North of the north pole [Archive]

UndercoverElephant

27th May 2009, 07:14 AM

An exchange from another thread:

fls: "You need to draw a line between science and metaphysics which doesn't exclude areas of already-productive science."

UE: "That's easy. Or at least it should be. I'm not quite sure what you think qualifies as science which I am claiming is not. I need some examples."

fls: "What you have mentioned here - the study of the Big Bang and the conditions at the time or prior...."

UE: "You think science can study conditions prior to the big bang??? Science really, truly CANNOT study conditions prior to the big bang. There isn't any "before the big bang." Claiming science can study such a thing is exactly the same as claiming science can tell us what conditions are like north of the north pole."

fls: "We are interested in four-dimensional spacetime in terms of when it is singular and not-singular. How's that? "North of the North pole" simply requires an additional dimension and operational definition of "north" in that dimension.

So who do you think is right? Can science hope to study conditions prior to (or at) the Big Bang? What about north of the north pole?

Lord Emsworth

27th May 2009, 07:29 AM

I don't know about the big bang, but I doubt that science can study such a something. It can definitely not study anything north of the north pole, simply because it is a meaningless statement. Square circles. Colorless green ideas.

And it is not only science that hits a brick wall when it comes to such meaningless statements ...

Eta: Voted "Other" (Doubtful and No)

arthwollipot

27th May 2009, 07:30 AM

Any additional dimension would not, by definition, be subject to the north-south distinction.

drkitten

27th May 2009, 07:31 AM

So who do you think is right? Can science hope to study conditions prior to (or at) the Big Bang? What about north of the north pole?

I'm not sure that the phrase "conditions prior to the Big Bang" is meaningful.

If not, then adding the phrase "science can study" to a meaningless phrase will not magically give it meaning.

If you think the phrase "conditions prior to the Big Bang" is meaningful, then science can study it as they can anything else. Certainly Susskind (http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/susskind03/susskind_index.html) thinks it's meaningful:

"On the theoretical side, an outgrowth of inflationary theory called eternal inflation is demanding that the world be a megaverse full of pocket universes that have bubbled up out of inflating space like bubbles in an uncorked bottle of Champagne. At the same time string theory, our best hope for a unified theory, is producing a landscape of enormous proportions. The best estimates of theorists are that 10500 distinct kinds of environments are possible.

"Very recent astronomical discoveries exactly parallel the theoretical advances. The newest astronomical data about the size and shape of the universe convincingly confirm that inflation is the right theory of the early universe. There is very little doubt that our universe is embedded in a vastly bigger megaverse.

One problem is the question of incomparable timelines. Literature scholars deal with this all the time. Does it makes sense to talk about events "before" Ishmael appears in New Bedford? In one sense, no. That's the opening scene of the novel. In another sense, yes. Moby Dick has an internal chronology, and Ahab loses his leg before that opening scene. In still another sense, yes, because Moby Dick was written in the late 1840s, and there were a lot of events in the timeline of the real world, including the killing of a real "white whale," a sperm whale named "Mocha Dick" in 1839.

And it's fairly clear that there is a causal relationship between the killing of Mocha Dick and the fictitious voyage of the Pequod even though Mocha Dick never existed in the Pequod's universe and vice versa.

Darat

27th May 2009, 07:39 AM

What is the whichness of the why?

sphenisc

27th May 2009, 08:10 AM

That depends on which North Pole you're talking about.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-Many-North-Poles-Does-the-Earth-Have-79836.shtml

PixyMisa

27th May 2009, 08:27 AM

Science can examine any well-defined statement about the real world.

If your statement is not well-defined, that's not a limitation of science, that's a limitation of your statement.

Likewise if your statement is not about the real world.

Dancing David

27th May 2009, 08:38 AM

No, science can not direcetly study conditions prior to thr big bang. That is a theoretical impossibility at this time.

Yes, because if a theory of pre-big bang gives a prediction about the current universe that can be verified or falsified.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

27th May 2009, 08:47 AM

If we are restricted to the Earth, then there is nothing to study north of the North Pole.

If we are not restricted to the Earth, then we may be able to define what it means to go north of the North Pole.

I don't believe this is a deep philosophical question.

