Observation in Cosmology

The Simulation Hypothesis proposes that all of reality is in fact an artificial simulation, analogous to a computer simulation. Outlined here is a method for programming relativistic mass, space and time at the Planck level as applicable for use in Planck Universe-as-a-Simulation Hypothesis. For the virtual universe the model uses a 4-axis hyper-sphere that expands in incremental steps (the simulation clock-rate). Virtual particles that oscillate between an electric wave-state and a mass point-state are mapped within this hyper-sphere, the oscillation driven (...) by this expansion. Particles are assigned an N-S axis which determines the direction in which they are pulled along by the expansion, thus an independent particle motion may be dispensed with. Only in the mass point-state do particles have fixed hyper-sphere co-ordinates. The rate of expansion translates to the speed of light and so in terms of the hyper-sphere co-ordinates all particles (and objects) travel at the speed of light, time (as the clock-rate) and velocity (as the rate of expansion) are therefore constant, however photons, as the means of information exchange, are restricted to lateral movement across the hyper-sphere thus giving the appearance of a 3-D space. Lorentz formulas are used to translate between this 3-D space and the hyper-sphere co-ordinates, relativity resembling the mathematics of perspective. (shrink)

Some modern cosmological models predict the appearance of Boltzmann Brains: observers who randomly fluctuate out of a thermal bath rather than naturally evolving from a low-entropy Big Bang. A theory in which most observers are of the Boltzmann Brain type is generally thought to be unacceptable, although opinions differ. I argue that such theories are indeed unacceptable: the real problem is with fluctuations into observers who are locally identical to ordinary observers, and their existence cannot be swept under the rug (...) by a choice of probability distributions over observers. The issue is not that the existence of such observers is ruled out by data, but that the theories that predict them are cognitively unstable: they cannot simultaneously be true and justifiably believed. (shrink)

As an application of his Material Theory of Induction, Norton (2018; manuscript) argues that the correct inductive logic for a fair infinite lottery, and also for evaluating eternal inflation multiverse models, is radically different from standard probability theory. This is due to a requirement of label independence. It follows, Norton argues, that finite additivity fails, and any two sets of outcomes with the same cardinality and co-cardinality have the same chance. This makes the logic useless for evaluating multiverse models based (...) on self-locating chances, so Norton claims that we should despair of such attempts. However, his negative results depend on a certain reification of chance, consisting in the treatment of inductive support as the value of a function, a value not itself affected by relabeling. Here we define a purely comparative infinite lottery logic, where there are no primitive chances but only a relation of ‘at most as likely’ and its derivatives. This logic satisfies both label independence and a comparative version of additivity as well as several other desirable properties, and it draws finer distinctions between events than Norton's. Consequently, it yields better advice about choosing between sets of lottery tickets than Norton's, but it does not appear to be any more helpful for evaluating multiverse models. Hence, the limitations of Norton's logic are not entirely due to the failure of additivity, nor to the fact that all infinite, co-infinite sets of outcomes have the same chance, but to a more fundamental problem: We have no well-motivated way of comparing disjoint countably infinite sets. (shrink)

The Simulation Hypothesis proposes that all of reality, including the earth and the universe, is in fact an artificial simulation, analogous to a computer simulation, and as such our reality is an illusion. In this essay I describe a method for programming mass, length, time and charge (MLTA) as geometrical objects derived from the formula for a virtual electron; $f_e = 4\pi^2r^3$ ($r = 2^6 3 \pi^2 \alpha \Omega^5$) where the fine structure constant $\alpha$ = 137.03599... and $\Omega$ = 2.00713494... (...) are mathematical constants and the MLTA geometries are; M = (1), T = ($2\pi$), L = ($2\pi^2\Omega^2$), A = ($4\pi \Omega)^3/\alpha$. As objects they are independent of any set of units and also of any numbering system, terrestrial or alien. As the geometries are interrelated according to $f_e$, we can replace designations such as ($kg, m, s, A$) with a rule set; mass = $u^{15}$, length = $u^{-13}$, time = $u^{-30}$, ampere = $u^{3}$. The formula $f_e$ is unit-less ($u^0$) and combines these geometries in the following ratio M$^9$T$^{11}$/L$^{15}$ and (AL)$^3$/T, as such these ratio are unit-less. To translate MLTA to their respective SI Planck units requires an additional 2 unit-dependent scalars. We may thereby derive the CODATA 2014 physical constants via the 2 (fixed) mathematical constants ($\alpha, \Omega$), 2 dimensioned scalars and the rule set $u$. As all constants can be defined geometrically, the least precise constants ($G, h, e, m_e, k_B$...) can also be solved via the most precise ($c, \mu_0, R_\infty, \alpha$), numerical precision then limited by the precision of the fine structure constant $\alpha$. (shrink)

