The Scientific Worldview

20250728

Einstein’s Perfectly Empty Space is a Bust

PSI Blog 20250728 Einstein’s Perfectly Empty Space is a Bust

Imaginary nonexistence takes another hit.

“The turbulent flow of the Phantom Galaxy, as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope (Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team)”

Thanks to Bill Howell for this heads up on the goings on in interstellar space:

https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/trippy-supercomputer-simulation-offers-unprecedented-view-of-the-space-between-stars

Einstein’s Imaginary Empty Space

Einstein’s rejection of the aether set the stage for what became Bishop Lemaître’s explosion of everything out of nothing. In his invention of the photon Einstein assumed light was a particle instead of a wave in the aether. In support, he assumed light was a massless particle containing perfectly empty space traveling perpetually through perfectly empty space. There was no evidence for any of that. All real particles lose velocity over distance, just like a baseball when you throw it. The velocity of wave motion through a medium is controlled by that medium. That is why light speed is constant.

The Space Between Stars

In our naivety we have consider outer space to be perfectly empty. Infinite Universe Theory (IUT) rejects that totally. You see, perfectly empty space is an idealization. The opposite is perfectly solid matter. Neither of these exist. All real things—including subatomic particles—consist of mixtures of both. According to Aristotle (and IUT), the universe is infinitely subdividable.

Previously, I mentioned that the 2.7^oK temperature indicated by the Cosmic Microwave Background is a result of the motion of matter in outer space. The simulations produced by Beattie et. al. support that claim. As reporter Thompson writes:

“The charged particles in the interstellar medium are significantly more diffuse than even ultrahigh vacuum experiments on Earth. Still, their motion is enough to generate a magnetic field. This field is millions of times weaker than a fridge magnet, but in the vacuum of space, it plays a major role in shaping galaxies, and even in forming stars.”

Existence and the Infinite Universe

The fact that we exist and that nothingness does not is support for our assumption the universe is infinite. It exists everywhere for all time. Nonexistence is imaginary, just like the perfectly empty space Einstein had to imagine for his massless light particle.

PSI Blog 20250728

Thanks for reading Infinite Universe Theory! Get your copy of the just-released Second Edition of "The Scientific Worldview" to see the step-by-step logic leading to the rational view of the cosmos. Be part of the “Last Cosmological Revolution,” the demise of the “Last Creation Myth,” and the age of enlightenment to come. Buy Now.

20250721

US Support for Big Bang Theory Starts to Crumble

PSI Blog 20250721 US Support for Big Bang Theory Starts to Crumble

“Now-canceled CMB-S4 project would have searched the afterglow of the Big Bang for signs of cosmic exponential growth spurt.”

“Plans to replace the current South Pole Telescope with a more sensitive array have been scrapped. Alamy Stock Photo”

This article by Science reporter Adrian Cho is about one of many budget cuts being implemented by the current administration. The cut of $900 million pales in comparison to the failed $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, which also was supposed to support the Big Bang Theory. It is somewhat ironic, but not surprising, that the decline of the US empire and the decline of the Big Bang Theory are going hand in hand:

“U.S. abandons hunt for signal of cosmic inflation”

Of course, there was no way that the proposed project was going to support the silly inflation idea anyway. The whole expansion trope was based on Einstein’s ridiculous “Untired Light Theory,” which assumes light is a massless particle filled with perfectly empty space traveling perpetually through perfectly empty space. None of that is possible. Light simply is a wave in the aether, which is denied by regressive physicists and cosmogonists. Aether particles have mass, and any such measurements are the results of collisions of ubiquitous local particles. They do not travel from galaxy to eyeball like Einstein’s imaginary photons.

The sought for changes in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) would never be found. That is because the 2.7^oK temperature indicated by the CMB is simply a measure of the motion of the matter existing in outer space. Had Einstein’s initial replacement of aether with perfectly empty space been correct, the CMB temperature would have been 0.0^oK. Of course, without aether denial the whole Big Bang mess would have been forgotten long ago.

Whether this reality check had anything to do with US abandonment of the project is not known. And, as the Hubble Space Telescope showed early on, the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope would find only “Elderly Galaxies” instead of the empty space predicted by Big Bang Theory. On the other hand, few scientific projects are complete failures no matter what hypotheses they are trying to support. Because the universe is infinite, something new is likely to be found, even if it is the fact we do not know enough.

PSI Blog 20250721

20250714

Time before Time Began?

PSI Blog 20250714 Time before Time Began?

Hodgepodge showing the mess cosmogonists are now facing with even Hawking’s singularity taking a hit.

“A diagram (not to scale) depicting the major milestones in the evolution of the Universe since the Big Bang – around 13.8 billion years ago. The Universe was initially in a neutral state until light from the first stars started to ionise the hydrogen.” Photo credit: Phil Halper.

Thanks again to Bill Wesley for this heads up:

“I thought you might enjoy the absurdity of this mess
Completely bonkers insane is the new sanity, crazy is the new rational, why yes of course time began before time began otherwise how could there be enough time for time to begin?

Do these people even hear/read themselves? they will say ANYTHING to hold onto an audience, the less sense that it makes the more it is considered to exhibit a higher kind of sense.

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/we-can-know-what-came-before-big-bang”

[GB: Here, in one place, are large parts of the discombobulations taking place in today’s faltering cosmology. This BBC article by Phil Halper, a member of the Royal Astronomical Society, catches much of the cognitive dissonance over what is left of the Big Bang Theory. I like Phil’s photo (above) stretching out NASA’s timeline to better show the hypothesized “younging effect” that failed to show up in JWST photos. Watch the video too, as long as you can stand it. Listening to the greatest minds of the 20^th century is not pleasant.

I presented a list of the falsifications (disproofs) of the Big Bang Theory here, with an updated list here. See how many you can find in Halper’s report and video. The winner gets a free copy of any of our books.]

PSI Blog 20250714

20250707

Bust of the Black Hole Universe

PSI Blog 20250707 Bust of the Black Hole Universe

Another reformist theory bites the dust.

“A black hole pictured by the Spitzer space telescope Credit: AFP/Getty Images”

Question from George Coyne (“author of Notfinity Process: Matter in Motion):

“Glenn,

An international team of physicists concluded that the Big Bang theory is wrong and the universe is sitting inside a black hole. Their study suggests that the universe was formed following a gravitational collapse that generated a massive black hole. Glenn, what is your view of this study?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/10/big-bang-theory-is-wrong-claim-scientists/?recomm_id=f396b8c0-b9b8-4658-a99a-24aa56171993”

[GB: Thanks George. Always glad to see that some brave physicists are calling the Big Bang Theory wrong! However, like many of our unemployed reformists, they come up with some new outrageous ideas as a replacement. Of course, as you know, the real replacement for the finite Big Bang is Infinite Universe Theory. The universe has existed everywhere for all time.

Cyclic theories have been popular for over a century. That is because cycles occur everywhere. There is the cycle of birth and death for each microcosm in the universe. We also don’t know what lies outside of our observed universe that causes some of the perturbations we observe within. For instance, galactic clusters appear to be heading toward some large microcosm outside the universe.[1] Then there is the mis-match the authors mention regarding the clockwise/counter clockwise ratio for galaxies at the edge of the observed universe. Both the Big Bang Theory and the Infinite Universe Theory hypothesize the ratio would be 1.0.

Some cosmogonists have suggested the (finite) universe itself was spinning. But of course, that would be impossible, as I explained here. There are other explanations. The one in tune with IUT emphasizes observational problems:

Here is a quote from reporter Margherita Bassi: “Another possible explanation involves the Milky Way’s rotation. Due to an effect called the Doppler shift, astronomers expect galaxies rotating opposite to the Milky Way’s motion to appear brighter, which could explain their overrepresentation in telescopic surveys.]

“If that is indeed the case, we will need to re-calibrate our distance measurements for the deep universe,” Shamir explains in the statement. "The re-calibration of distance measurements can also explain several other unsolved questions in cosmology such as the differences in the expansion rates of the universe and the large galaxies that according to the existing distance measurements are expected to be older than the universe itself.””

