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Dark Matter May Be Older Than The Big Bang, Study Suggests

eot

Banned
This was originally a story from back in 2013. It’s making the rounds again because they reuse space stories and no one notices.


It’s all Bullshit faith based nonsense.
I did some reading on this and it's an interesting idea with a great deal of implications. My biggest issue is that it would mean that dark matter is outside of space time but still impacts it which makes no sense.


It's nice to want that but the math doesn't back it at all. More likely is the black hole approach to universe creation. Even that is pretty iffy. The something from nothing is the more likely option...

Both wrong. 1) the paper this is about was just published in PRL, the pre-print came out in May. It's not from 2013.
2) "dark matter is outside space time" is a meaningless statement and has nothing to do with this paper. The title is extremely misleading. What is referring to is DM that formed prior to the inflationary epoch.

Never heard of black hole? Singularity?

Black holes don't explain DM
 
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Trogdor1123

Member
They measured something and dubbed it dark matter. All we know its “something”.

Also your comparison is ridiculous.
Fuck, why do some people always have to exaggerate when they want to make a point.
That's why it's called "dark" ... The comparison isn't exaggerated either. You speak to it being only on paper as if there is no information on it at all and that's simply untrue when it simply isn't.
 

Trogdor1123

Member
Both wrong. 1) the paper this is about was just published in PRL, the pre-print came out in May. It's not from 2013.
2) "dark matter is outside space time" is a meaningless statement and has nothing to do with this paper. The title is extremely misleading. What is referring to is DM that formed prior to the inflationary epoch.

Black holes don't explain DM
If dark matter was around before the big bang (when time and space were created) it would be out side of space time by definition. That's all I was saying.

I also don't like inflation. It seems like a forced answer. Smarter people than me say it works though.

I was also going to comment on DM and black holes. Wasn't it shown that all the black holes would only amount to a few % of DM or something. I'm trying to remember the details.
 

eot

Banned
If dark matter was around before the big bang (when time and space were created) it would be out side of space time by definition. That's all I was saying.

I also don't like inflation. It seems like a forced answer. Smarter people than me say it works though.

I was also going to comment on DM and black holes. Wasn't it shown that all the black holes would only amount to a few % of DM or something. I'm trying to remember the details.
The term "big bang" is not unambiguous. A period, almost immediately after the universe's "creation", saw the universe expand by about a billion billion billion times, in hundred thousand of a billion of a billion of a billionth of a second. That's inflation, it's a part of most models of the big bang. Now, this paper which the article is about, talks about the big bang as the period after inflation. It doesn't say that DM is older than the universe, nothing of the sort. We don't have a model for anything before about 10^-37 seconds after the universe was made.
 

Kenpachii

Member
Anybody with any critical thinking capability will instantly realize that something has to originate out of something. The big bang is nothing but a small explosion that created our bubble in space and nothing more.

Time doesn't exist and space was always there. So it can't be created.
 
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Trogdor1123

Member
Anybody with any critical thinking capability will instantly realize that something has to originate out of something. The big bang is nothing but a small explosion that created our bubble in space and nothing more.

Time doesn't exist and space was always there. So it can't be created.
Except that's not correct.
 

Kamina

Golden Boy
That's why it's called "dark" ... The comparison isn't exaggerated either. You speak to it being only on paper as if there is no information on it at all and that's simply untrue when it simply isn't.
And yet we can only observe/measure certain effects and draw educated guesses. Thats far from “we know exactly what it is”.
Hell, the other day I saw one of these sciences documentaries where they discussed dark matter, and it seems like some of them have completely different theories claiming it doesnt even exist by finding alternative explanations.
 

eot

Banned
And yet we can only observe/measure certain effects and draw educated guesses. Thats far from “we know exactly what it is”.
Hell, the other day I saw one of these sciences documentaries where they discussed dark matter, and it seems like some of them have completely different theories claiming it doesnt even exist by finding alternative explanations.
It's good to have different theories, we won't "know" which one is right until we have data that definitively rules out all but one of them. The reason we postulate dark matter to exist, is that when looking at how spiral galaxies rotate, the stars at the edge of the galaxies appear to be rotating much faster than they should, in the sense that there doesn't seem like there's enough mass in the galaxy to hold those stars there. Turns out, that if you add some matter we can't see that it's very easy to account for the rotation velocities.

Of course, you could also ask yourself: what if gravity works differently at the scale of galaxies than it does in our solar system? Such ideas are called modified gravity, and some of them explain the rotation curves in galaxies very well. The reason this is appealing, is that they often have few or no free parameters, meaning they say gravity should work this way and then it fits the data or not. With dark matter, you have a lot of freedom to choose exactly how that matter is distributed, so you can almost always make it work, regardless of observations. The "evidence" for dark matter goes a lot deeper than just rotating galaxies though.
 
Kicking the can down the road, as usual.

"It existed before the Big Bang"

Wait, I thought Big Bang was hashtag cancelled by 'scientific consensus' because it suggests a causal universe?

"Yeah well because dark matter existed before time existed, technically it can fix these other holes we can't explain. Infinite, uncaused universe. Pluto is a planet!".

Your continuous hostility towards science and academia is really starting to grate.

