Let's not talk about the Big Bang

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don't mean how it started, but since it exists now as it does, then it must have started at some point, yes?

That is unknown.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

That is unknown.

Nonsense, BBT says it started 13.8 billion years ago!

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Nonsense, BBT says it started 13.8 billion years ago!

No, it doesn't. That is a popular belief. But we haven't observed that it started. That idea comes from theoretical physics and not the other kind of physics.
If we assume the universe is orderly, we can infer that it started, but we haven't observed that it started.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

In order to start to exist you have to be embedded in a time dimension, but the dimension is just a direction through the space-time 'object'.

So how does one get embedded in a time dimension in order to start to exist, if one hasn't started to exist yet due to not yet being embedded in the time dimension?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So how does one get embedded in a time dimension in order to start to exist, if one hasn't started to exist yet due to not yet being embedded in the time dimension?

Well, you stop thinking about it. Because every time you think about the universe, your thinking causes the universe to be as how you think it is. That is how powerful your thinking is.
In effect how you think, determines how the universe is. You just have to think and then the universe is, how you think.

 

[ratiocinator]

If spacetime did not start, how did the universal space begin, and continue to exist?

I'm really not sure how to make this much simpler. In the GR BB model, space and time are not separate things. There is no universal space. Time does not tick away in the background regardless. These are outdated Newtonian ideas that have been falsified by evidence.

Instead we have the space-time, which is a kind of geometrical 'object'. What you and me perceive as time is just a direction through the space-time and, if we are moving relative to each other, not even the same direction for both of us.

Surely you can see that if we follow a direction through an object and find that there comes a point at which you can go no further, you might say colloquially that the object "starts" there (in that direction), but that's not telling you anything much about why the object exists and what caused it. It doesn't mean that the object sprang into existence there. Looking for the reason the Earth exists at the North Pole is not a sensible strategy just because you can't go any further north from there.

The same applies to going back in time through the space-time and finding you can't go further that 13.7 bya.

So how does one get embedded in a time dimension in order to start to exist, if one hasn't started to exist yet due to not yet being embedded in the time dimension?

Why are you assuming that the space-time needs to start to exist?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I'm really not sure how to make this much simpler. In the GR BB model, space and time are not separate things. There is no universal space. Time does not tick away in the background regardless. These are outdated Newtonian ideas that have been falsified by evidence.

Instead we have the space-time, which is a kind of geometrical 'object'. What you and me perceive as time is just a direction through the space-time and, if we are moving relative to each other, not even the same direction for both of us.

Surely you can see that if we follow a direction through an object and find that there comes a point at which you can go no further, you might say colloquially that the object "starts" there (in that direction), but that's not telling you anything much about why the object exists and what caused it. It doesn't mean that the object sprang into existence there. Looking for the reason the Earth exists at the North Pole is not a sensible strategy just because you can't go any further north from there.

The same applies to going back in time through the space-time and finding you can't go further that 13.7 bya.


Why are you assuming that the space-time needs to start to exist?

Why are you assuming the spacetime universe never needed to begin existing.

 

[ratiocinator]

Why are you assuming the spacetime universe never needed to begin.

The model, tested against the evidence, does not require or include it.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

The model, tested against the evidence, does not require or include it.

Ok, so you've been joking this whole time like mikkel.

 

[ratiocinator]

Ok, so you've been joking this whole time like mikkel.

You are, of course, free to dismiss and laugh at evidence and tested science but doing so after you have offered zero reasoning or evidence for your own position seems to be the amusing thing to me.

The joke, I think, is rather on you...

 

[ratiocinator]

Ok, so you've been joking this whole time like mikkel.

Also note:

Abuse of the "Funny" Rating

Denizens of the forums, A while back an update to the forum software introduced a "likes" system as an alternative to our once beloved frubals. You may have noticed that negative ratings are not an option, which was an intentional decision by the site owner to support the forum mission: As a...

www.religiousforums.com

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Ok, so you've been joking this whole time like mikkel.

