LCDM, denial, and cognitive dissonance.

[Michael Mozina]

It seems to me that the primary mechanism used to defend LCMD proponents from cognitive dissonance is pure denial.

For instance, they seem to be in pure denial of the fact that they botched the baryonic mass estimates of that Bullet Cluster study in 2006 by epic amounts, massive enough in fact to eliminate any need for exotic forms of matter. Not only did they underestimate the number of whole stars in those galaxies by a whopping factor of between 3 and 20 times, they also underestimated the number of stars which are shared between galaxies in a cluster, and they underestimated the amount of ordinary gas and hot plasma surrounding each galaxy as well. All that is well documented by later studies. The only way they can deal with those studies is to pretend they don't matter, and to remain in pure denial of those later studies and the implication of those later studies as it relates to their claim to have "proof' of dark matter. They only have "proof" that their 2006 baryonic mass estimates were utterly worthless and way off. This is verified by the fact that after spending billions of dollars in the lab on their invisible matter snipe hunt, they've found exactly *nothing* which actually supports their claim, and the standard particle physics model has passed every possible "test" they could come up with.

Likewise, quasars do not show any signs of time dilation as predicted in LCDM, an observation which outright falsifies their redshift interpretation and that falsifies expansion models in general. The only way for them to deal with that information is to simply ignore it, pretend it doesn't matter, and remain in pure denial of the implications of that information.

We also see a similar form of denial as it relates to inflation. Guth used three basic arguments to support inflation when he wrote the theory. He claimed that inflation 'explained" why the universe was homogeneously distributed, it "explained" why the universe was "flat", and it supposedly 'explained' why there were no unicorns, er "monopoles" to be found in nature. Unicorns and monopoles simply do not exist in nature and their non-existence needs no "explanation" to start with, so that argument is simply absurd. Penrose demonstrated that it is 10 to the 100th power *less* likely that we'd get a flat universe with inflation than without it, so that argument is also falsified mathematically. Planck data sets also show a noticeable hemispheric difference in the CMB which demonstrates that it is *not* homogeneous to start with as Guth claimed! All three of Guth's supposed "reasons" for proposing inflation were either invalid to start with (monopoles), or they have since been shown to be false. Again, the mainstream simply *avoids* dealing with those problems. Denial seems to be the only way they can keep themselves from experiencing cognitive dissonance.

In short, pure denial and bubble gum is the only thing that holds LCDM together in 2017 which explains why the mainstream continues to ban everyone who publicly questions their falsified dogma, and that is why they have to avoid all the observations that falsify their claims.

LCDM proponents are entirely dependent on pure denial as their own means of defense against cognitive dissonance.

[JHL]

Hopefully related to the LCDM; is the search for the fundamental particle plausibly going to end, I assume it's hoped, in a particle so fundamental that it has no properties? Aside from the implication it'd also have no state, is it possible, even in the LCDM mentality of virtually indefinite, God Particle reductionism, that a no-property particle would constitute the basis for existence?

Where this goes is obvious and I'm sure well-discussed: A property-less - and presumably state-less - Original Boson, or whatever it could conceivably be, could, as the First Thing, not be acted upon. As such, it could not evolve. Hence, no Big Bang.

On the other hand, it it had even one property that could be acted upon, it'd not be the first Thing. That action would be the First Thing.

Either way, and as certainly as this must have been discussed, it seems that at least philosophically the hunt for such a Prime Mover is itself flawed. What has no function cannot function, and conversely, the first or original Thing, whatever it is, has to be as self-spawning an entity as it is a self-moving or self-energizing Thing. It is therefore utterly autonomous, spontaneous, and self-contained, all fantastically bizarre aspects of existence in the Void that's about to become Something without the means with which to do so.

I'm sure big bangers have this sorted into a nice pigeonhole already but it does seem to raise a unique problem, at least in non- steady state circles. It would seem Aquinas was right...

[jacmac]

JHL:

Either way, and as certainly as this must have been discussed, it seems that at least philosophically the hunt for such a Prime Mover is itself flawed. What has no function cannot function, and conversely, the first or original Thing, whatever it is, has to be as self-spawning an entity as it is a self-moving or self-energizing Thing. It is therefore utterly autonomous, spontaneous, and self-contained, all fantastically bizarre aspects of existence in the Void that's about to become Something without the means with which to do so.

This reminds me of something from Buckminster Fuller " Unity is plural and, at minimum, is two"

[Michael Mozina]

The mainstream's denial problems aren't limited to cosmology by the way. It's the same deal with solar physics. They are still mystified by a hot corona, something Birkeland not only predicted, he simulated it in his lab. Worse yet, SDO revealed that their convection predictions were off by two whole orders of magnitude and they've done nothing over the past five years to incorporate those new observations, or modify their model in any way. They're still peddling their broken solar model to unsuspecting children while they bury their collective heads in the sand.