[GB: Nuff said. According to Infinite Universe Theory, distance measurements that use cosmological redshifts are a result of “tired light.” That is, due to the imperfection of light wave reproduction, light waves must get longer as a function of distance. The resulting redshift is on top of other red and blueshifts involving the Doppler effect and the “gravitational redshift.”[2] The suggested “recalibrations” will get rid of some cosmogonical problems, but not all, as long as the ridiculous expanding universe interpretation is included.

The suggested replacement for the Big Bang is incorrect because it essentially is an “expansion-contraction” theory similar to those proposed by other reformists. They can’t give up the expanding universe nonsense, inventing acausal reasons for each expansion and contraction just like the mainstream cosmogonists for their theory. Sometimes miraculous dark energy is hypothesized as the cause. Readers know energy neither exists nor occurs—it is a calculation. It describes matter in motion just like momentum (P=mv) describes what happens when a microcosm (containing matter) is in motion. If you are hit by something having momentum, you are still hit by that something, no matter what the calculation says.

The “gravitational collapse” needed to produce the contraction is fraught with the same error bedeviling all of physics: attraction. There is no such activity. There is no physical mechanism Newton ever presented for his attraction. He did try to mount a push theory by hypothesizing a dense distal medium, but got it backwards. The gravitational medium is denser proximally than it is distally. That is because aether particles lose velocity after colliding with ordinary matter. Like other reformists under the influence of aether denial, these folks have no causative macrocosmic agent outside their assumed finite universe. The reasons for the contraction and expansion parts of their hypothesis are not physical. They are magical.

All in all, I give this reformist theory an F+. The plus is for recognizing the Big Bang Theory is a bust.]

PSI Blog 20250707

[1] Kashlinsky, A., Atrio-Barandela, F., Ebeling, H., Edge, A., and Kocevski, D., 2010, A New Measurement of the Bulk Flow of X-Ray Luminous Clusters of Galaxies: The Astrophysical Journal Letters, v. 712, no. 1, p. L81–L85. [10.1088/2041-8205/712/1/L81].

[2] Borchardt, Glenn, 2018, The physical cause of gravitation: viXra:1806.0165.

20250630

“James Webb, Hubble space telescopes face reduction in operations over funding shortfalls”

PSI Blog 20250630 “James Webb, Hubble space telescopes face reduction in operations over funding shortfalls”

“Inflation and budget issues are threatening to hobble NASA’s most in-demand telescopes.”

Here is an apropos article by reporter Mark Zastrow:

https://www.astronomy.com/science/james-webb-hubble-space-telescopes-face-reduction-in-operations-over-funding-shortfalls/

As I mentioned in a previous post, cutting back on science is one of the measures taken by declining empires. It also is a tactic used by neofascists and religious politicians to grab what little cash is left while holding back progress that is especially disturbing to them.

I remember that when I was at the USGS for my postdoc, we awaited each budget with bated breath to see what damage the “young earthers” would try to do in that regard. Now, the whole administration seems to be doing it to science in general.

As faithful readers have seen, the space telescopes have not been kind to the Big Bang Theory. Contradictions appear almost daily, surprising cosmogonists with photos of old objects that shouldn’t be at what they calculate to be the youthful end of their imaginary exploded universe. What amounts to looking back in time shows “Elderly Galaxies” instead of emptiness or the gas precursors to stars.

Of course, how much damage actually will be done depends on the powers that be. The $10 billion cost of the JWST means there is a powerful interest group supporting it. As with other intellectual endeavors, a fight undoubtedly will eschew. My prediction is that the battle between religion and science and its proxy in the battle between the Big Bang Theory and Infinite Universe Theory will take at least another generation. Don’t hold your breath…

PSI Blog 20250630

20250623

Elderly Galaxies Die Earlier Than Expected

PSI Blog 20250623 Elderly Galaxies Die Earlier Than Expected

The Big Bang Theory coughs up yet another confirmation of Infinite Universe Theory.

“Illustration of the RUBIES-UDS-QG-z7 galaxy created with the Grok 3 AI. (CREDIT: CC BY-SA 4.0).”

“Astronomers discover that galaxies die much earlier than expected

JWST confirms a massive galaxy that quenched star formation just 700 million years after the Big Bang, defying cosmic evolution models.”

