Yesterday I read an article on Yahoo news which discussed the recent discovery of proof of cosmic “inflation”, which had been a theory (though pretty much conceded by most physicists as true) since about 1980.  Inflation, briefly explained,  is the idea that in order for all of the “stuff” in the universe to be present where it is, in the amount of time it has taken to get there, the universe would have had to expand to something like a trillion times its initial size in an “instant” (however long that is) after the Big Bang blew it into existence.

What I do not want to do in this article is challenge “inflation” insofar as I concede that it is indeed a “real” concept; for I don’t think there is anything wrong with creating conceptualizations in order for us to explain how we observe the relative interaction of bodies.  The problem I have, and the problem I wish to address, is the presumption that these conceptualizations are in fact actual things which are given causal power over the objects and agents which exist (people and stuff).  That is, I take issue with the presumption that “inflation” is anything more than a convenient way for scientists to describe the relative relationship of whatever we concede “happened” at the “beginning”, which was the Big Bang.  Because this is where things go terribly awry in the Department of Reason and Logical Consistency, and why truth continues and will continue to elude even the brightest of our sky gazers and abstract thinkers in the scientific community.  For observation alone cannot produce any truth that is at its root rational, if we want to concede that truth is a function of what can be observed, which I thought was science’s whole fucking bag.  Further, is a gem of irony that though they insist that they rely on observational evidence for the basis of their models and theories, and yet whenever a new scientific breakthrough is discovered and they glad hand themselves and talk about how brilliant they are, physicists are the first to point to the ghosts in the machine as the sum and substance of their discovery.  Things like “space”, “time”, and “gravity”, “expansion”, “inflation” are all pertinent and indispensable components of the discovery, so much so that the discoveries are literally meaningless without them, and yet none of those things is by any means observable whatsoever.  What is observable are the objects and agents which have tangible being, and everything else can only be assumed by the relationship of these things to each other.

And this is a real problem with scientists, I have noticed.  For when they  assume that observation can lead to the recognition of the actuality of what cannot be observed–which are those concepts (space, time, gravity, inflation) humans use to organize their environment–then they have contradicted the entire scientific school of thought, and they essentially admit that they are somehow able to see what cannot actually be seen.  And when you try to call them out on their false logic, lo and behold, they become little more than religious mystics themselves, demanding submission to their superior wisdom and divinely inspired intellect.  The fact that the premises and conclusions are utterly irreconcilable doesn’t really matter.  We are simply supposed to accept their version of “truth” because they said so.  They are the ones who have the divine gnosis, and have been given the cosmic logos…mathematics, which, if you don’t speak it, you can’t possibly access any real understanding.

Funny how understanding amongst the best and brightest theologians and scientists never has to be rationally consistent, which is why fundamentalist Christians and atheist physicists are more alike than they are different.

But some would call rationally inconsistent understanding NOT actually understanding at all.  There is no such thing as truth if what is true contradicts itself.  This should be obvious, but it isn’t.  You can thank Plato for that.

So, the problem I have with the article on Yahoo is really twofold.  First, I take issue with the notion that the universe has a “size” from which it “inflated”; and second, I take issue with the fact that the universe is thus “expanding”.

Now, please understand that I’m not debating, nor am interested in debating the concepts of “expansion” and “inflation”.  As concepts, I’m completely fine with conceding that those may be practical ways to view our relative relationship to the vastness of creation beyond our skies.  The thing with me is that I do not concede that “expansion” and “inflation” are literal things, which have some kind of causal reality, and which exist beyond man’s conceptualizing brain.  In short, I deny that the universe is actually expanding and that it has actual size from which it inflated  because “expansion” and “size” and “inflation” are not things which actually exist.  They are ways of describing the relative relationships of the objects which conscious man observes.  Period.  And what I am concerned about is the utter dismissal of the philosophical contradictions which comprise the foundation of scientific “truth”.  These people want the civil authorities governing directly from the existential “truths” that revolve around their discoveries, much like Calvinists and other mystics do.  But when those whose beliefs are rooted in ideas which cannot possibly be defended according to reason, man is always, always, always the first to be incinerated in service to the greater “truth”, because it is only man who can think.  And since man can think, he is naturally programmed to “sin” (i.e. sinful nature)…that is, he is programmed to ask questions and act in ways that by his very nature will–unless checked by the priests of the primary consciousness–undoubtedly frustrate the perfect truth and goodness of the “natural” order of things; either God’s “will”, or nature’s “laws”.  Fortunately for the Platonist priests who have been divinely given the “grace to perceive” (the Calvinist “elders” who have been enlightened by revelation; the mathematical whizzes who have been bestowed with the cosmic logos to decipher the determinist forces of nature which govern) they can always fall back on rank violence in order to compel the ignorant masses into right thinking and behavior.  This is precisely because of the metaphysical assumptions which are intrinsic to their Platonist philosophy.

