Beyond-Natural

By John McCormick

The cosmic microwave background radiation is the faint remnant glow of the Big Bang. The Big Bang leads us to the accepted position that the universe had a beginning. The issue now is what caused the Big Bang, Before the Big Bang it is agreed that there was no time, no material, in effect, nothing. That takes the issue to how can something appear out of nothing. To evade this, theories now multiply either that universes can appear from nothing or that universes are eternal. Both sets of theories are evidence free.
Life did not appear out of nothing but it might as well have for there is no clear accounting of how it appeared. Currently life is theories to have appeared slowly following millions of years of random reactions among lifeless chemicals until an amazing molecule appeared - a chemical molecule that could reproduce itself. No such molecule has been ever reported as existing. Such a molecule would have a basic problems - it needs to develop in water, but water splits it up. The Water Problem begins a lengthy list of difficulties with the theories.
In 1988 following suggestions that carbon dating be done on the Shroud of Turin a protocol for such an exercise took place. Even singe one of the terms of the protocol were broken or ignored. Oxford University department head announced that the Shroud was a fake. The carbon dating results were immediately put under wraps at the British Museum and access to carbon dating analysts was denied until it was forced by law to release those results. The announcement of fake persists but only as a worthless myth. The question of the origin of the two images on the shroud is still unknown in spite of over one hundred years of effort.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John McCormick
• Release date: May 16, 2024

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Chapter 1

UNIVERSE

1. Around the time of World War 1, it was commonly accepted that there was this Earth, a few other planets, moons, meteors, clouds, and one big galaxy of stars. These made up the universe, and always had.

2. The universe was infinite, changeless, balanced; Newton’s stupendous laws of motion and gravitation described a static mechanical universe, and that it operated following the laws that he explored and described.

3. A static universe, but changing within; Laplace, Hutton, Lyell, and Sedgwick described an earth slowly altering and transforming its landscape through slow gradual processes over millions of years. Interesting, thought young Darwin, when Lyell and Sedgwick showed him the evidence in rocks.

4. When geology revealed that life had not existed for eternity, but came long after earth’s first appearance; given time - anything-can-happen theories and hypotheses appealed; as is the common case when theories are thick and evidence is thin.

5. As to what age the universe was or whether it was eternal, the widest belief was that the universe had no traceable beginning.

6. That was about to change.

Eternity Begins to Crumble

7. In 1905, Albert Einstein had formed his Theory of Special Relativity. It was a coherent, intelligent theory describing a universe that had always existed; and much as Isaac Newton had described it; steady, changeless, eternal; a universe dominated by gravity but gravitationally balanced rather than stable.

8. From 1907 until 1915, Einstein extended his Special Theory of Relativity to the universe.

In so extending, he realised that matter could shrink uncontrollably under its own gravitational force; that is, the universe would collapse on itself.

There were many who disagreed with relativity and 28 written opinions were published in a book, Hundert Autoren Gegen Einstein (One Hundred Authors Against Einstein]. That book has historical value only.

9. When the guns of World War 1 erupted; at a time when scientists, predominantly astronomers, were considering repeated observations that described a growing, expanding universe, and not a static, constant one, Einstein had snagged his coat in a paradigm, a model, of an unchanging universe.

10. Einstein now theorised an additional ingredient to his equations, a Cosmological Constant .

This new ingredient was a work of imagination which he seems to have considered sounded scarcely more than sheer fiction, for he provided an explanatory requirement for the constant; …we admittedly had to introduce an extension …which is not justified by our actual knowledge of gravitation…The term is necessary only for the purpose of making possible a quasi-static distribution of matter, as required by the fact of the small velocities of the stars.

11. Cosmologists, cosmogonists, and physicists grudgingly accepted this constant; they had assumed, without much discussion, that the universe was stable.

But adding additional or arbitrary terms to a theory is not something that scientists find appealing and others considered it to be a stop-gap solution, fated to be replaced. Moreover, others were impressed with Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity as it stood and had expended effort and time verifying his original theory to their personal satisfaction.

What makes a good theory?

12. In serious discussion, a theory is acceptable as a good theory if : -

1. If it is consistent throughout, that is, its parts are not self-contradictory or contain unresolved paradoxes.

2. If it is falsifiable , that is, it should be testable for validity. If there are no tests for validity it may still be right but it is not considered a good, scientific, theory.

It should not be immune from testing.

3. If it is supported by data from observations or experiments, or by data from indirect but logically connected observations.

