I know that the main theory accepted by everyone (Big bang) normally doesn’t even attempt to answer this question, they commonly say that this question doesn’t make sense as it would be like asking what is north of the north pole?
The big bang says that time began with the big bang, everything that you see today was basically self created? It required nothing else outside of it to create it…but what do you say?
So if theire was no ‘time’ before the big bang, then where exactly did the big bang take place. Because without time, there can be no change, no movement, which requires ‘distance’ which requires ‘time’.
Saying ‘nothing’ was before the big bang is just avoiding the question, what do you really think?
It would suggest that there was something outside of “the universe”.
Personally i’m all for the idea of the universe being biologically alive. So i suggest that the big bang was merely a growth. Wether that be a cell,arm,eye or a testicle hair i cant say.
I don’t assume that the world arose from nothingness. In a state of nothingness there’s nothing to explain only because there’s nothing present to ask for an explanation. But given that I exist, I require of hypothetical nothingness the same explanation as I do of somethingness. Moreover, given that I do exist, an actual nothingness would require far more of an explanation.
Nothingness exists only as a fuzzy idea. It’s not the natural, or base state of the universe. The world never had to strive against nothingness in order to bring forth somethingness. Nothingness was never a state of the universe. The world was not formed ex nihilo.
I’m not doubting what you are saying that everything could not have come from nothing and that their couldn’t ever have been a state of nothingness but how sure can you be? At some stage, if you keep thinking about it…the very origin would have had to come from nothing? Unless you consider ‘something’ has been there eternity…??
If by “sure” you mean “certain”, then we can never be sure; nor must we be.
“There is no such thing as an absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life.” – J.S. Mill
But why would you think that, Rami? When was the last time you saw a something come from a nothing? As I’ve said, why should we assume that nothingness is the starting point, or base state of the universe? Given that nothingness requires a deeper explanation than somethingness, why should we even want it to go in that direction? Why would we want to explain an unknown in terms of a greater unknown?
There is no preferential treatment of nothingness in my metaphysical system. Nothingness isn’t a quiescent state, it’s not a quantum-well, it’s not the end product of entropy. Nothingness is merely a fuzzy idea. It represents a theoretical limit in the mental process of plucking entities out of existence. But simply because we can imagine such a limit doesn’t mean there must be a matching existent physical state in the world.
We invented nothingness. It’s a theoretical construct that exists in our minds. And given that it’s strictly an idea, it’s important that by definition alone, nothing comes from nothing. With nothingess, you can’t pull a rabbit out of the hat because there is no hat to begin with.
This is an interesting question. There is no really good definition of what time is, though and thats an important step to understanding why the big bang is important.
The big bang cannot be said to have taken place at a particular place because “place” as we know it came after the big bang.
Saying “nothing” was there before the big bang is not avoiding the question - in fact thats a pretty good answer, I thought. Even “space”, as in the emptiness of three dimensions (unpopulated by matter) was not present before the big bang.
However, the string theory and its superset, the M theory provide an interesting answer to what could have caused the big bang, or indeed, according to the M theory, “multiple big bangs”. The idea in this theory is that there are several sheets of strings which vibrate in as many as 11 dimensions - some say 11, but 10 is the accepted number by a majority. These sheets of vibrating strings are described mathematically with ripples on them, so when they collide they are supposed to distribute dimensions into spaces - 3 dimensions of space and one of time in our known world, and several other hidden dimensions.
According to this theory universes could also be doughnut shaped for example, so if you kept travelling in a certain direction indefinitely, you’ll ge the point of origin of your path.
I solve this problem with conceptuality. Perhaps in the beginning there was not everything, nor was there something. Therefore there was nothing. But nothing is something, as nothing is a concept. So from the concept of nothing came something. That something was the big bang. It’s like how do we represent nothing? With the number zero right? But zero has a value. I can have one zero, or two zeros. One zero = 0.00000… (repeating) , so from nothing comes an unlimited amount of something. I believe self awareness is what triggered the growth and expansion of the universe. It makes sense to me anyway.
I imagine that something must have always been there before the big bang, maybe there was always ‘distance’ before the big bang. I think that this natural form of existence that we have is the only form of existence or anything that there is anywhere, all that there is is here.
You cannot say ‘how often have i seen something made from nothing?’ We’r only human so we can’t compare anything in our everyday lives to something like the Universe. Lets assume that there was ‘distance/time’ before the big bang, but what would you say triggerd that off? And once you’ve answered that, explain exactly what triggerd that off? How long do you think we can keep coming up with logical answers?
At some stage, something came to be and it came from something, quite rightly is probably isn’t ‘nothing’ otherwise it wouldn’t have come from it…
Would you agree that ‘something’ has always been existing for eternity?..not sure what the something is.
Another way of thinking about it: life feeds on death. Even a life as titanic as the universe. So this universe was born of the death of another universe. It died so that we can live.
Perhpas we are the spitting output of a black hole from some ever more ginormous (bigger then giant and bigger then enormous) universe.
QUOTE -Alien Corpuscle Bath- I believe self awareness is what triggered the growth and expansion of the universe.
Please explain this sentence a little more -its an interesting idea man.
xanderman you talk about the universe like its widley accepted as being “a living thing”. SO THIS IS NOT REALLY A NEW IDEA ON MY PART??? how vain of me…but im an ameture philosopher -with quite a bit of reading and study to go yet.
How about a poll to see who agrees or disagrees about the entire know existence and beyond as being alive…are we supposed to know? And if not who would not want us to know WHO WOULD NOT WANT US TO KNOW?
Who would not want us to know? What exactly do u mean, are you suggesting some kind of entity controls the Universe and maybe he doesn’ want us to know what happened? Well to be honest, we aren’t ever going to know, we’r never going to know anything really, we can’t even prove that we exist, let alone trying to prove anything outside of this body. That’s just what Philosophy is though…
I believe that the key to finding out how “the beginning” happened deal with anti-matter. I base this on fact when I say that there is a hellava lot more MATTER than antimatter out there. And when the two mix, bam, an explosion happens and something is created out of nothing. Perhaps there was a balance of matter and antimatter, which exploded eventually…i haven’t thought deep enough in my time to think how or why they exist or would counter act on one another, but thats the best answer i’ve come up with when I ask the same question.
I believe the big bang theory to be half way there, it explains alot about this universe and gives good reason to be the most popular theory about the beginning. But idon’t agree that there was nothing before the initial big bang, but that’s what the big bang says, there simply was no before? This mode of existence is everything that there is, i think it’s probably always been around and it probably always will be, How can you take existence out of existence?