~~ Paul

paximperium

27th May 2009, 08:51 AM

1)Predictions and models of "before" the Big Bang can be tested and verified. We may even be able to produce a "mini-big bangs" in the future to tests these models out.
2)That is self contradictory semantics and is not coherent enough to study.

UndercoverElephant

27th May 2009, 08:55 AM

I don't believe this is a deep philosophical question.

~~ Paul

I don't believe the range of replies it has generated.

fls

27th May 2009, 08:57 AM

I admit that I used the word "prior" as bait.

The point is that science studies things by making reference to what it is we want to know, what gave us the idea in the first place, how is it meaningful or useful, etc. We we talk about the Big Bang we are talking about a point where four-dimensional* space is singular and by 'after' we are referring to physical laws derived from a particular set of observations whereby spacetime is not singular. The question is whether we can expand our study of spacetime beyond those parameters.

As far as 'north of north' goes, do fields only propagate in two dimensions?

Linda

*I think the laws are referring to four-dimensional space-time, but correct me if I'm wrong (INAP).

paximperium

27th May 2009, 08:58 AM

I don't believe the range of replies it has generated.
You mean how many think your second question is not coherent enough to answer and how several believe that it is possible to study the "Pre" Big Bang?

UndercoverElephant

27th May 2009, 09:02 AM

You mean how many think your second question is not coherent enough to answer and how several believe that it is possible to study the "Pre" Big Bang?

Both. As far as I am concerned, the answers are "no" and "no", and I expected most people to agree with me. There's no such things as "north of the north pole" or "before the big bang".

godless dave

27th May 2009, 10:49 AM

So who do you think is right? Can science hope to study conditions prior to (or at) the Big Bang? What about north of the north pole?

No for the same reason - because there is nothing there to study.

Now, if it turns out that our current conception of the initial singularity is wrong, and it may well be, then "prior to" the Big Bang could cease to be a meaningless statement, in which case science could hope to study whatever conditions existed prior to the initial singularity.

linusrichard

27th May 2009, 10:58 AM

Seems to my lay mind that the two most likely possibilities are that either the Big Bang happened the way scientists think it did, in which case "before" the Big Bang is a meaningless term, or the Big Bang didn't happen at all, in which case it's still a meaningless term. But I suppose it's also possible that the Big Bang happened, but scientists are wrong about it being the beginning of time.

"North of the North Pole," as those words are normally defined, is also a meaningless term. Perhaps this becomes easier when you consider that "north" means, essentially, "in that direction which brings you closer to the North Pole."

drkitten

27th May 2009, 11:40 AM

There's no such things as "north of the north pole" or "before the big bang".

Did you read post #4? Did the killing of Mocha Dick happen "before" Ishmael walked into New Bedford?

For that matter, did Beowulf's slaying the dragon happen "before" Bilbo found The Ring in Gollum's cave? Because literary scholars can certainly study the influence that the story of Beowulf had on the narrative of Middle-Earth (even the name "Middle-Earth" derives from Germanic legends).

There's a lot of work that has been done in looking at various theories of what caused the Big Bang; many theories have been rejected because, when you do the math, they predict that our visible universe should have radically different properties than we observe. That's scientific investigation, that is. So scientists can demonstrably study the causes of the Big Bang.

Would the causes of the Big Bang have been "before" the Big Bang or not?

UndercoverElephant

27th May 2009, 01:55 PM

Richard Masters

27th May 2009, 02:13 PM

Both. As far as I am concerned, the answers are "no" and "no", and I expected most people to agree with me. There's no such things as "north of the north pole" or "before the big bang".

I would go as far as to define "North" of the North pole as the direction suggested by following the south-north axis of the Earth (i.e. the zenith at the north pole); but this would be my own extended definition.

I don't know enough about time as it relates to the big bang to opine on that.

roger

27th May 2009, 02:31 PM

Can mathematicians study the single digit integers greater than nine?

UndercoverElephant

27th May 2009, 02:38 PM

Can mathematicians study the single digit integers greater than nine?

Happy Birthday Roger!