4. If it can accurately predict the results of experiments or observations.

5. If it is expressed simply without complicated reservations or conditions; this is often referred to as Occam’s razor .

6. If it fits with other established principles .

7. If it is reducible to equations ; at least in fields like mathematics and physics.

13. In August 1914, a U.S. astronomer, Vesto Slipher, presented spectrographs to the American Astronomical Society showing movement of galaxies; observations that clearly theorised an expanding universe. He received a standing ovation.

14. A theory of an expanding universe had troubling consequences for the concept of an eternal universe. A universe that was growing pointed toward a universe that was once smaller; at any rate, not static.

15. In 1922, physicist and mathematician, Alexander Friedmann, derived his Friedmann Equations from Einstein's equations. Among three scenarios, one indicated that the universe might be expanding at a rate calculable by the equations; in other words, it may not be static. However, he wrote, But all these scenarios must be considered as curiosities which cannot be presently supported by solid astronomical experimental data . Friedmann was not prepared to theorise further until data had been found.

16. In 1927, physicist and astronomer, Georges Lemaître published a solution to Einstein’s equations in which he hypothesised that the universe was expanding. In 1931, he declared that the expansion was from an initial point, an immensely hot and immensely dense singularity, expanding and cooling.

Many physicists thought Lemaître’s fireball origin far-fetched and the hypothesis fell from consideration for some years, there being no discernible avenue to find some evidence of this. Einstein resisted Friedmann’s and Lemaître’s conclusions of an expanding universe, a universe implying a beginning, though he accepted the mathematics. The world divided into camps:

• The universe is static.

• The universe is active and growing.

The question now was; did observable, testable, evidence exist which could point towards which hypothesis or theory was more likely?

Evidence is not proof. Evidence is paper trails, fingerprints, admissions, or lipstick where it should not be…; things as may have use in proving something; things observed, heard, calculated, experienced …

17. In 1924, the astronomer Edwin Hubble, working with teamster/electrician turned astronomer, Milton Humanson, stunned many by declaring, in The New York Times, that there was more to the universe than the Milky Way. [Ignore error in the spelling of Hubble’s name. ] He stated in effect, those clouds, those spiral nebulae, are not mist, nor whirling clouds but stellar systems like our Milky Way.

Why, the people said, there must be a hundred of them.

Thousands, they thought, of stellar system systems,

Maybe hundreds of thousands.

18. Astounding as it was, this news did not affect the prevailing philosophical proposition of a stable universe; the discovery only signified that the universe was appreciably bigger than people had imagined. It was still stable and perhaps eternal, but, for many, whether the universe had a beginning or not was inconsequential to daily life; an attitude comparable to Sherlock Holmes’ indifference to the earth’s solar orbit; " What the deuce is it to me? he interrupted impatiently; you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon, it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."

19. Hubble had not finished. In 1929, he announced a further dramatic discovery which sat all down to think again. Hubble had noticed, as others before him had also reported, that light coming from the galaxies shifted towards the red end of its spectrum. This led to a conclusion that galaxies were flying apart from each other at great speed, and that the universe was therefore definitely, provably, growing. Expanding.

20. In effect, Hubble had spoken once more and had declared, I can say that the universe is getting bigger all the time, even as we speak, and the galaxies further out appear to be moving away faster than those closer in. And not moving away slowly but at tremendous velocity.

21. An astounding statement like this could not be accepted without enquiring whether others could see what Hubble saw. Others did; others already had. No matter how observations were interpreted, it indicated that the universe was unquestionably not static, but getting bigger.

22. Discovery provoked the question; is it not logical to assume that, if the universe is getting bigger, then the early universe must have been smaller?

23. The proposition swelled; if the universe was smaller yesterday than it is today, then it must have been smaller the day before, and so on, until a point when the universe began is arrived at. And therefore, logically, so the notion grew, the universe must have had a beginning.

24. Put differently, though with a similar conclusion; the universe expands and its energy and matter thin out. Earlier, then, the universe was smaller while matter and energy were denser. With increased density and pressures came a higher temperature, something known to everyone who ever handled a bicycle pump.

Hypothesizing known laws backwards, and assuming they continually apply, science deduces an earliest point where the energy densities and temperatures are so high that no known laws will describe the changes of state now assumed to occur.

25. Einstein’s Relativity equations, logic, mathematics, and physics, further reasonably indicated that on one singular ‘yesterday’, over thirteen and a half billion years ago, the universe was contained in an infinitely small, infinitely dense, and immensely hot region of space. Into, putting it differently, a dimensionless point in infinitely small space, when elapsed time approached zero; a point described as arriving at a singularity.