Infinite Universe Theory predicts cosmological objects of all ages will be found far away as well as nearby. Here is another example of the “Elderly Galaxy” problem faced by cosmogonists. As we look farther and farther into the Big Bang universe, we are supposed to see younger and younger objects. That idea was trashed in last week’s post showing a supposed 280-million-year-old galaxy was found at the edge of the observed universe. That is a far cry from our 13.61-billion-year-old Milky Way, which looks similar.

Today’s observation illustrates process (motion) as well. Some dying galaxies like the one in this observation exist throughout the observed universe. Studies have shown it takes much longer than the allotted 700 million years for such galaxies to form, complete their star formation, and begin to die.

Notice that once again cosmogonists are stuck in their paradigm and don’t have a clue as to what is wrong with their “Last Creation Myth.” When will they give up the silly assumption the entire 20 trillion galaxies exploded out of a Hawking singularity the size of the period at the bottom of this question mark? When will they read:

Borchardt, Glenn, 2017, Infinite Universe Theory: Berkeley, California, Progressive Science Institute, 337 p. [http://go.glennborchardt.com/IUTebook] to find out?

PSI Blog 20250623

20250616

Radiation from Elderly Galaxies Trashes the Big Bang Theory

PSI Blog 20250616 Radiation from Elderly Galaxies Trashes the Big Bang Theory

If the Cosmic Microwave Background is from too fast-forming galaxies, then it is not the required remnant from the Big Bang.

Photo credit: NASA (as modified by Borchardt).

Thanks to Bill Howell for this heads up:

“Hi Glenn. I just saw this and think you'll find it very interesting (if you haven't already seen it). Ironically, the video, and the potential objections to it, doesn't take the next obvious step of attributing the findings to an infinite Universe. But as with most discoveries in science, it's about baby steps.”

Thanks also to Seethepattern for producing the video:

New CMB Discovery Could Shatter the Big Bang Model

In a previous post I mentioned that the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) has a redshift of 1089, while the greatest so far measured is 14.44 from an “elderly galaxy.” Looking back in space, we actually are looking back in time. Look far enough, and you are supposed to see what the beginning of the Big Bang universe was like. According to the Big Bang Theory, that galaxy was calculated to be only 280 million years old. Our Milky Way galaxy took 13.6 billion years to form. 280 is way too fast. This major contradiction has put cosmogonists everywhere into cognitive dissonance. They have to come up with a 26^th ad hoc to save the Big Bang Theory once again.

As summarized in the video, this first attempt was a failure. The conundrum is this: the CMB is supposed to be a remnant of the Big Bang. Most cosmogony calculations of the “evolution of the universe” rely on that 2.7^oK result. Trouble is, the new paper discussed in the video suggests the 2.7^oK is not from the Big Bang, but from those “elderly galaxies” we have been seeing at the edge of the observed universe. Cosmogonists can’t have it both ways. They either have to reject the paper or they have to reject the Big Bang Theory.

I suspect the paper will not receive much attention. So other, less destructive ad hocs will have to be invented.

BTW: The 2.7^oK CMB temperature proves space is not perfectly empty as Einstein incorrectly assumed when he rejected the aether. Temperature is the motion of matter. So that means there is matter in outer space, with aether, the medium for light, being the prime candidate. Per my “Aether Deceleration Theory” of gravitation,[1] aether particles in outer space are highly active. I have speculated that their short-range interparticle velocities could be 50% greater than c. That would be analogous to the interparticle velocities of nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere. Their interparticle motion averages 515 m/s, while the velocity of sound waves in that medium is 343 m/s. After today’s revelation, the 2.7^oK CMB temperature fits better with Infinite Universe Theory than Big Bang Theory.

PSI Blog 20250616

[1] Borchardt, Glenn, 2018, The Physical Cause of Gravitation: viXra:1806.0165

(“Aether Deceleration Theory”)

20250609

800,000 Galaxies Support Infinite Universe Theory

PSI Blog 20250609 800,000 Galaxies Support Infinite Universe Theory

JWST map shows over ten times as many “Elderly Galaxies” as the Hubble Space Telescope.

