Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian W
Hi all, seems to me that all of this hangs upon the idea that the universe is finite. By this I mean that there is a beginning and an ending. As most of us have been directly influenced by the Judeo / Christian way of looking at things this is quite understandable. (please note that I am not bringing G-d into the equation just the idea that our culture limits the questions we can ask)
How would the questions and answers be effected, or indeed would they be, if we were to approach this from the cultural belief that the universe is infinite with no beginning and no ending?
If the big bang was simply the continuation of what came before... and in time what was started would move into what comes next?
Brian
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Brian;
This conversation has now drifted into philosophical areas, (which is OK .. and normal .. most threads in the Science Forum end up this way).
My 2 cents worth on this is that I have no problems in thinking of the Universe as infinite, with no beginning and no ending. Neither have many other prominent scientists throughout history (Einstein, Fred Hoyle, etc, etc). Their ideas in these areas however, have tended to fall by the wayside in the light of hard data. They do make various reappearances in man-made hypotheses/theories which to a certain degree, contain some measure of 'consensus' or 'agreement'.
Such thoughts are as good as anything for having some kind of picture in one's mind about it all. At the end of the day, they are mostly opinions and as they say .. 'everybody's got one .. and they rarely make a big difference'. Big shifts mostly tend to happen upon observation of 'anomalous' phenomena.
As far as cultural influences on scientific thinking goes, many famous scientists also have had in the past, religious beliefs. We have discussed the
Jesuit Scientists previously, as an example. Another example is that the Pope also
recognises the very scientists behind the mainstream thinking outlined in the response posts in this thread. This would seem to be evidence of sociological religious support for mainstream scientific thinking.
The main point I'd like to make from what you say is that modern science doesn't seek the 'truth'. Its about observing, theorising, seeking evidence, falsifying and refining then predicting. This is all about decoupling the false perceptions which humans generate from looking at the environment around us, from the cold reality of the physical world.
This approach has also culminated in a modern perspective which leans towards creation of the universe from nothing, with purely unthinking physical processes building what we see around us. I for one, have no problems living inside any of these dimensions of thought.
How about you ?
Cheers and Regards