Convergences

As regular readers of this blog will know, I am curious about a wide range of things; not so wide as to include the Kardashians, but wide. I am deeply interested in the natural world, including the smallest and largest parts. I am curious about free will and how we developed self-awareness about how thoughts form and how we remember things. Many philosophical and religious topics are included in this cesspool of curiosity: the idea of morality being subjective or objective, whether gods exist or not, and so on.

Recently I have run across linkages between many of these topics than makes my thinking about them clearer. For example, you may have heard about brain plasticity, that the physical structure of the brain is changed as we experience things. Well, it has now been shown that one cause of brain plasticity is our thoughts. An argument against free will has been that thoughts aren’t physical causes so they cannot cause other things to happen, so free will is an illusion. But we now know that that is not so, even though we are still more than a little unclear as to what thoughts actually are, thoughts can change the structure of the brain and hence are physical causes, and free will is still on the board of possibilities

Recently cosmological studies have offered the possibility that the expansion of the universe is not only not speeding up as was the current thinking but slowing down. There are several ongoing efforts involved in the science of the very large. One prominent question is: is the universe finite or infinite? Since the definition of the term universe (at least one such) is “all existing matter and space considered as a whole.” It is a bit hard to consider it being finite. If one does, one ends up with the question, ‘Well, then what is outside of it?”

If the universe is infinite, and it seems to me that it is, then it cannot possibly be expanding or contracting, not as a whole, but possibly locally to various locations. Couple this with the relativity concept of “space-time” which is a mathematic concept cobbled together to make certain aspects of relativity theory coherent. But the concept of space-time itself is incoherent, so how does it make anything else more coherent? Time is not a thing and neither is space, so how can either contract or expand? Also, what does it mean to join them together? How is that done? Whenever one gets nonsensical outcomes or incoherent predictions, that usually is the indicator that it is time to go back and re-think things as we have somehow gotten off track.

I suspect that Einstein’s reputation as a titanic genius and the claim that maybe only two or three physicists could actually understand his General Theory of Relativity when it was first published left people sitting in the position from which asking questions or challenging schemes results in “who do you think you are” questions and if the majority of your audience doesn’t understand the theory, how are they going to understand your objections?

Current the LCDM Theory of the Cosmos (Lambda Cold Dark Matter, aka The Big Bang Theory) is considered the best available theory of why things are as they are in the realm of the very vast. I just read an article by a physicist stating why the LCDM theory is the best explanation of current data. But, while not an expert, I know that the LCDM theory includes a number of conjectures that are currently unproven (cosmic inflation, dark matter, dark energy, etc.) and since they were conjectured to explain why the LCDM theory didn’t work in certain cases, I don’t think it appropriate to use those conjectures as the best explanation of some of the facts (or really, any of the facts). Theoretical conjectures are speculative and shouldn’t be part of any proof, until their actual existence has been verified.

The LCDM theory was proposed way back in the 1930’s to explain data acquired by Edwin Hubble. These involved red-shifted lights put out by stars and galaxies. Since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, the light emitted by hot hydrogen has a well known fingerprint and some of those fingerprints were out of place, being farther toward the red end of the visible spectrum as when seen in lab experiments. Here is a truncated history of redshifts:

Vesto Slipher was the first to discover that most spiral galaxies have redshifts, while Edwin Hubble later discovered the relationship between redshift and distance, which led to Hubble’s Law. The concept of redshift was first explained in 1848 by Hippolyte Fizeau, who observed the Doppler effect for light waves.

In 1848, he observed the shift in spectral lines of stars, explaining it as the Doppler effect for light, sometimes called the “Doppler–Fizeau effect”. In 1912, he discovered that most spiral “nebulae” (now known to be galaxies) had a redshift, indicating they were moving away from us. Following up on Slipher’s work, Hubble found a linear relationship between a galaxy’s redshift and its distance from Earth. He correctly interpreted this relationship as evidence that the universe is expanding. 

The Doppler Effect is dependent upon waves traveling through a medium and light is said to be moving through a vacuum between galaxies, so it isn’t that prominent of an explanation. And as to the universe is expanding being a conclusion of Hubble’s work, Hubble himself rejected that interpretation of his data in his lifetime, yet it is still bandied about that “He (Hubble) correctly interpreted this relationship as evidence that the universe is expanding (my emphasis)” which seems somewhat of a slander at this point.

