It may be obvious by now but here is what I think:
The “Big-bang” is simply a suggestion/name, used to reference a particular event that occured amongest a probably endless stream of events. In otherwords it wasn’t a bigging by any means, or really a fair reference to a sequential repition of “beginings”. In otherwords, I do not think that it is relivant to think that it is a thing such that it expands and crunches…expands and crunches, as such though possible. does not arrive at a cause, or a neccissarily endless cause, as though such may have been happening for a long time, it is possible there was a beggining to that. and even if the events could be counted unto infinity, it remains possible that the thus seemingly endless, boom…squich…boom…squich, was still eventualized by some outside also possibly infinite in cause-and-effect thing…
In otherwords… I don’t know the value in it, I have theories, I’m awware of others theories…this is just a theory…I’ll let it be discuessed elsewhere, if the main point is to arrive at what is the typical scientific consensus.
The Big Bang posits a nanosecond of time (as measured by whom) in which the universe somehow popped into existence–created out of nothingness and timelessness. From a human point of view, how could this have happened? Don’t we have physical laws that say matter can’t be created out of nothing? and that energy can’t be destroyed, it can only be transformed?
I agree that the Big Bang is a theory that gives physics a starting point from which to study the universe as physicists try to do–but it can only be a valid theory, in my mind, if you throw out–or at least qualify–some of the physical laws based on the observable that couldn’t exist before the singularity of the Big Bang–according to the theory of the Big Bang and physics.
Should we care? Perhaps only in the sense that some of us still look for mystery–still look for a sense of awe-full-ness. We created God and then we destroyed our God concepts with philosophy and physics, leaving ourselves with no awe, wonder or mystery outside ourselves.
So I asked my question. If there is no answer, then I will maintain my God concept–if there is an answer, I’d like to know what it is.
philosophy = love of wisdom/knowledge…I would think it is only due to the knowledge thought to be, as contrived by man, that lead to any postulates against god…much of it logically falicious philosophy in my opinion…and I would say that the understanding of God may have been added to in many ways by it, and will be… Best example might be Decartes
I have always been a supporter of the idea that certain things cannot be known (at least not in this life) and better yet you can’t know everything and some go as far as to say you can’t know anything.
Why start with nothing though rather than something?
How so, SG? And does that in any way negate my question of what existed before the Big Bang singularity. As I see it, it does lead to spirituality, but I’m interested in your answer.
Thanks for contrubuting to my thread. Just a thought or two on yours. I’ve asked this question myself and came to the conclusion that the question isn’t valid. Because the temporal and spatial relations of reality structure our conceptual understanding, there is no ‘before the Big Bang.’ All of time and space came into existence in that moment. Were we able to re-wind events, and somehow remain outside them, we would ‘see’ all of time, space, matter and energy crushed together into nothingness. Other than our imagined selves, there would be nothing outside this point. So asking the question ‘what happened before?’ we are applying conceptual understanding we have by virtue of belonging to this universe - to a state in which those concepts were impossible, for they applied to nothing that existed. That’s my understanding. mb.
It could be that there was no initiation of sequential events. For any event, there was an event previous to that event. It’s just that none of these events take place before a certain time. They just get more and more crowded together.
Good question lizbeth, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows - and scientifically speaking, the question of ‘first-cause’ remains open. Science has much the same problem I ascribed to your analysis - that rewinding events in terms of what we are able to know about reality, approaching the moment of the big bang, physical laws break down and cease to apply. ‘Before’ is just one of those concepts that don’t apply anymore.
This is what I was leading to with my question… in that it would seem there would have to be a continuous stream of previous events. I would not think that there could have been a begining of time, I would think you might could imagine it but in terms of time (not distance) that would be infinitley far from any point in time. So I would imagine that if there was no big crunch then there must have been some form of activity within the previous density-state of the All-Mass that was of movment, though perhaps to a degree we bounded mind might call ‘insignificant’…
Or was it a ‘sucking in’ of matter by, say, a black hole–about which we know little–which then spits out a universe? That would give time a ‘beginning’ for that universe–which didn’t exist before it was ‘created’ by the ‘Black Hole.’
For me, the question then becomes, are Black Holes a reality? I think they are–but I question whether or not their existence has to do with the creation of new universes. If the function of a black hole is to suck in matter and spit it out as a universe–and can we be sure that is the function of black holes–then that would lead to multiple universes, would it not? I question this because I still ponder philosophic ‘function.’
Those universes wouldn’t be parallel to ours–they’d be separate and distinct from ours. They would have their own BB, their own time, their own matter; in short, their own ‘singularity.’
lizbethrose, Interesting. I’m sure I read elsewhere that you were ‘maintaining a God concept’ - and suspected this was where you were leading the discussion. Maybe just another thought experiment - but here, while I think I understand your ideas, ‘universe’ is by definition, all encompassing. What do you propose seperates your multiple universes? Temporal displacement??
Technically such a dense mass would be a black whole according to many…in that a black hole is effectively a supper dense star that thus has a intense gravity well…But yes I would think it is plausible that before the precieved super-density there may have been a state of non-density wherein things were densified by some means like unto a black hole that formed…but then how did the black hole unform? Such has yet to be seen to occur of any known black hole forms.