"Six images of galaxies taken from nearly 800,000, from upper left to lower right: the present-day universe, and 3, 4, 8, 9 and 10 billion years ago. Credit: M. Franco / C. Casey / COSMOS-Web collaboration."

In my book, “Infinite Universe Theory,” I had an “ultra deep field” photo that cosmogonists used to calculate that there were 2 trillion galaxies in the observed universe. This current map brings that to at least 20 trillion as I subsequently predicted due to the resolution the James Webb Space Telescope was expected to have. Here is a quote from physics Professor Caitlin Casey summing that up:

“If you had a printout of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field on a standard piece of paper," she said, referring to the iconic view of nearly 10,000 galaxies released by NASA in 2004, "our image would be slightly larger than a 13-foot by 13-foot-wide mural, at the same depth. So it's really strikingly large.”

Here is a short summary of the project:

“Largest map of the universe announced revealing 800,000 galaxies, challenging early cosmos theories”

As usual, regressive physicists and cosmogonists are suffering extreme cognitive dissonance as a result. The Nobel folks should give out prizes for the best ad hocs to come.

PSI Blog 20250609

20250602

Another “Elderly Galaxy” Supports Infinite Universe Theory

PSI Blog 20250602 Another “Elderly Galaxy” Supports Infinite Universe Theory

According to the Big Bang Theory, galaxy MoM-z14 has a calculated age of 280 million years judged by its redshift of z = 14.44, which correlates with the distance light has traveled.

Data from the previous record holder: “Scientists used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) to obtain a spectrum of the distant galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 in order to accurately measure its redshift and therefore determine its age. The redshift can be determined from the location of a critical wavelength known as the Lyman-alpha break. This galaxy dates back to less than 300 million years after the big bang.”

Thanks to George Coyne for this heads up:

“Glenn,

The JWST [James Webb Space Telescope] recently discovered this fully formed galaxy as it appeared 280 million years after the hypothesized Big Bang. The article does not mention how many hundreds of millions of years would have been required to reach its observed size. If it needed more than 280 million years to reach its observed size, then it must have started forming before the Big Bang occurred. How is that possible? Here is the link to the article.

https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/previously-unimaginable-james-webb-telescope-breaks-its-own-record-again-discovering-farthest-known-galaxy-in-the-universe”

[GB: Thanks George. How is that possible? It isn’t. As we look farther and farther out, we are supposed to see younger and younger objects. The light from the new record holder would have taken almost 13.8 billion years to get here. But what we see at the maximum distance are galaxies similar to our own Milky Way that took over 13.6 billion years to form. There is no way MoM-14z could have formed in 280 million years. As I pointed out before, the accepted 13.8-billion-year age of the Big Bang universe is based on dubious assumptions and math that allows no greater age than 13.8 billion years. The “Elderly Galaxy” problem is No. 9 in my list of 25 disproofs of the Big Bang Theory. When that list was prepared, the youngest “Elderly Galaxy” was 450 million years old. They get these bogus young ages by using Friedmann’s math. Here is a bit from Perplexity AI:

“Redshift and Cosmic Expansion

Redshift Type	Example	Redshift (z)	Time After Big Bang
Observable Galaxies	JADES-GS-z14-0	14.32	290 million years
CMB	Cosmic Microwave Background	~1100	380,000 years
Theoretical Limit	Near Big Bang singularity	∞	t→0

In summary, while observations are limited by the opacity of the early universe and detection capabilities, the Friedmann equations governing the Big Bang model permit redshifts approaching infinity as a _then→0 1,2.”

There will be more of these supposed baby galaxies looking elderly. You can see why Hawking’s finite singularity was needed to do the math. It also was needed for cosmogony apologists to avoid the ridiculous idea the universe exploded out of nothing. And for the misinterpretation that the universe is expanding. BTW: Don’t ask them where in hell the singularity came from.]

PSI Blog 20250602

20250526

We Only have Artificial Special Intelligence (ASI)

PSI Blog 20250526 We Only have Artificial Special Intelligence (ASI)

Will Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) lead to our extinction?