Soapy Sam

27th May 2009, 02:41 PM

You mean thrine and fourtine?
Only Betelgeusian mathematicians of the causalist school.

icerat

27th May 2009, 02:42 PM

Can mathematicians study the single digit integers greater than nine?

sure can - won't take very long though! :o

Re the poll,

Question (1) depends on your definition of "prior to" and your beliefs as to the nature of time
Question (2) is by definition a meaningless question

UndercoverElephant

27th May 2009, 03:23 PM

Question (1) depends on your definition of "prior to" and your beliefs as to the nature of time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QyVil0dwhk&feature=related

UndercoverElephant

27th May 2009, 03:27 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfkAkMExDrQ

UndercoverElephant

27th May 2009, 03:33 PM

deleted

HansMustermann

27th May 2009, 04:00 PM

Actually, the actual scientific answer IMHO is "we'll worry about that when we have to."

Science isn't about believing in one particular result or even model. (Since that's one confusion you seemed to make in that NOMA thread.) Science is actually a _method_. It's a method of refining or outright rewriting your existing theories, when some of the actual measured data isn't explained by your existing theories.

What matters isn't as much what exact age of the Earth you believe in, but about a method to correct that estimate when reality doesn't fit your model.

So I'll illustrate it with a parable. Let's travel back in time to before Rutherford did his scattering experiment.

(Short story in case anyone doesn't remember the story: back then they believed the atom to be like a raisin pie or plum pudding. With the pie being a big cloud of positive charge and the electrons being the raisins in it. So Rutherford and two other guys pass a beam of alpha particles through a foil of gold, and measure the scattering. And funnily enough it's not as if there are large clouds of positive charge, but as if the charge for each atom is concentrated in a very small nucleus. Which led to the "planetary" model of the atom and then eventually to the one as we know it today.)

Would it have made sense to ask "how small is an atom's nucleus?" before that? Well, no, because as far as they knew yet, there was no such thing as a nucleus.

But after that scattering experiment they had data that said that nature didn't fit the existing model at all. So they came up with a better model.

To quote and translate a German physicist comedian from memory: science is just a way of verifying suppositions. If I suppose there's a beer in the fridge and go check, that's science.

Really, that's all there is to science.

How does it answer your poll? Well like this: _if_ we ever have data that requires "north of the north pole" or "before the big bang" in our model, we'll worry about it then. Until then, it's pointless. It's like building elaborate suppositions about a beer in a fridge that may not even be there, and I can't open to check anyway. That's the domain of religion.

HansMustermann

27th May 2009, 04:24 PM

Just in case you're asking whether science could cope with the concept: sure, why not, it's not like it's more to it than plugging insane numbers into a formula.

In fact, stuff like "before the big bang" or "north of the north pole" are the easy stuff. If you want something slightly more subtle, riddle me this: below zero absolute temperature.

In fact, for whoever doesn't immediately see what's wrong there: what's the velocity of an atom of helium at -1 Kelvin? Hint: it's proportional to the square root of that temperature.

So we need imaginary numbers there.

Does it make _sense_ to study that? No, not particularly. _Could_ we do it, if we really needed to? Sure, we do stuff like that every day. E.g., alternative current is routinely calculated with complex numbers, just because it's the easiest way to write those equations.

We don't worry about that just because it makes no sense, not because science is incapable of such abstrations.

So equally _if_ science ever needed to deal with "north of the north pole" or "before the big-bang", it's more than capable of doing so.

(In fact, as a bit of trivia, hypotheses like quantum loop gravity do include a bit of hypothesizing about what happens through big bang, i.e., starting from before it. In the case of quantum loop gravity, it's not even as much a "big bang" as a "big bounce." Told you it can be done.)

Richard Masters

27th May 2009, 04:30 PM

Can mathematicians study the single digit integers greater than nine?

In hexadecimal notation, A, B, C, D, E, F, come to mind.

MattusMaximus

27th May 2009, 07:31 PM

The answer to this question is simple... Polaris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris) is north of the North Pole ;)

ETA: I voted for "Other", for obvious reasons.

applecorped

27th May 2009, 07:36 PM

Peter North's North Pole series accurately describes what comes after the Big Bang and what lies above the North Pole.:cool:

MattusMaximus

27th May 2009, 07:39 PM

Peter North's North Pole series accurately describes what comes after the Big Bang and what lies above the North Pole.:cool:

Wow... :eek:

I've got nothing on that post. I'm outta here...

