Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Andir]

In fact, the more I read about what this guy is saying, the more I think that we are probably just witnessing gravity's effect on light and not the "stretching" of space.  (ie: as light travels away from a gravitational object, it's being pulled back to it ever so slightly causing it to change... maybe even changed wavelength.)

The only guess I can come up with to explain that is:  The sun spits out light waves and because they are moving so fast they escape the pull of gravity.  Gravity from the sun, planets, etc. is still pulling on the light distorting the wave.  The further light travels the less gravity it encounters form it's origin, but, the more gravity it encounters in other gravitational fields causing it to "squash."  There was one experiment that was supposed to prove that light bent around objects in space by measuring the time it took to see a planet come around the sun... and as far as I can tell, that just proved that light can be affected by gravity just as a planet, but since it's moving so fast it doesn't get refracted much.  When it gets closer to another star it get's pulled more, thus adding to the distortion.

Source -L>            - L >                     -    L    >  Us

where L = light wave and -> is wavelength.

In other words, I think cosmological redshift is pretty much an attempt to downplay gravitational and doppler redshift effects or maybe it's a shim to try to fill the gap in what we might not yet know about light.  I think people are placing too much emphasis on that being truth rather than theory.

[Andir]

Andir, I'm sorry, but you're contradicting a huge field here with very well-established theories and terminology.

Yeah, and everything I read on this relies on a very small set of ideas.

It's like amplifying an amplified signal... eventually it's just noise.

[Argembarger]

That's one of the big questions religion tries to address, whether it's deism or Christianity:  Why are we here at all?  The deist position is generally that if there wasn't a Creator, there would be no Creation, because the default state is Nothing.

And...I'm not sure what the atheist response to that is, aside from asserting that the default state is Something instead of Nothing.  I don't see how either of those ideas is inherently more sensible than the other.

The correct response to that is to inquire what created their Creator. The most common answer is "Nothing" or "It always existed", breaking the chain of cause and effect just as easily as a spontanious generation of the universe without a creator would. This renders the point null.

This pretty much sums up how I feel about the situation.

    Prima: Where did your "universe" originate? How did it begin?
Secunda: We're not entirely sure, actually. We're still working out the details.
    Prima: Ha, then it must be some sort of creator, God or prime mover!
Secunda: But where did your creator come from?
    Prima: We're not entirely sure, actually. We're still working out the details.
Secunda: Well then.
    Prima: Well then.
Secunda: Wanna go grab a bite to eat?
    Prima: Sounds good.

and they all lived happily ever after until they died.

[Sowelu]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Phmcw]

Not really. A scientific don't believe his model. He sorta trust it for now.
Andir, yeah, you're better that everyone that live for doing they research.
I gess your feeling that something is wrong is good enough, and it's not that you totally miss the point all the time.

Now let's just do a small though experiment : we're now dwarfs. What was there before worldgen. And how did he world began?
Thinking about the big bang is pretty much doing that, except as human.

[Sowelu]

God help us if dwarves ever started thinking about the nature of their world.

The concept that our real universe might have quantized space and time is terrifying enough.

[Glowcat]

That's one of the big questions religion tries to address, whether it's deism or Christianity:  Why are we here at all?  The deist position is generally that if there wasn't a Creator, there would be no Creation, because the default state is Nothing.

And...I'm not sure what the atheist response to that is, aside from asserting that the default state is Something instead of Nothing.  I don't see how either of those ideas is inherently more sensible than the other.

Please explain to me why the default state is 'Nothing'. Heck, explain to me what it even means for 'Nothing' to exist since I've yet to hear a real explanation for it that doesn't describe something such as empty space. The entire concept is flawed when applied as an imagined state prior to existence or as anything absolute since the state of nothing as we use the word is to describe a lack of something in existence.