Photo credit: Luke Jones Unsplash

No. In my chapter on “The Myth of Exceptionalism” in The Scientific Worldview I predicted humanity will not cause its own extinction. You can trace the extinction belief at least as far back as the Revelation chapter in the bible. You only have to observe the death of any organism to observe an ending. You can suffer the myopic propaganda in which the cosmogonists predict the “heat death of the universe” by misapplying the Second Law of Thermodynamics to their assumed finite universe.

It is estimated that over five billion species have gone extinct on Earth. Extinction, like death, is a natural process. Suicide might amount to extinction—for an individual—but it is rare for groups. Whole species do not commit suicide. Humans have difficulty agreeing on anything, much less the favorability of mass suicide. That is because we are as “natural” as all the other species. We are not exceptional although we often think we are.

As early as 1984[1] I wrote:

"Species Suicide

One logical outcome of exceptionalism is the possibility that humanity might cause its own extinction (Schell, 1982). Pessimistic indeterminists have a field day with this one, especially now that it is possible to calculate the effects of such an attempt in megadeaths. Typical is Wagner's comment that:

“A fair chance now exists for man to bring about his own extinction and the ruin of the world.” (Wagner, 1972, p. ix)

Carl Sagan believed that:

“There is a serious question whether...a global self-identification of mankind can be achieved before we destroy ourselves with the technological forces our intelligence has unleashed.” (Sagan, 1973, p. 6)

Doomsayers van der Veer and Moerman stand helpless against their own neo-vitalism:

“If our self-destructive urge springs from within man himself we can still hope that something may be done before darkness overtakes intelligent life on earth!” (van der Veer and Moerman, 1973, p. 146)"

So, why all these failed predictions from a half century ago? Hint: The famous motto promoting media sales is: “If it bleeds, it leads.” I have another “Be afraid, very afraid.” I remember the 1962 standoff between Kennedy and Khrushchev over the nuclear missiles in Cuba. Students had useless “get under your desk drills” to maintain the fright. The rest of the Cold War always held the prospect of nuclear war. Now we face more claims of the possibility of “extinction” via global warming despite our species having survived drastic changes in climate before. If those weren’t enough, some think the AGI bogeyman will get us.

My argument against the possibility of extinction was based entirely on univironmental determinism, the universal mechanism of evolution, which assumes that what happens to a portion of the universe is determined by the infinite matter within and without. I learned all extinctions are a result of changes in the “without,” what I otherwise call the macrocosm (environment). Will humanity become extinct? Of course, but not by its own hand.

The macrocosm is everywhere. If the asteroids don’t get us, something else will. Earth is slowing down due to collisions with the macrocosm, which is not perfectly empty space. Eventually Earth will be pushed into the Sun and eventually the Sun itself will disintegrate or be pushed into the nucleus of the Milky Way or whatever results when it collides with the Andromeda galaxy in four billion years. Be afraid, very afraid…

Intelligence

I simply define intelligence as a microcosm’s response to sensed changes in the macrocosm. Even single-celled organisms, such as amoeba, can do that. We sense portions of our environment, give them names (information), and store those representations in our nervous system as knowledge. We then analyze and retrieve that knowledge when we sense it is necessary for survival or more mundane activity. IQ simply is a measure of how fast we store, analyze, and retrieve information. AI already does that faster than humans, so it already is smarter than us.

If you have used AI for a while, you know it is getting smarter by the day. It is a far cry from a couple years ago when ChatGPT said I had died in 2019. Today, I have few qualms about Perplexity AI’s summary:

Glenn Borchardt is an American geologist and philosopher of science known for his critical stance against mainstream scientific theories such as the Big Bang and relativity. He has developed influential alternative frameworks, including the "Ten Assumptions of Science," "Neo-mechanics," and the "Infinite Universe Theory," which challenge conventional cosmological and physical paradigms3. Borchardt advocates for the idea of an infinite universe and has authored several books, notably "The Scientific Worldview: Beyond Newton and Einstein," which argues against the notion of a finite universe and promotes a scientific philosophical approach to understanding evolution and the cosmos3.

