robheus

radiation = energy?...or energy = matter+radiation?..... energy=radiation+dark energy?....what do you mean?

 

Total Energy+matter = Matter - Antimatter + Energy (Radiation+neutrinos+...) + Dark Matter + Dark Energy ?

 

It is very important your assertion that "According to standard cosmological model, energy is not conserved in the Universe" ...so do you mean that energy could change in the Universe during the time?...And Total Energy+matter is constant?

 

 

 

I reffer to that :

 

- Antimatter is considered like negative matter ?...Then Total matter = mattter - antimatter

- Neutrinos are considered as energy?

- Dark matter& energy...are considered whithin the Total amount of energy+matter?

 

Does the Antienergy exist?...or not?

Anti-matter has POSITIVE mass, just that it has OPPOSITE electric charge.

Negative mass matter does not exist, if it would exist, it would have weird properties (acceleration of object would be in the opposiite direction of the force, etc.)

 

If the Universe is a closed system...and the Energy desapears along the time... at the end Energy = 0?...then,what will happend with the matter and radiatios?...they will be without energy?

The universe is not closed in the sense that it has a boundary.

The universe can be both finite and infinite. Now that looks like a ridiculous contradiction. But let me explain.

Imagine a straight line, having no begin and end.

Now place two points anywhere on the line, and you are free to choose it anywhere on the line.

Now we can ask, does the distance between these two points, form a finite or an infinite distance.

Let me first show that it is finite.

Place the points on the line (anywhere you want) and start measuring the distance using some unit. Will it finish? Yes. We find a finite value.

Now let us ask a second question. Can we think of any value (any value at all) for which the measurement of the distance is clearly a limit it can not exceed, so that all measurent values of the distance between any two points on the line does not surpass this distance?

Well, we can just take that distance, measure it on the line and place our points there, and then we can show that any such finite value can always be exceeded by placing the points further apart.

Which then shows us that there is no limit to the distance between the two points, and that must mean that it is infinite (having no limit).

Now these conclusions are in contradiction with each other.

How to resolve that?

Big bang theory does not say there was an absolute beginning. The singularity only pops up when general relativity is used, but then for a full description of reality, also quantum mechanics must be taken into account, esp. near such a dense, hot and small region. Then, most likely, the singularity disappears. But as of yet we do not have a full description of quantum gravity, so this is only provisional.

True that Being might be God?

What makes you think so?

Being, as referred to here, is just pure being, which is pretty abstract and indeterminate, and all in all not anything more as nothing.

As this analyses is part of the Hegelian dialectics, I would think the answer is no, cause the idea of God in that context would be more the Absolute Idea.

The idea that there is some sort of God underlying reaity, is just the point of view of Idealism, that in primary sense, reality is based on consciousness.

Even if one supposedly can not directly disproof this idea, it does not mean that it has any basis in reality. If Idealism in general were true and one could not disproof it, and would accept it as a genuine basis of reasoning, how are we then to conclude that the point of view of solipsism (reality is totally contained within one's own mind) is an absurd world view?

The best argument I know why in general Idealism (both subjective Idealism - which is in fact solipsism, and objective Idealism) is untrue, that it is impossible to base reality on consciousness, because the basic feature of any consciousness would be processing information, and how could there be information and information processing without the material?

What?

There is no southpole without a northpole.

Every coin has two sides, and the one belongs necessary to the other.

If there is no being then neither can there be absence of being.

Assume you have two identical cups, filled with identical water and identical amount of water. The only difference being that the water in the second cup is hot, the other room temperature.

After placing them in a refridgerator, which one of the cups of water will freeze first, the room temperature cup or the hot cup?

It seems logical to say that the cup with hot water has first to cool down (although it cools down quicker because of a higher temperature gradient as the room temperature water) to room temperature, and then it would take the same amount of time for it to freeze as the room temperature water, so it would last longer for it to freeze.

Simple logic, isn it?

But please try this yourself, and investigate the answer.

The answer might surprise you!

Here is an article on this phenomena.

First question: what is the need for humanity to get into space?

