevant or whatever as such, because those words are in the observer and not objective.
If you really want be a skeptic and use your skills which are better than mine for the actual abstract formal thinking and science, don't just dismiss it. Use in the positive sense your big brain and give it a chance.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[Polymath257]

The universe can't be described without someone doing the description and you should always doubt what is taken for granted about the correct description, because correct belongs to the person doing the description and not to what is described.

Which is why we require multiple observers of the same phenomena. Repeatability helps to reduce personal bias.

So here it is for one variant of current science, that might be problematic in regards to false, fallible, falsification and the demand of observer independence.
"that this objective reality is governed by natural laws."

If you really are the skeptic, you demand of the rest of us to be, you can spot how that is maybe problematic. I am not saying it is true or false, but rather what if all the raw facts doesn't add up to a natural law.
But since you are better at the actual combination of formal abstract thinking and physics, you might be able to propose a way to make that assumption falsifiable?

Easy. If patterns that have been noticed fail to give predictions that actually happen, then the notion of there being natural laws is falsified.

But please don't insult me and yourself with that is useless, irrelevant or whatever as such, because those words are in the observer and not objective.
If you really want be a skeptic and use your skills which are better than mine for the actual abstract formal thinking and science, don't just dismiss it. Use in the positive sense your big brain and give it a chance.

And I have. I have also found your objections to be mostly beside any relevant points.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...


Easy. If patterns that have been noticed fail to give predictions that actually happen, then the notion of there being natural laws is falsified.
...

Okay, so let us say that for the difference between the actual physical laws and the combination of those laws into a theory of everything physical, then for long does inability to do so for a a theory of everything physical have to go on, before you would accept that in practice objective reality is not overall lawful, but only localized?
What if the raw facts/patterns can't be combined into a theory of everything physical?

In other words how do you notice that you can't combine all the patterns into giving predictions that actually happen?

 

[muhammad_isa]

Whether space is bounded (finite in extent) or unbounded (infinite in extent) has to do with the curvature and thereby with the density of mass and energy in the universe (on average). That the universe appears to be very close to being flat is one of the reasons the inflationary model was proposed.

Surely, we are back to this definition of "infinite".
Was the universe infinite before cosmic inflation occurred?

We are not talking about 'absolute infinity', are we?