Dark Matter isn't something that's been arbitrarily conjured up by the scientific community, but the result of the empirical observation that the Universe is expanding at an increasing speed. Astronomers observed that light from distant objects in the universe is redshifted, which tells us that the objects are all receding away from us thus refuting the big crunch theory. This is true in whatever direction you look at and commonly known as Hubble's Law.

In order to explain this increased expansion there needs to be more matter than currently observable, otherwise we cannot explain this redshift. You make it seem as if scientists simply came up with that notion at random, when in fact it is the result of logical deduction from observable phenomena.

Edwin Hubble was awarded a Nobel prize for his observation, because before that we simply didn't know if the Universe would keep expanding or retract in on itself. So if you've got a better explanation, please share your brilliant insights with us instead of deriding the scientific community for stating observable facts. Astronomers and astrophysicists are very well aware that their knowledge about the Universe is far from being complete, hence why they keep looking. There is no scientific consensus on Dark Matter, because nobody even knows what it is. It's one of the biggest remaining mysteries in astrophysics and until better observations are made, it's our best guess based on the things we actually can observe, nothing more nothing less.

In any way, i'll take their incomplete scientific explanation of the Universe over your seemingly complete but dogmatic and simplistic religious mysticism.
 
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DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
Your continuous hostility towards science and academia is really starting to grate.

Dark Matter isn't something that's been arbitrarily conjured up by the scientific community, but the result of the empirical observation that the Universe is expanding at an increasing speed. Astronomers observed that light from distant objects in the universe is redshifted, which tells us that the objects are all receding away from us thus refuting the big crunch theory. This is true in whatever direction you look at and commonly known as Hubble's Law.

In order to explain this increased expansion there needs to be more matter than currently observable, otherwise we cannot explain this redshift. You make it seem as if scientists simply came up with that notion at random, when in fact it is the result of logical deduction from observable phenomena.

Edwin Hubble was awarded a Nobel prize for his observation, because before that we simply didn't know if the Universe would keep expanding or retract in on itself. So if you've got a better explanation, please share your brilliant insights with us instead of deriding the scientific community for stating observable facts. Astronomers and astrophysicists are very well aware that their knowledge about the Universe is far from being complete, hence why they keep looking. There is no scientific consensus on Dark Matter, because nobody even knows what it is. It's one of the biggest remaining mysteries in astrophysics and until better observations are made, it's our best guess based on the things we actually can observe, nothing more nothing less.

In any way, i'll take their incomplete scientific explanation of the Universe over your seemingly complete but dogmatic and simplistic religious mysticism.
I love science and academia! I read and learn about it all the time, and I am constantly amazed by what we have discovered. Presently, I am learning about soil microbiology, identifying species of fungi and bacteria and nematodes.

I can tell that something grates on you, but I think you answered that yourself in the last sentence. :messenger_smirking: :messenger_ok:
 
I see, so you're not going to dignify us with a decent reply. I'd like you to come up with a better explanation for our redshifting Universe, but hey scientists are all just frauds "hiding behind scientific consensus" while "kicking the can down the road" amirite?

I love science and academia!

Uh huh, sure:

Academia is just another flavor of gov't bureaucracy at this point.
Let the current version of academia burn to the ground. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
Academia needs to burn.

What intense burning love!

I read and learn about it all the time, and I am constantly amazed by what we have discovered. Presently, I am learning about soil microbiology, identifying species of fungi and bacteria and nematodes.

I don't see what your botanical hobbies have to do with the discussion at hand.

I can tell that something grates on you, but I think you answered that yourself in the last sentence. :messenger_smirking: :messenger_ok:

Why, because I'm tired of seeing people make grand statements about academia and science while pushing their own little fairy tales?
 
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DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
I see, so you're not going to dignify us with a decent reply. I'd like you to come up with a better explanation for our redshifting Universe, but hey scientists are all just frauds "hiding behind scientific consensus" while "kicking the can down the road" amirite?
Decent posts beget decent replies. You're just fishing for an argument, so I'm going to respond in kind. Why would I come up with a better explanation for our redshifting universe? As far as I know, the expansion is what causes redshifting to occur, just as you pointed out. That doesn't prove dark matter (merely infers that something must be responsible) nor does it prove that dark matter is older than the big bang, which is the subject of this thread.

Should I dignify you putting words in my mouth with a decent reply? I never said all scientists are just frauds.

I guess if I was to reply in kind: But hey, all academics have thin skin and cannot handle criticism when anything remotely negative is pointed at the entire field of science.

Take the mea culpa. I know you hate me but at least spend your energy attacking my bad ideas instead of fabricating fantasies about what I've said. This projection is amateur hour for you.

Uh huh, sure:

What intense love!

I don't see what your botanical hobbies have to do with the discussion at hand.
I don't see what my simplistic and mystical beliefs have to do with it either, but hey, I'm just following your lead down this thread derail. Lead the way!

Why, because I'm tired of seeing people make grand statements about academia and science while pushing their own little fairy tales?
I can tell you're tired of it! It's why you pounce on me for three sentences. Take a step back. If this was any other topic, you'd accuse the poster of "projection" and "mind reading". How simplistic and dogmatic of you. Go ahead and quote where I pushed my fairy tales if it bothers you so much.