Lucian

27th May 2009, 11:20 PM

Did you read post #4? Did the killing of Mocha Dick happen "before" Ishmael walked into New Bedford?

For that matter, did Beowulf's slaying the dragon happen "before" Bilbo found The Ring in Gollum's cave? Because literary scholars can certainly study the influence that the story of Beowulf had on the narrative of Middle-Earth (even the name "Middle-Earth" derives from Germanic legends).

There's a lot of work that has been done in looking at various theories of what caused the Big Bang; many theories have been rejected because, when you do the math, they predict that our visible universe should have radically different properties than we observe. That's scientific investigation, that is. So scientists can demonstrably study the causes of the Big Bang.

Would the causes of the Big Bang have been "before" the Big Bang or not?
I don't think I understand your analogy. Are you talking about literary source study or fictional time? Was Beowulf composed before Hobbit/LOTR? Yes. Was Tolkien influenced by Beowulf (and many other things)? Yes. But those answers seem too straightforward to apply to a discussion of what happened before the Big Bang.

Did Beowulf slay the dragon before Bilbo found the ring? Well, Beowulf presumably takes place around the 6th century (based on the approximate death-date of Chlochilaichus, the historical Hygelac), and The Hobbit takes place in some made-up "long time ago." In other words, they don't belong to the same fictional time line.

I mean, I understand (I think) that you are saying that the causes of the Big Bang antedate the Big Bang, but again "what came before the Big Bang" seems a much more complicated and amorphous and controversial topic than "Tolkien was influenced by Beowulf."

drkitten

28th May 2009, 05:12 AM

In fact, for whoever doesn't immediately see what's wrong there: what's the velocity of an atom of helium at -1 Kelvin? Hint: it's proportional to the square root of that temperature.

So we need imaginary numbers there.

Does it make _sense_ to study that?

NASA disagrees. (http://cryo.gsfc.nasa.gov/introduction/neg_Kelvin.html) Scientists can even produce systems with negative Kelvin temperatures (http://ltl.tkk.fi/triennial/positive.html).

So, offhand, I'd say that it DOES make sense to study negative Kelvin temperatures, but you need to be prepared to question whether the word "negative temperature" matches what your intuitions say.

Just as "single-digit number" may not match what your intuitions say when we start looking at hexadecimal numbers.

And just as "before" may not match what your intuitions say when we start asking about a situation with multiple time-lines.

drkitten

28th May 2009, 05:16 AM

I don't think I understand your analogy.

No, you understand it exactly.

Are you talking about literary source study or fictional time?

Precisely. There are at least two timelines going on; three, if you count Beowulf and LoTR separately. In only one of those timelines are Beowulf and Bilbo comparalble, and in that one, Beowulf comes first.

I mean, I understand (I think) that you are saying that the causes of the Big Bang antedate the Big Bang,

... and furthermore, they have to, under our normal understanding of "cause" (which physicists continue to support) -- even in spooky relativity-scenarios, causes must still preceed effects.

But that doesn't mean that the time-line in which "before the Big Bang" is meaningful is the same time-line in which Pete Best was the drummer for the Beatles before Ringo Starr.

Jiddu

28th May 2009, 12:33 PM

Until then, it's pointless. It's like building elaborate suppositions about a beer in a fridge that may not even be there, and I can't open to check anyway. That's the domain of religion.

Or suppositions about a cat in a box that might be otherwise alive or dead?

Superb post BTW

roger

28th May 2009, 12:46 PM

In hexadecimal notation, A, B, C, D, E, F, come to mind.
I was going to put in "base 10", but then figured no one could possibly be so pedantic as to point this out. Live and learn.

Tanstaafl

28th May 2009, 12:51 PM

Would have been two of us, if I weren't so slow.

drkitten

28th May 2009, 12:55 PM

I was going to put in "base 10", but then figured no one could possibly be so pedantic as to point this out. Live and learn.

But that's part of the point.

If you construct a situation where you describe something that is provably impossible by explicit construction, then what you describe doesn't exist.