Singularitățile la care se ajunge în relativitatea generală prin rezolvarea ecuațiilor lui Einstein au fost și încă mai sunt subiectul a numeroase dezbateri științifice: Există sau nu, singularități? Big Bang a fost o singularitate inițială? Dacă singularitățile există, care este ontologia acestora? Este teoria generală a relativității o teorie care și-a arătat limitele în acest caz? Cartea include o prezentare a aspectelor specifice din teoria clasică newtoniană, teoria specială a relativității și mecanica cuantică, apoi o detaliere a singularităților care rezultă (...) în relativitatea generală, a aspectelor specifice ale găurilor negre și orizontul evenimentelor, inclusiv dezbaterea despre Big Bang ca singularitate inițială, și argumentele cosmologice în favoarea existenței singularităților. Se evidențiază problemele filosofice de încadrare ontologică a singularităților în general și a găurilor negre în special, despre argumentul găurii pus în evidență de Einstein, și argumentele prezentate de oamenii de știință pro și contra singularităților. Studiul singularităților este încă la început. Fizica găurilor negre și filosofia singularităților cosmologice sunt domenii încă neexplorate. În fața singularităților, știința își recunoaște limitele. Aici poate ajuta foarte mult filosofia. -/- CUPRINS: -/- 1 Gravitația - Antichitate - Era modernă - - Teoria lui Newton despre gravitație - - Explicații mecanice ale gravitației - - Relativitatea generală - - Gravitația și mecanica cuantică - 1.1 Mecanica newtoniană - - Geometria gravitației - 1.2 Relativitatea specială - - Postulatele teoriei speciale a relativității - - Dilatarea timpului - - Contracția lungimii - - Impulsul relativist (Cvadri-impuls) - - Echivalența masă-energie (E = mc2) - - Masa în relativitatea specială - - Cauzalitatea - 1.3 Relativitatea generală - - Metrica relativității generale - - Structura cauzală (și geometria globală) - - Orizonturi - - Singularități - 1.3.1 Ontologia relativității generale - 1.4. Mecanica cuantică - 1.4.1 Gravitația cuantică - - Graviton - - Dilaton - - Teoria corzilor - - Gravitația cuantică în bucle - - Alte abordări - 1.5 Teorii mixte - 1.5.1 Gravitația cuantică în bucle - - Aplicații fizice ale GCB - - - Entropia găurii negre - - - Radiația Hawking în GCB - - - Stea Planck - - - Cosmologică cuantică în bucle - - - Fenomenologia GCB - 1.6. Teorii unificatoare - 1.6.1 Teoria corzilor - - Teoria-M - - Găuri negre - - - Formula Bekenstein-Hawking - - - Derivarea în cadrul teoriei corzilor - - Corespondența AdS/CFT - - - Cosmologie - - Istorie - - - Rezultatele inițiale - - - Prima revoluție a supercorzilor - - - A doua revoluție a supercorzilor - - Critici - - - Numărul de soluții - - - Independența de fundal - - - Sociologia științei 2. Big Bang - Prezentare generală - - Radiația de fond - - - Misiunile de studiu al radiației fundalului cosmic - Cronologie - - Singularitate - - Inflația și bariogeneza - - Răcirea - - Formarea structurii - - Accelerarea cosmică - Caracteristici ale modelului - - Expansiunea spațiului - - Orizonturi - Istorie - - Etimologie - - Dezvoltare - Dovezi observaționale - - Legea lui Hubble și expansiunea spațiului - - Radiația fundalului cosmic cu microunde - - Abundența elementelor primordiale - - Evoluția și distribuția galactică - - Nori de gaze primordiale - - Alte linii de dovezi - - Observații viitoare - Probleme și aspecte conexe în fizică - - Asimetria barionică - - Energia întunecată - - Materia întunecată - - Problema orizontului - - Monopoli magnetici - - Problema planeității - Cauza - Destinul final al universului - Prejudecăți - Speculaţiile - - Energia întunecată - Big Bang ca singularitate 3. Singularități gravitaționale - Existența - - Argumente împotriva existenței - Interpretare - Tipuri - - Conice - - Curbate - - Singularitate goală - Entropia - 3.1 Singularitățile în relativitatea generală - 3.2 Gaura de vierme - - Călătorii cu viteze mai mari decât viteza luminii şi călătorii în timp - - Universul nostru, într-o gaură neagră - - Concluzii - 3.3 Filosofia singularităților 4. Găuri negre - Istorie - Aspecte conceptuale - Argumentul găurii - Proprietăți și structură - - Proprietăți fizice - - Orizontul evenimentelor - - Singularitate - - Sferă fotonică - - Ergosfera - - Cea mai interioară orbită circulară stabilă - Formarea și evoluția - - Sfârșitul unei stele este începutul unei găuri negre - - Colapsul gravitațional - - - Găurile negre primordiale și Big Bang-ul - - Coliziuni de mare energie - - Creşterea - - Evaporarea - - Pitici și giganți - Dovezi observaționale - - Detectarea undelor gravitaționale de la fuzionarea găurilor negre - - Mișcări corecte de stele care orbitează Săgetător A * - - Acreția materiei - - - Binare cu raze X - - - Inactivitatea și fluxul de acumulare dominat de advecție - - - Oscilații cvasi-periodice - - - Galactic nuclei - - Microlentile (propus) - - Alternative - Probleme nerezolvate - - Entropia și termodinamica - - Paradoxul pierderii informației - - Paradoxul paravanului de protecție - Ontologia găurilor negre - 4.1 Orizontul evenimentelor - - Orizontul evenimentelor unei găuri negre - - Orizontul evenimentelor cosmice - - Orizontul aparent al unei particule accelerate - - Interacțiunea cu un orizont al evenimentului - - Dincolo de relativitatea generală 5. Cosmologia - Radiații gravitaționale - Viteza gravitației - Formularea valorii inițiale - 5.1 O analogie Bibliografie Referințe Despre autor - Nicolae Sfetcu - - De același autor - - Contact Editura - MultiMedia Publishing. (shrink)