So, now we are arguing about whether something that cannot be shown to be able to expand or contract is expanding slower or faster than before. (Egad!)

And then I read this:

“An analogy is a comparison that emphasizes similarity over dissimilarity. All analogies stand or fall on the appropriateness of the selection of the characteristics that are deemed to be similar.

…

“… analogy is crucial to the whole process of knowing. It is impossible for us to consider the unfamiliar without reference to the familiar.

…

“An analogy, like an assumption, must lead to understanding and accurate prediction or it will be discarded as useless. Thus, it is common for people to discard analogies that run counter to ‘common sense,’ or that predict an outcome with which they do not agree. Consequently, a particular analogy often finds acceptance only after the necessity of it becomes clear in the broad social context. Humans, for example, were not considered similar to other animals until the scientific and commercial advantages of the analogy outweighed the religious objections.”

(Source: The Scientific Worldview, Second Edition, by Glenn Borchardt, p. 141-142

Most people think of science as being hard and fast but it is, in my experience and vast readings, a quite pragmatic effort. No one seeks “truth” or “proofs;” we are just looking for a way forward, trying things to see if they work. Often as not when we find something that works we take a whack at why it seems to work We are nowhere near as successful at that than most people seem to think.

Evolution haters keep trying to undermine that theory without producing any new data or producing a new interpretation of the existing data that better explains it. They never get very far because the amount of data explainable by the theory of evolution is mountainous. Are there still weakness in the theory or parts that don’t work as well as we would like? I would assume yes, because this is a major and very large theory, and all theories have weak points, etc. The opponents of this theory just can’t muster the effort to delve into the weak points and find something valid. This is because they are only looking for conjectures and analogies that pass the “common sense test” to undermine people’s understanding of the theory itself. One of my favorites is “I ain’t evolved from no monkey.” This appeals to folks who don’t want to have monkeys sitting around the Thanksgiving table and is odd enough that mating with monkeys comes to mind. The only problem is that no one claims humans evolved from monkeys. Humans are Great Apes (gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans) and we evolved alongside all of the other Great Apes because we shared ecological niches with them. While monkeys are on the family tree, all animals are on the family tree because we all evolved from single cell organisms over billions of years. But monkeys are not close to us at all. This argument appeals to those who can’t distinguish between a monkey and an ape, of course. Religion has always had emotional appeals and rejected intellectual appeals, except in academic circles. (The Catholic Church rejected Aristotle until Thomas Aquinas “adjusted” Aristotle’s ideas so that they dovetailed with those of the Church. Aristotle himself wouldn’t recognize those points as coming from himself, they are so far removed from his thoughts, often 180 degrees opposite to them. For example, Aristotle thought the universe was infinite and eternal. When Aquinas was done, Aristotle’s ideas supported the created, young universe of the church.)

Wait, What Now? The Universe is Not Expanding, it is Contracting?

It’s Science Sunday!

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since it was revealed that the universe was expanding. The original claim was made based upon work by Edwin Hubble who interpreted the red-shifting the light from stars as an indicator of their movement away from us. (Stars moving toward us are, yes, blue-shifted.)

Einstein at first didn’t believe this, he thought the universe was static and infinite, but there was an argument against that view of things. We have known since Newton that gravity is the force that rules the universe and gravity essentially manifests itself as an attraction of anything that has mass to all other things that have mass. If the universe were static, the gravitational attraction of stars for other stars would have the universe collapsing in upon itself.

When the idea of the universe expanding was proffered seriously, there was no cause for this, until the Big Bang Theory came along and argued that if the universe is expanding, it must have been much smaller in the past. Einstein “solved” this problem with his concept of expanding space-time. The parts of the universe weren’t just moving away from one another contra gravity, space it self was expanding and carrying such things along with it.

I have written before that such a concept is incoherent. Space is not a thing, so it can’t be welded to time, nor can it expand or contract, but the concept seemed to win over many physicists, possibly because they didn’t want to be considered as someone who couldn’t understand the genius Einstein.

More recently, it has been argued that data indicate that the expansion of the universe, still with no cause, is accelerating, again with no cause.