I am using in the end skepticism on you. Now my style is the absurd as per reductio ad absurdum and that is not really a joke. But yes, sometimes I make jokes,

Here is the trick. If you find a limit in your thinking, you will experience that as a negative, but if you assume everything must make sense in a positive sense, you dismiss when it doesn't.
So as absurd as per above for reality is one, I just answer two. And then I notice if you get that it is a falsification of the fact that reality is one.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

You are, of course, free to dismiss and laugh at evidence and tested science but doing so after you have offered zero reasoning or evidence for your own position seems to be the amusing thing to me.

The joke, I think, is rather on you...

My God, you are serious! Ok, how does one get embedded in a time dimension in order to start to exist, if one hasn't started to exist yet due to not yet being embedded in the time dimension?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Also note:

Abuse of the "Funny" Rating

Denizens of the forums, A while back an update to the forum software introduced a "likes" system as an alternative to our once beloved frubals. You may have noticed that negative ratings are not an option, which was an intentional decision by the site owner to support the forum mission: As a...

www.religiousforums.com

I seriously thought you were being funny, how is that abuse?

 

[ratiocinator]

Ok, how does one get embedded in a time dimension in order to start to exist, if one hasn't started to exist yet due to not yet being embedded in the time dimension?

You already asked that. It is based on a false premiss, namely, that the space-time needs to start to exist.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

You already asked that. It is based on a false premiss, namely, that the space-time needs to start to exist.

Ok, in for a penny, in for a pound.

You do realize that time is not an independent entity, it is a concept to represent the continuity of existence. Think of 3D space as existing, and then project the continuity of that existence as a time dimension, bingo spacetime.

Now there is no time without existence, and there is no existence without time.

So if spacetime did not begin, we would not be talking to each other, but it did.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I beg your pardon, you are claiming there was not a beginning to universal spacetime?

Depends on whether the singularity which the Big Bang model traces back to, indicates a boundary condition or a historic event. If the former, it need have no precursor, and no cause. But any speculation about the universe prior to approximately 300,000 years after the BB remains exactly that; speculation. And physicists are well into the territory of metaphysics when speculating thus.

 

[ratiocinator]

You do realize that time is not an independent entity, it is a concept to represent the continuity of existence. Think of 3D space as existing, and then project the continuity of that existence as a time dimension, bingo spacetime.

Now there is no time without existence, and there is no existence without time.

So if spacetime did not begin, how come we are talking to each other?

The problem is that you're starting from some sort of intuitive ideas of your own instead of looking at the theory that has been produced from, and tested against, the evidence.

I'm not making this stuff up. It's standard general relativity and the resulting cosmological model.

First, throw your intuition in the bin. Now, GR treats the space-time as a single, 4-dimensional manifold. Time is a direction through it - actually an observer specific direction because different observers will see different directions as their time axes. The manifold is a geometrical 'object'. This is how all the calculations are done in relativity, how all the predictions are made. Time has no other meaning than the observer dependent directions through the manifold.

So, talking about the manifold itself coming into existence is meaningless. One would have to postulate another time dimension and, presumably, some meta-space-time manifold to embed ours in, then you'd be asking for a meta-meta-manifold and quickly disappear into an infinite regress.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Depends on whether the singularity which the Big Bang model traces back to, indicates a boundary condition or a historic event. If the former, it need have no precursor, and no cause. But any speculation about the universe prior to approximately 300,000 years after the BB remains exactly that; speculation.

This is insane. Was there a beginning to the universe and if so, was that beginning needed for the universe to exist as it does today, that is all?

 

[shunyadragon]

Nope, you're wrong. I don't "ignore science." Furthermore, what do you think of Richard Feynman? I'm sure you must have heard of him, haven't you?

Yes I know of Richard Feynman. He is a famous Physicist. Jewish atheist. He is famous for his work in Quantum Mechanics, and his ability to popularize science.