Strange

Apart from the fact that the old "cogito ergo sum" argument is seriously flawed, this says nothing about the consciousness being independent of the body nor does it provide any support for a creator or supreme being or higher power. I know that was Descartes intention but, despite the fact he was smarter than you or me, his argument basically boils down to "God exists because I believe he does". Which, surprisingly, is the same argument you are making. And, basically, all "logical" arguments for the existence of god(s) are the same; they only "work" if you already believe in the conclusion and are therefore willing to overlook the flaws in the logic. Anyone who doesn't already believe which just stand by open-mouthed thinking, "What? Really? You think that's rational?"

Maybe c has changed and the value of pi has changed by just the right amount to keep the result the same ...

So you are going to invoke some unknown, new physics that has no evidence but is able to "magically" change the spectrum of light midway so that we can't detect changes in the fundamental constants. If these constants changed enough, then either stars would not form (because fusion wouldn't happen) or their behaviour (e.g. temperature, lifetime, etc) would be very different. We don't see any evidence for that either. But maybe something is messing up our observations so that it just looks like there are normal stars at these distances.... I am not forcing you to do anything. I have provided a link that explains how the spectrum of hydrogen depends on alpha, c and other constants.

No, expansion was quite well explained without dark energy. Dark energy is hypothesised to explain the (unexpected) acceleration of expansion. I don't see why the existence of an edge of the universe would have an effect on the speed of light. We don't know if the universe is finite or infinite. But in current models, there is no edge or boundary, either way. That's not what I said. There is pressure countering gravity in a star. There is no such pressure in the universe as a whole (which you appeared to be suggesting). Yep. Exactly. It is just matter. At she point in time, the matter organised itself in such a way as to form what we call "life". Life was not always there. We are not photons.

And you are quite obviously wrong. What is being observed is the spectrum from distant (and therefore a long time in the past) stars. The values of c, alpha, etc would affect the spectrum at the time it was generated. The spectrum could not magically change as it passed through space. No one is against it in principle. But tests have shown it has't changed. The fact that you reject these observations is irrelevant. Experiments have been done which could have detected some types of supersymmetric particles. The fact that none have been detected yet rules out certain classes of theories. Eventually we will either detect such particles or rule out all theories that allow for them. That is how science works.

But it is still just your personal belief. That doesn't make it real or true. And the consciousness in this human doesn't understand or belief any such thing. As far as this consciousness is concerned, you are just making it up.

Any evidence for that claim? Do you have any evidence that the consciousness exists independently from everything around it? But even if it were true (and I see zero reason to believe it) it doesn't logically follow that a higher power is responsible. So you keep saying. But I don't find your repeated statements of belief very convincing. If you had some evidence to support these claims ...

What is the relevance of opening the valve to reduce the pressure? How does that affect the following questions? Is this before or after the pressure is reduced in the cylinder? As measured by what frame of reference? As far as the people on the spacecraft are concerned, there will obviously be no change. How would an observer moving relative to the spacecraft measure the pressure? As measured on the ship, nothing changes. The cylinder is 2 m long, the pressure is 20atm, the time taken is 200 seconds. As measured on the ship, nothing changes. The cylinder is 2 m long, the pressure is 20atm, the time taken is 200 seconds.

Yes, physics may have been different. The speed of light may have been different. But we have no way of testing that (at present). 400 years ago we were not able to make observations of stars that are billions of light years away. Now we can. That doesn't change the fact that the speed of light and other fundamental constants AT THAT TIME would have affected the behaviour of atoms and photons at the time. When we observe the photons (now) we would see that the atoms behaved differently then. (We don't.) Here is an article on how the fine structure constant affects the spectrum of hydrogen, and how it is related to c and other constants: https://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Info/Constants/alpha.html I suppose once could come up with a complicated story where all of the constants in nature changed together so that everything behaved identically even though the speed of light was different. As this would, necessarily, be indistinguishable from all the constants being, well ... constant, then Occam's Razor comes into play. And, at the time scales and distance accessible to us, we see that the speed of light doesn't change. That is all science can say. Yes, there may be unobservable situations where the speed of light changes. But because they are unobservable, that is not science. And you have been given the answers we get when this is tested. Your refusal to accept them is your problem, not science's.