5.39 × 10-44 seconds before that, the Big Bang occurred.

Big Bang

26. When that happened, it was a point, a point when the history of the universe began, a point when there was no ‘yesterday’; a point when there was not even a ‘ten minutes’ ago; for the Standard Model of Cosmology states, in effect, that before this singularity appeared there was no space, no time, no matter, and no energy.

No space, no time, no matter, and no energy, is a very reasonable description of nothing.

The Standard Model of Cosmology is basically the Big Bang model; in this model, the expansion of the Universe is accelerating and the age of the Universe is 13.8 billion years.

27. This instantaneous appearance of everything from nothing drew the scientific world’s attention to a hypothesis that evidence may now exist which suggested that something beyond-natural had happened, simply because there was no obvious natural cause for something appearing out of nothing.

There is no evidence that the Big Bang had been a transition between different physical states, like steam condensing to water.

Beyond-natural is not another word for super-natural with its common association with ghosts and vampires.

Matter appears

28. One ‘something’ which appeared from the initial nothing was matter . Elementary particles, matter, and antimatter, appeared; matter predominated and anti-matter became rare.

During the earliest moments of the universe's expansion, as current scientific theory has it, extreme conditions allowed formation of elementary particles such as quarks, electrons, and neutrinos, along with their antiparticles. As the universe continued to expand and cool, these particles combined to form the first atoms.

Don’t like it hot

29. It was inevitable that a very great number, and not exclusively scientists, found this restatement of an ancient point of origin jolting and unappealing.

30. One celebrated scientist spoke for many when he wrote that the idea of a beyond-natural creation of the universe was repugnant ; that it was philosophically unacceptable ; that a universe with a beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless it is looked on as super-natural.

31. The philosophical unacceptability referred to is the break in continuity of causation ; that is, A caused B, B caused C, C caused D etc.; but what caused A? Science desires continuity; as Einstein observed, the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation .

Universal causation is a principle of philosophy, and science. Simply put, it maintains that things don’t just happen, previous factors cause an event to occur. It also maintains that every causative action has a predictable effect – ‘predictable’ because there is a fundamental regularity in the universe.

32. The celebrated editor of Nature , John Maddox, contributed an article in 1989, headed, Down with the Big Bang , Apart from being philosophically unacceptable, the Big Bang is an over-simple view of how the Universe began, and it is unlikely to survive the decade ahead . Maddox, a severe materialist, opposed any beyond-natural imputations. His prediction is of historic value only, now.

33. Dislike of a universe springing from nothing continues in modern times; one writer expresses it so: the concept of an eternal universe feels more acceptable than the concept of a transient universe that springs into being suddenly, and afterwards fades slowly into darkness .

For some, an eternal universe is comforting; a temporary one, however prolonged, is agitating.

Religious stunt?

34. An instantaneous appearance of a universe cannot rationally be suggested as some sort of religious stunt.

However, in Russia, that suggestion was dismissed as a piece of religiosity, at first. Zhdanovism, the denunciation of western influence in the arts, had spread to Russian cosmology and science; not even a Nobel Laureate like Peter Kapitsa was free from criticism for a time. For the Russian government, evidence lay in the fact that Lemaître was a Jesuit priest, and that was enough.

As for Gamow; a Soviet-Ukrainian-American, theoretical physicist and developer of Lemaître’s Big Bang, well, he was an Americanised apostate, a former citizen of the USSR who had fled to the US.

35. The song has ended, but the melody lingers on. The instantaneous appearance of the universe was and still is unacceptable in the news/ entertainment media. There is a permanent market for theories which propose that, either that, one day, someone will find a rational explanation for the universe appearing from nothing; or, if that pistol won’t fire, that this universe existed eternally but perhaps in different forms and therefore has no beginning. A balanced, rational, explanation is mandatory; because the moment rational thought ceases, unbounded imagination begins.

Contest begins

36. A contest, to be fought scientifically and philosophically, began for a natural origin of the universe; one that did not concede a beyond-natural cause.

37. Several scientists began to set aside what science had clearly pointed to in the Big Bang and now constructed mathematical models of a universe with an infinite past; alternatively, models of an infinite series of universes leading to this current universe. Each model has very substantial evidentiary difficulties.

