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.
Need the isotropy be "absolute" or just "as well as we can measure"...?
Thinking here of string theories and collapsed dimensions which seem to argue against isotropy.
(Reaching vainly for straws)--has anyone done an analogy to Minkowski space-time, using collapsed dimensions in addition to the convention Cartesian (or spherical polar, I don't mind) coordinates?
...or am I just re-inventing the square wheel?
Cheers!
Perhaps they are complementarities in the sense intended by Niels Bohr, who said that two mutually exclusive principles are both necessary to the "complete description" of the system of which they are the "mutually exclusive" parts.
In short, seeming incompatibilities or even outright mutually exclusive principles may find logical resolution at a higher level of understanding -- of Truth that harmoniously integrates both into a more comprehensive description of reality.
But then, people today tend to expect that Einstein's remark is the correct one: If you have two mutually exclusive principles, then at least one of them must be wrong....
I love Einstein. But I don't agree with this statement. Aristotle's law of the excluded middle is crushing human intelligence these days, leading to a digital style of thinking that does not accord with direct human experience of the real world.
Well, FWIW. That and a buck-twenty-five (plus tax) might get you a cup of coffee....
Good night, dear Right Whale!