The Big Bang as evidence for God

[Ben Dhyan]

If causes precede effect, then there is no time in which ANYTHING could have PRECEDED the big bang, because there was no TIME for such a process to “happen”. In short, no “cause” can precede an “effect” when there is no “time” for it to precede in.

I am trying to understand what you are saying here...it seems you are implying that "time" came into existence from "no time" or "timelessness" or "nothing"?

 

[Thief]

I’ve often found here and elsewhere that the big bang theory is somehow evidence of a creator. To be fair, many scientists (including Hoyle, who coined the term “big bang” derisively) objected to the idea that the universe ever “began” for precisely this reason (or at least something similar). The origins of the infamous cosmological constant began with Einstein’s attempt to make the universe static rather than having originated.

So let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that the universe isn’t eternal (as basically all physics suggests). Here’s a problem with the “then necessarily god created it” argument that is based upon the idea of a “first cause” or the idea that there are no uncaused events or that everything must have a cause and so on: In all of these arguments, it is assumed that cause is some (rather simplistic, naïve) “linear” processes whereby we can assert that causes MUST precede effects.

With this EXTREMELY minimal causal assumption (causes precede effects) we cannot say anything about the “cause” of the universe. The SAME PHYSICS which suggest the universe is not eternal but originated with the big bang suggests that time’s origins are the same: the big bang. The point is this:

If causes precede effect, then there is no time in which ANYTHING could have PRECEDED the big bang, because there was no TIME for such a process to “happen”. In short, no “cause” can precede an “effect” when there is no “time” for it to precede in.

So whatever evidence the big bang may be for “god” or deism or whatever, it can’t be based on arguments from causality.

this was good up to the 'point' where you drew a 'line'....using a non-existing entity.
time does not exist.

movement is real enough.....and is linear....
hehehehe

prior to the 'bang'.....no movement....and nothing to measure.

ALL movement had a beginning
Spirit first

 

[Windwalker]

I usually interpret "It has no scientific explanation/description" with "let me say what I want, since I do not require evidence for what I say, for I am spiritual, not scientific!".

Yes well, that is your interpretation and it is flawed. I don't claim that, but I also don't make the mistake of category errors. When you want to express your experience of the ineffability of love, do you use a chemical analysis in a biology book's diagram to speak the truth of it to your loved one? No? That's very odd you don't! Why not? To be consistent you certainly should, rather than speaking in terms of metaphor, song, dance, music, poetry, and all those non-scientific ways of expressing the very real aspects of human experience. Why not just cut to the chase and hand someone a math formula to say I love you?

Like the ridiculous claim that the Bible is not intended to be a scientific book. Who claims that? Science is a tool to find truths. A book inspired by God does not need tools. It should just explain what is true.

Sounds like your understanding of religion is the lowest common denominator of American fundamentalist Christianity. Of course the Bible isn't a book of science. Nor is it a dictation direct from the mouth of a super-being who has a white beard and sends little children to hell for being bad. That's not a thought in my mind at all in the things I'm saying. You err in assuming I am.

Unfortunately, it is contradicted by simple human tools after the first few lines.

I'd actually say your reading of it is equally as bad and poorly informed as that of Christian fundamentalists. About as bad of an understanding of it. Flip side of the same ill-informed thought.

Unless we demote to metaphorical what is obviously wrong. As usual. The ultimate cop-out that makes any claim viable:

1) Metaphorical: what we see today as obviously wrong
2) Literal: what we do not see today as obviously wrong. Might become metaphorical later.

It still astounds me how some people just don't get metaphor. And it underscores exactly everything I posted in my first reply in this thread. Metaphor to you is just not facing the "facts". Fascinating.

 

[Windwalker]

That is a non reply to a direct quote you supplied. I asked YOU why most people describe this experience

Because they experience the same thing? Seems logical to me.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

They can't say that it is a reference to our time because our time had a beginning.

I am only interested in this....."...because out time had a beginning.".... Are you saying the "time" began from a state of "no time"?

 

[outhouse]

Because they experience the same thing? Seems logical to me.

You mean they were born and taught/brainwashed by the same dogma??

How can someone experience a timeless god?


POE much?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I am trying to understand what you are saying here...it seems you are implying that "time" came into existence from "no time" or "timelessness" or "nothing"?