I'm not going to have a pointless argument with you if this the best you can do.
 
Decent posts beget decent replies. [...] I can tell you're tired of it! It's why you pounce on me for three sentences. Take a step back. If this was any other topic, you'd accuse the poster of "projection" and "mind reading". How simplistic and dogmatic of you. Go ahead and quote where I pushed my fairy tales if it bothers you so much.

I'm not going to have a pointless argument with you if this the best you can do.

I gave you a decent reply, even explained to you why astrophysicists assume Dark Matter and that it is not just a mere fantasy notion. As usual, you keep replying and deflecting with personal drama because you have no arguments to back up your disparaging remarks about the scientific community.
 
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Weilthain

Banned
Why don’t they just put some cameras out in space to film earth.

I remember when Elon musk sent a car into space but didn’t bother putting enough power to film the earth when it got far out. They only filmed up close but missed the opportunity to film from much further out.

It’s a real shame that would have been a good video. I mean they were right there. Kind of a waste really if you think about it.

If only someone had thought how cool it would be, since the car is in space anyway, to film the globe becoming smaller and smaller as the car leaves earth.

But they didn’t. Because they didn’t want to. Just film a little bit. Maybe another time? There are rockets going up all the time I’m sure they will film it one day.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
I gave you a decent reply, even explained to you why astrophysicists assume Dark Matter and that it is not just a mere fantasy notion. As usual, you keep replying and deflecting with personal drama because you have no arguments to back up your disparaging remarks about the scientific community.
Pause.

Where did I push my fairy tales? Quote me. Don't dodge away from your accusations and then try to smear me with "deflection and personal drama". You make a claim, you back it up. Otherwise, I have no reason to take you seriously. It's especially obvious when you'll throw out a baseless accusation intended to tear down the person and not their argument, and then when you are called out for it, you distract from by making more accusations. Poor form. I would expect better from academia. I also never said dark matter itself was a fantasy notion. I was pointing out the absurdity of how it is being used to "kick the can down the road" in terms of the cause of the universe. As far as I know, dark matter is a real phenomenon. That doesn't mean I should accept every characteristic and magical power that scientists confer to it.

You started and ended your "decent reply" with an insult, based on an "insult" that was in no way directed at you. It wasn't even meant as an insult, actually, but criticism. If you are unable to tell the difference between the two, it is a sign of someone gripped by dogmatic belief. Grow thicker skin, Priest of Academia, and go shake up a beaker for me to make penance for my offense against the "scientific community" :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Oh no! What will the scientific community do without you standing up for them on a videogame forum? How will they retain their honor unless you extrapolate lighthearted criticism into full-blown arguments? Will they grant you praise in peer-reviewed journals and laud your crusade against those pesky mystical simpletons?

Shelve your ego. If this is your revenge story for when I told you to stop letting non-GAF "personal drama" affect how you treated people, it's a disappointment, and you're proving me right with every word you hammer out.
 
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Pause.
Where did I push my fairy tales? Quote me

Isn't this what you said?

This framing sounds religious in nature. "The Bible isn't false, we just misinterpreted its message".

Okay, fair enough, but it would help if the scientific community was more willing to apply skepticism to its own conclusions in the meanwhile, then, in order to demonstrate this attitude. Instead, those who doubt scientific consensus are met with aggressive browbeating and arrogance.

Ehhh, depends. The scientific community frequently flees behind 'scientific consensus' prematurely. Obviously, any challenges to the assertions would need to be backed up by solid evidence. I'm not arguing against that.

My quote was in response to tesseract responding to Super Mario, if you need more context.

Yeah, I think my argument was spot on.

Grow thicker skin, Priest of Academia, and go shake up a beaker for me to make penance for my offense against the "scientific community" :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Judging by your hysteric reply, the only one who needs to "grow a thicker skin" seems to be yourself...

Oh no! What will the scientific community do without you standing up for them on a videogame forum? How will they retain their honor unless you extrapolate lighthearted criticism into full-blown arguments? Will they grant you praise in peer-reviewed journals and laud your crusade against those pesky mystical simpletons?

What a fascinating insight into your head canon. Tell me more.

Don't dodge away from your accusations and then try to smear me with "deflection and personal drama". You make a claim, you back it up. Otherwise, I have no reason to take you seriously. It's especially obvious when you'll throw out a baseless accusation intended to tear down the person and not their argument, and then when you are called out for it, you distract from by making more accusations. Poor form. I would expect better from academia. I also never said dark matter itself was a fantasy notion. I was pointing out the absurdity of how it is being used to "kick the can down the road" in terms of the cause of the universe. As far as I know, dark matter is a real phenomenon. That doesn't mean I should accept every characteristic and magical power that scientists confer to it.

You started and ended your "decent reply" with an insult, based on an "insult" that was in no way directed at you. It wasn't even meant as an insult, actually, but criticism. If you are unable to tell the difference between the two, it is a sign of someone gripped by dogmatic belief.

[...]

Shelve your ego. If this is your revenge story for when I told you to stop letting non-GAF "personal drama" affect how you treated people, it's a disappointment, and you're proving me right with every word you hammer out.