In science we expect new theories to explain all of the old data and also to be able to make sense of new data. No one anticipated this acceleration of the expansion of space-time, so it was justified by characterizing what must be causing it. The concept of dark energy was invented as the cause of the expansion and decades have been spent looking for evidence of its existence, with no success as of this date.

Recently (November 6, 2025) a paper published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society of work done at the Yonsei University, South Korea declare that data is now showing that the expansion is not accelerating, it is decelerating!

Our study shows that the universe has already entered a phase of decelerated expansion at the present epoch and that dark energy evolves with time much more rapidly than previously thought.

If these results are confirmed, it would mark a major paradigm shift in cosmology since the discovery of dark energy 27 years ago. (Young-Wook Lee)

Note the researcher’s belief that dark energy is something that can evolve and that it was “discovered” 27 years ago. It wasn’t discovered, it was hypothesized. And if, for some reason the universe were expanding, gravity would be expected to slow the rate of expansion over time. So, these new results seem better anchored in reality. The claim that dark energy can evolve comes from the new data that fit a pattern that agrees with the mysterious dark energy changing over time. Again, these are not even hypotheses, these are interpretations of the data that may or may not represent anything real.

In the normal life cycle, theories begin by overcoming resistance to their acceptance by explaining data already known. Then if the theory explains new data as it is acquired (often the theories suggest what data need be sought) then it becomes more and more accepted (not proven … never proven). But the history of science is replete with theories that works for a while, some quite well, but then as new data accumulated, they couldn’t explain the new data so the theories are adjusted. Such adjustments are normal and part of the process of refining the theory. But some of these “adjustments” are ad hoc” that is added to just deal with the problematic data and not well connected to the theory (I call them “patches). If a theory ends up with many patches, it is a sign that the theory is not well formed in the first place and insisting on following it can lead to scientific Alice in Wonderland-type rabbit holes. The standard model, aka the BBT, currently has quite a few patches: cosmic inflation, no trigger mechanism for the original BB, dark energy, and dark matter and problem some others of which I am not aware.

Defenders of the “Standard Model” will bring up the earlier successes of that theory, but those are misleading. In order for the theory to be validated, it must explain new data and if it cannot, it must be modified so it can and if those modifications are ad hoc (patches, fixes of particular data problems, etc.) and not fundamental, then we recognize a theory in its final throes.

Postscript Some science wags invented The Ion Law of Data which insists that before one can argue over any theory and/or interpretation of scientific data, the data must be challenged and verified, otherwise one can end up arguing about things not real. This involves challenging the methodology of the studies involved, the interpretations of the data, demanding more evidence/data, especially to fill in gaps, and so on.

All part of the process. Calling an hypothesized cause a “discovery” is not. The data were discovered, interpretations are invented.

But, But, But …

The current theoretical darlings of cosmologists are dark matter and dark energy, even though there are no identifiable causes for their existence or mechanisms for their effects. Dark matter was conjectured because of phenomena observed that could only be explained by either the law of gravity varying from place to place or some new mysterious source of gravitational force existing, one that we cannot see. Well, everyone knew that gravity, or the law describing its effects, must be the same everywhere, so they settled for the mysterious source of gravitational force.

The same goes for dark energy. Since they believe space is expanding (specifically space-time, but only between galaxies, not within them) they were perplexed when their measurements showed the rate of expansion was increasing. Now, with no mechanism or description of how a non-material thing like “space” could expand, they came up with another mysterious force: dark energy, again something that we cannot observe, but is causing the expansion of space-time to accelerate.

But now, as the blog EarthSkyNews reports: “A new analysis of nearly 2,100 supernovas hints that dark energy – the mysterious influence driving the expansion of the universe – might change strength over time. If so, it would point to surprising new physics that could affect the fate of the universe.”

What the fuck, Cosmo-nerds? Gravity cannot vary from place to place but dark energy can? Apparently they haven’t noticed that if one peruses the problems by speculating that gravity can vary, most everything falls into place and no weird conjectures need be made. I guess they really like the rabbit hole they have plunged into. Now where did that damned White Rabbit go?

Postscript Would it break their spirits to say “the hypothetical mysterious influence driving the expansion of the universe” or the mysterious influence conjectured to be driving the expansion of the universe”? Scientists do tend to talk about hypotheticals as if they were real because everyone in their audience knew what was what. (“Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean?”) but this is wildly inappropriate for things written for lay audience. What were their editors thinking?

Finally, A Reexamination of Dark Energy and Cosmic Expansion

When something sounds too audacious or too stupid to be true, it is always worthwhile to re-examine the possibilities. I have been saying for quite some time that cosmology is very ripe for re-examinations of things like an expanding universe, cosmic inflation, dark energy, and dark matter. Well, there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

This is from the Universe Today Blog (1-12025)

New Study of Supernovae Data Suggests That Dark Energy is an Illusion

Dark energy is central to our modern understanding of cosmology. In the standard model, dark energy is what drives the expansion of the Universe. In general relativity, it’s described by a cosmological constant, making dark energy part of the structure of space and time. But as we’ve gathered more observational evidence, there are a few problems with our model. For one, the rate of cosmic expansion we observe depends on the observational method we use, known as the Hubble tension problem. For another, while we assume dark energy is uniform throughout the cosmos, there are some hints suggesting that might not be true. Now a new study argues we’ve got the whole thing wrong. Dark energy, the authors argue, doesn’t exist.

Let’s start with what we know. When we look out across the billions of light-years of cosmic space, we see that matter is clumped into galaxies, and those galaxies are groups into clusters so that the Universe has clumps of matter separated by great voids. On a small scale, this means that the distribution of matter is uneven. But as we go to larger scales, say a billion light-years or so, the average distribution of matter evens out. On a large scale, the cosmos is homogeneous and not biased in a particular direction. This means we can broadly describe the Universe as the same everywhere. This is known as the principle of homogeneity. By applying this principle to cosmic expansion, we can model the Universe by the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) metric, where dark energy is a cosmological constant.

Opponents of the standard model argue that the principle can’t be applied to cosmic expansion. Some even argue that the basic principles of general relativity can’t be applied on cosmic scales. In one such model, known as the Timescape model, it’s argued that dark energy would violate the principle of equivalence. Since the principle equates inertial energy and gravitational energy, there is no way to distinguish cosmic expansion as a real effect. Furthermore, since we know that gravitational fields affect the rate of time, the Timescape model argues that the Universe can’t be homogeneous in time. Basically, the model argues that within the gravitational well of a galactic cluster, clocks would run more slowly than they would within the vast empty cosmic voids. Over the billions of years of cosmic history, this difference would build up, creating a variance of time throughout the Universe. It is this time divergence that would give the appearance of cosmic expansion.

I have no idea whether this interpretation will hold up but at least people are trying to eliminate incoherent concepts, such as dark energy and dark matter.

WTF? The Mysterious Force We Call Dark Energy Makes Up More Than Two Thirds of the Universe

The sentence in the title above came from the EarthSkyNews blog/newsletter. I expect better from sources purporting to explain scientific concepts.

“The mysterious force we call dark energy makes up more than two thirds of the universe.”
(www.earthsky.org, 11-13-2024)

First “Dark Energy” is indeed mysterious as it is entirely hypothetical, the concept being created to explain the hypothetical acceleration of the hypothetical expansion of space, or space-time if you prefer, in the universe. No one has yet found evidence to support its existence (the original issue leading to it being hypothesized does not count as evidence).

Using the label “energy” for a “force” is quite odd as these two are not the same.

Force is an external factor which can change the state of rest or state of uniform motion of an object. (Newton’s first law)

Energy is defined as the “ability to do work, which is the ability to exert a force causing displacement of an object.”

So an object able to exert a force possesses energy to do so, and so energy is the source of the ability to exert a force or forces.

Dark energy is not a force, it is an energy which is the source of the force causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, or so it is proposed.

Moving on to “dark energy makes up more than two thirds of the universe.” This should be better stated as “dark energy, if it is real, would make up more than two thirds of the universe” or “the theory hypothesizing the existence of dark energy also claims that it would make up more than two thirds of the universe.”

Under no circumstances should a mysterious energy, lacking any proof of its existence, be referred to as if it were a fact, certainly not in the same sentence!

Do We Really Understand?

A recent blog post by a popular astrophysicist stated the following:

We understand that:

•  our Universe is expanding,
•  that it can trace its history back to a hotter, denser, more uniform past,
•  with the earliest phases describable by a hot Big Bang,
•  which itself was preceded by a phase of cosmic inflation,
•  and that all that we see and experience today — stars, galaxies, planets, moons, the cosmic web, and even life itself — having arisen in the aftermath of these impressive events in our shared history.

I would have stated this differently. I would have started that: “According to our best current theory, (the Lambda cold dark matter, or the ΛCDM, model) . . . which states:. . . .”

If we really understand the topic, we should be able to explain all parts of this theory/model: namely “a phase of cosmic inflation,” dark matter, dark energy, expanding space-time, etc. which are all on the list of things we do not understand.

Even the commonly accepted concept such as space-time is iffy at best. Space is not a thing, so how can it expand? One excusigist explained that space-time could expand because it is a field. Okay, add another thing to the list of things not explained in this theory: a field.

The standard definition, which I first learned, is this: “In physics, a field is a region of space where every point is associated with a specific physical quantity, like a value or a vector.” In my day a field was a region in space in which something could be measured. As a consequence completely empty space is disqualified, except in the notion that there must be some mass nearby and the force of attraction to that mass must be able to be felt in that region of empty space, so in effect, all of space is a field of some sort, which gets us nowhere. A region in space in which an effect can be felt describes all space, so saying “space is a field” is nonsense, as the concept of space is needed to define a field. (A running joke in science is that “cows are out standing in their field” usually used to prick the balloon of another scientist who was described as being outstanding in his field.)

So, explaining that space-time could expand because it is a field is sheer nonsense, like cosmic inflation. Cosmic inflation, a period of rapid expansion of the universe . . . before the Big Bang, which is described as a rapid expansion of the universe (WTF?) is caused how? What triggered it? How does it work? For the ΛCDM model to be declared the “standard model” of the universe, you’d think such answers would be available. They are not. Oh, and the expansion occurred at speeds above the speed of light, something we think impossible now.

Physics, specifically astrophysics above, but also particle physics, high energy physics, etc. seem to have gone down rabbit holes. Einstein is partly to blame for this as he insisted that mathematics should be the leader in such endeavors, but mathematics has no bounds. In prior scientific endeavors, conceptualizations using imagination and logic, formed one branch and experimentation formed the other.

So experiments created data that required organization and conceptualizations. The conceptualizing, that is theorizing, created arrangements and structures that made sense of the data. The theories made predictions that lead to experiments being done, and experiments done created data that required theories to explain.

It seems as if physicists spend the vast majority of their time theorizing, usually mathematically, and almost no time in comparing theory and data. That is they have lost contact with reality.

Take the new tool, expected to create oodles of new data, the James Webb Space Telescope. By placing this telescope farther out than Earth orbit, in a Lagrange point, and then shielding it from any radiative heat source, allowed it to take infrared images deeper into space and therefore time than ever before. Note that is not “space-time” it is space and time because the light traveling from far away objects is limited to the speed of light, so the farther away a luminous object is, the longer the light has to travel and the longer it takes to get here and when it does, it was emitted long, long ago so wea re effectively seeing the past.

Since the time period the JWST was supposed to read was close to the time of the BB, the ΛCDM theorists predicted that galaxies would be very small, not evolved, Black holes would be few and far between, and star creation would be at a minimum. So, the JWST looked and saw large, evolved galaxies with Black holes at their centers, some being very, very massive black holes, and therefore “old,” and places in which star creation seemed to be moving at a high clip.

So, if the “current standard model” got things so very, very wrong, some doubt would be cast upon it, especially because of the long list if unexplained ad hoc patches already in place, no?

Well, of course, a small army of excusigists immediately lines up to explained that’s what they expected all along and that claims that the BBT has holes in it are vastly overstated. You see, if you only knew what they knew you would understand. These people seem to have morphed from honest scientists into Priests of the Standard Model.

But what do I know, that’s just what I can see from the cheap seats?

Addendum Regarding “. . . completely empty space is disqualified, except in the notion that there must be some mass nearby and the force of attraction to that mass must be able to be felt in that region of empty space . . .” Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity eliminates the concept of “the force of gravity” substituting curved space-time which means space theoretically could be completely empty and therefore not a field at all, at least with regard to gravity. Of course, there are huge magnetic fields all over the known universe, so maybe they can play the role of turning “empty space” into a “field.”