(...) you could even choose any periodical event on Earth and come up with a unit of time, supposing it were as perfectly reliable as the celestial bodies. If Old Faithful, the geyser, were really faithful (mathematically so), you could choose the interval between two successive spoutings and call it an “old”, a “faith” or an “O.F.”. Then you could divide it into ever smaller portions, down to an instant. Unfortunately it will sometimes be a little late and will make you wait for a while.

So, you see, time is not just a mere “comparison of moving objects”, unless your livelihood and the papers you send to “Science” depend on it....
***

Originally posted by Macrento
this was incomprehensible. Now you’ve explained it clearly: the “person” you were talking about is an omniscient God, which was not at all clear.

This is a tricky concept to understand, perhaps I could have used the word omnipresent but my point is that 'knowing' and being 'present' are basically the same. We can only know that which we perceive from our present surroundings. In order for a person to be 'here' thinking about the edge of the Universe and be there to step beyond that edge requires omnipresence which we are not. Once this person leaves here to go to the 'edge' of the Universe what they see is a vast Universe unfolding around them and no discernible edge in sight, this 'edge' might then be thought to exist where he came from. Herein lies the problem, we could go on chasing nothingness forever until we realize that this is a futile endeavor.

Originally posted by Macrento
What thought experiment? Kant’s reasonings concerning time?

Einstein often called these philosophical concepts "thought experiments" and in this case I was referring to your reply to tribewilder about the concept of infinity. The thought experiment is imagining beyond the endless as I described above.

"I went to a lecture on some philosophical subject and I was surprised to hear the scholar saying that some Greek thinker had reflected in a similar way. His reasoning: now, supposing I could walk over to the very end of the universe, and I poked my staff through the limit, what would happen to the end of my staff? Would it disappear?"

This thought experiment (not your thoughts) is futile for reasons that are very obvious. This is also where the debate over an infinite vs. finite Universe becomes religious, it requires a God like ability or at least the belief in a God like ability.

Originally posted by Macrento
space and matter are inseparable concepts. Just as you can’t have matter without space to harbor it, so, too, you can’t have space without a single reference point in its midst to define a distance.

I agree with you here and I think the problem we might all have is that we were originally taught to think of space as nothing. It becomes difficult to drop this 'a priori' and understand that there is no such thing as a void, cold or darkness and this is my main point.

Originally posted by Macrento
When discussing the concept of “space” it is understood that one is referring to space in general, not to this or that portion of space.

In this thread the definition of "Space" needs to clearly be defined, at least in the manner that I understand the alternative to the 'big bang'. There are so many things that we have yet to understand from the evidence and observations that have been made in the last 10 years but first the belief in the old idea of space must be dropped.

Originally posted by Macrento
The problem lies, not with the part, but with the whole, and the problem is this: that in this case, the whole is not the sum of its parts. This holds true both for space and time. No matter how many volumes or instants you add up, you will never be able to complete the sum, because both space and time are infinite series."

This thought is ineffeble and becomes a religious debate, we must be where we are because we cannot be anywhere else.

Originally posted by Macrento
This is so impossible to grasp that only in the imaginary realm of mathematics have we been able to handle infinity...

The infinity of numbers, I am aware... Calculating the inverse square law, Phi as a dividend of the Fibonacci numbers and the concept of zero. Math shows us that there are some things that have no end, but then again math is one of the few things that can actually be wrong. Philosophy, religion, feelings and Understanding can never be wrong, unless you believe that they are wrong in which case you're right.

Time is a very simple thing to understand once the idea of omnipresence is gone. Time is the Moon-lunar phases, time is the seasons-Earth orbiting the Sun, time is the zodiac-precession of the equinoxes, time is people aging-biological degradation. all aspects of time are based on the comparison of measured motions, time does not exist without objects in motions and there needs to be more than one object. A Universal singularity is the definition of time's non-existence so therefore this 'thing' does not exist.

