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From: obnoxio@BRAHMS.BERKELEY.EDU (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Physical objection to Vacuum Genesis (Try II)
Message-ID: <8706281022.AA18649@brahms.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Sun, 28-Jun-87 06:22:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: brahms.8706281022.AA18649
Posted: Sun Jun 28 06:22:41 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jun-87 11:38:32 EDT
References: <4148@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: obnoxio@brahms.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Organization: Brahms Gang Posting Central
Lines: 53

I will leave comments about philosophy out.  I think they're important
questions, but I only have time to dash off some quick corrections on
the physics.

In article <4148@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>, lagache@violet (Edouard Lagache) writes:

>					        Matthew P Wiener in his note
>          of June 27, suggested that the vacuum genesis particle would have
>          been created in "the vacuum that modern physicists have been
>          studying all along."  That statement just ain't true.

But it is!  Guth and others have derived their vacuum genesis models
*within* the known/conjectured physics of "our" vacuum.

>								  To return
>          to the balloon analogy, it would be the same as saying the space
>          on the surface of the balloon is *identical* with the air in
>          which we blow up the balloon.

The analogy breaks down here.  Any reference to the space inside the balloon
is meaningless.  (Or have I misunderstood what you are saying?)

>               3.) A infinite regress of "vacuum genesis" creation
>          sequences is not a "scientifically" acceptable theory because it
>          has a zero probability.  The probability of the creation of an
>          ultra energetic particle via the uncertainty principle is
>          extremely small.

No, it's probability is unity.

>               Well 600 words later, and I find myself just as inclined to
>          unsubscribe to this group

I hope not.

>		       By definition we cannot observe things outside our
>         Big Bang created universe, thus while we can create theories by
>         the ton (it is called speculation) we have no way to
>         "scientifically" test them.

No way?  I think this gets murky.

ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
Paper in white the floor of the room, and rule it off in one-foot squares.
Down on one's hands and knees, write in the first square a set of equations
conceived as able to govern the physics of the universe.  Think more over-
night.  Next day put a better set of equations into square two.  Invite
one's most respected colleagues to contribute to the other squares.  At the
end of these labors, one has worked oneself out into the door way.  Stand
up, look back on all those equations, some perhaps more hopeful than others,
raise one's finger commandingly, and give the order "Fly!"  Not one of those
equations will put on wings, take off, or fly.  Yet the universe "flies".
					--John Archibald Wheeler