1. Because of existential external threat (astroid impact, sun going red giant, other)?

2. Because we exhaust the planet, and need living space or resources elsewhere?

3. Because we can, we must?

I would answer:

1. The existential external threat is better dealt with by

a. Investigating all the astroids or comets that could have a huge impact

b. Find a way of having those candidate huge rocks from space that could impact change the orbit so they don't impact or have them destroyed so that the debris will have no impact.

2. We better find a way first to have a sustainable economy and limit population growth (the best way for that is social justice and economic well-being for all, that will cut population growth)

3. There are a lot of things that can, but are they anyhow usefull, and economicaly viable? Who should pay for fullfilling these dreams only a few (the eilte) foster?

Our reality is an illusion ;P

But a very persistent illusion

As my position is towards the AGW issue I agree with the majority of scientists that this is the case as far as science can tell, and I don't side with those who either think that the science is a complot or a fraud, since none of that has been proven, and why should climate scientists be any different in that respect as other scientists?

However: I AM sceptic about the political/economical aspect, that even when AGW shows that human are the prime cause of AGW, the changes necessarily and economically show to be near unsolvable.

The proof of that is the current global financial and economic crisis, which more or less proofs, we can not even control the economy in the short terms, let alone plan for long terms. Short term profits dominate the financial investment markets, and keep us tied up into short term thinking, and wasting of valuable time, while we should be planning for the future. The energy crisis necitates us for planning for the long term future.

Currently though, too little money is being invested in development and deployment of renewable techniques, because they always find short term investment goals which appear to be more profitable, but in doing so, destroy our future and cause the financial crisis and meltdown which we face now.

However, we should plan for our future.

And for two urgent reasons:

- natural energy deposits are being depleted and the possibiliy of scarcity in immediate or further future already means that countries compete for resources, oil wars are being fought, etc.

- we need to transition from depleting resources to renewable resources, because they are the only sustainable future we can think of.

(so, I don think of AGW as a prime reason for this transition to be necessary, but then, since this transition will cause a shift from fossil to renewable, it will of course be part of the solution needed to prevent as far as possible any more AGW.)

A lot of renewable opportunities are still underdeveloped, are not anywhere near their theoretical limit of efficiency (except maybe for wind energy) and can become a lot cheaper as currently is the case.

It is thought though that renewables will become competetive, and after that more money flows into the development of renewables, in due time.

However, I am not sure if that is early enough to escape the problem of resource depletion or peak oil scenario and global warming effects.

Since we do know or at least can calculate that some of these techniques will become cheaper in the future, there is reason to think we can speed the development up, for instance by allowing deployment of renewable resources to have some subsidy, and stop subsidizing fossils fuels. Germany did that, and I think they have in the future a better economy, since when the investments are paid off, prices of renewable energy will sink while energy prices keep rising.

We can invest lots of money in this kind of development, take for instance pension funds, they don't need to have a return on investment in a short time, it is sufficient that the pension money that is invested makes a good return when the people retire, so there is room there for long term investments, and other parts of the markets too I suppose.

I guess this was done to have a stable output of power and buffer the energy ??

Assuming the cosmos in the far future is ripped apart as the expansion of space speeds up, yes, then all life will go extinct and the universe goes extinct. What comes after that we do not know.

So far ok...

Being is not an ordinary something... but it is something that can be said of something, so it is definitely a something.

And further: it is the only something that can be said about any something.So its a determinate something!

I dont accept the step from being to indeterminate or pure being. How is the step motivated?

No. The concept of pure Being is indeterminate. That is the crux. We are here not concerned with the distinct properties or determination of any particular being, but with being itself in general.

Note that the concept of Being is the first concept that one arrives at without introducing any other concept. They appear at a later stage of the development of the logic. The concept of determinate being is dealt with only when we have arrived at the concept of quality.

You have to think of this logic as a kind of logic that bootstraps itself, it is developed from literally nothing at all at the start, and arrives then at the first immediate concept one can think of that does not make use of any concept you can think of, and during analyzation of each concept, new concepts are derived from it.

That is as clear as I can explain, if I fail I'm sorry.

You could try to read the doctrine of being in the science of logic yourself.

