April 26th, 2013
by Max Andrews
The Borde-Vilenkin-Guth Theorem states that any universe, which has, on average, a rate of expansion greater 0 that system had to have a finite beginning. This would apply in any multiverse scenario as well. There are four exceptions to the theorem.*
1. First Exception: Initial Contraction (Havg<0) … (The average rate of the Hubble expansion is less than zero)
- Main Problem: Another problem this raises is that this requires acausal fine-tuning. Any attempt to explain the fine-tuning apart from a fine-tuner is left bereft of any explanation.
2. Second Exception: Asymptotically static (Havg=O)
- Main Problem: The exception is that it does not allow for an expanding or evolutionary universe. This model cannot be true. The best evidence and empirical observations indicate that the universe is not static; rather, it is expanding and evolving. This might have been a great model under Newton but not since Einstein’s field equation concerning the energy-momentum of the universe.
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Posted in Cosmology, Multiverse | 3 Comments »
March 22nd, 2013
by Max Andrews
I’ve been waiting for new Planck data to come in for a while now and I’ve been very excited about this. First we had COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) that gave us the first images of the cosmic microwave background radiation approximately 380,000 years after the big bang when light became visible. This discovery led George Smoot and John Mather to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics (2006).
COBE data
Then we had the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Prove (WMAP) satellite, which provided a much clearer and more defined resolution revealing a much more precise picture of the early universe.
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Posted in Cosmology, Multiverse | No Comments »
March 11th, 2013
by Max Andrews
Question:
Hey, Max.
I’ve just started reading Rupert Sheldrake’s The Science Delusion: Freeing The Spirit Of Enquiry and came across three questions about the laws of nature.
In Chapter 3, Sheldrake begins by saying:
“Most scientists take it for granted that the laws of nature are fixed.”
He then leads on to this question:
“If everything else evolves, why don’t the laws of nature evolve along with nature?”
The argument that he advances in the chapter involves something he calls ‘habits’, which are “a kind of memory inherent in nature”. (From what I understand, he has also advanced this within a theory of ‘morphic resonance’ in his other published works.) Putting aside his case for these ‘habits’, three questions that he poses to materialists at the end of the chapter caught my eye:
1) If the laws of nature existed before the Big Bang, and governed the Big Bang from its first instant, where were they?
2) If the laws and constants of nature all came into being at the moment of the Big Bang, how does the universe remember them? Where are they ‘imprinted’?
3) How do you know that the laws of nature are fixed and not evolutionary?
Although I can hear the materialists cry that these questions are not even wrong, I wondered what you thought about them.
Best Wishes,
Posted in Cosmology, Philosophy of Science | No Comments »
February 14th, 2013
by Max Andrews
The bulk of my graduate research is focused on the work and thought of Max Tegmark, an MIT astrophysicist/cosmologist, who’s responsible for a tremendous contribution to multiverse models. In honor of Charles Darwin’s 204th birthday he did an article for the Huffington Post, “Celebrating Darwin: Religion and Science are Closer Than You Think.” There are some very interesting survey results regarding faith and conflict between evolution and big bang cosmology.
So is there a conflict between science and religion? The religious organizations representing most Americans clearly don’t think so. Interestingly, the science organizations representing most American scientists don’t think so either: For example, the American Association for the Advancement of Science states that science and religion “live together quite comfortably, including in the minds of many scientists.” This shows that the main divide in the U.S. origins debate isn’t between science and religion, but between a small fundamentalist minority and mainstream religious communities who embrace science.
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Posted in Science and Religion | 6 Comments »
January 14th, 2013
by Max Andrews
The properties of our universe appear to be finely-tuned for the existence of life. Cosmologists would like to explain the numbers and values that describe these properties we observe. Their attempt is to show that these constants and values in nature are completely determined as a product of inflation, which entails multiverse scenarios.[1] Inflationary cosmology seems to not only solve fine-tuning implications but it also solves the horizon problem. That is, the early universe’s expansion rate was exponentially fast—faster than the speed of light and if it expanded at such a rate information (light) could not propagate beyond the cosmic horizon. Due to these problems much theoretical focus and work has been implemented in to the field of cosmology and physics developing an inflationary cosmology and string theory.
The eternally inflating multiverse is often used to provide a consistent framework to understand coincidences and fine-tuning in the universe we inhabit.[2] This theory primarily appears in several forms, which attempt to explain the mechanism that drives the rapid expansion of the universe. Before developing these models there are a few basic premises that must be agreed upon: the size of the universe, the Hubble expansion, homogeny and isotropy, and the flatness problem.
It is unanimously agreed upon that the Hubble volume we inhabit is incredibly large. According to standard Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmology, without inflation, one simply postulates 1090 elementary particles.[3]
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Posted in Cosmology | 1 Comment »
December 10th, 2012
by Max Andrews
Hey Max,
I guess since I requested the Q&A section, I’ll start it off!
I recently had a conversation with an atheist in which I walked him through the Kalam Cosmological Argument. This inevitably led into a conversation about what criteria a “first cause” must meet. It was difficult for me to explain, and for him to understand how God exists as a necessary being, or out of His own nature.
The atheist resorted to a version of ”Flying Spaghetti Monster” argumentation, in which he said, “How do we know that the first cause wasn’t a giant pink unicorn, or that two universes didn’t just mate and form ours?”. For obvious reasons, his argument is absurd. But what’s the best way to explain the concept of the first cause, and why it couldn’t be a “giant pink unicorn”?
Thanks a lot,
Richie Worrell (USA)
Richie,
I’m always amazed at some of the philosophical lunacy some atheists come up with. The mockery of using phrases like “flying spaghetti monster” or a “giant pink unicorn” weren’t originally developed in response to the kalam. They were developed in response to intelligent design suggesting the designer could be a spaghetti monster. I recall Dawkins using it several times and it has gained popularity in response to the ontological argument.
Nonetheless, let’s accept his flying pasta, pink unicorn, and sexual universes for the sake of discussion. Let’s recap the the kalam argument:
- Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
- The universe began to exist.
- Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.
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Posted in Apologetics, Arguments for the Existence of God, Kalam, Q & A | 7 Comments »
November 22nd, 2012
by Max Andrews
I recently wrote a paper for my course on the philosophy of physics. I decided to title my research, “The Metaphysical Consistency of Applying Daniel Dennett’s Ultimate Bootstrapping to Post Big Bang Scenarios.” Believe me, I devoted a long time towards this paper. I think I succeeded in my task. Although, maybe if I worked on it longer it would have been different. Nonetheless, I believe I’ve demonstrated the metaphysical consistency of Dennett’s bootstrapping. Please download the paper in the link below. (You may need to click it a second time.)
The Metaphysical Consistency of Applying Daniel Dennett’s Ultimate Bootstrapping to Post Big Bang Scenarios
Posted in Cosmology, Metaphysics, Philosophy | 6 Comments »
July 12th, 2012
by Max Andrews
We know the universe began 13.7 billion years ago in an immensely hot dense state much smaller than a single atom. It began to expand about a million billion billion billion billionth of a second after the big bang. Gravity separated away from the other forces. The universe then underwent an exponential expansion called inflation. In about the first billionth of a second or so, the Higgs field kicked in, and the quarks, the gluons, the electrons that make us up got mass. The universe continued to expand and cool. After about a few minutes there was hydrogen and helium in the universe. That’s all. The universe was about 75% hydrogen, 25% helium. It still is today. It continued to expand about 300 million years. Then light was big enough to travel through the universe. It was big enough to be transparent to light, and that’s what we see in the cosmic microwave background. After about 400 million years, the first stars formed and that hydrogen, that helium, then began to cook into heavier elements… Stars were cooked up, exploded, and then re-collapsed into another generation of stars and planets. And on some of those planets in that first generation of stars could fuse with hydrogen to form water, liquid water on the surface… The laws of physics, the right laws of physics, they’re beautifully balanced. They couldn’t have been different. If the weak force were different then carbon and oxygen wouldn’t be stable in the hearts of stars and there would be none of that in the universe. And I think that’s a wonderful and significant story. (Brian Cox, TED2008, March 2008)
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Posted in Cosmology | No Comments »
June 29th, 2012
by Max Andrews
If the big bang was so dense then how come it wasn’t a black hole?
Think of it as a black hole backwards. At the moment of the big bang there was, what we now know as, the cosmological constant–dark energy which drives the expansion or inflation of the universe. Without this force there would be no expansion. Understanding this question will help us understand how the universe will end. We have three options for a physical eschatological scenario to occur. 1) Gravity will overcome the expanding force and the universe will collapse back in on itself creating an intense heat death. 3) If the force keeps expanding forever then there will be a thermodynamic equilibrium and there will be a maximal stretching and a cold death. 3) Or, there will be a big rip in which the force expands so fast that it continually rips the whole universe apart.
Posted in Cosmology | No Comments »
This is a compilation of posts, which focus on the philosophy of science. These posts will cover a broad spectrum within the philosophy of science ranging from multiverse scenarios, scientific theory, epistemology, and metaphysics.