You can't. SR only applies locally. You need to use GR to compare frames of reference on that scale. And GR has been amazingly successful in that regard. Nonsense. Alpha determines the behaviour of the atoms that emitted the light. Correct. But then you need to come up with a model for what those circumstances are and how it would change the predictions of SR. Without that you are just imaging that there might be invisible flying unicorns in some part of the world we haven't explored yet.

What reasoning? So far all your "reasoning" is circular and/or based on your existing belief.

What evidence do you have for that? But, of course, a photon is neither a particle nor a wave, so the point seems moot.

But until you can define what those "special circumstance" are and make a prediction of the effect they have and then propose an experiment to test it, you are not doing science. You can imagine all sots of things might be possible. Maybe the speed light changes when we are not measuring it. Or perhaps it is not invariant on very short timescales. Or maybe ... But if you have no evidence for these random ideas, and no way of testing them, and all the evidence we currently have shows the opposite, then the speculation is a bit pointless.

Nothing is propelling the expansion. In the same way that after you throw a ball, or launch a satellite, nothing propels its continued movement. Apart from the fact that there is no centre and no outside, all particles are flowing "outwards" (away from one another) on large enough scales. The Big Bang is not seen as an explosion. And if it were an implosion, then wouldn't everything be getting closer together (isn't that what "implosion" means)? I don't see how that follows. Can you expand on that? What sort of attraction is this? And how does it not cancel out like gravity would in this context? I'm afraid I can't see how this follows, either. Can you explain why some external attractive force would cause a constant speed of light? But the universe would have to be much smaller and denser (comparable to a star?) before it had enough pressure to prevent gravitational collapse. So there isn't any pressure countering gravity as in a star. (Although gravity can slow expansion, depending on the density of the universe.) I don't follow the logic of that either, I'm afraid ... What evidence would support or disprove this idea?

That is not really how science works. We can say, for example, that electrons have a charge of e without testing every single electron in the universe. That IS looking at alpha hundreds, thousands or even billions of ears in the past.We are looking at the processes with generated the photons. If the speed of light were not invariant, then tests of special relativity would not match the predictions (which are based on c being invariant). People would love to find evidence that SR is wrong or incomplete and so tests have been done to extraordinary levels of accuracy and they are perfectly consistent with the speed of light being invariant. Because c is a factor in so many things (e=mc2, for an obvious example) so the nuclear fusion processes in distant stars would be different than in modern stars. And we don't observe that.

Forces are mediated by virtual photons. This means (as I understand it) that there is no minimum value or range limit on the force.

Why not? This is true of electromagnetic forces.

I remember seeing something like that suggested as an alternative to inflation.

Do you have any evidence for that? Or are just supporting one belief with another? A classic example of the fallacy of begging the question

But, as we have explanations for human existence without invoking a higher power, then your undetectable force is not necessary (apart from making you feel good).

I think so. (Note: it is generally a good idea to provide a reference to anything you quote.)

Does that say anything about dark energy? No. And quantum fluctuations already have an explanation. If you replace that, then you are saying that all of quantum theory is wrong. Good luck with that.

Not in physics, though. They are used to describe different and (as far as I know) independent things. One or other (or neither) could be true. It happens that they both are. Note that "constant" doesn't just refer to changes over time but to any changes (if the speed of light changed for any reason; then all observers would still measure it to be the same; i.e. it would still be invariant). Maybe someone else has better answers to your questions....

Only if you believe in that higher power. So you are making a circular argument: those who believe in a higher power will see existence as a result of that higher power (and those who don’t, won’t). And it is only some humans perspective. A lot of people don’t share it.

If it were a force at work, you would be able to measure its effects. Only people who already believe in a god or gods. No one else is going to reason that way.