*

I submit that the universe has and had no actual size, and so “inflation” cannot really be a thing, and therefore did not happen in any causal sense; rather, it is a convenient concept to define the relative relationship of the universe then to the universe man observes now, with a mathematical correlate that is reconcilable to current constructs.  Further, I submit that the universe, since it has no actual size, and has no actual location to its “beginning”, cannot actually be expanding.  And it is only when this is conceded that any real headway can be made in understanding just what in the hell is really going in the universe, and more importantly, in putting in proper context (thus fostering a real apprehension of) the rational purpose and meaning of man’s conscious existence, and his relationship to the rest of the cosmos.

The problem starts with the simple assumption behind science’s origin of the universe theory, which says: There was no universe, and then there was.

There was nothing, and then the universe existed.

There is no “before” the Big Bang, because it is conceded that the Big Bang was the start of everything.  Which means that that which preceded the Big Bang was, by definition, nothing.

Do you not see the glaring contradiction in terms?  It is so obvious, and yet it has been allowed to grow so massive that we are now too close to observe it.

We’ll get to that in a moment.

Now, I understand that there are some scientists who might concede that there was something “before” the Big Bang, but I blow that off with a wave and a scoff because it is merely subterfuge…a way to either deceive us or themselves; a balm by which they sooth their consciousnesses enough to sleep without the nagging pangs of hypocrisy needling them all night.  And I, as a rank Calvinist for fifteen years (now no longer), know this tactic well.  It doesn’t work on me anymore, whether from a mystic, or a from scientist desperate to prove that the very observation via a consciousness which allows for their understanding of the universe is the very observation and consciousness which is irrelevant to the whole fucking equation.  Nice try, as I like to say.

If there was something before the Big Bang then it can only be assumed to be entirely irrelevant (and I do not mean contextually irrelevant, I mean that it is irrelevant at the root of its existential being…metaphysically irrelevant); and thus, irrelevancy is functionally the same as non-existent, since anything metaphysically irrelevant cannot prove efficacious to anything true; which means that truth does not in any way depend on it, which makes it impossible to prove that that which is  irrelevant is also real.

But if we insist that whatever was before the Big Bang is actually relevant then the Big Bang itself is entirely irrelevant as a beginning event…as a cause of everything.  That is, the Big Bang has none of the causal power upon which physics stakes its entire understanding of the origins of the universe.

Why is that?

Because if we are to concede that the Big Bang had some manner of creative force, and that it indeed marks the beginning of something, then it must be assumed that what is the universe which we observe now–that is, post Big Bang–is wholly exclusive to what was before.  Which means that whatever exists now cannot be a direct function of what was before; because if it was, then what is now would be a direct function of and therefor the exact same thing as what was before, according to Argo’s Universal Truth Number One:  Whatever is a direct function of an absolute IS the absolute.  Any causal power of the Big Bang wouldn’t really cause anything to exist; it would merely represent a relative change of the universe from one form of itself to another form of its exact same, existentially speaking, self.   There would be no actual difference…only a relative difference.  Relative to who?  To the observer.  For the universe would not care if it started out as a tumble weed and then the Big Bang turned it into a water buffalo.  The universe is not conscious of itself, therefore it can observe no alteration to its infinite state of IS.  Only a conscious observer can do that.

So conceding that there was anything before the Big Bang makes it merely an event among many in the infinite history of the universe.  It could not have been THE event that made the universe something out of nothing.

And thus we have the other problem.  If indeed the Big Bang was merely an event in the history of the cosmos, because the “before” the Big Bang is indicative of an infinite source of what exists in the universe, then there cannot be any such actual thing as a size of the universe, or an expansion of the universe.  “Size” and “expansion” would have no actual significance or meaning because the infinity of the universe precludes their rational definitions.  What is infinite cannot expand or grow or shrink in size, by definition.  But all of science’s “truth” is founded upon the idea that the universe is not in fact infinite, but has a beginning in the Big Bang, which makes expansion and size actual phenomenons, not merely a conceptual description of any relative movement man observes. And this is why they may pay lip service to the existence of something which fueled the Big Bang so that it could create the universe, but they don’t actually believe that.  They cannot.  To believe that makes the universe infinite, and that means that all of their models and theories are purely subjective and ultimately relative, having only meaning as a function man’s conceptual constructs of his environment, and not actually possessing any causal “truth”.  Which is, in fact, all true.  And if they would only concede this then they would actually be the smart sorts of gals and fellows they claim to be.