Philosophy and Cosmology is an open access, peer-reviewed and refereed journal that focuses on theoretical and conceptual problems and issues in philosophical and cosmological research. Philosophy and Cosmology is published by International Society of Philosophy and Cosmology. The objective of Philosophy and Cosmology is to promote exchange and collaboration among philosophers, social, technical and natural science researchers throughout the world. In pursuit of this objective the journal not only publishes high quality research papers but also ensures that the published papers (...) achieve broad international credibility. Philosophy and Cosmology publishes original papers, review papers, conceptual frameworks, analytical and simulation models, case studies, empirical research, and book reviews. (shrink)

Increasingly encompassing models have been suggested for our world. Theories range from generally accepted to increasingly speculative to apparently bogus. The progression of theories from ego- to geo- to helio-centric models to universe and multiverse theories and beyond was accompanied by a dramatic increase in the sizes of the postulated worlds, with humans being expelled from their center to ever more remote and random locations. Rather than leading to a true theory of everything, this trend faces a turning point after (...) which the predictive power of such theories decreases (actually to zero). Incorporating the location and other capacities of the observer into such theories avoids this problem and allows to distinguish meaningful from predictively meaningless theories. This also leads to a truly complete theory of everything consisting of a (conventional objective) theory of everything plus a (novel subjective) observer process. The observer localization is neither based on the controversial anthropic principle, nor has it anything to do with the quantum-mechanical observation process. The suggested principle is extended to more practical (partial, approximate, probabilistic, parametric) world models (rather than theories of everything). Finally, I provide a justification of Ockham's razor, and criticize the anthropic principle, the doomsday argument, the no free lunch theorem, and the falsifiability dogma.", . (shrink)

The progression of theories suggested for our world, from ego- to geo- to helio-centric models to universe and multiverse theories and beyond, shows one tendency: The size of the described worlds increases, with humans being expelled from their center to ever more remote and random locations. If pushed too far, a potential theory of everything (TOE) is actually more a theories of nothing (TON). Indeed such theories have already been developed. I show that including observer localization into such theories is (...) necessary and sufficient to avoid this problem. I develop a quantitative recipe to identify TOEs and distinguish them from TONs and theories in-between. This precisely shows what the problem is with some recently suggested universal TOEs. (shrink)

Philosophy and Cosmology is an open access, peer-reviewed and refereed journal that focuses on theoretical and conceptual problems and issues in philosophical and cosmological research. Philosophy and Cosmology is published by International Society of Philosophy and Cosmology. The objective of Philosophy and Cosmology is to promote exchange and collaboration among philosophers, social, technical and natural science researchers throughout the world. In pursuit of this objective the journal not only publishes high quality research papers but also ensures that the published papers (...) achieve broad international credibility. Philosophy and Cosmology publishes original papers, review papers, conceptual frameworks, analytical and simulation models, case studies, empirical research, and book reviews. At present scientific-philosophical Journal Philosophy and Cosmology is an annual printing issue which focuses on publishing of researches at the sphere of philosophy of Space also with creation of integrated informational area for Space observation and outer space exploration. (shrink)

Along the strike of this article we’ll try to perform two tasks. The first one is to review the world existence but not in form of concept but in form of modern scientific-philosophic system of views on the Universe structure and on the processes of formation and development of non-organic world, worlds of life and intelligence. The second one is to answer the question “what is the essence of human life?” through the scientific-philosophic understanding of the world existence.

