Light and Matter (Origins)

by dhw, Wednesday, May 28, 2014, 17:22 (3830 days ago) @ David Turell

I'd like to combine this thread now with the one on "Cosmology: time begins".-DAVID: I had forgotten the proposed experiment hadn't been done as yet.-However, like the experimenters, you are confident it will succeed: "But from the description it will work just fine." The experiment is meant to prove that "pure" light/energy can produce matter. If it hasn't yet been proven, doesn't there have to be a doubt over the whole idea of the universe springing from "pure" energy?-DAVID: But the major problem in my discussion with dhw is that it is not clear to me where the demarcation for matter begins. And I think dhw is confused by what I have described.-I am indeed, and if demarcations are not clear to you, then I'm surprised that you yourself are not confused by the concepts of "pure" energy and interchangeability between energy and matter.-DAVID: My problem, as I see it, is, I have been reading lay interpretations of the story of the universe and it has changed.-No doubt it will go on changing. But for the moment you are following the line that "something started inflation, then there was the hot big bang with tremendous heat that made all the energy into a plasma [...] with the cooling, various quantum particles began to appear and they finally clump together to make matter. But both descriptions of the beginning of the universe describe all matter as being quantum particles, therefore, simply a more solid form of energy."-So what started inflation and what caused the "hot big bang"? According to the article you recommended under "Cosmology: time begins", inflation may stretch back for ever. Nobody knows. If it had a finite cause, might that not have been another big bang? Again, the article suggests that time may be cyclical, so maybe big bangs and inflations are cyclical. Nobody knows. If all matter is a solid form of energy, as opposed to merely containing and releasing energy, why do we need an experiment to prove that light/energy can produce matter? You say cosmologists can't find a past before the appearance of inflation. (Previously they couldn't find a past before the big bang.) So does that mean there was no past? For this layman, every aspect of the story is one of complete confusion, and yet it gives rise to authoritative statements concerning the beginning of time, "pure" energy giving rise to all the materials of the universe, the interchangeability of energy and matter...-Here are some theories to be taken with the utmost seriousness: 1) all the matter in the entire universe came from absolutely nothing (which may not have been absolutely nothing, but we'll call it nothing); we don't know how. 2) All the matter in the entire universe came from a tiny grain of matter which went bang; we don't know how. 3) All the matter in the entire universe was created by eternal, pure energy (i.e. neither dependent on nor contained in nor associated with any kind of matter), which was and is conscious of itself; we don't know how. 4) There has been a mindless mishmush of energy and matter for ever, producing endless cycles of universes; we don't know how. Any alternatives? Do any of them sound more likely than the others?-(Ugh, and I still haven't got onto panpsychism!)-*******
I have just read the latest, very interesting exchange between Gatekeeper and David, but will need time to digest some of the implications, and will have to return to this tomorrow.