Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: RightWhale
Since what we see is still changing every day, what we saw before must have been an illusion, so I merely extrapolate that what we see today is still an illusion.

Ergo, it's all an illusion -- the universe and all its contents, within or outside the Hubble radius? (Not that we could have anything at all to say about the latter.)

Are you saying that when a thing changes, whatever its prior form was, it is now an illusion? But things are changing all the time. Does that mean the universe itself is an illusion? And does that mean that you and I are illusions too?

95 posted on 08/30/2006 3:59:42 PM PDT by betty boop (Character is destiny. -- Heraclitus)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 89 | View Replies ]


To: betty boop
As an Eleatic Thomist I might be inclined to try that solution first unless there is somethng else crying out for preference.

I tend to think, along with Aquinas, that Avicenna was misled when he said that Aristotle said the universe must have existed eternally. The correct eleiatic position, and the correct philosophical position altogether would be that it cannot be proven that the universe either began at some time or that it has eternal existence in that direction even though it may have eternal existence from now on--can't say anything about that, either. As far as the Theologians go, the Text does not support either an eternal universe or a creation from nothing although it can be misread and commonly is in many of the translations we have available.

As to the illusion of the BB: a serious problem exists that Guth solved by his inflation. But, to a layman inflation is no better than simply turning the universe inside out; it is in effect turning the universe inside out. The problem is that the farther we see back in time, if we read the data correctly we are seeing to a time when the universe was smaller than an atom. However, and this is the problem, the farther we see the bigger it gets. These are not two compatible ideas. So this is why inflation was proposed and inflation brings a potload of other strangeness with it. Might as well say the universe inverted or mapped itself to an inverse function. That plays havoc with isotropy, which even Relativity has to assume in order to have a starting point.

99 posted on 08/30/2006 4:44:29 PM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the law of the excluded middle)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 95 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson