[tt] Wikipedia: Cosmogony

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Cosmogony - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cosmogony&printable=yes

This article discusses scientific theories of creation
(cosmogony). For a discussion of the cosmogonic beliefs of
traditional cultures, see origin belief.

Cosmogony, or cosmogeny, is any theory concerning the coming into
existence or origin of the universe, or an origin belief about how
reality came to be. The word comes from the Greek kosµogoni'a (or
kosµogeni'a), from ko'sµo*s "cosmos, the world", and the root of
gi'(g)noµai / ge'gona "to be born, come about". In the specialized
context of space science and astronomy, the term refers to theories
of creation of (and study of) the Solar System.

Cosmogony can be distinguished from cosmology, which studies the
universe at large and throughout its existence, and which
technically does not inquire directly into the source of its
origins. There is some ambiguity between the two terms, for
example, the cosmological argument from theology regarding the
existence of God is technically an appeal to cosmogonical rather
than cosmological ideas. In practice, there is a scientific
distinction between cosmological and cosmogonical ideas. Physical
cosmology is the science that attempts to explain all observations
relevant to the development and characteristics of the universe as
a whole. Questions regarding why the universe behaves in such a way
have been described by physicists and cosmologists as being
extra-scientific, though speculations are made from a variety of
perspectives which include extrapolation of scientific theories to
untested regimes and philosophical or religious ideas.

Attempts to create a naturalistic cosmogony are subject to two
separate limitations. One is based in the philosophy of science and
the epistemological constraints of science itself, especially with
regards to whether scientific inquiry can ask questions of "why"
the universe exists. Another more pragmatic problem is that there
is no physical model which can explain the earliest moments of the
universe's existence (Planck time) because of a lack of a
consistent theory of quantum gravity.

Contents

* 1 Epistemological limitations to cosmogony
* 2 Planck time limitations to cosmogony
* 3 The become-into-being of the universe in science fiction
   + 3.1 Books
* 4 See also
* 5 External links

Epistemological limitations to cosmogony

The assumptions of naturalism that underlie the scientific method
have led some scientists, especially observationalists, to question
whether the ultimate reason or source for the universe to exist can
be answered in a scientific fashion. In particular, the principle
of sufficient reason seems to indicate that there should be such an
explanation, but whether a satisfactory explanation can be obtained
through scientific inquiry is debatable. A scientific examination
of cosmogony using existing physical models would face many
challenges. For example, equations used to develop models of the
origin do not in themselves explain how the conditions of the
universe that the equations model came to be in the first place.

Theistic explanations for origins indicate one or more supernatural
beings as the explanation, though atheist commentators often point
to this as an argument from ignorance or a God of the gaps fallacy,
and that such an assumption provides no explanation for existence
of the deity. Nondual explanations by contrast state that the very
question is misleading, since it contains erroneous assumptions of
beginnings, endings and the nature of existence itself, and
consider the visible universe as phenomenology.

As a result of this, scientific cosmogonies are sometimes
supplemented by reference to metaphysical and theistic belief
systems. The problem can be summarized as three classical
paradoxes. These paradoxes (discussed by both Kierkegaard and
Leibniz) are:

1. reconciling a doctrine of causation (similar to the 13th
century proof of God posed by Thomas Aquinas);
2. reconciling the conservation law ("something from nothing");
3. reconciling issues of temporal (as in Zeno's paradoxes) and
logical regression.

However, some of the metaphysical principles used to formulate
these classical paradoxes no longer enjoy an unchallenged status as
laws of thought. For instance, quantum mechanics gives an
independent motivation to challenge the principle of sufficient
reason.

Planck time limitations to cosmogony

Planck time (10^-43s) is the time it would take a photon travelling
at the speed of light to cross a distance equal to the Planck
length. It has been proposed that this may be the hypothetical
"quantum of time", the smallest measurement of time that has any
meaning, although in current physics theory time is not quantized.

Although the laws of physics lose experimental support at the
Planck time, modern science has sought to clarify the nature of
these paradoxes, so far with only limited success. For example, one
can apply the current understanding of grand unified theories
(GUTs) - both quasi-classical (such as general relativity) and
modern (such as quantum gravity, superstring, and M-theories) - to
these three primary cosmogonic paradoxes in thought experiments.
While these result in some contradictions and lack completeness in
a mathematical sense (being based on axioms that are 'merely'
self-evident, but not robust under the stresses of radical
scepticism) these paradoxes can nonetheless be analyzed rationally
using the subatomic applications of quantum cosmology, particularly
through the employment of the Schrödinger wave equations.

In each case, where general relativity fails as the curvature of
space-time invokes singularities from its equations at t=0, the
statistically "grey" nature of quantum cosmology tends to allow a
scientific rationale to account for each paradox, and in so doing
allows for a scientific perspective on previously theistic terrain.
For example, application of quantum "fuzziness" (per the
Wheeler-DeWitt application of subatomic position and momentum
equations to universal radius and expansion) avoids boundary
issues, as developed in the Hawking-Hartle Wave Function.

All such equations are based on differentials, which assume a
continuum, where in our universe, affected by the Planck length and
other minimum scales, this continuum has only limited meaning,
about which philosophy remains in a state of semantic flux.

The become-into-being of the universe in science fiction

Books

* In David Brin's book 'Earth' it is suggested by a scientist,
that in the moment of the collapse of an experimentally created
black hole, it separates itself from this universe (like the
separation of a child from its mother) taking with it all
consumed energy which lies behind the event horizon. In his
speculation the implosion of a singularity in this universe is
followed by an explosion/expansion of a singularity in the
child-universe, which then became independent of ours. Of
course this causes an energetic underpressure with every
collapse of a black hole, finally making this universe
disappear when the last singularity implodes. It can be
interpreted as a variant of the oscillatory universe theory.

See also

* Cosmology
* Emanationism
* Esoteric cosmology
* Eschatology
* Existence
* Metaphysical cosmology
* Origin belief
* Nondualism
* Religious cosmology
* Ultimate fate of the Universe

External links

* [109]First Cause A theory on what brought the universe into existence.
* [110]Why the Universe Exists - the Short Answer
* [111]Where did the Universe come from?

References

109. http://cosmogonycentral.blogspot.com/2007/06/on-first-cause.html
110. http://www.lulu.com/universe
111. http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=541