FarWanderer wrote:
But since you seem to be making an argument here, I'll address it. Your implied argument, that "
no reason to accept not A" makes for "
reason to accept A", is fallacious. It's ignores the possibility of "
no reason to accept not A" and "
no reason to accept A" as both being true.
Here are some arguments to support finite matter/energy:
- If the universe is finite in age, then it could not have produced infinite matter/energy.
- If the universe has infinite matter/energy, then it would have infinite size.
- Since the universe is finite in age and not infinite in size, then the universe has finite matter/energy.
However, I need specific criteria to distinguish whether something is "bound to our space-time" or not. For example, when considering the additional dimensions proposed by String Theory, are these dimensions part of the universe, or is the universe part of them?
The additional dimensions of string theory would not be part of our universe according to my definition.
Do you offer another definition of universe?
And as for this "point" you refer to as "the beginning", it is a point in time, correct? Is this point in time bound by our universe, or are you positing an extra-universal dimension of time?
I'm not positing an extra-dimensional time. It would be T0 in our space-time.
The problem is that even if we studied every inch of the visible universe, we'd still have no way to know that our entire visible universe doesn't exist in some kind of unique super-cosmic "air bubble" or "knot" or who-knows-what; in which case the rest of the greater universe would have a drastically different celestial landscape from ours and we'd never know it.
There's no way even in principle to find out what is exactly outside our light cone. We cannot observe it. We cannot detect it. Who then can say if it's homogeneous or not outside our light cone? I would say it doesn't really matter and it does not apply to the discussions.
That's an interesting article.
Some points about the claim that the universe is homogeneous...
It points out that the data used for their study was only 1% of the sky.
"The data does not cover the entire sky, rather being restricted to less than 1 percent thereof, a patch measuring thirty by thirty degrees."
Sampling 1% does not demonstrate it's true for the whole.
Looking at the
paper itself, the study acknowledges that it indirectly assumes homogeneity.
"Certain parts of our analysis require the assumption of a cosmological model and, implicitly, homogeneity." (pg 3)
This would be begging the question.
But I would agree with the final paragraph of the article:
"Further work is clearly required to fully pin down this result. In the future researchers will cover more of the sky at larger distances, and thereby reach a final resolution of the validity of the Cosmological principle. But this study is the first serious step toward that resolution."
In fact, the only area in which you will ever find people who think that science has a complete understanding of how the natural world works is in apologetics.
Really? I find that to be quite an ironic statement.
Here is what I claim. If the universe is non-homogeneous, then the only place it would appear to be isotropic is in the center.
I have absolutely no idea how you might justifiy this claim, especially in light of how we've already established that all points in the universe would appear isotropic with regard to redshift even assuming there were a center.
If the edge of the universe was within our light cone, then it would appear darker towards that side. Of course, this assumes the actual universe is not much larger than our observable universe, which we can debate next.