My god man, talking about overreacting. Tone down the drama, nobody is taking "revenge against you" or "attacking your person"!
You're the one creating more drama right now, dredging up yet again more unrelated forum-drama created purely by your own fantasy simply because somebody disagreed with your above quoted assertions.
 
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I see Dark Matter as a living room and the Big Bang as a diarrhea explosion made in that living room. That room is much older than the mess.

The mess cleans itself and we do it all again!

TL;DR: DM is the thing that holds the universe after the BB. It was always there.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
Isn't this what you said?

Yeah, I think my argument was spot on.

Judging by your hysteric reply, the only one who needs to "grow a thicker skin" seems to be yourself...

What a fascinating insight into your head canon. Tell me more.

My god man, talking about overreacting. Tone down the drama, nobody is taking "revenge against you" or "attacking your person"!
You're the one creating more drama right now, dredging up yet again more unrelated forum-drama created purely by your own fantasy simply because somebody disagreed with your above quoted assertions.
Sorry for whatever is going on in your life. It's clear that I'm just a punching bag for someone who cannot own up to his vitriol.
 
Sorry for whatever is going on in your life. It's clear that I'm just a punching bag for someone who cannot own up to his vitriol.

Dafuq are you on about?
Can't somebody have a disagreement with you without you resorting to baseless assumptions about other people's lives you know nothing about?

Stop victimizing yourself, it's silly.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
Dafuq are you on about?
Can't somebody have a disagreement with you without you resorting to baseless assumptions about other people's lives you know nothing about?

Stop victimizing yourself, it's silly.
You started this conversation by attacking me and putting words in my mouth. That's plainly observable. It's not my problem that you took humorous, generalized criticism/attack against academia as a personal insult and then escalated by responding with personal insults. Everything that follows your initial post is an attempt for you to stroke your own ego instead of reflecting on your initial mistake.

If you want to voice a disagreement, go for it. But instead you blundered past actual posts that resort to "dogmatic and simplistic religious mysticism" and made a beeline to me, twisting my words to fit your narrative. You can make it personal if you want, but that's your choice.

I'm not making a victim out of myself. I'm more confused by your behavior, if anything. Normally you're a level-headed poster but you instead made the decision to take offense at something that was never aimed at you nor at "all scientists". I've corrected your misunderstanding, yet you've only doubled down. This leads me to believe that it really is about your ego. The two posts you quoted were arguing against dogmatic faith in scientific conclusions, which is why I said "this framing [referring to Tesseract] sounds religious in nature".

You can accept my plain explanation. You can reflect on where you initially miscalculated and attacked someone for things they never said. Or you can continue doubling down with decades-old internet ego-preening that has become so commonplace I'm shocked you resort to it. Again, it leads me to believe that you are besides yourself and aren't thinking rationally.

It's not about a discussion. It's not about a disagreement. It's not about a decent reply. It's about you wanting to take someone down a peg to make yourself feel better, and I just happen to be in your crosshairs. Take your best shot. You've been shooting blanks up to this point.
 
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#Phonepunk#

Banned
Dark Matter is a hilarious concept. it's basically science saying "don't worry about it, there is something there, our models make total sense, trust us". as science reaches out further and further into the universe and into inner space, it seems to loose the ability to accurately define things. when i heard my professor, a astronomy professor who studies red dwarves, describe "Dark Matter", it really felt like a placeholder. maybe someday they will figure it out, but i only seem more questions popping up, even in that event.

"Dark Matter" is Fudging the Numbers: the theoretical concept. tbh i find it less descriptive than a number of primordial/"formless" cosmologies across varying religions. almost all world religions speak of matter arising from something, sometimes described as a body of water (the fluidity of water impressing the idea that this state was pre-form, for water has no fixed form), as a "Milky Sea", or some kind of void. the Creation Myth is inescapable and universal.

the problem is, if something is a featureless background, and it was there before anything, then how could it generate anything? if something is without qualities, then why did it generate or create All Of Reality, which is booming with variation? if this was truly before the Big Bang, why is there anything at all? one of the ultimate questions of life tbh.

what is "nothing"? can we even concieve of that? if "space" is distance between objects, it is dependent on objects for definition. how can there even be nothing without something? it is a paradox. we are living in a paradoxical reality, it seems. it is all heady as fuck, and people have contemplated this for thousands of years.

it is interesting tho, that the further along science gets, the more mystical it gets. IMO science and religion are once again converging.
 
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#Phonepunk#

Banned
basically scientists need to figure out how matter is created from nothing. at that point they will have effectively achieved The Philosopher's Stone, AKA The Tree of Life, the knowledge from the book of creation. there is a reason these legendary things have long been desired. we will be as gods, creating physical things from thin air. it's magic, basically, the ultimate goal of all this.
 

Thurible

Member
But instead you blundered past actual posts that resort to "dogmatic and simplistic religious mysticism"
I didn't think my comment resorted dogmatism or what have you. I never made a religious argument. I just replied to DragoonKain DragoonKain who said they liked the idea of a universe with no beginning or ending, that it is an eternal cycle of expansion and contraction. If I recall correctly he originally compared it to a heartbeat on his original comment.