Sort of (one issue is that "came" implies a process, another is that it is not entirely clear if time exists now). Time and space are not really separable, particularly when we are talking about the origins of the universe. This is why it is meaningless to ask "what happened before the big bang?" There was no "time" for any "before". Here are how some physicists/cosmologists have put it in popular texts or articles:
"The trouble with this TV version of the Big Bang is that it, and even the words Big Bang themselves, creates a deceptive picture of the beginning of the Universe. The main thing that is wrong is that both the words and images give the impression that the Big Bang was simply the explosion of a big lump of matter in the middle of otherwise empty space. The first thing that is wrong with this impression is that the Universe began at the instant of the Big Bang, so there could not have been a lump of matter or even empty space before that instant. Indeed, the word before only has any meaning if there is a sequence of events in time, so as time began at the instant of the Big Bang, there was nothing, no space, not even a thought or idea before the Big Bang – without time the phrase is meaningless."
Eales, S. (2007). Origins: How the Planets, Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe Began (Astronomers' Universe Series). Springer.

"People often ask, What happened before the Big Bang? The answer is, Nothing. By this, I do not mean that there was a state of nothingness, pregnant with creative power. There was nothing before the Big Bang because there was no such epoch as 'before.' As Stephen Hawking has remarked, asking what happened before the Big Bang is rather like asking what lies north of the North Pole. The answer, once again, is nothing, not because there exists a mysterious Land of Nothing there, but because there is no such place as north of the North Pole. Similarly, there is no such time as 'before the Big Bang.'"
Davies, P. (2000). What Happened before the Big Bang? In Stannard, R. (Ed.) God for the 21st Century (pp. 10-12). Templeton Foundation Press.

"Like any sensible person you will ask the question, 'What was the state of affairs before the Big Bang?', to which you will receive the answer, 'There is no such thing as before the Big Bang because time did not exist until the Big Bang occurred.' You might try again with the question, 'Into what did the Universe expand?', to which the answer is, 'There was no space for the Universe to expand into since the only space that existed was what it created as it expanded.'"
Woolfson, M. M. (2009). Time, Space, Stars, and Man: The Story of the Big Bang. Imperial College Press.

"What happened at the beginning of the expansion of the universe? Did spacetime have an edge at the Big Bang? The answer is that if the boundary conditions of the universe are that it has no boundary, time ceases to be well defined in the very early universe just as the direction "north" ceases to be well defined at the North Pole of the earth. Asking what happens before the Big Bang is like asking for a point one kilometer north of the North Pole. The quantity that we measure as time had a beginning, but that does not mean spacetime has an edge, just as the surface of the earth does not have an edge at the North Pole, or at least so I am told; I have not been there myself."
Hawking, S. W. (1984). The Edge of Spacetime: Does the universe have an edge and time a beginning, as Einstein's general relativity predicts, or is spacetime finite without boundary, as quantum mechanics suggests?. American Scientist, 72(4), 355-359.

If you want a more detailed answer, you can pick: a theological/philosophical perspective (see here and see attached) or physics (see e.g.,
Gott III, J. R., & Li, L. X. (1998). Can the universe create itself?. Physical Review D, 58(2), 023501.
Vilenkin, A. (1992). Did the universe have a beginning?. Physical Review D, 46(6), 2355.
Zeh, H. D. (2001). The physical basis of the direction of time (5th Ed.). Springer.
etc.)

 

[outhouse]

Isn't there a bible verse that says something like from everlasting to everlasting? They cannot avoid making him timeless or they would then have to figure out who or what preceeded him.

Thank you.

I think your on to something. It does come down to a man made definition by people who lived mythology much more then we do today

 

[outhouse]

This is why it is meaningless to ask "what happened before the big bang?"

Science does not have the knowledge to use the word meaningless.


It is far from meaningless, that is the question the brightest people are questioning.

Singularities are the norm, and our universe formed from something very natural.



The question is are we a universe in another dead cooled universe when 2 black holes collided?

Or are we a super massive black hole that expanded?


Or we could go back 50 years ago and think the singularity is unique and not natural, despite the fact he universe is full of singularities

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

You of course do realize that one of the most common ways to speak of God is that God is timeless?

Yes. And in fact in the generally accepted understanding of the origins of the cosmos is, as others have pointed out , similar to the "solution" to the problem of God-as-Creator (what was God doing before he created the universe? Why did he decide to do it then? etc.) given by Augustine: god exists outside of time.

For argument's sake, I would say the description of "uncaused cause" in not invalid, but can only be taken as highly metaphorical at best.

We have to deal with acausalities on a regular basis. The standard example is particles which appear out of nowhere all of the time (and which then vanish without a trace as well). The main issue, though, is that all causal models somehow invoke directionality (which, for convenience, I will simply call "time"). Causes must precede effects, effects must come after causes, etc. Without time, our entire conception of causation goes out the window. Whatever terms might be appropriate to refer to the act of creation, or evidence/reasons for supposing god created the cosmos, or the state in which the universe was not, or in general the emergence of the universe, "cause" is at best highly problematic and at worse just meaningless.

I would agree that those who think of "God" in the sense of an "entity" outside time acting upon it the way I might paint a picture on a canvas are stuck in fact in this linear thought you describe.

I think we are all, more or less, stuck in a way of thought somewhat similar to what I described. Tense is intrinsic to language in a variety of ways, we conceptualize things as unfolding in space and time (particularly causation), and here we are dealing wit a reality unlike anything we can experience or picture. The problem, however, isn't so much with the conception of causality (even the linear, naïve one, although I take issue with such a conception or other reasons). It's with the double-dipping. If one wants to point to evidence in physics that the universe is not past-time eternal (that it "began" in some sense) as evidence for god, they can't then point to "first cause" arguments which are incompatible with the big bang scenario as described in the actual physics that is pointed to as evidence. In short, either one can appeal to "first cause"-type arguments, or one can point to the evidence from physics in the form of the big bang, but not both. The latter involves a scenario in which the entire causal change as an origin point beyond which no causal chain can reach. I'm not even saying that the universe must be uncaused (I'm not even contending here that we don't need a creator to explain it), simply that if one appeals to the big bang as evidence, one must describe the need for a "cause" in a sufficiently nuanced manner that is unlike anything found in "first cause"-type arguments.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Devils advocate

Best kind!

Just because OUR time and space was created with the BB, does not have anything to do with another time period outside of our universe that may or may not exist.

In most models it is impossible for there to be another time or place, including pre-big bang physics. Most multiverse cosmologies involve an absolute limit to past-"time", as do (actually) the few eternal models that remain defensible (e.g., those which invoke CTCs to give us an eternal past-time that is nonetheless bounded). There is always a way we can point to the non-existence of anything and everything, but it is questionable how meaningful it is to do so.

ALSO Our time very well may extend outside our universe. IF space is the same fabric outside of the walls of our expanding universe, then time could theoretically also exist.

Sure, at least in some sense.

 

[outhouse]

In most models it is impossible for there to be another time or place,

But these people think there are other times and places by following a multiverse hypothesis. Time may exist between the universes in a universal time period in a hypothetical universe hatchery.

Proponents of one of the multiverse hypotheses include Stephen Hawking,[15] Brian Greene,[16][17] Max Tegmark,[18] Alan Guth,[19] Andrei Linde,[20] Michio Kaku,[21] David Deutsch,[22] Leonard Susskind,[23] Alexander Vilenkin,[24] Yasunori Nomura,[25] Raj Pathria,[26] Laura Mersini-Houghton,[27][28] Neil deGrasse Tyson,[29] and Sean Carroll.[30]

 

[outhouse]

There is always a way we can point to the non-existence of anything and everything, but it is questionable how meaningful it is to do so.

I love to let imagination run in this topic.

But knowing how natural singularities actually are, truth is probably stranger then fiction here.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Sort of (one issue is that "came" implies a process, another is that it is not entirely clear if time exists now). Time and space are not really separable, particularly when we are talking about the origins of the universe. This is why it is meaningless to ask "what happened before the big bang?" There was no "time" for any "before". Here are how some physicists/cosmologists have put it in popular texts or articles:
"The trouble with this TV version of the Big Bang is that it, and even the words Big Bang themselves, creates a deceptive picture of the beginning of the Universe. The main thing that is wrong is that both the words and images give the impression that the Big Bang was simply the explosion of a big lump of matter in the middle of otherwise empty space. The first thing that is wrong with this impression is that the Universe began at the instant of the Big Bang, so there could not have been a lump of matter or even empty space before that instant. Indeed, the word before only has any meaning if there is a sequence of events in time, so as time began at the instant of the Big Bang, there was nothing, no space, not even a thought or idea before the Big Bang – without time the phrase is meaningless."
Eales, S. (2007). Origins: How the Planets, Stars, Galaxies, and the Universe Began (Astronomers' Universe Series). Springer.

