All of us readers of Jurassic Park know a thing or two about nonlinear dynamics. The character Ian, played by Jeff Goldblum, describes Chaos theory, using the eloquent example of the “butterfly effect” to articulate its application: initial conditions that slightly change in nonlinear dynamical systems lead to an incredibly unpredictable, yet still nonrandom, outcome. Specifically, ‘a butterfly flaps its wings in Peking, and you get rain instead of sunshine in Central Park.
The Big Bang is one such nonlinear system. Even knowing ALL the initial conditions would not allow one to accurately predict the outcome of the system, even though there are no “floating parameters” in the model, per se. I was recently reading on the ramifications of the Big Bang for theology in a various number of sources, and was unsurprised at the “spin” that each side applies: the theists use the unknown as proof of the unknowable (epitome of “God of the gaps”-type logic)−God’s intervention/creation, while the atheists use the unknown as an example of scientific horizon−yet undiscovered, but soon to be discovered (i.e. man is able to know everything, eventually).
At t = 0, spacetime itself does not yet exist, and all the matter and energy of the universe converge into a point of infinite density and temperature. This “unknown” is dubbed a singularity. This is a mathematical term, often used for nonlinear dynamical systems. Simply put, we conclude that the laws of physics as we know them today evolved out of this singularity, and so it is quite illogical to attempt to apply those same laws to the singularity itself. Even cause and effect is a Newtonian principle which quantum uncertainty and quantum fluctuations do not appear to obey now. Considering this, is it logical to apply causation to the Big Bang itself?
Some of the old-school cosmologists were so bothered by the presence of the singularity they attempted to present evidence for a “steady state” universe, one in which there was no t = 0, but rather an actual infinity. They failed. Some of the new-school cosmologists (Hawking, Turok, et al) have used other hypotheses (supergravity and string theory, respectively) to circumvent, or to at least explain in some logical way, the singularity itself.
I find myself falling somewhere in between those who attach a label of “hopeless” to such efforts and those who have full faith in human progress to the extreme that they feel everything will one day be known. I think of myself like Alan from Jurassic Park, who held on to a dinosaur claw until he felt it became irrelevant and ridiculous. I want to hold on to my skepticism that mankind will ever know with any degree of certainty the physical mechanisms that brought our current universe into being…and only cast it aside when I am sitting in the presence of this knowledge. Just as the velociraptor claw served as both a relic and evidence of a past we used to be 100% ignorant of, I am sure that my skepticism is a relic of the “Schoolmaster”/modernist clash, and the necessity to hold on to a reminder will not last forever.
I don’t think we will forever need to remind ourselves to reject pure faith (without reason), but for the time being, my nihilistic tendencies keep me clinging to a philosophy best described as original (authentic) Sophism, something that may now be best described in Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, as I am highly skeptical, cynical and in some ways postmodern (mostly towards logical positivists, and towards general idealists) regarding the potential of human knowledge and discovery.
In physics, if you walk into a room and find a ball laying on an impressionable floor, you may be able to reconstruct where the ball was thrown from, and with what initial force (F = ma). However, if the ball is one of those blasted “Super Bouncy Balls”, and if the floor is concrete…good luck.
I am skeptical enough to still consider it rational to believe that our universe may indeed be a super bouncy ball that hit concrete (imperfect surface, of course, to maintain nonlinear dynamics) an unknowable amount of times before coming to rest.
For us to come along and find the ball and proclaim that our current laws of physics applied to the singularity is ridiculous (yet this is what “Kalam” arguments do−insisiting on “cause and effect” instead of giving way to quantum indeterminacy), and yet to proclaim that the quantum cosmologies hold a satisfying solution is…well…to me…aptly labeled “sophistry” in the colloquial sense of the word.
I like to think of myself as one of those guys who approaches the “elastic clause” of the Constitution with the same caution that I approach the “elastic laws” of the singularity, holding onto something tangiable for the time being, until evidence arises to convince me that my stance is outmoded, superceded, and unreasonable. Sort of writing a clause into my own scientific constitution, allowing myself the pleasure of maintaining skepticism and full rationality, with no hint of dichotomy.
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Technorati tags: God, Big Bang, Cosmology