If somebody is looking for food and say they've found nothing after searching they are specifically referring to a lack of food items within a real location -- not a lack of food items outside space and time where things don't exist in any sense comprehensible to the human mind. By claiming that there is a 'Nothing', and that it is the default state no less, Deists/Theists are greedily reaching for an explanation outside of any humanly possible understanding to explain their hypothesis... despite their own agent being dependent on pre-existing rules which would make itself necessary. In return they receive nonsense for their efforts. It is a label which "describes" a notion vague and ill-defined in any real sense. I could say that there was an infinite amount of nothing or no nothing between me and my keyboard and it would make just as much sense either way. Likewise, try using the concept of 0 outside of quantity terms and I guarantee you'll run into problems.

Whether there is or is not an agent outside space and causation, I cannot logically conclude that there ever was 'nothing'.
This leaves me with one possibility: somehow existence is necessary. It may not be understood but at least it doesn't disprove itself while explaining our current existence.

[Bauglir]

Andir, I'm sorry, but you're contradicting a huge field here with very well-established theories and terminology.  I respectfully request that you read a book ASAP before I have to bash my head on my desk so hard I knock myself out.  This is completely aside from the theism/atheism thing:  Saying "If it's expanding out in all directions... there has to be a center" shows as much understanding of science as saying "If evolution is real, why are there still monkeys".  You're a complete layperson here, and some time with a good Stephen Hawking book (or whatever) would do you good.  Just because it makes no sense to you, doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.  But yeah, keeping this up isn't doing any wonders for your credibility in the eyes of anyone who knows anything about astrophysics and quite frankly it hurts to read.

...Er, sorry.

Hey, now. You're calmer in more recent posts, but still, while I agree with most of your point, try to be a bit more cordial 'bout it

Anyway! It's not that it's impossible to measure the stretching of the universe or anything, it is. But you have to keep in mind that it really is more like stretching than an expanding. I mean, I haven't read the links, so take what I say with a grain of salt; I'm going off of what I've read in physics classes and a few miscellaneous textbooks. I'm not a physics guy, so I may be missing stuff, but thinking of it like a pudding with raisins seems like an oversimplification, since if space itself is expanding, so too would be the raisins (but it would be less noticeable on the raisin's scale; 1.1 times magnification of something a centimeter long brings it to 1.1 centimeters which is rather a small difference, but it'd bring something 1 lightyear long to 1.1 lightyears, and .1 lightyear is pretty huge). I could be wrong, though.

I'm not sure what you mean... are you saying that our universe is like the atmosphere of Earth if the Earth were expanding where the Earth is a void of emptiness and space is also a void of empty?

Is basically it, although the void of emptiness isn't necessarily right, but it might as well be since accessing them would require some sort of 4-dimensional travel (spatial, not a time dimension, which would put the total up to 5 dimensions if you encounter time). Which is probably fictional.

[Siquo]

when it comes to cosmology, bringing parallel universe in from the area of thought experiments and wild imagination is not scientific, but religious.

Damn, I was hoping someone would fall for that one

Space isn't exactly "stretching", otherwise I would stretch with it and wouldn't notice anything. Right?

Glowcat: there's millions of uses for 0 beyond counting apples. And how is "something" not a lack of "nothing"? Wordplay, I know, but without the symmetry of opposites words become useless. If there's no darkness, how can we be sure that light exists, et cetera.

More like... you can never observe its effects.  You can never perform any kind of test to see if it's there.  You cannot make any predictions based on it.

Any of those or all three? Because I can come up with something for each test, that would fail the other two:
1. God (I have experienced it's effects, but can't reproduce it and therefore can't predict it)
2. Virtual particles (virtual photon to electron-positron pair and back, for instance, can be tested for existence but it's observable effects are so minimal as to be non-existant, and the split/join can't be predicted). I cheat a little here but 1 and 2 are too intertwined to find something really exclusive.
3. Math (can't be "observed", can't test "if it's there" (since it's not "anywhere"), yet you can use it to make predictions)

[Shrugging Khan]

I have no idea what happened for the last four pages, so I'll just respond to this.