Philosophy and Cosmology is an open access, peer-reviewed and refereed journal that focuses on theoretical and conceptual problems and issues in philosophical and cosmological research. Philosophy and Cosmology is published by International Society of Philosophy and Cosmology. The objective of Philosophy and Cosmology is to promote exchange and collaboration among philosophers, social, technical and natural science researchers throughout the world. In pursuit of this objective the journal not only publishes high quality research papers but also ensures that the published papers (...) achieve broad international credibility. Philosophy and Cosmology publishes original papers, review papers, conceptual frameworks, analytical and simulation models, case studies, empirical research, and book reviews. (shrink)

The first part of this article examines Patricia O'Grady's recent attempt to identify the method by which Thales might have successfully predicted a solar eclipse. According to O'Grady, some 60% of the potentially visible lunar eclipses were followed 23½ months later by potentially visible solar eclipses. It is shown that this ratio is no more than 23%, and that the method fails to predict after which specific lunar eclipse a solar eclipse will appear. In the second half of the article (...) it is argued that on the basis of his own observations of major solar eclipses, Thales could have concluded that solar eclipses come in clusters of three, the second appearing 17 or 18 months, and the third 35 months, after the first one. In the years after the "predicted" eclipse of 28 May 585 BC, this apparent pattern disappeared again, which would explain why Thales managed to "predict" only one eclipse. (shrink)

I present my own vision of the material world's formation. I think this new cosmological model deepens and extends the modern points of view on the universe. It allows to follow the evolution of matter up to forming of human society. I had to rethink a lot and even to change and to surrender in some degree my points of view stated in my previous publications. But these changes had a partial character and naturally resulted from the evolution of my (...) views on the world's processes. The fundament stands still and and that is what I intend to present you. I owe my thanks to all those people who contributed to ny spiritual development, whose surnames will be mentioned in the text or in bibliographical list. Most of them are gone. But the charm of human life is that the biological death of a man does not necessarily abolish his social-intellectual immortality . (shrink)

This small book continues the theoretical study on the structure of the universe. It examines the category of “time” in the light of a new cosmological model proposed by the author in his book “The Origin of Mankind”. It is generally accepted that after researches of A. Einstein, А. Minkovsky and others space and time are considered in their interrelation, as the continuum. Nevertheless, the category of “time” is still a bone of contention and a cause of a great deal (...) of misunderstanding in contemporary science. In philosophy, mathematics, physics it has different meanings. In this book the author dares to give more precise definition of the category of “time” from the point of view of the contemporary level of knowledge. (shrink)

This paper considers the role of the doctrine of providence, and particularly the distinction between general and special providence, in the interpretation of astronomical observations in the sixteenth century, with particular reference to the discussion of the 1572 nova by Lutheran astronomers. It suggests that the essential difference between the events of special providence and those of general providence could be used to legitimate observations which contradicted accepted Aristotelian physics. The decision that the underlying explanatory system must be revised thus (...) required a theological shift as well as contradiction by observation. (shrink)

The Journal «Philosophy and Cosmology» (ISSN 2307-3705) was established by Oleg Bazaluk as a press organ of International Society of Philosophy and Cosmology at 2004. This Society was established in the setting of Pereyaslav-Khmelnitskiy State Pedagogical University. Initially the Journal was printed as a special edition of Ukrainian philosophical journal «Sententiae» (Editor-in-Chief - Oleg Khoma) and covered scientific and philosophical researches of the space problematic. Since 2008, Journal «Philosophy and Cosmology» is an independent printed issue. Since 2009, together with coming (...) of G.Alyaev, Journal «Philosophy and Cosmology» has an International status printing advanced researches at the spheres of: -/- cosmic education, social philosophy, philosophy of Space, philosophic anthropology, philosophy of cognition, philosophy of science and technology, philosophy of religion, futurology, cosmology, philosophy of cosmology. (shrink)