What Would Epicurus Think of the Big Bang?

Quote from Bryan

In minute 15 he says that the field operates while being "never touched" and "without ever touching," and says "the field is real... you can affect things far away using the field without ever touching it."

How can something be affected without contact?

That was a physical demonstration by Farday and a demonstrable effect of the electromagnetic field. He may have stated it in an unfortunate layperson, non scientific way, but the effect is real. The electromagnetic field is "invisible" to our naked unaided eyes, but using the right equipment, you can see it, detect it, use it. It's not supernatural or eerie or anything like that. He's just using "touching" in a colloquial, touch it with your finger sense. If real. It what makes what we're doing online possible as well.

Quote from Bryan

In minute 20 "There are no particles in the world, the basic fundamental building blocks of our universe are these fluid-like substances that we call fields"

What is a "substance that is not made of any particles"?

There are "particles" just not as we have become accustomed to think of them. The metaphor he uses of waves on the ocean seems appropriate as long as it's not taken literally.

This whole presentation gets at the discussions we've all had on the forum in the past about different levels of perspectives and reality at different levels of perception. “By convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color; but in reality atoms and void.” from Democritus. This presentation could be summed up “By convention atoms and void; but in reality waves and fields.”

We don't exist at the level of waves and fields, we live our lives in the macroscopic world. But we make use of the knowledge gained by quantum field theory every day in our electronic devices. But pleasure and pain don't need to be understood at the subatomic level to guide our lives. We're flesh and blood and bone and brain interacting with other physical, emotional creatures trying to get through the day.

For me, the idea that the particles that make me are ripples on a cosmic ocean, connecting me to every other thing in the universe, is awe-inspiring in the best way. No gods necessary. Just the infinite structure of an infinite universe bubbling up here and there.

Quote from Don

For me, the idea that the particles that make me are ripples on a cosmic ocean, connecting me to every other thing in the universe, is awe-inspiring in the best way.

I'm not disagreeing at all, just this thought occurs to me --- does an analogy of ripples on an ocean have any different emotional impact or philosophical implication than the particles in space analogy?

What about the entire structure of the use of "atoms" as the basis for regularity in the processes of nature. We've been talking about the field theory in terms of nothing from nothing, but is it any more difficult to also construct from the field theory the basis for the regularity at which we see the world proceed without the direction of any gods?

I suspect there's no real difference, but worth a thought probably.

Quote from Cassius

does an analogy of ripples on an ocean have any different emotional impact or philosophical implication than the particles in space analogy?

For me, no difference.

I get the same sense of awe when thinking that the iron in my blood was forged in the heart of long dead stars, the oxygen I breathe is from the respiration of plants, the light that enters my eyes from Orion's Belt has been traveling for unimaginably long times before I sense it. It's only a matter of different levels of thinking about my connection to other people, other life forms, and the vast universe itself.

PS. And I need to add that that connection isn't metaphorical or mystical or supernatural, it's literal. I am literally connected to everything else in a physical, tangible, material way. From the atoms that make me up coming from dead stars, to the air I breathe coming from plants, the acquintances and friends and relatives and acestors I have that come from all over the world, I am a result of all those connections rippling and bubbling and waving through the cosmos and out into the infinite All.

When he shows the equation that “explains everything” yet nevertheless states that there are “parts of which no one on the planet understands,” I think he is playing the game Diogenes of Oinoanda mentions below:

“[Others do not] explicitly [stigmatize] natural science [as unnecessary], being ashamed to acknowledge [this], but use another means of discarding it. For, when they assert that things are inapprehensible, what else are they saying than that there is no need for us to pursue natural science? After all, who will choose to seek what he can never find? Now Aristotle and those who hold the same Peripatetic views as Aristotle say that nothing is scientifically knowable, because things are continually in flux and, on account of the rapidity of the flux, evade our apprehension. We on the other hand acknowledge their flux, but not its being so rapid that the nature of each thing is at no time apprehensible by sense-perception.” (Diogenes of Oinoanda, Fr. 5, trans. Smith)

“…if [the Stoics] call [thoughts] empty on the ground that, while they have a corporeal nature, it is exceedingly subtle and does not impinge on the senses, they have expressed themselves wrongly, [since it was necessary to call] them corporeal, despite their subtlety. If on the other hand they call them empty on the ground that they have no corporeal nature at all – and it is in fact this rather than the former which they mean – how can the empty be represented? What then are they?... for films which are so subtle and lack the depth of a solid constitution cannot possibly possess these faculties.” (Fr. 10)

I feel that the explanation the presenter repeats -- basically the endorsed explanation since the world wars -- simply takes pre-suppositions from other schools, which are contrary to our school, and then labors to argue that recent experiments and technological advances prove their pre-suppositions correct.

Quote

I am struck by the comments of thatchickinpa regarding the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall. It drove me to a little bit of research.

It is an interesting structure, and I find it fascinating. But as you probably saw, there is doubt whether it even exists. More studies are needed using the THESEUS satellite which won't be put into orbit for at least another decade.

I am curious why you chose the quotes you did. Do you feel that they support your point?

If so, I will ask the same thing as before - how are these sourced? When I plug them into google, the first and third are referenced in two websites - one I've never heard of, the other simple wikipedia - neither which are sourced themselves. The second looks like it is from HuffPo where the scientist is just basically saying "I don't know how it came into existence" which is quite common in most scientific fields for new discoveries. More data is needed.