Apart from all sort of technical challenges that must be face, I think it is not possible (yet) to put people on Mars and have them live there indefinately, provided that we can not spend indefinate amount of money to sustain them. The goal of the project is of course to reach a reasoable amount of self-sustainance (create own water, oxygen as first pre-reuisities, and also some food stuff and new living space).

Let me try to argue this as follows. The initial conditions are that everything that the people on Mars need (food, water, shelter, etc.) is provided by earth.

The amount necessary, let us say in units of amount of flights to Mars is equal to:

Flights(t) = k * Humans(t)

So, the number of flights is linearly dependend on the number of humans living on mars at any time t.

They can of course make their own water, their own oxygen, grow their own food, produce their own energy, etc.

But all that is produced at the basis of techniques and robots and equipment, they can not (yet) reproduce on Mars. Technicall and theoretically it might be possible to do that, but then, please figure out what kind of industry you would need to have installed on Mars, from mineralogy and mining to chemics and engineerding, to re-produce anything you are dependend on for living, and that recursively: if the tool you need is a hammer, then you also need to have the tool to reproduce the hammer, and the tool to reproduce the tool to reproduce the hammer, and so forth. Well it will ultimately settle down to some fixed amount of techniques and tools you need, but can be quite substantial large.

Long before you have that installed on Mars, including all the people that are needed, you have outrun any reasonable budget limit that can be provided in practice.

Since that won't be reach in any reasonable amount of time then, humans on mars keep being dependend on resources from earth.

But living costs for people on Mars yearly are unreasonable higher then living on any place on earth (I calculated that it is about a factor of 1000 above average GDP per person for humans on earth).

So, why do we need to go to Mars anyway?

It does NOT provide us with any addition material or energy resource (would be quite impractical to get any significant amount of material from Mars) , so the only real target would be to get scientific knowledge.

But acquiring scientific knowledge has it's cost price, I think it costs to much to station people on Mars indefinately, and there is no reasonable goal to spend so much money on that.

Besides, it would be better wating till we have a base on the Moon, and find an economic reason to keep humans there (mining He-3?) and have the technology needed for such long stay project on another celestial body.

That's not even close to true. In fact, that's the majority of what science does; it falsifies hypotheses via Modus Tollens:

 

p->q

~q

~p

 

Look at that, proving a negative in only three lines of logic!

You are right of course, but that holds true for logical stuff. As we can also proof a square circle does not exist (assuming normal metrics/geomotry).

You can not proof for instance that there isn't a pink teapot flying round in the universe, or that unicorns don't exist and stuff like that.

What else exist?

Beer, ice-cream, hot tea, love, hunger, passion, war, intelect, blindness, happiness, sorrow, pi (3.14..), etc. etc.

If there ain't something then neither there is absence of something (nothing), if there ain't light neither there is absence of light (darkness).

See this video and how wave power is generating electricity at costs well below that of nuclear power!

Have a look at this video, showing bridge designs which generate electric power from wind, tidal & ocean currents, and partly the bridge is floating.

The quality of being non-existent is an oxymoron. We define what something is by what qualities it has. If you specify some objects with certain qualities, but no objects have all those qualities, I will tell you that you are talking about an empty set. In other words, you are talking about no thing as opposed to some thing(s).

 

It's probably not even grammatically correct to say "a nothing" because the meaning of nothing is equivalent to "no thing."

" 'The chair' was no thing," makes sense.

" 'The chair' was a no thing," doesn't make sense.

 

At one point, you used the term "the chair" in contexts where it didn't apply, as when you were talking about the chopped or burnt up chair, so your "chair" must encompass more forms than our normal "chair." It's understandable that you broadened the meaning to include what the chair will become, but that isn't correct.

{the chair | the chair = a chair made from that tree} was an empty set before that tree was made into a chair(s) and after the chair was burnt up.

{the chair | the chair = that wood or its ashy remains} is more akin to your "the chair" because you used the term "the chair" to refer to the cut up chair or its ashy remains.

 

Let us return to the first part of this post.

If the chair is non-existent, it can't possibly have the qualities that would make it a member of a set.