I said that reminds me of hinduist cosmology (everything dies and is reborn, even the world itself), then I said I don't think the universe works like that because it would defy the laws of causality.

Sorry to nitpick, but I wasn't trying to make any theological argument on the universe.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
I didn't think my comment resorted dogmatism or what have you. I never made a religious argument. I just replied to DragoonKain DragoonKain who said they liked the idea of a universe with no beginning or ending, that it is an eternal cycle of expansion and contraction. If I recall correctly he originally compared it to a heartbeat on his original comment.

I said that reminds me of hinduist cosmology (everything dies and is reborn, even the world itself), then I said I don't think the universe works like that because it would defy the laws of causality.

Sorry to nitpick, but I wasn't trying to make any theological argument on the universe.
No sorries needed on your part. I did not intend to imply that was the crux of your argument, merely that you'd brought up what Strange would term "dogmatic and simplistic religious mysticism", so I apologize.
 

Thurible

Member
No sorries needed on your part. I did not intend to imply that was the crux of your argument, merely that you'd brought up what Strange would term "dogmatic and simplistic religious mysticism", so I apologize.
Oh, ok. I'm sorry if that was kind of out of the blue and nitpicky.
 
You started this conversation by attacking me and putting words in my mouth. That's plainly observable. It's not my problem that you took humorous, generalized criticism/attack against academia as a personal insult and then escalated by responding with personal insults. Everything that follows your initial post is an attempt for you to stroke your own ego instead of reflecting on your initial mistake.

Oh here we go again, it's just impossible to disagree with you without you flipping your lid. I wasn't attacking you, but your merely delivering a counterpoint to your comment.
Please tell, where are those supposed "personal insults" of mine? In fact, my disagreement was pretty benign and well below the usual level of antagonism that is usually employed by yourself against other members on this forum.

If you want to voice a disagreement, go for it. But instead you blundered past actual posts that resort to "dogmatic and simplistic religious mysticism" and made a beeline to me, twisting my words to fit your narrative. You can make it personal if you want, but that's your choice.

Oh so that's your beef, it is not that my comment was factually incorrect, but it hurt your religious feefees. You like to dish it out against science and academia, but can't take it yourself. If anything, my criticism of religious faith is not any less valid than your grand statements about academia and science.

I'm not making a victim out of myself. I'm more confused by your behavior, if anything. Normally you're a level-headed poster but you instead made the decision to take offense at something that was never aimed at you nor at "all scientists".

First of all, you are victimizing yourself by constantly dredging up drama and insinuating that people are leading some kind of vendetta against you simply because they dared disagree with you on something. The way you keep construing these silly little fantasies around yourself whenever and argument doesn't go your way is silly and beneath your usual demeanor.

I've corrected your misunderstanding, yet you've only doubled down. This leads me to believe that it really is about your ego. The two posts you quoted were arguing against dogmatic faith in scientific conclusions, which is why I said "this framing [referring to Tesseract] sounds religious in nature".

If only you were equally as critical towards your own faith and beliefs as you are towards science and academia...

You can accept my plain explanation. You can reflect on where you initially miscalculated and attacked someone for things they never said. Or you can continue doubling down with decades-old internet ego-preening that has become so commonplace I'm shocked you resort to it. Again, it leads me to believe that you are besides yourself and aren't thinking rationally.

I've frikkin' quoted the things you've said. What more do you want?

It's not about a discussion. It's not about a disagreement. It's not about a decent reply. It's about you wanting to take someone down a peg to make yourself feel better, and I just happen to be in your crosshairs. Take your best shot. You've been shooting blanks up to this point.

These little fantasies and hollow assumptions are entertaining, keep it up. I'm really enjoying these baseless assumptions about yours in order to deflect from the argument at hand. So far you've made nothing but unsubstantiated claims about my life, my state of mind and my motivations of which your evidently know nothing about as if you were some kind of psychoanalyst clairvoyant. None of that sh*t holds any water, because my only intention was to formulate a counterpoint to your statement because it was clearly founded on a misunderstanding of why scientists assume the existence of Dark Matter, nothing more nothing less.

But hey, I've gotten used to you turning every little disagreement into a pseudo-Freudian session.
 
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Tesseract

Banned
if you beam a flashlight in the dark, you can use the shadows to infer a kind of cold structure

dark fluid as an alternative theory seems nice insofar as it produces adequate redshift models (grossly incomplete)

personally i think it's turtles all the way down, resolution isn't gonna solve the meaning of impenetrable event horizons
 
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Airola

Member
I think because of what we've come to know and understand in the macro world and on earth, we think everything needs an origin point, but I don't think it necessarily does. Maybe the universe had no origin point. It maybe went on and on forever. Out there in the universe, especially in the quantum world, things work in ways we can't comprehend, like a particle being in 2 places at the same time.

An universe like that is in constant state of motion where the state it is in now was caused by a state it was prior to that. And that state was caused by the state it was prior to that etc etc etc. Each of these states must've been caused by the states those states were prior to them. This must be even if the universe is going "in and out" like a heartbeat.