"People often ask, What happened before the Big Bang? The answer is, Nothing. By this, I do not mean that there was a state of nothingness, pregnant with creative power. There was nothing before the Big Bang because there was no such epoch as 'before.' As Stephen Hawking has remarked, asking what happened before the Big Bang is rather like asking what lies north of the North Pole. The answer, once again, is nothing, not because there exists a mysterious Land of Nothing there, but because there is no such place as north of the North Pole. Similarly, there is no such time as 'before the Big Bang.'"
Davies, P. (2000). What Happened before the Big Bang? In Stannard, R. (Ed.) God for the 21st Century (pp. 10-12). Templeton Foundation Press.

"Like any sensible person you will ask the question, 'What was the state of affairs before the Big Bang?', to which you will receive the answer, 'There is no such thing as before the Big Bang because time did not exist until the Big Bang occurred.' You might try again with the question, 'Into what did the Universe expand?', to which the answer is, 'There was no space for the Universe to expand into since the only space that existed was what it created as it expanded.'"
Woolfson, M. M. (2009). Time, Space, Stars, and Man: The Story of the Big Bang. Imperial College Press.

"What happened at the beginning of the expansion of the universe? Did spacetime have an edge at the Big Bang? The answer is that if the boundary conditions of the universe are that it has no boundary, time ceases to be well defined in the very early universe just as the direction "north" ceases to be well defined at the North Pole of the earth. Asking what happens before the Big Bang is like asking for a point one kilometer north of the North Pole. The quantity that we measure as time had a beginning, but that does not mean spacetime has an edge, just as the surface of the earth does not have an edge at the North Pole, or at least so I am told; I have not been there myself."
Hawking, S. W. (1984). The Edge of Spacetime: Does the universe have an edge and time a beginning, as Einstein's general relativity predicts, or is spacetime finite without boundary, as quantum mechanics suggests?. American Scientist, 72(4), 355-359.

If you want a more detailed answer, you can pick: a theological/philosophical perspective (see here and see attached) or physics (see e.g.,
Gott III, J. R., & Li, L. X. (1998). Can the universe create itself?. Physical Review D, 58(2), 023501.
Vilenkin, A. (1992). Did the universe have a beginning?. Physical Review D, 46(6), 2355.
Zeh, H. D. (2001). The physical basis of the direction of time (5th Ed.). Springer.
etc.)

Now I ask for your patience with me on this as trying to grasp my point may be elusive for you at first...but..I read all you had to say and the attachment, but none of it answered my question..

I am not asking about whether the beginning of time was causeless.....nor am I asking about what was before time.......I am asking about the state of "no time" from which time arose? How would you describe the concept of "no time"?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Science does not have the knowledge to use the word meaningless.

Tell that to Stephen Hawking (or any physicist or cosmologist who support one of the defensible cosmological models that don't rely on physics which is both untestable and for which we have no evidence, e.g., string theories). It is meaningless for the same reason Hawking states: it's like asking what's north of the north pole. Once you define a boundary for some measure, whether it is on space, time, spacetime, or the poles, it is instantly meaningless to ask about the measure beyond this boundary. One can, of course, ignore the boundary, or play fast-and-loose with language (it is much easier to do this in physics, because the only language that matters is mathematical and here the picture is clear), but one should be quite clear what the dangers are and be sure that one actually understands what the boundaries are and why they are held to exist.

It is far from meaningless, that is the question the brightest people are questioning.

They aren't, really. Most of the time when one comes across literature on what happened "before" the big bang, they aren't actually talking about "before" (and generally are describing a reality we don't experience in a way the necessitates geometric, topological, and other mathematics in part because language fails). The word has no meaning when we are describing situations without time.

Singularities are the norm, and our universe formed from something very natural.

Singularities almost never result in a universe, they aren't the norm (unless you mean there appearances in different space-time models, in which case it's true that we can't rid ourselves of them but in any particular model we still have an initial singularity rather than many of them), and most of the time they are purely mathematical (they are always mathematical, and generally mathematical mistakes, e.g., "integrating over a singularity", but sometimes the appearance of a singularity in the model/equation indicates an actual phenomenon). The big bang is nothing natural and is unique. In multiverse theories, other universes don't typically emerge from singularities and even when they do, it is not of the sort that the we find with the big bang:
"the initial and final singularities in the Friedman-Lemaître models belong to the class of strong curvature singularities and are characterised by a breakdown of the structure of space-time (in other words the concept of spacetime becomes meaningless in them); and hence we may speak of only one cycle in them for the history of the universe, which starts with the initial singularity and ends with the final singularity. No solution can be prolonged beyond the singularities."
Heller, M. (2009). Ultimate Explanations of the Universe. Springer.

