Quantum weirdness; no Big Bang (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, February 11, 2015, 21:57 (3354 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: By making certain theoretical 'quantum corrections' to general relativity theory the Big Bang disappears and the universe becomes eternal.-http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html-dhw: That should really set the cat among the pigeons. I never did like the BB theory anyway. And this proposal provides some scientific respectability for the hypothesis that energy and matter have been interacting for ever and ever, amen and hallelujah!
DAVID: "Never liking" the BB sounds prejudicial and emotional. It implies a creation doesn't it. That is a strong blow to agnosticism and also to atheism. The paper above is a new suggestion. It awaits critical review, but it is always fun to throw new ideas into the hopper to stir thinking. And as we learned from Kastner there are all sorts of quantum theorists with very different ideas to solve quantum mechanics counter-intuitiveness.-Perhaps you should have asked me why I never liked the BB theory before jumping to such conclusions, though we have discussed it in the past. I do not see it as implying creation at all, and I don't know why atheists or agnostics should regard it as “a blow”. The idea of a universe springing from nothing seems to me - as it does to you - unlikely in the extreme. The idea of mindless energy and matter eternally interacting seems to me more likely. This might be in the form of an endless succession of universes, or a single universe endlessly changing itself. Or it might be your conscious energy constantly manufacturing universes or constantly monkeying around with just one. A single beginning seems to me the least likely of the three - but I'm not a scientist, which is why I'm pleased to hear of scientists who are also casting doubt on the BB.