Originally posted by Macrento
The principle that is the basis for the measuring of time is as follows: you take a natural periodic phenomenon (which by itself is already a clock) and then you choose a unit and you christen it. That’s all you need.

Don't forget the most important part, the observer. Any single clock, natural or otherwise, is worthless without something to compare it to. All of the examples you and I gave for time are simply comparing the movement of objects from our frame of reference.

Originally posted by Macrento
It could be easier to understand if you try this thought experiment: imagine a pure, disembodied consciousness in empty space. How could this entity conceive space, if it has no reference points?

I have been through this thought experiment before and found the experience terrifying, from this terror I then understand the purpose of existence.

Originally posted by Macrento
Fifteen centuries later there is still no explanation that will satisfy everyone...yet it is at the very foundation of science...but science has no single definition of it.

So either I am defining time in a simple manner that has not been done up till now or my definition is in error. The definition I present is not something that I came to lightly or in haste, I have given it considerable thought and I am interested in your thoughts as well.
Can time be defined in another way other than the measurement of moving objects?

Quote
“I have been through this thought experiment before and found the experience terrifying, from this terror I then understand the purpose of existence.”

How can a fearful experience lead someone to an understanding of the purpose of life???!!!

Quote
“Can time be defined in another way other than the measurement of moving objects?”

That’s only the definition that the natural sciences give. Psychology and philosophy, as I pointed out, have their own understanding of what time is. It depends on the context.

Anyway, astronomers, after who knows how many thousands of years of being in charge of the matter, now have nothing whatever to do with it. The time scale that’s now being used is the International Atomic Time and it’s based on the atomic resonance of the cesium atom. I guess this, too, has something to do with movement (vibrations at the atomic level?), so in that case things haven’t really changed at all, in essence. It’s once again as the French say: the more things change, the more they remain the same (but they were talking about how they’d chopped off all those heads and then here comes Napoleon who crowns himself and establishes a new aristocracy...).
***

Originally posted by DraconianKing
You're only attacking one piece of evidence for the big bang with the redshifts, there are many. So until you can disprove every single one and have the science world review and agree with your theory you have proved jack.

I’ve already dealt with two of the five reasons that Big Bangers claim to have for keeping the faith --redshifting and dark nights (Olber’s Paradox). One can come up with arguments that will do away with the other ones as well.

The CMBR (cosmic microwave background radiation), for example: in this case, light fatigue, already mentioned, could be involved. All that radiation could be simply the spent starlight, on its way to the vanishing point. In other words, it would be agonizing starlight. Its ubiquity (omnipresence) and endurance can be explained thus: it is in a state of homeostasis or “dynamic equilibrium”. The amount of light that vanishes is comparable to the amount being constantly issued by the sources, making the microwave background a stable, eternal, everpresent feature.

(The usual analogy for homeostasis is the container with a drain and into which a faucet gushes water at the same rate that the water is lost down the drain, so that the water level always remains the same.)

Then there’s the fourth reason: the evolution of stars, galaxies and clusters thereof. At the greatest distances the universe looks different and the stars and galaxies seen there are assumed to be in the early stages of development of the universe and much closer than us to the instant of the B.B.

This reqires a thought experiment. What would an observer there see in our direction? They would see our sector with galaxies supposedly in their “mature” stages of development. Imagine now that their telescopes were much more powerful than ours, and so they could see what lies far beyond us, in other words, BEHIND us. EVENTUALLY THEY WOULD AGAIN SEE A PORTION OF THE UNIVERSE JUST LIKE THEIR OWN, because in that opposite direction, as we would call it, just as in any other, our astronomers claim to see immature galaxies if they watch deeply enough.

This means that those faraway observers would see a portion of the universe with supposedly “mature” galaxies (our neighborhood) sandwiched between two portions with “immature” galaxies. So where does that leave the B.B. Theory??? I’m not sure but I don’t see how anybody can explain such a situation. Maybe the universe is a “club sandwich” or an onion, with an endless succession of layers of alternating “mature” and “immature” galaxies??? I think this is hinting at the truly macromegastructure of the universe. The spongelike network discovered not too long ago would be merely local in comparison.