It's like saying a ball was always rolling, and that there was nothing that made the ball to roll for the first time. And in this case it even seems that there is no slope the ball is rolling in, that it just rolls on a flat surface without anything to actually make it start rolling. Technically a rolling ball on a flat surface that never began to roll the same as an infinitely "pumping" universe. It's just in a way way way way smaller scale but the idea of it is the same. If we aren't willing to accept the idea of an a rolling ball on a flat surface that never began to roll then why should we be willing to accept the idea of an infinitely changing universe?

We can think that maybe the ground is tilted and that's why the ball is rolling. Then the speed of the ball grows infinitely, but if you go back to look at what state the ball was in prior to what state it is now, you will see the ball was a bit slower before. And that would mean there was a point where the ball started to roll. If the ball and the tilted ground existed forever, then there should've been a time where the ball was completely still on a tilted ground - and if they really existed infinitely, it would've had infinite states of stillness prior to the state it moved only a bit. So what was the force that stopped its previously "infinite" state of stillness? If that force is part of the laws of the universe of the ball and the ground, then that force is also subject to the same idea of the impossibility of a rolling ball that never began to roll. There would be an infinite amount of states of stillness of that force prior to the state that set "the ball" rolling.

I understand the will to say the quantum world works in ways we can't comprehend to stay out of this problem. But personally I understand even more if people call that incomprehensible force God, especially as the source of the movement of all and everything, were it infinite or not, must've had all the things that makes the phenomenon of some of the now existing physical material to have an experience and realization of self possible within it. Whatever is the source of holding this universe in move, whether or not this movement is infinite, consists of every single tool to make thoughts and ideas in the minds of thinkers possible. The possibility of an abstract thought is already there billions of years before the thinkers of these thoughts exist, and even before a time when these thinkers have deduced the time of our universe had just begun.
 

eot

Banned
Dark Matter is a hilarious concept. it's basically science saying "don't worry about it, there is something there, our models make total sense, trust us".
It's the exact opposite. Our models couldn't explain a wide variety of astronomical and cosmological phenomena, and dark matter is simply a proposed solution to that problem.
 

DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
The thing is though, regardless of what theory you have, it always gets traced back to some origin(even if that origin isn’t theoretically the starting point of the universe and everything we know)

God
Expansion and contraction
The Big Bang
Supermassive black hole giving birth to the universe
Etc

Regardless of the theory, you can always ask the question “well, where did that come from?”

If god created the universe where did god come from? Where did matter and/energy come from that caused the Big Bang come from? Where did the supermassive black hole come from?

You can keep asking that question regardless of what the theory is because our minds are conditioned to accept origin points for everything.

I’ve argued with religious people about this and they always go “well god didn’t have to come from anything, he’s god. He’s all powerful, he started it all”

And I go ok, to that belief, then couldn’t matter or energy have always existed? And of course they say no only god can because he’s god and that’s where the debate ends because I have no interest in debating with hardheaded people.

But I don’t believe there necessarily has to be an origin point.

I think it’s quite likely there just was a “was”
 

DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
It's the exact opposite. Our models couldn't explain a wide variety of astronomical and cosmological phenomena, and dark matter is simply a proposed solution to that problem.

Yes, this is correct. Science wants answers, so most scientific theories are theories that scientists run with until it can be proven wrong, rather than ran with until it can be proven right. Because a lot of things especially in astrophysics are incredibly hard to prove right, but can be proven wrong. Science wants explanations for things and that's how theories start.

It's how the concept of the Higgs field(to go along with the Higgs Boson) was conceived. Scientists wondered why subatomic particles and matter don't just come apart. What attracts them together to form larger particles and eventually cells? The Higgs field theory was the theory to explain that.

Also look into Dark Energy(different than Dark matter). That was used to explain a lot of things in the universe. Scientists estimate that about 75% of the known universe is comprised of dark energy and another 23% or so more of that is dark matter, and the rest is all other matter than we know of.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
Oh here we go again, it's just impossible to disagree with you without you flipping your lid. I wasn't attacking you, but your merely delivering a counterpoint to your comment.
Please tell, where are those supposed "personal insults" of mine? In fact, my disagreement was pretty benign and well below the usual level of antagonism that is usually employed by yourself against other members on this forum.

Your first sentence:
Your continuous hostility towards science and academia is really starting to grate.

Tell me how this deserves a "decent reply". Not only do you smear with a false accusation (continued hostility toward science and academia), but then you immediately make it emotional. How should I respond to this? "Sorry Strange that I said something mean about science". You take three sentences and blow it up into a huge personal insult.

The other snippets from your first post:
Dark Matter isn't something that's been arbitrarily conjured up by the scientific community
You make it seem as if scientists simply came up with that notion at random
So if you've got a better explanation, please share your brilliant insights with us instead of deriding the scientific community for stating observable facts.
In any way, i'll take their incomplete scientific explanation of the Universe over your seemingly complete but dogmatic and simplistic religious mysticism.

I'll save myself the time of clipping all the other personal attacks and deflections from your follow-ups.


Oh so that's your beef, it is not that my comment was factually incorrect, but it hurt your religious feefees. You like to dish it out against science and academia, but can't take it yourself.
First of all, thanks for admitting that you took it personally. I wasn't referring to you, yet you feel entitled to attack me personally and my beliefs because -- irony upon irony -- it hurt your academia feefees. Or to use your own words: Your continuous hostility towards science and academia is really starting to grate.