1. The existence of anything rather than nothing does not make sense, as some poster explained.
2. Yet, something exists.
3. OH EM GEE IT MUST BE JESUS' DADDY WHO DUN IT!

The tone.

EDIT: Also, given points 1 and 2...  I'm pretty curious what you'd suggest for 3, if not a prime mover, and why.

I.: Fuck my tone. Delicate sensibilities are not relevant to debate.

II.: A prime mover is bullcrap, a stand-in god for those who can't live without a quasi-christian belief, yet know too much to take the religion as given, thusly using pseudo-science/philosophy as an excuse to maintain a minimal basis for their belief in the divine. Differently put, the prime mover is god for those who have a religious hunger, yet are too sceptical to eat the entire bible, and therefore confine themselves to just eating the first few lines of the Genesis.

Or, from a different angle, the olden response: And why is there a prime mover, and how did he come to exist? JUST WHY THE FUCK DOES A MAGICAL CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE IN DEFIANCE OF LOGIC MAKE MORE SENSE THAN A MAGICALLY APPEARING UNIVERSE IN DEFIANCE OF LOGIC?

So as far as I'm concerned, there is no point 3. Just points 1 and 2. Done. End. Le Fin. All of it. World is here, makes no sense, no way of talking any into it. Basta!

[Siquo]

I.: Fuck my tone. Delicate sensibilities are not relevant to debate.

They are to civil debate, which is what most of us are aiming for, here.

[Leafsnail]

Any of those or all three? Because I can come up with something for each test, that would fail the other two:
1. God (I have experienced it's effects, but can't reproduce it and therefore can't predict it)
2. Virtual particles (virtual photon to electron-positron pair and back, for instance, can be tested for existence but it's observable effects are so minimal as to be non-existant, and the split/join can't be predicted). I cheat a little here but 1 and 2 are too intertwined to find something really exclusive.
3. Math (can't be "observed", can't test "if it's there" (since it's not "anywhere"), yet you can use it to make predictions)

All three are sides of the same coin.  Wait, not coin.  Uh... the same cylinder, then.

Honestly, I don't see why God would have observable effects to some people but not to others.  It makes no real sense, considering that He is meant to love us all equally.  Why only appear to certain, apparently randomly chosen people, in ways which can be explained by other means?
"Minimal" is the keyword for the second.  It still has potential effects, even if they're on a very small scale.
The third one is ridiculous.  I know maths exists, in the same way I know Christianity and the English language exist.  That doesn't mean I need to "believe" in it.

[MC Dirty]

Any of those or all three? Because I can come up with something for each test, that would fail the other two:
1. God (I have experienced it's effects, but can't reproduce it and therefore can't predict it)
2. Virtual particles (virtual photon to electron-positron pair and back, for instance, can be tested for existence but it's observable effects are so minimal as to be non-existant, and the split/join can't be predicted). I cheat a little here but 1 and 2 are too intertwined to find something really exclusive.
3. Math (can't be "observed", can't test "if it's there" (since it's not "anywhere"), yet you can use it to make predictions)

All three are sides of the same coin.  Wait, not coin.  Uh... the same cylinder, then.

Honestly, I don't see why God would have observable effects to some people but not to others.  It makes no real sense, considering that He is meant to love us all equally.  Why only appear to certain, apparently randomly chosen people, in ways which can be explained by other means?

Now you're talking about a religious, institutionalized concept of God. The idea of a "prime mover" would not contradict any evidence. Thankfully, that's the only concept of god which doesn't contradict evidence.

And I don't see what mathematics has to do with God, honestly...

[Leafsnail]

Now you're talking about a religious, institutionalized concept of God. The idea of a "prime mover" would not contradict any evidence. Thankfully, that's the only concept of god which doesn't contradict evidence.

Which brings us back to

You can never observe its effects.  You can never perform any kind of test to see if it's there.  You cannot make any predictions based on it.

[Shrugging Khan]

They are to civil debate, which is what most of us are aiming for, here.

I'm not. Civility is distracting.