And on spacetime singularities more generally (but with reference to the singularity) :
"Singularities are the regions where the physical conditions such as densities and curvatures are at their extreme. While the big-bang singularity of cosmology is visible in principle, and gave rise to the universe as a whole, it cannot actually be seen. On the other hand, when a massive star dies and collapses continually under gravity, the eventual spacetime singularity can be either hidden within an event horizon of a blackhole, or it could be visible to outside observers, depending on how the collapse of the cloud evolves. While a naked singularity forming in the collapse could provide an opportunity for the physical effects taking place in these extreme regions to be observable to outside observers in the universe, the actual visibility of such extreme gravity regions will depend on the nature and structure of non-spacelike paths emerging from the singularity."
Joshi, P. S. (2007). Gravitational Collapse and Spacetime Singularities (Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics). Cambridge University Press.

The question is are we a universe in another dead cooled universe when 2 black holes collided?

I think the better question than these and similar question involves actually determining the nature of the physics required for any such models (or whether such physics exist). References to quantum loop gravity, M-theory, etc., in mathematically-derived inflation (or pre-big bang) cosmologies amount to assuming how a wild guess might work in a wildly speculative scenario. I'm not against asking such questions, of course, but any reference to models of reality which depend upon extensions to the standard model that are both untested and without evidence don't amount to much other than (sometimes) some highly inventive, elegant mathematics.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I am asking about the state of "no time" from which time arose?

Again, this is like asking "what's north of the north pole?" It doesn't make sense to ask. As for how I approach the idea of a state of affairs lacking time, space, and spacetime...well the only way I know how to do this is the same way I am able to work in infinite-dimensional spaces or describe surfaces in 10,10,000, or ten million dimensional space: mathematically. Another way to look at it is in terms of a stopwatch. Imagine timing some process, like a race or even a dish in the oven. You click the "start" button and either you stop when the process stops or you stop the process when the stopwatch reaches a certain value. Asking about "before the big bang" isn't like asking "what was going on before the stopwatch started?" it's like asking "what did the stopwatch read before it read '00:00' ?" Once you wind back to the origin/beginning, that's it.

I don't have a good conception of causality in an atemporal reality anymore than the next non-transcendental deity. I may be more accustomed to such situations than many other people, but I don't have a model of causality without time, or a special tense-less language (other than mathematics). When talking to other scientists (or mathematicians), I do what they tend to do: misuse language for simplicity and rely on one another's expertise and the math for clarity.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Again, this is like asking "what's north of the north pole?" It doesn't make sense to ask. As for how I approach the idea of a state of affairs lacking time, space, and spacetime...well the only way I know how to do this is the same way I am able to work in infinite-dimensional spaces or describe surfaces in 10,10,000, or ten million dimensional space: mathematically. Another way to look at it is in terms of a stopwatch. Imagine timing some process, like a race or even a dish in the oven. You click the "start" button and either you stop when the process stops or you stop the process when the stopwatch reaches a certain value. Asking about "before the big bang" isn't like asking "what was going on before the stopwatch started?" it's like asking "what did the stopwatch read before it read '00:00' ?" Once you wind back to the origin/beginning, that's it.

I don't have a good conception of causality in an atemporal reality anymore than the next non-transcendental deity. I may be more accustomed to such situations than many other people, but I don't have a model of causality without time, or a special tense-less language (other than mathematics). When talking to other scientists (or mathematicians), I do what they tend to do: misuse language for simplicity and rely on one another's expertise and the math for clarity.

Well I do not find anything unusual about asking "what's north of the north pole?" .....space and stars, etc...are north of the north pole.. So in that vein, please provide a more reasonable answer to my question....from what timeless state did time arise?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Well I do not find anything unusual about asking "what's north of the north pole?" .....space and stars, etc...are north of the north pole.

That's "up", not north. To see the difference, get out a globe. When you are running your finger towards the top, you are going North. When you have to take you finger off of the globe, you are going up, not North.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

That's "up", not north. To see the difference, get out a globe. When you are running your finger towards the top, you are going North. When you have to take you finger off of the globe, you are going up, not North.

Semantics....you know you are dodging and weaving to avoid dealing seriously with my question... If time came into existence...it either arose from nothing.......or something... To say to reasonable persons that my question is not reasonable because it is like asking what is north of the north pole is just unacceptable... If that's the best you can do you have little credibility to offer...

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Fallaciousness

I like that word.