I'm not going to tip-toe around your fragile feelings. If you want to disagree, go for it. But interpreting what I say as "continued hostility towards science and academia" and then reacting as if I'd made a personal insult against you is beyond fragility. You're delusional.


If anything, my criticism of religious faith is not any less valid than your grand statements about academia and science.
Your fragile ego ain't gonna heal any faster when you make excuses for jumping to incorrect conclusions, lashing out dramatically when you took personal offense, and doubling down when called out on it.


First of all, you are victimizing yourself by constantly dredging up drama and insinuating that people are leading some kind of vendetta against you simply because they dared disagree with you on something.
You're the first to infer such a thing. I'm really happy with my time on GAF. I don't feel like people are leading a vendetta against me. Where are you getting this from?

You have this bizarre version of me living in your head that is causing you to lash out. Maybe stop believing your own "head canon", as you put it? I am explaining what I said and what I meant, and you continue to insist on the validity of the personal insult you took. That is the very definition of "victimizing yourself".

The way you keep construing these silly little fantasies around yourself whenever and argument doesn't go your way is silly and beneath your usual demeanor.

If only you were equally as critical towards your own faith and beliefs as you are towards science and academia...

I've frikkin' quoted the things you've said. What more do you want?

These little fantasies and hollow assumptions are entertaining, keep it up. I'm really enjoying these baseless assumptions about yours in order to deflect from the argument at hand. So far you've made nothing but unsubstantiated claims about my life, my state of mind and my motivations of which your evidently know nothing about as if you were some kind of psychoanalyst clairvoyant. None of that sh*t holds any water, because my only intention was to formulate a counterpoint to your statement because it was clearly founded on a misunderstanding of why scientists assume the existence of Dark Matter, nothing more nothing less.

But hey, I've gotten used to you turning every little disagreement into a pseudo-Freudian session.
Like I said earlier, you're clearly just using me as a punching bag. I mean, feel free to call it "fantasies" ten more times if that's the catharsis you need. I've done nothing to warrant the repeated smears against my beliefs, and I've not risen to the occasion of insulting you. Sorry that you felt offended by something I said to critique and joke about science and academia.
 
Anybody with any critical thinking capability will instantly realize that something has to originate out of something. The big bang is nothing but a small explosion that created our bubble in space and nothing more.

Time doesn't exist and space was always there. So it can't be created.

Why can't the universe have always existed? Nothing/zero is a human philosophy, e.g. you think that a room is empty only because there's another room that you acknowledge as having something in it.

Time exists as anything with mass changing points in space, things with no mass like photons experience no time

Space wasn't always there, it was created by the big bang and is still expanding outward which we know from how things are redshifting
 
Tell me how this deserves a "decent reply". Not only do you smear with a false accusation (continued hostility toward science and academia), but then you immediately make it emotional.

I've given you multiple quotes where you've stated that "academia must burn" and I could have cited many more, so my factual statement was neither false nor "emotional".

I'll save myself the time of clipping all the other personal attacks and deflections from your follow-ups.

None of these comments are a personal insult, you're just being a drama queen.

First of all, thanks for admitting that you took it personally. I wasn't referring to you, yet you feel entitled to attack me personally and my beliefs because -- irony upon irony -- it hurt your academia feefees. Or to use your own words: Your continuous hostility towards science and academia is really starting to grate.

Personal? Don't flatter yourself. What I find funny is that you took an apparent liking in crapping all over academia and the scientific community, but act all indignant as soon as somebody counters your standpoint and challenges your own (religious) beliefs.

I'm not going to tip-toe around your fragile feelings. If you want to disagree, go for it. But interpreting what I say as "continued hostility towards science and academia" and then reacting as if I'd made a personal insult against you is beyond fragility. You're delusional.

First of all, I've never stated that you made a personal insult. What I criticize is your inability to stick to the topic. Instead you keep escalating things by making these discussions about the person rather the argument. I've told you this before, but you just can't frikkin' help yourself can you?

The only one displaying his "fragile feelings" is you with your constant baseless remarks about other people's lives you know nothing of, because you can't deal with people disagreeing with you. Not once have I made a personal remark about your private life, yet you keep coming with these unfounded assumptions that contribute nothing to the discussion at hand.

If you feel the need to play victim because somebody made a dismissive comment about your faith, that's your problem. Quite apparently, you like to keep sh*tting on academia, but as soon as somebody dares criticize your religious worldview you freak out like that.

Your fragile ego ain't gonna heal any faster when you make excuses for jumping to incorrect conclusions, lashing out dramatically when you took personal offense, and doubling down when called out on it.

Find me one instance where I've been touting my own ego, or heck where I've been flaunting my credentials in order to embellish my arguments. Yeah man, what an ego. You're the one who can't separate the person from the argument with your overly personal remarks conjured up in your own little fantasy world. This isn't the first time you've made such assumptions about my private life simply because I did not agree with one of your comments. GTFO with this bullcrap!

You're the first to infer such a thing. I'm really happy with my time on GAF. I don't feel like people are leading a vendetta against me. Where are you getting this from?