{chair | chair = thing with four legs made for sitting} A chair can't possibly have those qualities if it doesn't exist, so it isn't a chair. It isn't a nothing either because that's improper grammer. Rather, it is no thing because no thing meets the criteria to be it. That is, no thing meets the criteria of being the non-existent chair because all things exist and "nonexistent chair" is an oxymoron.

What I was trying to explain, suppose we have some determinate something, a chair with some determinate properties, and suppose that something came to be at t = 0 and ceased to be at t = 1. Then we could say that that determinate something did not exist before t = 0 and does not exist after t = 1. But in that case we can also say that a determinate nothing (with the same properties as assumed before) was existent, or rather we could say, the determinate being did not exist.

For the determinate being or determinate nothing, the same properties are assumed, so they are exactly the same, only that the one is, the other is not.

It does not matter if god exists or not since if god does not exist then Reality has to contain all necessary attributes of god.

 

In a sense then... Reality is god! So god exists! This seems to be a proof of the existence of god so how is it refuted?

 

My point here is that one function of god is to create reality... but that only moves the problem one step away,

 

since now one asks who created god? So god created himself they say.

 

So if theres no god... then why couldnt Reality do what god was supposed to do? We dont know if Reality is godlike or not, do we?

I think not, what you propose to say that reality could equally be based either on god or on matter itself, but then matter would have all attributes of god.

In some aspects you are right, namely for instance, matter does develop itself (we observe that to be the case).

But we can't attribute (self)consciousness to matter (all of reality), as reality itself can not have observer status or be observed, for that to be the case, reality would have to meet a reality outside and different from itself, but we already included all of reality in.

To be consciouss (of oneself) you need to be able to distinguish between yourself and the reality outside of yourself.

I will never believe a square is a circle or that nothing is something...

Any argument leading to such conclusions is fallacious.

 

In the Ancient style:

 

1 Suppose nothing is.

2 Then it is so, that nothing is!

3 But since something is so, then nothing is not.

 

In a more Modern style: Theres the basic statement function: "x is" (Satisfied by anything except what is nothing.)

And theres its complementary function: "x is not" (Satisfied only by what is nothing.)

 

Theres is no way but sophistry for them to be a unity!

I don't see your point, and perhaps it should be clearified that as Hegel makes this remarks about Being (as the first concept one can think of that is not itself based on some other concept), which is indeterminate or pure Being (which is to say, it is not a definite something, but rather that what all being has in common) which is opposed to Nothing. But then, these two concepts are still not something, because they have a lack of determination. So, both Being and Nothing are the same, that is the same lack of determination.

As Hegel explains, both concepts have to be taken in their unity, and not as concepts which have seperate truths of themselves. Their unity is becoming, in which it is already understood that being passes over into nothing and vice versa.

The quality of being non-existent is an oxymoron. We define what something is by what qualities it has. If you specify some objects with certain qualities, but no objects have all those qualities, I will tell you that you are talking about an empty set. In other words, you are talking about no thing as opposed to some thing(s).

 

In the abstract sense, being (or: pure being) is not a determination, and hence is not more or less then nothing.

It's probably not even grammatically correct to say "a nothing" because the meaning of nothing is equivalent to "no thing."

" 'The chair' was no thing," makes sense.

" 'The chair' was a no thing," doesn't make sense.

 

At one point, you used the term "the chair" in contexts where it didn't apply, as when you were talking about the chopped or burnt up chair, so your "chair" must encompass more forms than our normal "chair." It's understandable that you broadened the meaning to include what the chair will become, but that isn't correct.

{the chair | the chair = a chair made from that tree} was an empty set before that tree was made into a chair(s) and after the chair was burnt up.

{the chair | the chair = that wood or its ashy remains} is more akin to your "the chair" because you used the term "the chair" to refer to the cut up chair or its ashy remains.

 

Let us return to the first part of this post.

If the chair is non-existent, it can't possibly have the qualities that would make it a member of a set.

{chair | chair = thing with four legs made for sitting} A chair can't possibly have those qualities if it doesn't exist, so it isn't a chair. It isn't a nothing either because that's improper grammer. Rather, it is no thing because no thing meets the criteria to be it. That is, no thing meets the criteria of being the non-existent chair because all things exist and "nonexistent chair" is an oxymoron.

That is correct of course, the wood before a chair was made out of it didn't have the qualities to call it a chair (although it has some, like the hardness and compactness of the material).

But what matters is that the change that is occuring is that the non-being of the chair is formed by the changes performed on the material. So, this is to illustrate that nothing turns into something, if we understand here that something = the determinate being of a chair and nothing = the opposite of that, the non-being of that determinate something, the chair.

Engels on materialism, the infinite and cosmology

Engels’ materialism

Since Einstein, quantum mechanics, and the Big Bang theory, materialism has to change its form. This means dialectical materialism too. We must remove old dogmas and begin again, starting from the recognition that the method of dialectical materialism at base is simply materialism represented dialectically.

Engels’ statement also applies in a general sense to our former concepts of space, time and the infinite universe. But by contrast, Woods criticises specific scientific theories of space and time for departing from the Newtonian concept of time and space as embraced by Engels.

If it appeared to materialists in the 19th Century, albeit without evidence, that the world must be infinite, the epoch-making discoveries we will shortly discuss have forced a change. These discoveries may not be the final word, but there is no going back to the old dogmas, to the Newtonian outlook.

Dialectical materialism takes from Hegel its "death blow to the finality of all products of human thought and action" as Engels puts it. It is simply wrong, purely from a dialectical standpoint, let alone the current scientific standpoint, to state as if it were an incontrovertible fact that, "Dialectical materialism conceives of the universe as infinite" as Woods does. (Reason in Revolt, p189)

Infinite space and time

It may be argued that Engels’ works set into a kind of Marxist orthodoxy the Newtonian science of his time. In general, Engels was defending and exemplifying, quite correctly, a materialist approach to the world against those such as Eugen Dühring who were seeking to take the socialist movement back to an idealist, eclectic outlook. Engels necessarily proceeded on the basis of those current scientific ideas that appeared to be beyond question.

Woods, on the other hand, defends Engels’ point of view not for its inherent respect for scientific validity, its materialism, but as if Engels was guided by some higher principle (to which Woods elevates dialectical materialism), which in some way lifted the Marxist method above that of scientific investigation.

He transforms Engels’ viewpoint into dogma. Woods says Reason in Revolt defends "the fundamental ideas of the movement" in his 2006 obituary of Ted Grant (cited as co-author of Reason in Revolt). In truth, Reason in Revolt defends Engels’ support for Newtonian physics somewhat as others defend the literal truth of The Bible, not as an expression of the Marxist method of historical materialism rooted in a particular epoch, a theoretical method that has to be continually re-evaluated as science advances our understanding of our world, but as a finished philosophical doctrine that literally serves for all time.

Engels’ assumptions of infinite space and time in Dialectics of Nature should be considered in the light of his more detailed, systematic and repeated embracing of the Kantian theory of the origin of all existing celestial bodies (for example in Anti-Dühring and Feuerbach), which Engels, at one point called, "the theory of the origin of the universe" (Dialectics of Nature, p273), and his endorsement of Hegel’s rejection of the spurious infinite.

These indicate a method, while Engels’ assumption of infinite time and space merely represents the form, the science of the day. We should also keep in mind that most of Dialectics of Nature consists of unfinished and unrevised drafts and was abandoned unpublished in Engels' lifetime, although the introduction appears complete, and the fragment of the chapter entitled Dialectics is invaluable in demystifying Hegel’s dialectics and making it accessible.

When Woods takes Engels as his authority for what he regards as dialectical materialism, it is doubly misleading, not just because it misrepresents Engels’ methodology, but also because Engels does not make the crude mistakes that Woods does in relation to the concept of an infinite universe. When Engels discusses infinity in space and time in Anti-Dühring, he talks about a "process" which is "unrolling" in the context of an infinity which is "composed of nothing but finites".