With over 60 years of experience in theoretical, experimental, and observational science, Borchardt has produced more than 500 scientific reports, including journal articles, book chapters, books, and computer programs3. He is also recognized for his work in scientific philosophy and has served as the Director of the Progressive Science Institute in Walnut Creek, California4. Borchardt has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chappell Natural Philosophy Society (CNPS) for his contributions to science philosophy and his influence on critical thinkers outside of mainstream science3, 4.

Granted, that is simply retrieved from the internet, but Jesse Witwer has had great success working with the “analysis” part. With a little coaxing about the proper fundamental assumptions to use, he got Perplexity AI to agree that Infinite Universe Theory was preferable to Big Bang Theory. In other words, when faced with a contradiction, Perplexity AI was able to recognize contradictions and choose the rational solution every time.

At first thought, that looks like Artificial General Intelligence. Of course, as I have always maintained, “analysis” not only depends on the data used, but on which fundamental assumptions are used. If one coaxed Perplexity AI with The Ten Assumptions of Religion, I imagine Big Bang Theory would win. Because the universe is infinite, fundamental assumptions never can be completely proven. They always have opposites (e.g., the universe either is finite or it is infinite). To divulge the truth only rational assumptions will do.

Artificial Special Intelligence (ASI)

After thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that we do not have AGI. It is ASI instead. The reasoning goes like this: AGI would be aware of everything that was ever brought to the Internet. The data would include my 700 blog posts, as they would yours too. Currently, it does not come close. AI is even unaware of the answer or logical train of thought it gave to someone else who had the same series of questions.

AI can present information supporting a theory, but it will never present an infinite amount of information no matter how fast it becomes. As always, we will have to make do with whatever we can get. In science we have the advantage because the external world provides the evidence and observations that either support or disprove our theories about it. Traditionally, humans have done that; eventually AGI will do it too.

So, is AGI good or bad? That depends on which end of the stick you are on. Any tool can be good at times and bad at times. An auto can get you some place really fast (good), but you might crash on the way (bad). AGI can be used in defending your country (good) or attacking another country (bad). In any case, AGI and its predictions will be successful when it is fed truth and unsuccessful when it is fed lies. I predict AGI eventually will cause something to go extinct: falsehood.

PSI Blog 20250526

[1] Borchardt, Glenn, 1984, The Scientific Worldview [review manuscript]: Berkeley, California, Progressive Science Institute; http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.16123.52006, 343 p. [ https://gborc.com/TSW84 ].

20250519

Irrationality that Produced the Big Bang Theory is Everywhere

PSI Blog 20250519 Irrationality that Produced the Big Bang Theory is Everywhere

Review of “Why Trump?” by Douglas Giles.

I normally don’t cover politics on this site, but I am nonetheless interested in the philosophical background that underlies the absurd Big Bang Theory. Conspiracy theory and the attacks on science funding and education in the US seem to be associated symptoms based on long-standing belief in irrational assumptions.

This book is extremely important for understanding the current march toward neofascism in the United States. It is professionally written and easy to understand. I learned a lot.

Giles begins with his 3 classifications of right-wing ideology: reactionism, libertarianism, conservativism, with the last two losing out to the first. The US has always had a strain of reaction involving its infusion of Calvinism that underlies Christian Nationalism. According to Giles, it claims that “God gave worldly wealth and prosperity to the Elect and denied it to others. This doctrine translated to two beliefs among the followers of Calvinism—that wealth is a sign of virtue and that poverty is conjoined with the corruption of moral depravity. Scholars have observed that these two beliefs that are embedded in Calvinism facilitated and justified the development of capitalism.”

Giles observes: “The “Puritans” who came on the Mayflower to found New England were Calvinists…”, that “The American religious Right is fundamentally Calvinist in its view of the world.” And that “Reactionism on right-wing radio, television, and the Internet is the 21st century manifestation of the 16th century ideology of Calvinism.”

Ressentiment

I just learned this unfamiliar word, which sums up the reactionary's predicament. Giles explains it beautifully:

“Ressentiment is different from the justified anger one feels when being mistreated. Ressentiment is a particular form of hatred that arises from beliefs that one is lacking recognition and thus is socially impotent. Struggles against real injustices are movements toward higher values such as justice, truth, and love that inspire positive actions. Acts motivated by ressentiment are movements toward lower values such as spite, vengeance, and malice that inspire negative actions.” “This state triggers feelings of hopelessness…” not unlike the juvenile males wielding weapons of mass destruction.