You inferred this when you wrongfully accused me of fulfilling my "revenge story" against you for merely giving a counter-point to your sub-par comment. You must be a really petty person if you honestly thing that I'm holding a personal grudge against you over a forum-disagreement we had frikkin' months ago. Get a grip man!

I've got better sh*t to do with my life than sitting here scheming my "revenge" months after an unimportant and non-consequential forum spat. That's the most ridiculous thing I've read in a long while, hence my remark about your lively fantasy. Talking about ego, you're just a dude on a video-game forum, so get over yourself.

You have this bizarre version of me living in your head that is causing you to lash out.

Lash out? What the hell are you talking about? Am I not allowed to disagree with one of your comments?
The only one I see lashing out with your silly attempts at psychoanalysis towards people who disagree with you is yourself. Compared to the stuff you like to dish out, I'd say my reply was utterly harmless.

Like I said earlier, you're clearly just using me as a punching bag. I mean, feel free to call it "fantasies" ten more times if that's the catharsis you need. I've done nothing to warrant the repeated smears against my beliefs, and I've not risen to the occasion of insulting you. Sorry that you felt offended by something I said to critique and joke about science and academia.

If you have the liberty to "critique and joke about science and academia" then so do I have the liberty to "critique and joke" about faith and religion. I'm certainly not going to hold back my religious criticism because you feel personally insulted by it. That's not any better than the social zealots who put their own personal feelings over academic rigor, you know the very same people you like to parade around in order to justify your grand generalizations about the scientific community. At the end of the day, you religious types are not any better when it comes to your own little fairy tales.

Finally, I'll give you the last word on this because I know we'll otherwise keep going like this ad nauseam. If you want me to elaborate on the subject at hand and why I find your original statement about Dark Matter to be absolutely ridiculous feel free to ask. It's not my fault that you keep confusing critical rationalism with dogmatism.

As for anything else, I'm not interested in keeping this drama going because neither is that sh*t relevant to the topic, nor do I care about your little fantasies concerning my life.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I'm a smart scientist, what should I use my smarts for?

- Develop medicine
- Help improve food production and quality
- Create high quality biodegradable materials
- Build engines, machines and tools that work just as good as before, but use up less energy
- Clean up pollution, or generate ways for things to create less pollution

Nah..... I'll look at the stars and try to determine things like Big Bang, blackholes, and what it's like to live on a "similar to Earth planet" 83,653 light years away
 
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Thurible

Member
I'm a smart scientist, what should I use my smarts for?

- Develop medicine
- Help improve food production and quality
- Create high quality biodegradable materials
- Build engines, machines and tools that work just as good as before, but use up less energy
- Clean up pollution, or generate ways for things to create less pollution

Nah..... I'll look at the stars and try to determine things like Big Bang, blackholes, and what it's like to live on a "similar to Earth planet" 83,653 light years away
I'd argue that inquiry into space doesn't prevent the other sciences from flourishing. Sometimes new discoveries in one field can help further another. I don't believe science is an island.

It is also important to learn about why the universe is the way that it is and how it came to be. If not for the sake of knowledge, then for the sake of cosmology. We are residents of this place and our history is important. Also, though I personally find it unlikely to ever happen, what we learn from the structure of the cosmos could possibly lead to colonization of other worlds.
 

DragoonKain

Neighbours from Hell
Why are they talking about a theory (Big Bang) as if it’s fact?

Who's they? You mean scientists? It's not a fact, it's just the most widely accepted theory that is backed up with data and evidence.

Scientists tend to run with things until it can be disproven, so they're running with it until/if then.
 
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davepoobond

you can't put a price on sparks
dark matter is from the first universe

the big bang was just the observable supernova on this side of the universe and in fact there were many more big bangs in different parts of the universe

and there was an even bigger big bang than that

it basically never ends
 

eot

Banned
I'm a smart scientist, what should I use my smarts for?

- Develop medicine
- Help improve food production and quality
- Create high quality biodegradable materials
- Build engines, machines and tools that work just as good as before, but use up less energy
- Clean up pollution, or generate ways for things to create less pollution

Nah..... I'll look at the stars and try to determine things like Big Bang, blackholes, and what it's like to live on a "similar to Earth planet" 83,653 light years away
Do you base all your life decisions on what gives the most net benefit for humanity? Or does that responsibility only fall on smart people?

Also, asking fundamental questions with no apparent value has turned out to be important, again and again throughout history.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Who's they? You mean scientists? It's not a fact, it's just the most widely accepted theory that is backed up with data and evidence.

Scientists tend to run with things until it can be disproven, so they're running with it until/if then.

It’s still a chicken or the egg scenario, ultimately.

That’s ass backwards. Scientists should not be running with things until they are disproven, or they are no different than a preacher or something who has faith running with something until it’s disproven. That is a religious way of going about.

When I grew up, theory was always at the end of it, they slowly removed the ‘theory’ and it should be brought back because words have meaning.

Scientist should not be running on faith scenarios until it’s disproven, they should be running on facts only and be 100% open skeptics for everything else not proven scientific fact. Otherwise, you have a chance of running into heavy confirmation bias with your peers, and another religion is born.
 
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