But here is the thing:  It matters not whether you concede the universe is in fact infinite or that the Big Bang began everything and that before there was nothing.  For the logical presumptions are identically irrational.  Everything being a function of infinity renders conceptual ideas like expansion, space, time, size, distance, gravity, etc. as abstract and subjective (relative) as saying the universe had a definite beginning, and that before the beginning, there was nothing.

Let me ask you a question.  What is logically wrong with this statement?:  Before the beginning of everything, there was nothing.

It’s not too difficult to see the contradiction…though, it kind of really is because this is something we hear often.  “What do you see outside?”.  “Nothing.  I looked outside, and there was nothing.”

Well…okay, in common communication the idea is well understood.  Nothing doesn’t really mean nothing.  In this sense, something becomes equated with nothing depending on the context of the situation.  If the person was looking outside expecting to see rain but there was none, he or she may reply, “Nope, I saw nothing happening out there.”  The implication is obviously: nothing weather–wise.  But literally speaking, it is quite impossible to see nothing happening.  For nothing, if it is truly nothing, cannot do anything, by definition.  And the principal thing it cannot do is exist.

Now, the reason why you cannot qualify “before the universe existed, there was nothing” is because we are speaking about the creation of everything that IS.  And given that, there is no way to appeal to a subjective context.  The creation of everything is only ONE context.  The beginning no longer becomes a relative term, but it becomes an actual one. The beginning is not abstract, it is real thing.

And that’s a problem.  There can be no such thing as an actual beginning which is literal and objectively existent because before that beginning there would have to be literally nothing.  And there cannot BE literally nothing because the act of being is in no way compatible to what is nothing, because nothing does not exist.  Thus to say that before the Big Bang there was nothing is an impossible contradiction in terms.  “There WAS nothing” implies that nothing at some point existed in the past. ” WAS nothing” implies that at one point you could have rationally stated that there “IS nothing”.  Which, as I just explained, is impossible.

That is the first serious problem with the Big Bang as a causal event which ushered in existence of everything.  The “beginning” becomes an actual thing; and so does “existence”.  Existence is no longer a qualification of an object it is a metaphysical essence of that object itself.  That’s putting the metaphysical cart before the horse.  An object or agent needs to BE first, before it can be conceptually observed and defined as existing.  Which again makes existence a concept, not a metaphysical root.

I don’t give a shit about the abstract mathematical constructs and the Platonist theories the scientists use to parse what is clearly and in every way a function of infinity (the creation and existence of everything that IS…for IS is infinite, because what IS cannot be a function of NOT, or nothing, by definition).  The way man uses his brain is almost wholly abstract.  Therefore, it is in his “nature” to parse infinity with abstract concepts in order to codify what he observes so that he can make some efficacious sense of it in service to his own truth and existence.  This is fine, and in this strict sense, science does a good job.

But what I care about is the rank logical fallacies of science’s philosophical presumptions and assumptions which inform their understanding of truth.  For when conceptual abstractions are conceded to be causal and literal then the natural evolution of thought is to declare man merely a product of the absolutes of mathematics and natural law.  This removes consciousness from man.  And with consciousness goes epistemology, and with epistemology goes ethics.  Man is seen as valueless, by definition, because the entirety of truth is found in concepts which govern the universe and man from somewhere outside of and mutually exclusive to them both.

But even worse than that is when scientists pretend that they have no philosophy, and that philosophy is itself fully irrelevant (which I think is Stephen Hawking’s position).  That is an outright laughable hypocrisy, whether they know it or not.  One can no more behave apart from philosophical assumptions than a solar car can function in a cave.  Beliefs drive actions, and that includes how we observe our world and decide to interpret it.  If science decides that there is no such thing as metaphysical truth because man’s consciousness is an illusion because it is nothing more than a product of mathematical probabilities and natural “laws”, then that is, itself, a philosophical belief.  And an extremely powerful and destructive one at that.

So, where were we?

Oh, yes.  We were discussing “inflation” and how there is proof that the universe expanded shortly after the Big Bang to something like a trillion times its size; and that ever since then it has continued to expand.