Singularities, "Bad" infinity, and the beginning of the universe

Engels writes:

Engels reflects Hegel’s dialectic of the infinite – that the infinite is comprised of nothing but finites, for which concept Hegel himself credits Aristotle.

Woods misrepresents Engels, turning his position upside down, when discussing Hegel’s "bad" infinity. For those for whom this is a matter of some contention, we will briefly discuss the question. (In the chapter, Hegel on the dialectics of infinity, we mentioned that what Engels terms Hegel’s "bad" infinity, in the Moscow translation of Anti-Dühring, is a translation of what in the Miller edition of Hegel’s Science of Logic is termed the "spurious" infinite. We discussed what Hegel meant by the term. For our present purposes the terms are treated as entirely equivalent.)

In the course of his criticism of Herr Dühring, Engels says that:

What is perhaps self-evident to Engels and his contemporaries in the above statement, but less than evident to his modern reader, is that when Engels says that "bad" infinity is "attributed to being" in the above quote, he here refers in particular to Dühring’s concept of the primordial beginning of the universe, discussed in his section on ‘World Schematism’. This is a concept which Dühring had plagiarised from Hegel, and which both termed "Being".

When Hegel appears to describe the world coming into being, at the very beginning of his Science of Logic, he begins with: "Being, pure being, without any further determination". Hegel later defines this undifferentiated pure being from which the rest of the world appears to emerge as "infinite being". It appears to be a type of pantheistic godhead. (Science of Logic, p100, § 164)

The reader might wonder how Hegel’s beginning of the world in this "undifferentiated pure being" compares to the well known theory, based on the research done by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose in 1970, which suggests that the universe emerged from a "singularity". But the concept of a singularity, although widely accepted for a time, is no longer part of the standard inflationary model of the Big Bang. One reason for this is that there is insufficient observational evidence, but another is that the theory of singularities is plagued with infinities, and scientists are usually averse to infinities which arise in theories, treating them as errors in the equations or an indication of a false theory. The standard Big Bang theory is based on well established evidence for a hot dense origin to the universe, by extrapolating the observed universe back in time, but it cannot extrapolate back as far as a singularity. Hawking himself went on to study the possibility that quantum mechanical effects would operate at very small sizes, so that no singularity would arise.

Strangely, Woods considers singularities "extremely unlikely", despite the fact that if a singularity existed which had achieved infinite density it might be considered proof of the existence of something which was infinite.

Engels takes pleasure in showing that the anti-Marxist Dühring has plagiarised Hegel, including his concept of the world beginning with an undifferentiated essence. But here is the difference. In the idealist Hegel’s system, this undifferentiated being is subject to a somewhat vague dialectical process, and develops into a more "determinate" being – that is, develops into the world as we know it. Hegel feels no compelling need for materialist causes to achieve this (and is, at any rate, working on many levels, least of all the physical.)

But Dühring takes at face value Hegel’s primordial "being" and then removes the dialectical concept from it. Dühring is scathingly critical of Hegel and castigates his dialectics. Dühring purports to embrace materialism, and has supposedly disproved the existence of God already – albeit, Engels points out ironically, using proofs like those specious proofs that past philosophers used to prove the existence of God. But without any support from Hegel’s idealist dialectics, Dühring is deprived of any means to enable his second-hand unchanging undifferentiated being to change into the world as we know it, since he has said it is unchanging.

"Herr Dühring’s universe really starts with a being which lacks all inner differentiation, all motion and change" Engels says, and quotes Dühring:

So here we have Dühring’s "bad" infinity – an actually existing infinity – an eternity of unchanging, undialectical existence of a "self-equal state" before the world came into being. Scientists today suppose there must be a substratum from which the Big Bang origin of the universe emerged, but current theories picture a very dynamic terrain. Dühring claims that the origin of the universe is an actual, eternally existing "self-equal state" or being. Hegel calls concepts such as the idea of infinity as an actually existing thing, the "spurious infinite", which Engels translates as "bad" infinity. The one exception Hegel makes to the "spurious infinite" is the same exception that Aristotle makes, as we have explained – the divine. Hegel’s mysterious godhead is "infinite being".

