Thoughts on origins

[AFTT47]

I am too a fan of the MWI because I think.it is the most frugal and philosophically consistent interpretation of QM.

A near-infinity of universes is frugal? Compared to a literal infinity, I suppose. Or did you mean frugal in terms of assumptions?

[SteelCurtain]

No clue.

I'm fine not postulating an opinion until the evidence comes in. And if it never does, "I don't know" is a wonderful position to take.

I'm happy to leave the "knowing" to theists. You guys are comically terrible at it.

I don't mean to undermine you,i just wanted to tell you that it's okay to come up with stupid stuff.
As Albert Einstein once said, 
"To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science."

Without creative imagination we'd all probably still be in the stone age.

No where did I say people shouldn't hypothesize. Dream big, by all means. Test those wild theories, so long as they are grounded in a deep understanding of the subject about which you are theorizing.

It's when people hypothesize about something they have no understanding of, no training in, then take their untested, unproven hypothesis as Truth where I begin to have an issues.

[Whateverist]

The cosmos as we know it has a number of pre-existing states which can be deduced with some general agreement.

Before that are pre-existing state for which there is less general agreement among those in the know.

Prior to that the proposed pre-existing states are muddled, many and highly uncertain.

The one thing I feel quite certain of is that it was pre-existing states all the way down.  Oh, and I highly suspect that each prior pre-existing state contained the conditions necessary and sufficient for the one that immediately followed it.  That is all.

[Whateverist]

I'm a fan of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, so I'm not sure that concepts like time and beginning have any real correlates.  I think it's likely our intuitive notions of time and causality will unravel the more that we learn about reality, leaving us with a picture of a more or less static model of universes without beginnings or endings.

This sounds rather like the perspective of a person falling into a black hole.

[surreptitious57]

I do not have a fixed opinion upon the origins of the Universe because that is a question which at this moment in time cannot be answered. But that does not mean that some facts cannot be established with regard to it. The first is that this incarnation of local cosmic space referred to as the Universe began almost fourteen billion years ago. So whether any thing happened before
that cannot be determined as of yet. The second is that there is no such thing as absolute nothing from an eternal perspective because it violates the laws of physics. The notion of it existing
infinitely before the Big Bang is completely false. Absolute nothing can exist but only for an infinitesimal period of time. Nature it would appear really does abhor a vacuum. It is important not
to confuse nothing with absolute nothing as they are not the same. Since nothing is the absence of matter but absolute nothing as the name suggests is the absence of absolutely everything

A word about the singularity from which this Universe is supposed to have emanated from. This is very problematic because it invokes infinity and whenever it occurs in mathematical models
pertaining to physical reality it is regarded as nonsensical. It is important to under stand the difference between mathematical and physical infinity. Now mathematics is an abstract discipline
and although it models physical reality [ the laws of physics are after all written in mathematical form ] it is not a part of it as such. So consequently the notion of infinity is not a problematic  
one from a purely mathematical perspective. And take the horizontal number line as an example : it extends to negative infinity on the left and positive infinity on the right from the absolute
centre zero as that is the only non negative / non positive integer on the whole line. There are no physical constraints that impede this as it is external to and independent of physical reality

Now transfer infinity to physical space and particularly the singularity from which this Universe is supposed to have emanated from. The singularity hypothesis references not one but two
infinities : one of absolute density and one of infinitesimal volume. So in other words a mass so great  it is actually greater than that of the entire Universe it self shrunk to a size so small
as to be actually non existent. This is plainly nonsensical because something cannot originate from something which is actually invisible so small is it. And so the notion of physical infinity 
is constrained by physical laws in a way that mathematical infinity is not. But even if the Universe was born out of a singularity it was not one that was infinitely small and absolute dense
but merely very small and very dense. Now these conditions do not violate the laws of physics. For they actually happen every time that a star dies when pressure and gravity repel each
other when the force of pressure finally allows the force of gravity to collapse up to a point beyond which that can no longer occur. And this is how pulsars and neutron stars are created


A MIND IS LIKE A PARACHUTE : IT  DOES NOT WORK UNLESS IT IS OPEN

[Alex K]

I am too a fan of the MWI because I think.it is the most frugal and philosophically consistent interpretation of QM.

A near-infinity of universes is frugal? Compared to a literal infinity, I suppose. Or did you mean frugal in terms of assumptions?

The assumptions are frugal. The Schrödinger equation already generates these infinitely many timelines as soon as you include yourself as the observer into the quantum description govrned by it. Usually,one artificially discards all but one of those superimposed states when a "measurement" has taken place, which is a strange exception. If you don't, you're already halfway in the MWI...

[robvalue]

First off, I'm far from convinced any of this is real. Not sure if that's relevant. Solipsism is something I can never overcome.

But after making the usual pragmatic assumptions, I'm left with no idea. "I don't know" is the most underused and under appreciated phrase going. Religion thrives on how uncomfortable people are saying it. The idea that religion picks up where science leaves off is ridiculous. It picks up only by making guesses which are of no use except for comfort, or to control people.

Anyhow, if I was forced to guess at gunpoint, the only serious possibilities I'd consider are:

1- Our reality is all there is, and has always existed in some form. That doesn't mean we're actually even aware of most of it, though. Maybe we will never be aware of all of it. Our understanding, I suspect, is very primitive. We may have fragmented from another reality.

2- This is a manifestation of a process in another reality such as a computer simulation, or just as the byproduct of something.

3- This is part of a "many worlds" multiverse.

That's it really. Even though I have virtually no confidence in putting any of those forward, I have zero confidence in any other explanation I've heard.

[Longhorn]

I like to imagine the universe is a waffle

[robvalue]

Careful, that's how religions get started!

[Longhorn]

Nonononononono. You first have to lie about how you got pregnant, then you run with it. THAT'S how you start religions. It's in the manual