The statement “expanded to a trillion times its size” presumes that the universe had a beginning size.  And the statement “the universe is expanding” presumes that the universe began in a location from which it could expand from.

Hmmm…is anyone else here not quite on board with these presumptions?  I mean, reasonably speaking?

Here’s a problem.  What is the reference for the size and location of the universe?  If space and time where not created until after the Big Bang, then the size of the universe…well, how big is big if the universe’s initial size is a direct function of NO space?  Of NO size?  And from where did the universe start expanding, or inflating, if the location of the beginning of the universe was NO where, because the Big Bang could not have occurred in space?

Do you see the problem now?  How can the universe be expanding from somewhere to somewhere else  if there was no WHERE for it to begin because there was no such thing as space until after the Big Bang?  And how can the universe have a size which can inflate a trillion times if there was no space for it to begin inflating? If there is no space, there can be no size, obviously.

So, science has the unworkable problem of having to rationally explain how size can be a direct function of no size and expansion is a direct function of nowhere.

How long does it take John Calvin to get to the stake which is burning Michael Servitus if he leaves from the beheading of the Pelagian in the court yard of the church?  It takes fifteen minutes.  Okay, so how long does it take John Calvin to get to the stake which is burning Michael Servitus if he leaves from nowhere?

That is an impossible question to answer, obviously.

So, the point is that if the Big Bang created everything which is, then there was nothing before it.  Which means that there could not have been a location to the universe where it could be created from, because space, if we concede that it is an actual thing, did not exist to provide a location for the universe until after the universe was already created.

If the reference point for the start of the universe is nothing, then mathematically we would call that zero.  Which means that the universe, its expansion, inflation, and size and location are a direct function of zero…the wonderfully simple mathematical placeholder.  In philosophy we would say that metaphysically the universe is, again, nothing. Which means it can have no size, expansion, location or inflation, etc. because nothing expanding to nothing goes nowhere; and nothing growing a trillion times the size of nothing is still nothing.

So really, what can possibly be the reference point for the beginning of the universe, Big Bang or not, except itself?  That question is quite rhetorical, I assure you.  The only actual, objective reference point for the universe is itself; which means that the universe isn’t a thing in and of itself, it is whatever observable, tangible, actual material exists within it.  IT, that is, the universe, is nothing but a conceptual abstraction…a “collective” man uses to describe “all that exists”, materially speaking.  And this material is, everything which literally and materially exists, must be  its own reference.  It is the only objective non-relative constant in the universe  It is its own infinite IS.  The movement, or expansion, or inflation of it thus is purely a relative, conceptual way that man, the conscious observer, chooses to define the relationship of the material parts to themselves.

There is no such thing as the universe ACTUALLY expanding, or inflating, or even moving at all.  We have a conscious observer, and we have relative components of infinity, mitigated by that very same conscious observer who, because of his own self-awareness, is able to make a distinction between his SELF and that which is NOT himSELF…that is, the other objects and agents in the “universe”.  Without consciousness, there is no mitigation of infinity.  All such movement that man observes, yes, even for the scientist and his impressive telescopes, is not actual, it is purely conceptual.

And thus if the universe is really the constant reference of itself, then all values of it thus lead straight to infinity.  It is what it is…until a conscious observer (man) can observe its “parts” in relative relationship to themselves.  And when he does this, he is able to organize it into conceptual abstractions so that he can successfully integrate himself  into it.

Why?

For the only reason possible:  to survive.  To affirm.  To perpetuate SELF.  For the conscious, rational man understands that HE is the root of all TRUTH.  That all efficacious concepts start with HIM…with his consciousness.  That it is not the universe which is constant, it is his ability to know SELF.  His consciousness is the infinite prerequisite for any object having any meaning or purpose at all; even to be called “existing”.  Without him, there is nothing but infinite oblivion.  For a material universe which cannot be observed, cannot be known, which means it cannot be qualified as existing.

And it is the ignorance of the necessity of the observer to the existence of anything which makes science great at producing cell phones, weapons of mass destruction, and particle accelerators, but impotent and useless at apprehending truth and explaining the roots of how and why everything is where it is and what it is.  And that is why science is always going to be more destructive than it is instructive.  It is why that with every technological breakthrough, morality stumbles and intelligence plummets.  It is why the supreme realization of scientific achievement has always found such titanic playgrounds, pay days, and advocacy  in the context of war…in the cities and the fields where innocent blood mixes with the rubbish of spent ammunition and leaflets of propaganda.