The net effect of the convection model being so screwed up is that they lost their power source for "magnetic reconnection" in the solar atmosphere. It also makes their claims about hydrogen and iron staying mixed together in the solar interior more than a tad suspect. A jet speed convection process might light and heavy elements mixed together, but not a walking speed convection process.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/09/ ... projected/

Pretty much any observation that doesn't jive with the mainstream dogma is simply ignored, and swept under the rug. In this case they know for a fact that their solar model is broken, but they have no logical way to fix it without breaking other parts of it, so they simply ignore the problem entirely. Same denial dance, different tune.

[Michael Mozina]

If ever there was a truly outrageous example of cognitive dissonance in action in astronomy, "The curse of the black holes" on Space's deepest secrets was it.

It was almost comical watching the most recent episode of Space's deepest secrets. The episode was called "The curse of the black holes". The whole presentation was about as goofy and self-conflicted as it gets. The cognitive dissonance got particularly laughable when they tried to explain the existence of supermassive black holes that are supposedly 12+ billion solar masses large, in the very early universe.

Obviously none of their mathematical models could or would produce such massive objects so early in the universe, so they pretty much threw out logic and known physics altogether, along with all their LCDM mathematical models. Michelle Thaller flat out admitted that their math doesn't explain them, so basically they just "made up" whatever cockamamie concept they could come up with.

My favorite example of cognitive dissonance was the claim that perfectly spherical clouds managed to collapse themselves directly into massive black holes without first forming stars, or small black holes first. They literally threw out their solar formation models entirely, and their black hole formation models entirely while evoking a perfectly symmetrical cloud collapse scenario. Never mind the fact that a star *should* have formed by gravity and pushed away the in-flowing material when the star formed way before it even got big enough to form a black hole. Never mind the fact that their models then predict that the star should have then died quickly and formed an ordinary small black hole. They just skipped both of those steps entirely and tossed out their formation models completely. They claimed it didn't form a star or a standard sized black hole at all first, but instead formed a massive black hole all at once, in one fell swoop. No real explanation was given as to why a star didn't form first, and they needed to resort to special pleading the entire time, particularly as it relates to the perfectly spherical collapse process.

The other ridiculous concept they prattled on about was the claim that "dark matter" formed massive "dark stars", that were simultaneously "cool", but also emitted massive amounts of gamma rays at the core from "dark matter annihilation" that supposedly kept the whole thing from collapsing until it ran out of dark matter. Why it ran out dark matter so fast nobody really explained. They then formed an instant "supermassive" black hole around a couple billion solar masses, which was still about a order of magnitude too small to explain the largest objects they claim to see in the early universe.

They then went into claiming that 'hot dog" (very dusty) galaxies supposedly merge and eat each other to make them bigger still and they ate each other at prolific rates to become so massive so fast. They literally had to invent three or four different hokey ideas to even get *close* to being able to explain such massive objects.

The whole episode was about as goofy and self conflicted as it gets. It was pure cognitive dissonance in every conceivable way. Not only is "dark matter" invisible when they want it to be, it also emits gamma rays that supposedly explained why dark stars don't collapse into ordinary small sized black holes first. They literally evoked a whole handwavy sort of ad hoc physics that is presumably related to dark matter to explain these objects. There were no real details of course, nor any math to support any of it, just handwaves galore, and self-conflicted nonsense about dark stars being "cool", yet "hot" in the core while basically admitting that the whole concept was pure speculation. Holy convoluted nonsense batman.

I've seen handwaves, and I've seen ridiculous handwaves, but the whole dark star claim was about as desperate as it gets. LCDM theory spectacularly fails every logical "test" at high redshift values, so they were just making up as many lame excuses as they could, and throwing every ridiculous idea at the wall to see what might stick. There's apparently zero math to support any of it of course, but hey they don't give a rat's backside about their own lack of mathematical models. They just complain about everyone else's perceived lack of math. Sheesh. What pure hypocrisy on a stick.

I really don't think they have a clue how to actually "explain" any observation in space at this point. They rely almost exclusively on handwavy claims about "dark" stuff to supposedly "explain' virtually everything they see, and they evoke pseudoscience to explain the rest of it. It's like watching a classroom of kindergartners try to explain how a car works, while evoking magic half of the time.

Oy Vey, what a self-conflicted joke of an episode. They obviously can't explain the early universe in any way shape or form, so they just make it up as they go. There's really no rhyme nor reason to any of it, it's just speculation mixed with dark magic and zero supporting math.

You'd *think* that their lack of a logical explanation for all these high z value observations, and all those failed predictions would cause them to reevaluate their redshift interpretations, but nooooooooo. They'd rather just wallow around in pure dark ignorance and pretend that they know what their talking about in spite of all those failures. It was about the most extreme example of cognitive dissonance that I've seen thus far on TV. It's worth watching IMO if only for the giggles.

It's only fitting I suppose that I watched that episode on 'dark matter day". At least they picked the right day as 'dark matter day'. Psst: It's definitely a dark magic trick, not a physics treat.