Most of the ideas involving the first and second reasons are well-known but you won’t find these other ones --the ones about the third and fourth reasons-- anywhere because I just made them up.

Four out of five is already 80 percent. There’s still the fifth reason to be messed around with: the abundance of the two lightest chemical elements. That’s a hard nut to crack. It deserves a thread of it own somewhere.

A final reminder: the B.B. theory is still unable to explain two matters, namely, the densities of the several types of matter and the nuts and bolts of the so-called inflationary period.
***

Originally posted by trace_the_truth

Originally posted by Watcher-In-The-Shadows

1) More "begging the question" fallacy.
2) Light gets dimmer as it travels.

You seem to be the OP's (irrational) bulldog...

I am not discussing a "begging the question" fallacy. I believe that you need to study your logic, sir...

I am discussing causality. We, as humans, know for a fact that if there are an infinite sources of light in an infinite area, then with infinite time, every where you look will end in light. It is very simple.

It's as if you are saying to me that I am begging the question of a potato to be boiled by placing it in boiling water!

You, my friend... ARE ABSURD!

As Edgar Allen Poe has said on the subject:

Were the succession of stars endless, then the background of the sky would present us a uniform luminosity, like that displayed by the Galaxy –since there could be absolutely no point, in all that background, at which would not exist a star. The only mode, therefore, in which, under such a state of affairs, we could comprehend the voids which our telescopes find in innumerable directions, would be by supposing the distance of the invisible background so immense that no ray from it has yet been able to reach us at all.

... and of course, he illustrates a universe so large (perhaps infinite in size) which can't possibly be infinite in time. This is compatible with the big bang theory due to the expansionary period and the speed of light.

You say light gets dimmer as it travels. That is of no concern to an infinite universe with infinite stars and infinite time because the photons are spreading out over an infinite area infinitely. In an infinite universe, every single photon from every single star has reached, and its successors are continuing to reach, every single point in the universe until one star in the line of site has died.. but even then there are infinite stars in that line of sight.

I haven't read through all the post's yet, but this one does need one quick question...

In an infinite universe with infinite time, how does light from a star only 10 billion years old reach an infinite distance?

The universe could very well be of infinite proportions, we don't know how matter is created nor do we know exactly when from an infinite perspective when it was created or if matter has to be created all at once within an infinite universe.

I mean, to state that an infinite universe with infinite time must have infinite everything is just illogical because we don't have all the variables. If we LOOK at what we do see out there we see finite matter and light traveling at finite speeds from finite distances. Common sense tells me that this means at the time matter in this part of the universe came into being it had finite time to travel.

Regardless of the infinite size of the universe something created 100 quadrillion light years away will still require 100 quadrillion years to reach us at the speed of light. Since we don't know the variables as a fact, we can't rule out the possibility as false as of yet. Even IF all matter within an infinite universe were created all at once, that matter is still bound to the laws of physics and will not break those laws regardless of how infinite the universe may be. Light can only travel so fast and so far before it isn't visible anymore and is consumed by the random background noise of the observable universe. Now that I think of it, it could be that the CMB is light from other "universes", but drowned out by the more stronger light/radiation of our "universe".

I don't understand why, in the infinite universe model, the sky should be white. Why should there be an infinite amount of stars at every direction? it does not make sense.

Originally posted by tribewilder

Originally posted by mnemeth1


If red shift is not an indicator of distance, which I believe has been conclusively demonstrated that it is not by observational evidence, then we can reject the big bang as science and move on to looking at the universe as being steady in state. That is to say, the universe is infinite in size, it is ageless, it is timeless, and no big bang ever occurred. We are simply not privileged to know what caused the universe to exist or when it came into existence, it simply does. We must assume it is infinite in age as it is infinite in size.

The problem here is that I cannot grasp ageless nor infinite in size.

If I think about this too much I will either get a massive headache or go completely insane.

Excellent work on your thread..

