On 11/6/2014 3:15 PM, LizR wrote:
On 7 November 2014 09:56, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
I'd say that expansion of the universe is almost necessary, not contingent.
The AoT
has to point in the direction of entropy increase and in almost all models
that's
correlated to the expansion of the universe. If it is bigger at one time
than at
another then the AoT will point toward the bigger end. I say "almost"
because there
are some ways around it. If the universe recontracts the AoT will probably
continue
to point toward the Big Crunch, at least until the total entropy equals the
Bekenstein bound. Or on the other possibility, L.S. Schulmann has written a
nice
little book about his investigation of universes in which the AoT reverses
so it
always points to the biggest phase of the universe.
Yes, that is indeed exactly the position I have long argued for on this very
forum.
To summarise my argument, which has at times been vigorously opposed, I think by you
amongst others,
Not me. I helped edit Vic Stenger's books that presented exactly that view.
but not yet actually shot down (kaon decay comes closest, but doesn't appear to be very
important in generating the AOT, although it's possible it actually had/has a pivotal
role we're unaware of).
a) the universe is expanding for some reason, possibly necessary in the sense of being
built into the laws of physics (e.g. as a result of eternal inflation ... perhaps?) - or
perhaps contingent, that is to say not mandated by the laws of physics, but maybe the
result of some symmetry breaking etc.
You seem to overlook that the "expansion" is very likely just tautological, i.e. it is
nomologically necessary that the AoT points in the direction of bigger.
b) all the other things regarded as the AOT emerge from (a). I have given details of
this at some length on previous occasions, but briefly it's that various bound states
(nucleons, galaxies etc) can emerge from the cooling caused by the universal expansion.
Right. Because the universe expanded very rapidly it is very far from equilibrium. The
actual entropy is at least 22 orders of magnitude smaller than the maximum possible
entropy. Being far from equilibrium leads to complex structures.
Brent
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