Victimhood

All those feelings are part of victimhood, which in the United States, was mentioned first in the New York Times in 1993. It was not the subject of scientific study until 2010. In other words, the middle-class was in decline for about a generation before people started to realize what was happening. Victimhood is not confined to the right-wing, but also to the left-wing, which uses “wokeness” in its attempt to right the wrongs produced by the right-wing.

Although Trump appears to be a surreptitious atheist, he uses ideological slogans in tune with the beliefs of middle-class folks currently under stress. Recent cultural changes are seen as threatening their economic status. White Christians have always thought themselves to be favored by god and therefore superior to others they deemed inferior.

In short, Trump claims to hate the same people that the Christian Nationalists hate. By eliminating the folks deemed inferior, they hope to achieve majority status, political power, and their former self-esteem once again. Little of this hate is directed toward the captains of industry, who are admired for their exponentially increasing wealth and financial support of the reaction.

While at bottom, the reaction is a result of economic stress, it manifests as disgust over cultural changes that oppose the cherry-picked ideology in the bible. For instance, men are supposed to dominate women, whose place is supposed to be in the home. That is simply regressive wishful thinking. It is no longer possible to support the much-desired middle-class lifestyle without two incomes. Being “fruitful and multiplying” is unlikely, with world-wide births per mother declining from 5 in 1965 to 2.3 at present. Returning to the “good old days” is hopeless.

Political Power

Giles rightly uses power in his analysis of politics: who has it and who does not. The reaction follows the decline of “white power” buttressed by Christian Nationalism. As he points out, reactionism favors power in the hands of the few, while progressivism favors its distribution among all people. That is why reactionaries support dictatorship over democracy. This is particularly true whenever their numbers and corresponding political power are in decline.

Power is the ability to act. Christian Nationalists, of course, are not without the ability to act, as seen by the multifarious ways they attempt to thwart democracy. They have continually fought against voting rights and instituted gerrymandering to favor their followers. At its most extreme, they believe, without evidence, in conspiracy theories suggesting elections have been stolen. A return to white supremacy via democracy is unlikely.

Being a nice, well-educated philosopher, Giles understands where all this current reaction comes from. Reactionaries and progressives have always been parts of the political equation. He points out that the inflammatory language used on both sides of the left-right debate should be avoided. Name calling seldom changes opinions. He encourages progressives to avoid taking the bait. Both sides are American. Neither side is evil.

Should democracy prevail through all this, we still will have the Bill of Rights. We might want to curtail the Second Amendment to reduce violence, but the First is sacrosanct. Giles rightly states that “All speech should be permitted except speech that seeks to silence other people. That remains one of the most profoundly wise ideas I have heard. It is a principle I have tried to apply ever since. I combine that principle with John Stuart Mill’s idea that the answer to wrong speech is more speech.” Currently, both the right and the left tend to shout down and de-platform the opposition. They do not wish to hear from folks deemed “evil” or “racist.”

Overall, Giles appears overly optimistically idealistic about the power of rationality to overcome the irrationality of Calvinism. One thing missing from the book is any mention of the similarities with the development of fascism and other right-wing movements in other countries. “American exceptionalism” has resulted in the world’s longest-lived democracy. But much of that was beholden to its success as the world’s domineering economic power. The commensurate growth of its large middle-class led to a semblance of voter satisfaction until 1971. Since then, the number of households deemed middle-class has declined from 61% to 50%. The middle-class has shrunk before, but never for over a half century.

So, that is what is meant by “Make America Great Again.” It is supremely ironic that it would take a melodramatic billionaire to recognize the squeeze on the middle-class and its Calvinistic traditions being ripe for the accumulation of political power. Few of Trump’s regressive promises are going to relieve the middle-class or decrease income inequality unless he produces a new slogan: “Tax the Rich.” Don’t hold your breath.

PSI Blog 20250519