Models – An inescapable fact about models is that, whatever the models represent, they are still theories and descriptions and speculations – they provide a path to general comprehension of systems and processes, but a model clock, for example, does not tell the time; if it did, it would be a real clock. In the construction of models, assumptions are made and initial conditions identified. Flaws in the model, if any, are generally found in the assumptions, or in simplifications for the purpose of the model. No matter how ingenious and tested the models may be, they have limits in representing reality; they perform best when inside their designated domains; they commonly struggle across different domains or areas of knowledge.

38. A point when a colossal burst of heat flared, when time started, when space emerged, when energy, then matter, appeared, did call for enquiry. Plainly, the Big Bang is evidence that, at very least, this universe is not eternal; that this universe had a beginning.

39. The issue eventually condensed to this; as materialism_declares that everything has a natural cause, then materialism must describe a natural cause for the existence of this observable universe; a failure to do so leaves the possibility of a cause beyond-natural.

For the proposition of an instantaneous flare of energy from nowhere, evidence began to accumulate.

Materialism is an ancient philosophy which became better known after Lyell, Hutton, and others, published in the 18th century. It describes a world governed by natural laws, in all its aspects; everything has a natural cause.

The root of the word materialism is matter. Matter, and its movement, explains all phenomena for materialism, including free will; because, materialism holds, at the base of all thought are movements of sub-atomic brain matter.

However, Bethe, Bohr, Heisenberg, Planck, and other science high-achievers, conceive that, at sub-atomic levels, it is matter that does not exist, But the atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real. They form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of facts…

As poet Richard Wilbur put it, Cloudy, cloudy, is the stuff of stones.

(As used herein, materialism has no meaning that connotes envy or greed; here, materialism is the theory that nothing exists except matter and its movements.

Has the universe an origin?

40. Before the discovery of the Big Bang, there was little discussion of the origin of the universe, certainly not to the extent that immediately followed.

Pre-Bang, research dealt with observable features of the universe; post-Bang, the direction loosened to include imagined types of universes; theoretically, with different properties.

Essentially, there were two concepts; either multitudinous universes, or one-at-a time universes, each succeeding the other.

41. The glue binding the concepts are philosophic and semantic notions; philosophic considerations respecting the nature of time; and semantic ones relating to a new definition of nothing .

The first notion does away with humankind’s intuitive understanding of time and replaces it with formal arguments suggesting that time is a fantasy, or unrealistic; and that infinite regression of causes is possible, philosophically speaking.

If something always depends on an unending chain of earlier causes, that is infinite regression: an interminable falling back without ever reaching an ultimate cause.

The egg/chicken child’s puzzle is a popular example; e.g., the cause of this egg’s existence is that a chicken laid it and the cause of the chicken’s existence is an earlier egg, and the cause of the earlier egg is an earlier chicken … and thus into infinite regression.

42. The second notion basically requires a redefinition of nothing to mean a very special form of something .

43. The first of the chain of opposition to the concept of a universe with an origin at the Big Bang was the steady-state, eternal universe model; postulated as an alternative by Sir Fred Hoyle, Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold in the mid-1940s. Other theories followed, all with the common denominator of hypothesised eternality.

In 1948, Hoyle suggested an expanding universe could remain unchanged if time had no beginning or end; the apparent thinning of the matter of the universe would be offset, balanced, by matter being continually created. This steady-state universe was attractive possibly because it suggested an eternal universe, something that did not need examination; and possibly because it did away with bothersome theological considerations.

44. Hoyle disagreed on Lemaître’s fireball , or any origin. He argued that the universe could be eternal, and unchanging, while still being an expanding universe. As the galaxies move away from each other, so the steady-state theory proposed, new galaxies develop, or create themselves to fill the space the others leave. Against reluctance to accept the idea of matter continually creating itself out of nothing, Hoyle countered that no one knew the cause of the first appearance of matter.

Hoyle spoke with some authority on this issue as it was he who wrote the foundational paper on nucleosynthesis, in 1946.

45. Around the same time, in 1948-1953, George Gamow and others further developed the Big Bang model. Their work led to a picture of a hot, radiation-dominated early universe, and a prediction of a cosmic microwave background of about 3-5 Kelvin. The prediction was significant.

Cosmic Microwave Background

46. Within 20 years, scientists discarded Hoyle’s steady-state model. It had been severely damaged by the discovery of quasars in the 1960s, but for the major part following the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB, in 1964, predicted by Gamow and others, but not predicted by the steady state theory.

47. The Cosmic Microwave Background, the CMB, is radiation filling all space; and is the oldest electromagnetic radiation in the universe, appearing less than half a million years after the Big Bang. It is the radiation, or ‘heat left over’, from the Big Bang.

The CMB was some evidence that a universe had materialised with no known cause,