Engels gleefully points out the contradictions which Dühring has got himself into by plagiarising Hegel, and, as we have seen, gives a reference to Hegel’s Encyclopaedia: "Infinity – which Hegel calls bad infinity – is attributed to being, also in accordance with Hegel (Encyclopaedia, § 93), and then this infinity is investigated." Dühring has painted himself into a tight spot. Engels refers the reader to paragraph 93 of Hegel’s Encyclopaedia (quoted below) and proceeds to show, with great delight, that Dühring’s investigation of the infinite is also plagiarised – this time from Kant.

Engels proceeds to remonstrate with Dühring’s notion that there can exist, "the counted infinite numerical series". He challenges Dühring to do the "clever trick of counting it". This again invokes Hegel’s spurious or bad infinity, because by a "counted" infinite series Dühring intends to indicate a finished, completed, existing infinity, a progress to infinity which is completed with the capturing, so to speak, of an actual, "counted" infinity. This is not the infinite process of counting, which is comprised only of finites. Engels can see how Dühring slips between acceptable notions of an infinite series and the bad or spurious infinity of an actually existing "self-equal state".

The distinction, however, is subtle. Engels attacks the inconsistencies and vagaries in Dühring’s verbal gyrations around concepts of an infinite series, and these attacks could easily be mistaken for attacks on the concept of an infinite series as such, and this is what Woods does. Nevertheless, two paragraphs later, Engels plainly states that infinity is a contradiction and is "composed of nothing but finites".

It is in these paragraphs – to add further confusion – that Engels makes a clear assertion of infinite space and time. He does so because that was the overwhelmingly accepted scientific conception of the period, and he keeps his dialectical insights in check where physical evidence is lacking. But Engels does not hesitate to call attention to the passage in Hegel’s Encyclopaedia where he calls infinite space a "barren declamation", and modern science would tend to agree.

In his Encyclopaedia, paragraph § 93, Hegel briefly refers to the false concept of a progression towards infinity, as opposed to a process which can be infinitely repeated but which gets no nearer to infinity. He then says:

In the attempt to contemplate such an infinite, our thought, we are commonly informed, must sink exhausted. It is true indeed that we must abandon the unending contemplation, not however because the occupation is too sublime, but because it is too tedious. It is tedious to expatiate in the contemplation of this infinite progression, because the same thing is constantly recurring. We lay down a limit: then we pass it: next we have a limit once more, and so on for ever. All this is but superficial alternation, which never leaves the region of the finite behind.

To suppose that by stepping out and away into that infinity we release ourselves from the finite, is in truth but to seek the release which comes by flight. But the man who flees is not yet free: in fleeing he is still conditioned by that from which he flees.

If it be also said that the infinite is unattainable, the statement is true, but only because to the idea of infinity has been attached the circumstance of being simply and solely negative. With such empty and other-world stuff philosophy has nothing to do. What philosophy has to do with is always something concrete and in the highest sense present. (Encyclopaedia, para 94)

Hegel returns us to the concrete from false notions of an infinite progression through space and time. Hegel applies the term "spurious" or "bad" infinity not only to a notion that an infinity of space actually exists, but also to the supposedly "sublime" descriptions of a "progress" to infinity through a tedious repetition, for instance of galaxies beyond galaxies stretching to infinity. His point is that there is no such thing as an independently existing infinity and one does not make any progress towards it.

It is remarkable that Woods missed this since Engels specifically refers to it at the beginning of the chapter from which Woods quotes. In fact, Woods twice uses the same large quote from Engels to back up his assertions about his notion of infinity. (Reason in Revolt, p218 and p358) But he twice stops short of the paragraph which immediately follows and casts an entirely new light on what preceded it:

The limitedness of the material world leads no less to contradictions than its unlimitedness, and every attempt to get over these contradictions leads, as we have seen, to new and worse contradictions. It is just because infinity is a contradiction that it is an infinite process, unrolling endlessly in time and in space. The removal of the contradiction would be the end of infinity. Hegel saw this quite correctly, and for that reason treated with well-merited contempt the gentlemen who subtilised over this contradiction. (Anti-Dühring, Part V, p66)

Here Engels refines his support for infinite space and time with Hegel’s concept of the infinite (as being comprised of nothing but finites) clearly in mind. This passage bears some, slightly forced, comparison with modern science, which currently calculates that the universe will expand indefinitely – an infinite process, unrolling endlessly.

