Scientists actually do know everything about the universe.

[Rick O'Shez]

What the escaped prisoner who saw the Sun did in response.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Nothing cannot exist, of course, as that would be a self-contradiction. That doesn't mean that time goes back forever, though. Nothing can come before time without also being an oxymoron, so questions like "what was there 25 seconds before the beginning of time?" are as nonsensical as "what does a piece of aluminum smaller than an aluminum atom look like"? This will be true regardless of how the universe came into being.

You admit 'nothing' cannot exist....to which I agree. But there is probably no better theoretical definition of nothing than the absence of time....yes?

 

[godnotgod]

I've seen the Big Bang referred to in two ways: (1) the sudden expansion of our universe very early after it began (inflation) or (2) the the very moment that the universe came into being. In the first case, time already existed. In the second case, the Big Bang was the very first moment of time.

Does this really make sense? If time already 'existed', as you suggest in case #1, then the Universe must already have existed as well, meaning that there must be some reference against which Time is measured. If you are going to argue 'previous universes', then we have the problem of infinite regression. It's a gnarly question. But let us not forget our bearings here: time is but a conceptual gridwork placed over Reality, and not something inherent to Reality.

And if the BB was the very first moment in time, then it must have occurred in not-Space/Time. The only thing I know of that occurs in not-Space/Time is Consciousness.

By "finite" I mean a finite amount of time has elapsed since the Big Bang.

You are referring to the measurement of movement as time, correct? In Reality, when stripped of this conceptual framework, the BB is not a past event, as in 'time has elapsed since', but something always occurring in the present.

Nothing cannot exist, of course, as that would be a self-contradiction.

Absolute Nothingness is neither existence nor non-existence. It is the negation of negation.

 

[godnotgod]

"....and that's because The Sun has wiped out all doubt."

(BTW, a real Buddhist would say: "I neither believe, nor not-believe")

 

[Parsimony]

You admit 'nothing' cannot exist....to which I agree. But there is probably no better theoretical definition of nothing than the absence of time....yes?

Absence of anything at all.

Does this really make sense? If time already 'existed', as you suggest in case #1, then the Universe must already have existed as well, meaning that there must be some reference against which Time is measured. If you are going to argue 'previous universes', then we have the problem of infinite regression. It's a gnarly question. But let us not forget our bearings here: time is but a conceptual gridwork placed over Reality, and not something inherent to Reality.

Relativity disagrees. Time is every bit as fundamental an aspect of reality as space, matter and energy are.

And if the BB was the very first moment in time, then it must have occurred in not-Space/Time. The only thing I know of that occurs in not-Space/Time is Consciousness.

There is no such thing as in "not-space-time", because space itself is necessary for the concept of "in" or "out". No space equals no in or out.

You are referring to the measurement of movement as time, correct? In Reality, when stripped of this conceptual framework, the BB is not a past event, as in 'time has elapsed since', but something always occurring in the present.

If you strip time out of the equation then terms like present, future and past all become meaningless. You can't do that. Time is just as important as space is when understanding the universe.

Absolute Nothingness is neither existence nor non-existence. It is the negation of negation.

It is nonexistence by definition.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Absence of anything at all.

Yes...that's my point....we agree there cannot be nothing....but in fact nothing is presumed to be the state from which everything that now exists came from! Big bang 'something from nothing' miracles are just silly human projections of their dualistic mind..

 

[Parsimony]

Yes...that's my point....we agree there cannot be nothing....but in fact nothing is presumed to be the state from which everything that now exists came from!

That's not how I look at it. Since nothingness never existed, there never was a state of nothingness from which everything arose. There has always been something for as long as time has existed.

 

[Parsimony]

But you had previously said that the absence of time would imply nothingness!

No, I said the absence of anything would be nothingness. You can, at least conceptually, have a universe where there are dimensions of space but no time. It would just be a frozen universe where nothing changes.

And does not big bang theory imply time came into being from no time?

No, it doesn't.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Not flat in the 2 dimensional sense....I think it means it continues spatially in all directions...apparently infinitely?

I sometimes wonder, how small does small go? How large does large go?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

No, I said the absence of anything would be nothingness. You can, at least conceptually, have a universe where there are dimensions of space but no time. It would just be a frozen universe where nothing changes.

No, it doesn't.

Sorry...I deleted my post before you had posted your response...the reason being that I saw you were not implying aa something from nothing scenario. I was in fact responding to you all bases on this earlier comment.... "]I've seen the Big Bang referred to in two ways: (1) the sudden expansion of our universe very early after it began (inflation) or (2) the the very moment that the universe came into being. In the first case, time already existed. In the second case, the Big Bang was the very first moment of time." In the second way....it reads to me as time coming into existence from not time...yes?

 

[Twilight Hue]

Father Ted "The Mainland" - Ted and Dougal meet R…:

*grin*

 

[Parsimony]

In the second way....it reads to me as time coming into existence from not time...yes?

Again, no it doesn't. Time having a beginning doesn't mean that it came into existence from something else. By definition, there is no such thing as "before time" and therefore there was nothing "before time" from which time could have come. The beginning of time is the beginning of existence as the word "beginning" is meaningless without time.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I sometimes wonder, how small does small go? How large does large go?