If you construct a situation where you describe something that is provably impossible unless you relax an underlying assumption, then what you describe can only exist if you relax that assumption.

But that same construction raises the question of whether or not that assumption is justified.

And the Big Bang is one such construction. If you insist that "before" must mean "in the time-line that starts at the Big Bang," then you get a different answer than if you accept that "before" means "in some timeline with causal effect on our observations."

And since science can, by definition, study anything with causal effect on our observations, it makes no sense to arbitrarily restrict "before" to something smaller than that set.

Dancing David

28th May 2009, 01:10 PM

Both. As far as I am concerned, the answers are "no" and "no", and I expected most people to agree with me. There's no such things as "north of the north pole" or "before the big bang".

Well really there is no big bang, that was just Hoyle's soundbyte.

The theory hold up until right up until a short time after 'whatever it was' happened. It is really a descriptive theory of what happened after 'whatever it was' happened.

So the theory does not really go as far back as the 'big bang/whatver it was that happened'.

BTMO

28th May 2009, 01:11 PM

South is north of the north pole. In any direction...

Dancing David

28th May 2009, 01:13 PM

Can mathematicians study the single digit integers greater than nine?

They can in hexadecimal!
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F, 10

:D

Richard beat me to it! Curses, foiled again.

roger

28th May 2009, 01:23 PM

But that's part of the point.

If you construct a situation where you describe something that is provably impossible by explicit construction, then what you describe doesn't exist.

If you construct a situation where you describe something that is provably impossible unless you relax an underlying assumption, then what you describe can only exist if you relax that assumption.

But that same construction raises the question of whether or not that assumption is justified.

And the Big Bang is one such construction. If you insist that "before" must mean "in the time-line that starts at the Big Bang," then you get a different answer than if you accept that "before" means "in some timeline with causal effect on our observations."

And since science can, by definition, study anything with causal effect on our observations, it makes no sense to arbitrarily restrict "before" to something smaller than that set.This (the whole thread) strikes me a 150 year old conversation. 150 years ago it was a revelation to ask if parallel lines could meet, and work out the results from there. As it turned out, there were no contradictions in the geometry, though many of the thereoms differed from Euclid.

Now, it's not such a big "wow", is it, that hey, if we change our base we come to different conclusions, etc. If I'm surveying my property and note that two lines are parallel, I don't really need somebody pointing out that in fact the lines will meet if stretched out long enough. I don't need that because a) it's a 150yo discovery, 2) I'm frigging surveying an 2 acre lot, not an ocean (where such concerns would come into play, as the earth's curvature would apply).

So, no, we aren't going to study what is north of north, we aren't going to study what single digit number is greater than 9, excuse me what single digit integer is greater than 9, excuse me, single digit base-10 integer, excuse me single digit base-10 integer in standard elementary number theory, excuse me, single digit base-10 integer in standard elementary number theory where we assume all the proceeding words are in English, and not in some language with a remarkable simularity to english, but where the sentence actually means "my dog ate my homework", excuse me, a single digit,.....

How far do we have to refine our wordings, exactly?

drkitten

28th May 2009, 01:37 PM

If I'm surveying my property and note that two lines are parallel, I don't really need somebody pointing out that in fact the lines will meet if stretched out long enough. I don't need that because a) it's a 150yo discovery, 2) I'm frigging surveying an 2 acre lot, not an ocean (where such concerns would come into play, as the earth's curvature would apply).

Well, you don't need it, certainly. But I assume you're not going to deny that satellite cartographers, who do care about the Earth's curvature, the ability to use more precise terminology.

So, no, we aren't going to study what is north of north, we aren't going to study what single digit number is greater than 9, excuse me what single digit integer is greater than 9, excuse me, single digit base-10 integer, excuse me single digit base-10 integer in standard elementary number theory, excuse me, single digit base-10 integer in standard elementary number theory where we assume all the proceeding words are in English, and not in some language with a remarkable simularity to english, but where the sentence actually means "my dog ate my homework", excuse me, a single digit,.....

How far do we have to refine our wordings, exactly?

To the point where everyone involved understands what is under discussion. If I were a professional mathematician, and your sloppy language just put my most recent paper into the category of "not-mathematics" or even worse, "meaningless gibberish," then I'd probably not be delighted at your ignorant attempt to redefine my career out of existence.

If UE is trying to define "before the Big Bang" as unscientific nonsense at the same time that the physicist Lee Smolin is under consideration for a major scientific prize for his work on the explanatory causes of the Big Bang, then we have to consider the possibility that UE is using too limited a definition of science. Or of "before."

six7s

28th May 2009, 02:49 PM

What is the whichness of the why?The answer is to be found where the whoness is of the how :cool:

HansMustermann

29th May 2009, 02:47 AM

NASA disagrees. (http://cryo.gsfc.nasa.gov/introduction/neg_Kelvin.html) Scientists can even produce systems with negative Kelvin temperatures (http://ltl.tkk.fi/triennial/positive.html).

So, offhand, I'd say that it DOES make sense to study negative Kelvin temperatures, but you need to be prepared to question whether the word "negative temperature" matches what your intuitions say.

Just as "single-digit number" may not match what your intuitions say when we start looking at hexadecimal numbers.

And just as "before" may not match what your intuitions say when we start asking about a situation with multiple time-lines.

Well, that's an interesting use of temperature, but that really actually confirms my main point: if and when we have data that needs even that, we _can_ do it.

My point was pretty much that there is no fundamental, inherent line between "stuff that science can possibly ever study" and "stuff which is inherently just the domain of religion and philosophy." Or not as long that stuff is actually a part of the real world. If anything can possibly, conceivably happen in the real world or affect the real world, science can deal with it.

And if it doesn't and doesn't, well, we can't know if it's right anyway and have no reason to build elaborate theories about it anyway. Yet. We'll bother with it when it does.

I think that that NASA experiment with negative absolute temperature illustrates that point _perfectly_. In fact, thanks for it. It's better than anything I could come up with.

Richard Masters

30th May 2009, 08:14 PM

I was going to put in "base 10", but then figured no one could possibly be so pedantic as to point this out. Live and learn.

I considered that you might have; putting that aside, it's possible for people to mean different things when they speak of "north of the North Pole" or "time before the Big Bang".

I think for example, someone asking about time before the Big Bang, might want to know how it comes about, even if time as we know it is not defined prior to the Big Bang. For example, if we reverse time and "watch", what best describes the events leading to the Big Bang (let me emphasize we are "watching" in reverse, still). What describes the end of this sequence of events?

I don't know the answer (even though physicists on this forum must have explained it a few times), but in a layman's context, surely we can propose a reasonable explanation of what precedes it; or explain that we don't know how to measure time or causality "prior" to the Big Bang, even though we sincerely understand the meaning of the question.

UndercoverElephant

31st May 2009, 01:54 AM

I considered that you might have; putting that aside, it's possible for people to mean different things when they speak of "north of the North Pole" or "time before the Big Bang".

I think for example, someone asking about time before the Big Bang, might want to know how it comes about, even if time as we know it is not defined prior to the Big Bang. For example, if we reverse time and "watch", what best describes the events leading to the Big Bang (let me emphasize we are "watching" in reverse, still). What describes the end of this sequence of events?

Nothing, because you never get to the end. It's a bit like a Zeno's paradox. You can get closer and closer to the end, but never quite all the way.

fls

31st May 2009, 04:04 AM

Nothing, because you never get to the end. It's a bit like a Zeno's paradox. You can get closer and closer to the end, but never quite all the way.

Heh. I guess I was presentient (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=4620922#post4620922).

"One gets the feeling that philosophers actually believe that saying something makes it so, as though we really are perpetually behind because of Zeno's paradox."

It does seem as though Philosophers think that dissecting the words used to describe an idea is the same thing as dissecting the idea.

Linda

Richard Masters

31st May 2009, 06:47 AM

Nothing, because you never get to the end. It's a bit like a Zeno's paradox. You can get closer and closer to the end, but never quite all the way.

It's conceivable that causality no longer depends on time, but we can certainly use other references to frame the answer, including quantum fluctuations; the unfolding of space into time; multiverse boundaries, higher dimensions, and the ill-defined physics that govern their states.