On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:39 PM, Nicholas Leippe <[email protected]> wrote:
> 1) If there was one big bang, who's to say there haven't been many?
> (What would constrain the phenomenon to only ever occur once? And by
> extension, if multiple have occurred, how do you choose which one to
> use to define the geometric "center"?)
As I explained before, the concept of a geometric center at which the
big bang occurred is faulty, but the idea of multiple big bangs is
either faulty as well or not something that falls within the realm of
physics. If you mean that our universe may have contained multiple
big bangs, that's faulty for the same reason the idea of a geometric
center is. The big bang filled the entire universe. If you mean
another big bang that preceded the one that we refer to as 'the big
bang', then such could have possibly been the result of a previous
universe that was sufficiently different from ours that it collapsed
upon itself again, but there's not really any way I'm aware of that
physics could tell you anything about that.
> 2) Your constraint on uniformity assumes there is such a thing as
> "space-time" to worry about. I am of the inclination to believe that
> time does not exist but instead is merely a gauge by which to measure
> relative motion/change, and that "space" is just that--pure, empty,
> void-filled nothingness--to which no properties or extension can be
> ascribed (eg, "folding"). With these ideas at foundation expansion
> uniformity becomes largely determined by the symmetry of the original
> event--assuming a closed system. (There's always the caveat that it's
> not a closed system--that stuff from wherever the initial stuff came
> from can still interact with the stuff we see now with or without more
> "bang" events at some scale.)
You can believe whatever you want about what actually exists or not,
but the concept of spacetime makes for very accurate predictions of
how things behave. A lot of modern technology depends on relativistic
and quantum effects, and your beliefs about how things "really are"
fortunately don't make those gadgets any less effective. You're
talking metaphysics now, though, not physics. I'm not convinced that
you have a sufficient understanding of current physics to offer a
credible rejection for any of its models.
--Levi
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