Well from my reading of zpe theory, the em wavelengths goes down to the infinitesimal according to some researchers, hence the infinite energy density of the space vacuum...and upwards according to my understanding...to infinity..

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Again, no it doesn't. Time having a beginning doesn't mean that it came into existence from something else. By definition, there is no such thing as "before time" and therefore there was nothing "before time" from which time could have come. The beginning of time is the beginning of existence as the word "beginning" is meaningless without time.

Oh come on...the argument that there was nothing before time because there was no before is plain silly...please do not take me for being so dense as to buy it....it is an illogical and inane argument.. .If time and the universe once did not exist...and now it does...there had to be a beginning... A beginning implies a transition from one state to another..like throwing a switch.. At time = zero, there was a transition from a state of no time existing to a state of time existing...

 

[Parsimony]

Oh come on...the argument that there was nothing before time because there was no before is plain silly...please do not take me for being so dense as to buy it....it is an illogical and inane argument..

If you think the word "before" is meaningful without time, then you obviously have a definition of time that is different from the majority.

If time and the universe once did not exist...and now it does...there had to be a beginning...

There was never a time when time did not exist, by definition.

A beginning implies a transition from one state to another..like throwing a switch.. At time = zero, there was a transition from a state of no time existing to a state of time existing...

How can you have a transition of any kind at all without time? Can you give a known example of a transition that doesn't take any time to occur?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

If you think the word "before" is meaningful without time, then you obviously have a definition of time that is different from the majority.

There was never a time when time did not exist, by definition.

How can you have a transition of any kind at all without time? Can you give a known example of a transition that doesn't take any time to occur?

Ok, the word "before" has no meaning in the context of timelessness, but that is not what is being said, except as a figure of speech to denote that time came into existence from timelessness....timeless first..then came time second...

So I agree...there was never a time when time did not exist....and likewise....there was never no time when time existed, by definition.

So the transition involves time...agreed...but the transition step goes from no time to time...that is the point!

So having gotten rid of any misunderstandings on the afore, we can cut to the chase....you are saying that the state of no time does not preclude the existence of space..and therefore this timeless space state once existed and from that came the universe. Can you please elaborate as to what timeless space is?

 

[Parsimony]

Ok, the word "before" has no meaning in the context of timelessness, but that is not what is being said, except as a figure of speech to denote that time came into existence from timelessness....timeless first..then came time second...

But timelessness can't be first because you can't have a first without time. Time had to come first. The figure of speech is flawed because it relies on an analogy with time itself. No time means no order of events and no first, second, third, etc. You have to have time to make sense of any of it.

So the transition involves time...agreed...but the transition step goes from no time to time...that is the point!

How could that transition occur if there was no time for it to occur in?

So having gotten rid of any misunderstandings on the afore, we can cut to the chase....you are saying that the state of no time does not preclude the existence of space..and therefore this timeless space state once existed and from that came the universe. Can you please elaborate as to what timeless space is?

No, I didn't say that our universe was once in a state of timeless space. My example was purely hypothetical in the sense that it can be imagined, much as a universe without a third dimension of space can be imagined. Space and time seem, to all appearances, to have come about simultaneously in our own universe.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

But timelessness can't be first because you can't have a first without time. Time had to come first. The figure of speech is flawed because it relies on an analogy with time itself. No time means no order of events and no first, second, third, etc. You have to have time to make sense of any of it.

How could that transition occur if there was no time for it to occur in?

No, I didn't say that our universe was once in a state of timeless space. My example was purely hypothetical in the sense that it can be imagined, much as a universe without a third dimension of space can be imagined. Space and time seem, to all appearances, to have come about simultaneously in our own universe.

It appears you are being purposely obtuse.......but I am happy to accommodate you on these issues to find the language on which we can agree.

Ok..can we agree than that time came after timelessness?

That's what I said...read my post...the transition occurs in time....imagine a graph...at time = zero on the horizontal time axis denotes no time....so the transitions goes from no time to time as the big bang transition begins...

Ok so timeless space was only hypothetical..and so I was correct then as I am now that the theory holds that space and time came into existence together..... Thus the state of no time implies also no space...no energy...no matter....simply absolute nothing... I rest my case..

 

[Thief]

The article--and the press release it was written from--kinda oversells things here. Looking through the article, it's about using a particular method (measuring properties of the distribution of galaxies) that builds on prior work (by the same group and others) out to about 5.6 billion years old, or about 7.1 billion light years away. Mainly, it builds on the idea that sound waves in the very early universe are detectable in the way galaxies are distributed. WMAP and Planck missions have already measured the flatness of the universe to about 0.4 percent...And Hubble (and other telescopes) have detected objects much farther away--but that isn't the point: this is the first time that the data and modeling from the BOSS program have been used to confirm that the universe is flat to this degree, that the Hubble constant is what other programs have estimated, and other nuances of the current Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory of the universe.

did you mean light waves?
last I heard....sound cannot travel in space

 

[Ben Dhyan]

did you mean light waves?
last I heard....sound cannot travel in space

Sure they can....in the theoretical early universe...as energy waves at what we consider audio frequencies... They cannot now be detect directly...but through analysis of the distributions of galaxies...