Cosmology

For Engels, the "Kantian theory of the origin of all existing celestial bodies", which we discussed in the chapter, Kant’s cosmology and Engels’ commentary, means not just that the galaxies of our universe have a history in time, coming into being at some definite time in the past, but also that they will pass away.

"Nature," Engels emphasises, "does not just exist, but comes into being and passes away." And he discusses exactly this passing away, basing himself on some scientific speculation of the period.

And when such a solar system has completed its life history and succumbs to the fate of all that is finite, death, what then?

Later, Engels adds:

Surely, all this demonstrates that Engels would have expressed little surprise if told that our universe was discovered to have a history in time – a birth perhaps ten to twenty billion years ago? Surely he would say that Kant predicted it centuries ago?

In fact, in note form, he did: "Kant – the theory of the origin of the universe before Laplace". (Dialectics of Nature, p273) Engels emphasises "before" because the work of Laplace provided a proof of Kant’s insight, at least in relation to the development of solar systems, now typically termed the Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis. This note appears in the fragment headed "Büchner", which is thought to be the first fragment or set of notes which Engels made for the composition of Dialectics of Nature, written in 1873.

But Engels has more to say on the matter. One must allow for some naturally out-dated science and scientific terminology, such as the use of the term "motion", which was the very latest terminology at the time but was shortly to be superseded by the term "energy". We also remember the fact that Engels predates Einstein and Hubble, both of whom gave a much more definite material meaning to time and space, matter and energy, so that they can only arise together. Making this reasonable allowance, Engels would not encounter many objections from modern scientists in seeking a substratum from which our universe emerged:

Leaving aside the exact terminology of ‘matter’ and ‘motion’, most scientists would not deny the main thrust behind such speculation, which is that whatever substratum gave rise to our universe, the processes are natural and are likely to reoccur. The difference is that scientists today do not take for granted that any newly emerging universe needs to have the same physical constants, so that it may not be comprised of energy, matter, space and time in the way that our universe is.

Does not Engels’ approach show that Woods’ scheme has no history in time? That there we find just an endless repetition: "only galaxies and more galaxies stretching out to infinity"?

And does not Engels also see that there are processes going on inside these stars? That they and the galaxies they inhabit are consuming and changing their elemental constituent atoms, so that they must have a history in time? This history is written in the current make-up of the elements (for instance hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, silicon, calcium, and iron) found in stars, which can be detected in their light. It tells us whether they are first generation stars, or stars that are consuming in part the remnants of a previous generation of stars. Observation can in practice tell how old galaxies are. How could an infinite universe be a never-ending replication of our current state - galaxies stretching to infinity? Would this not be a rather static viewpoint?

Woods poses a challenge, which might as well be directed at Engels: "The problem is: how to get from nothing to something? If one is religiously minded, there is no problem; God created the universe from nothing." (Reason in Revolt, p210)

In his notes, Engels quotes Angelo Secchi without comment:

Engels’ reply in general terms is the same reply that modern science and materialist scientists generally give: "we do not know", although there are many interesting possibilities. (Undoubtedly, there are some scientists who, despite investigating materialist reality, hold religious beliefs and in some cases support ‘creationist’ theories.) But Woods forgets that coming in to being and passing away is one of the fundamental laws of dialectics. From what substratum, we do not know, but "Nature," says Engels, "does not just exist, but comes into being and passes away." (Dialectics of Nature, p38) From a purely dialectical point of view, this presents no problems.

Engels shows that dialectical materialism refuses to "conceive of the universe as infinite" except perhaps as an infinite process which is composed of the finite and, perhaps, is comprised of universes which come into being and will have an end.

But as for a cyclical universe, such as the theory that Woods endorsed in 2002, the infinite repetition of Big Bangs, Engels refutes it in advance – its authors, Steinhardt and Turok, now recognise their mistake here – when he says that: