BBC's "Big Bang Night" Documentaries - A Question

quote:

A brilliant book that covers how the univers came about!

You make it sound as if this book contains the facts about whether matter was created from nothing, or matter has always existed, or whatever other hypothisis some scientist/religous-leader has come up with.

just because its written in book, presented on TV or stated as "based on evidence" by Richard Dawkins, doesn't make it true.

Cheers

Don

or false

Like when an object reaches the speed to break the sound barrier, I think this Big Bang is where science crosses the boundary into philosophy.

I'm wondering if the answers to what happened at the big bang cannot be answered by science simply because those scientific rules did not apply...err...at the time.

So, Prof Brian Cox is here on this thread eh? Bloody hell. Who'd have thought it, eh?
I think immediately of the great Ian Dury song, There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards, and I'm also thinking, this is where this thread could get really interesting. Shame we're not in a pub, or around a bottle of whisky and we've got until 6.00am to sort this out once and for all. I suppose its the only path for a middle class intellectual with hippy tenancies that listens too much to Hawkwind and smokes figs in the back yard. Bloody hell. I'm gobsmacked, and I'm awestruck and feeling ever so slightly intimidated.

As I've said before, addressing the material existence without addressing the spiritual existence isn't somehow satisfying. There must be acknowledgment of other dimensions that can draw the two together within a scientific framework, even though it may be one step beyond organic.

Am I making sense here or am I just talking bollocks? Without an emotional level, the material landscape (I can't think of a better word) would have no purpose to us, so why is there consistently a failure to relate the two? There HAS to be a relation, and I can only assume that ridiculous religious views have made the subject just too embarrassing to discuss. Organic life is easy to explain, but consciousness isn't.

Come on guys. We can do this if we try.

quote:

I'm wondering if the answers to what happened at the big bang cannot be answered by science simply because those scientific rules did not apply...err...at the time.

My view - for what it's worth - is that all facts are scientific facts ("scientific" being construed quite broadly). Put another way - there are no facts about a supernatural (or supra-scientific) realm. However, facts are not the only way we have of engaging with the world - other ways include aesthetic and religious experience. Unfortunately, if we're looking for "answers", none of these help. This doesn't mean that art and religion aren't valuable - but it does mean that their value does not lie in an ability to answer questions that science can't.

Regarding consciousness - a knotty problem, indeed! I doubt we're gonna solve it before 6am!

Regards
Nigel

quote:

is that all facts are scientific facts ("scientific" being construed quite broadly). Put another way - there are no facts about a supernatural (or supra-scientific) realm. However, facts are not the only way we have of engaging with the world - other ways include aesthetic and religious experience. Unfortunately, if we're looking for "answers", none of these help. This doesn't mean that art and religion aren't valuable - but it does mean that their value does not lie in an ability to answer questions that science can't.

......which doesn't explain how Rachel won Big Brother ..ooops wrong thread!

quote:

Originally posted by drbri:
Dear all,

I'm the one who said that there was nothing before the Big Bang (Brian Cox) so I'll clarify.
Cheers,

Brian

Great to have the horse's mouth here in person

Ian (an ex-RS URF - if we both make it to the 25th anniversary shindig in November I'll come and say hi.)

Ian - I hope to be at the RS do, so will look forward to meeting you! I suspect I will want to talk about your 555ps rather than cosmology, because I'm thinking of adding one to my CDX2

Brian

All this juggling of opinions means that you have to use a means that has the least human bias to it, and the basis for doing this is through scientific research.

Unless you are following the scientific method, the discussion is wide open to personal opinion. I know this leaves out what could be regarded as 'spiritual' experiences, but the debate has to first take the premise that humans are material objects, and what we call 'consciousness' is the effective property.

This leads on to the question of why did 'qualia' evolve i.e. why do you have the subjective experience of the 'redness of red'?

This I believe is a byproduct of our evolution of intelligence, which came about through foraging and having to remember where certain sources were, along with interaction with other species through lanhguage. Qualia makes this experience more real and aids our communication with others.

I've gone off tangent, but feel all this ties in with the origin of life!!

My turn for a whiskey.

Jon

quote:

because I'm thinking of adding one to my CDX2

Research going well then...or is that the TV work?

quote:

Originally posted by droodzilla:
My view - for what it's worth - is that all facts are scientific facts ("scientific" being construed quite broadly). Put another way - there are no facts about a supernatural (or supra-scientific) realm. However, facts are not the only way we have of engaging with the world - other ways include aesthetic and religious experience. Unfortunately, if we're looking for "answers", none of these help. This doesn't mean that art and religion aren't valuable - but it does mean that their value does not lie in an ability to answer questions that science can't.
Nigel

I think you are absolutely right Nigel. I think of it like this:

There is a long road that seems to go on forever without end, and it’s called the Road To Discovery, but some have tagged it The Road To Nowhere. We all begin on this road to travel in one direction and gain wisdom along the way, and it’s human nature that makes us do this.

Parallel to this is a train track, maybe 50 metres on the right of the road, and trains run constantly. When the road gets too much for some people, they can just go get the train instead, and the train is called the General Open Door, because it offers a way out from the road, or GOD for short.

Noboby knows where the road goes, and noboby knows where the train goes either. Some people are brought up to believe that the train is the only way as the road is futile and there are no answers on it, and others believe the opposite, and there are others that like it on the road and just stay still and camp because they like it there and are not interested in progression, and there are those that think there are no answers on the road and also that the train goes nowhere either, so just hang out.

We are all the same and are going to the same place eventually irrespective of how we get there, and we have no argument with others that chose the train or road. It doesn’t matter to us what others want to do – it’s fine. We all do what we want to do.

I don’t think science or religion have to be enemies, but I think both have to acknowledge each others particular questions in order to begin to share information. We don’t have to be mutually exclusive and we don’t have to fight each other over it.

quote:

or false

Correct.

Cheers

Don

Big day tomorrow. I'll be playing Space Ritual all day and smoking mainly banana skins*.
I think tomorrow the world will change. I think it'll be a day that a new chapter of science begins and the results that we eventually retrieve will re-write the books.
I personally believe there to be evidence of at least two other previously unproven dimensions, at least one of them material (that was the original thread question, wasn't it? How do you get something out of nothing? - you don't). I think we'll get evidence of another material dimension that we are unaware of, or its the same one and we just don't know it due to our very narrow operational bandwidth. It probably creates more questions than it answers, but hey.

Exciting, isn't it! Here we all are standing on this little globe, ewan aye together, while a few people fuck with a black hole maker. That's a big finger to the nanny state.
I hope they've got some serious beats playing when they press that button, cos this is going to be real.

You know, when Apollo was over, I just couldn't understand how we could come so far just to stop. This is restoring my faith in the pursuit of extreme science, purely for the sake of knowledge. And what I just love is that nobody seems to really know what's going to happen. My little boy, who is only just 6, is going grow up in a world far more exciting that the one we are in this week - err...if nothing goes wrong.

Ewan, I don't know about Space Ritual ALL day but I think they should play the live version of "Shouldn't Do That" very, very loudly while they crank the starter handle and it gets up to speed. Or maybe Orgone accumulator. It makes me feel greater you know!

Enjoy the banana skins

Ron

Just hope we don't end up with Time We Left This World Today

Seems to have grabbed a lot of attention. "World Ends on Tomorrow" stuff. Is this on a par with the members of the Manhattan Project that were convinced that a nuclear bomb would ignite the atmosphere,just as well we had another world to go to then! Doh!!

Guy on the radio said he was going to celebrate with a drink of light rum, coconut cream, and pineapple juice with added vodka and call it a "Pina Collider".

I didn't realise our resident particle physician had other talents past using NAIM gear. Look him up on Wikipedia,god I hope it's the same guy.

I'm sure he is Biggy!

.krad enog lla s'tI ?ereht ydobyna sI ?olleH

Try opening your eyes!

Well here is the explanation SO FAR !!!!!!!!!!

quote:

Well here is the explanation SO FAR !!!!!!!!!!

No Geoff - with the most humble of apologies for such a stark remark from me.

The question that Ron posed at the start of this thread centred around what PRECEDED the Big Bang.

CERN and the new accelerator are "merely" excploring what happened AFTER the Big Bang.

On a passing note, I was amused by the article you referenced, in so much that it used somewhat familiar texts such as "let there be light" to convey a scientific message!

Cheers

Don

Actually Don you missed the meaning of my "SO FAR".

I meant that there was no explanation of what came before the Big Bang and the admission comes from one of the 'Horses mouths' so confirmation that SO FAR we have no answer and Ron (and others, myself included) shouldn't expect an answer to that question for a while, .....if ever.

regards
Geoff

Ah ha!

Apologies yet again, Geoff - I missed the subtlety of you comment.

Looks like more of us are agreed than I thought. I, for one, am not holding my breath for anytime-soom answers about "something-from-nothing"; "for-ever-and-ever" or "some other solution that we haven't yet imagined"

As a further passing note, I was also amused about the use of the word "Creation" which the article clearly associated with the begining of the Universe in which we find ourselves.

Cheers

Don

quote:

As a further passing note, I was also amused about the use of the word "Creation" which the article clearly associated with the begining of the Universe in which we find ourselves.

.....giving the 'creationists' an escape hatch perchance?

quote:

Originally posted by drbri:
... all we can say from observation is that something interesting happened back then

Was it big? Was it a bang?
This is what I ask myself.
Considering the 'Big Bang' was infinitesimally small, and considering it constituted the whole of the universe at the time, and that therefore there could be no air medium in which the sound of it could travel, it would appear that 'Big Bang' is a whopping misnomer. You might as well call it by any adjective and noun combination. I prefer Funky Gibbon.

quote:

.....giving the 'creationists' an escape hatch perchance?

....a new lease of life....?

The three main differences between "The Big Bang" school and the "creationist" school IMHO, are c.13.7 million years ago v c.5,000 years ago: a few billionths of a second v 6 days; about a dozen fundamental building blocks (quarks etc)that evolved v the full spectrum of life and matter as we currently see it.

Not a bad result from 3,000 years of research by mankind.

And we still don't know about God v Spontenaity v Something Else

Cheers

Don (who, for the avoidance of doubt is not a creationist and has a lot of respect for Newton, Darwin, Einstein, and thousands of other brilliant minds of discovery - except Richard Dawkins)