I do wonder though, can anyone really grasp infinity??

My best friend claims that he understands the concept of infinity but i think he is just being a smart ass

Originally posted by sirnex
So, how does light from something only 750 million years old travel a distance of 13 billion light years? Or am I not understanding what he's saying or what the BB Theory is saying?

That is what he is saying but it is bad math.

The object in question is being seen as it was 750 million years after the Big Bang was theorized to have taken place but the light traveling to us has taken 13 billion years to reach Earth. This puts the estimated age of the object at 13.75 billion years but we are seeing it when it was in its infancy.

Originally posted by sirnex

In other words, for this galaxy to lie 13 billion light-years away from Earth only 750 million years after the Big Bang, it would have had to travel 13 billion light years in just 750 million years' time. That requires the galaxy in question to travel more than 17 times faster than the speed of light, a speed limit which according to the Big Bang supporters was in effect from the moment the universe was 3 seconds old.

So, how does light from something only 750 million years old travel a distance of 13 billion light years? Or am I not understanding what he's saying or what the BB Theory is saying?

What Augustus said is correct. Also note that the speed of light limit only applies to light traveling through space. Since space itself is expanding, you will see parts of the universe traveling away from each other apparently at speeds faster than the speed of light without violating the laws of physics.

This stuff is hard to wrap your brain around, as it's not very intuitive.

Well, that's if space is expanding. If the big bang theory is based on red-shift observations and those calculations are wrong or not accounting for any other physical variable for happening, then how else do we determine an expanding universe without red-shift?

I was also thinking, it's kind of hard to imagine a big bang, something that never crossed my mind before. I always took BBT at face value as truth because those with machines to measure said it happened. Now that I think about it, the BBT is just like those creation myths with the primordial egg, it doesn't really explain where space and matter came from and still leaves something to having exist prior to the universe and that something would have to have been eternal unless we conjure up an eternal amount of causes.


It just seems more likely that the universe is eternal without a cause. Even in an eternal universe with matter moving about, changing constantly, it still doesn't mean light should be seen from eternal distances as light still has to follow the laws of physics within an eternal universe.

I just can't see any way around something having to exist eternally, either our universe or whatever process that lead to our universe and the process that lead to that process etc, or a deity of sorts. I just refuse to conjure up mythical deities and an unaccountable infinite causes. So that leaves only one possibility, an eternal universe following the same laws of physics as they have always existed.

When we look back at the supposed beginning of the universe close to the big bang, we don't see baby galaxies, we see fully developed mature and sometimes high density galaxies. That says there is something there that we're simply not accounting for, unless we say the laws of physics magically changed in order for high density mature galaxies to form at such a young stage in the universes life. Which is what they do try and push forward. Make's no sense at all.

What I think we're seeing is more like our telescopes see that far back and they see mature galaxies, beyond that they start seeing a diffuse tenuous gas that blocks light from further out, appearing to look like what we call the cosmic background radiation. Our local part of the universe drowns out any information of the larger universe due to the strength of light/radiation in our part. It's like when we look at a nebula, we can't see what is behind it because it blocks the light, so we switch to a different wavelength to glimpse behind it, but only in the case of seeing 100 quadrillion light years out, this doesn't work so well due to what we know about the laws of physics.

Even if redshift is showing movement of galaxies, we see an immensely vast amount of galaxies all moving towards some unseen point in the cosmos. Rather than accept the obvious, that a much larger structure exists beyond what is visible, we conjure up unseen forms of matter and teach everyone to accept it's existence without question because there simply is no other answer for this mysterious dark flow.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the BBT is wrong, based on faulty interpretations of the data and that scientists are still continuing with the theory because of the time, money, and their lives invested in the theory. It's like how people fought against a heliocentric spherical earth. It was unthinkable then, and later found that they were wrong and misinterpreted the data that showed it as true.

There's no way around it, something was eternal and the simplest answer is that this something was our universe, even if we can't see the universe in eternal distances.

[edit on 21-9-2009 by sirnex]