And the blurbs themselves aren't claiming or denying anything about the structure itself & the Big Bang, and therefore have no evidence attached to them.

My point is not to convince you or anyone else to accept the Big Bang as true. It is for those stumbling onto this thread who may not be sure to always question the facts presented, their sources, whether the points presented are cherrypicked, etc. While not believing the Big Bang happened probably won't hurt anyone, there are other cases of other science denial that could cause a lot of pain.

Quote

In this presentation around the 45 minute mark that's where this really pops up. He starts talking about "universe" and seems to be referring to "observable universe" though the terminology to a layman is still as it was 2000 years ago - universe means everything.

I don't mean to sound like Cicero criticizing Epicurus, because it's perfectly acceptable to re-define your terms if you are going to be clear about it.

I haven't viewed it yet, but most physicists use "universe" as a shorthand for "observable universe". I think its because not much is really known about the universe outside of what can be observed, so it can be safely assumed. It is confusing for those outside the field though. IMO most technical experts are generally poor at communicating their findings outside of their fields.

Quote from thatchickinpa

My point is not to convince you or anyone else to accept the Big Bang as true.

This might be understood in what you are saying, but I would say that I wouldn't entertain any doubt that our "corner of the universe" came to be as a result of an explosion from a central location. To the extent that is what big bang implies, I would be fine with it as I would not challenge the idea that the data shows everything in our observation expanding. (I am not aware of anyone challenging that part.)

The points in dispute would be whether what exploded came from nothing, and whether the universe as a whole is indeed unbounded, such that these big bangs are infinite in number and going on eternally, expanding and then collapsing without end.

Quote from Bryan

yet nevertheless states that there are “parts of which no one on the planet understands,”

Giving Tong (the presenter) the benefit of the doubt (that the person who suggested that part of the equation understood what he was suggesting) to me this emphasizes how necessary it is to understand the limits of the equation rather than oversell it. In the end, can you take that overall equation and actually do anything with it other than perhaps predict the output of some experiment that you've developed in parallel with the equation? It's not like being able to conceptually state the equation is equivalent to an incantation that can bring something into being from nothing. In the end you are always working from what was there already to change it, not bringing something into being from nothing.

Quote from Bryan

After all, who will choose to seek what he can never find?

This is a line that strikes me as super-important every time I read that. I remember years ago in a Facebook discussion someone made the comment "But yeah, people do that all the time," and he was probably right that they do, at least in a way. But in most cases sane people don't keep searching for things that they know they can never find, and that's where the philosophical point comes in that you have to have an opinion about whether something really exists or not before you decide to invest your life into looking for it. And it seems to me pretty important to start off at the very beginning of this discussion finding some common ground and being clear about the playing field. People like Tong and those who are persuaded by Epicurus are confident that natural answers exist which could answer the questions if we had further details, and so we go on pursuing those details. But that presumption that there is a natural answer is a big one, and can't be left to implication.

Quote from Bryan

how can the empty be represented? What then are they?... for films which are so subtle and lack the depth of a solid constitution cannot possibly possess these faculties.”

Yep. That's a visual description of the disconnect. No way that they video of the globs moving around is what most people would understand by the term "empty."

Quote from Bryan

I feel that the explanation the presenter repeats -- basically the endorsed explanation since the world wars -- simply takes pre-suppositions from other schools, which are contrary to our school, and then labors to argue that recent experiments and technological advances prove their pre-suppositions correct.

Yep. I don't see a reason why most of what is being said could not be stated in traditional "universe means everything" and "nothing means nothing" terms. It's as if somewhere along the line someone decided to intentionally shift the traditional meanings of the words explicitly to undercut the Epicurean interpretation of an eternal and infinite universe. In fact the more I think about it, what possible "good" reason was there to shift the meaning of "universe" and "nothing" *other than* to distance themselves from the ultimate conclusions?

Aside: I find this subject fascinating, but sometimes I too wonder if we are chasing rabbits down holes where we have no business going.

But then I look back at Epicurus saying explicitly in the letter to Pythocles that these exact subjects should be included in basic studies so as to escape from superstition, so I think we're doing the right thing.

[116] ... All these things, Pythocles, you must bear in mind; for thus you will escape in most things from superstition and will be enabled to understand what is akin to them. And most of all give yourself up to the study of the beginnings and of infinity and of the things akin to them, and also of the criteria of truth and of the feelings, and of the purpose for which we reason out these things. For these points when they are thoroughly studied will most easily enable you to understand the causes of the details. But those who have not thoroughly taken these things to heart could not rightly study them in themselves, nor have they made their own the reason for observing them.

Quote

... the LHC’s failures to lend much support for the standard model ...

in comment #20 is wrong. Everything the LHC has found so far confirms the standard model. So far, the LHC has failed to find new physics beyond the standard model, and calling that "failure" is odd.

Calling fields "fluids", "fluid-like substances" or just "substances" appears to be misleading. Other than that, David Tong's presentation is well done.

Yes that would be a good idea Cyrano. This question has now arisen twice in two days so we will think about a way to "institutionalize" the process. In the meantime. if you will send it to me in a private message, I will get the other moderators invovled and we will consult about it and get back to you.

Kalsoyni here, answering on behalf of Cassius.

Cyrano, This new feature was just added, so you can just click on the dialog bubble under each person's profile on the left hand side of any post.