Colbert vs. Dawkins

[asterroc]

I've never really liked Colbert, and sadly here he gives me more reason to not like him. I'm not entirely a fan of what I've heard of Dawkin's book "The God Delusion" either, but.... *sigh*

Comments

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

I don't believe in any gods, but I also don't believe in the Big Bang theory.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Why not out of curiosity? Evidence does show that the galaxies are receeding, the best (mathematical) explanation we can come up with is that the universe is expanding, and models of how fast we can observe it expanding tell us that if we extrapolate back in time everything was once at a single point.

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

The observable universe is expanding, but what came before that single point? It's just as instantaneous and magic an explanation as "Poof, God created things." Also, the idea of a finite amount of matter and energy just feels wrong. It's, like, we're this bubble of stuff and that's ALL THERE IS?! I heavily believe in infinity.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

The observable universe is expanding, ... It's, like, we're this bubble of stuff and that's ALL THERE IS?! I heavily believe in infinity.

I believe modern cosmology states that the universe's size is probably open (infinite), and the geometry is close to flat (Euclidean, trangles have 180º, so on). Other models we've had for the size *were* closed (finite) or balanced between open and closed; other ideas for the geometry ("shape") are positive curvature (like a sphere) or negative curvature (like a saddle or a donut). Cosmologists used to believe that the size and shape were tied to each other (open == saddle, closed == spherical), but sometime in the late 90's they realized they were separate issues mathematically. That reminds me, I need to pester a former prof for the graphic of that.

Wikipedia shape article
Wikipedia observable size article (some stuff on total universe size is wrong or incomplete)

but what came before that single point? It's just as instantaneous and magic an explanation as "Poof, God created things."

The usual interpretation of the Big Bang is that like how the 3 spatial dimensions were created in the instant of the Big Bang, the dimension of time was also created then. Therefore the concept of "before" the Big Bang is meaningless since to have a "before" you would need to have time, but time didn't exist "before" the Big Bang.

My personal interpretation of this comes from a different way of viewing time. You're probably used to seeing linear interpretations of how time passes, graphics like one of these, where time marches steadily backwards until you get to a zero time, and past that is negative times "before" the Big Bang.

However, it's harder to find good graphics online (but they exist in astronomy textbooks) looking at time in a logarithmic fashion. I found a rough table form of it on Wikipedia, and a detailed list format (logs are written, not powers of ten), these might help.

If you're less familiar with logarithms, the second one will confuse you so just look at the Wikipedia one. Find for me on that table where the Big Bang is. Got it? Good, now find me the time before the Big Bang.

Oh wait, don't see Big Bang on it? That's because we're counting in powers of ten (log space). There's no power of ten that's equal to 0 time. 10^1=10; 10^0=1, 10^-1=0.1, and so on, you can never get all the way to zero, you can never quite get all the way to the Big Bang (though you asymptotically approach it), and you can certainly never get to negative numbers ("before" the Big Bang).

To me, approaching the Big Bang in log time space is as good as getting there (just like how 0.9999999.... = 1), but it's impossible to go negative. Time did not exist "before" the Big Bang, and talking about negative numbers as a result of powers of ten is meaningless.

I guess in a way you could say then that the Big Bang never happened, and that the universe has existed for infinite time in log space, but... Well, suffice to say that my interpretation while not strictly incorrect, also isn't mainstream. It's a visualization trick more than a scientific result anyway.

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

Well there are plenty of closed two-manifolds, so I'd think the shape / topology of our universe would be far more complex. I suppose now would be the time to point out that I find a finite-dimensional universe also dubious. I think the universe must be infinitely-dimensional with many finite-dimensional objects in it. And, of course, finitely-dimensional outer-space-ish manifolds being some of those objects, with smaller-dimensional objects in them.

To claim that the universe is expanding though is to claim that universe.size(t) > universe.size(t-1). But such a relation dictates that the latter is finite, unless we have that the size of the universe is expanding from R to 2^R to 2^(2^R), etc. But since I'm sure you'd agree the universe's expansion must be continuous, how is this possible?

Your logarithmic interpretation of time makes sense, but what is it logarithmic in reference to? time as a function of what? THETA(ln(x)), where x is what?

And, ultimately, the concept of a "source" is what I intuitively find unbelievable. That's the basic conflict I have with the concept of a single god (now, the concept of multiple gods, who are really just more potent sentient beings than ourselves and can alter our observable universe as we might move things around in a guinea pig's cage--that's a concept I can suppose at least).

It makes the most

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I want to respond to this, really I do, but I currently have no brain, and I fully expect I will lose all memory of this conversation after some sleep, of which i am in depserate need. Could tyou remind me again later if I don't get back to yoU? I cna't spell. see!