442 replies to this topic

[shadowhawk]

Time did not cause anything which requires time, to exist.

[Cris Barrows]

Time did not cause anything which requires time, to exist.

 

Not sure what you mean here. No one is suggesting that "time" causes anything, just that time is required for anything to occur. 

 

In essence time cannot have had a beginning since any event, like a beginning, would require a change of state and for anything to change requires time to exist. If time didn't exist then nothing could have begun. 

[serp777]

Time did not cause anything which requires time, to exist.

 

There was no time before the big bang. Therefore since causality requires time, and there was no time before the big bang, there was no cause to the beginning of time and the big bang.

 

Its a fool proof syllogism. You have to show that premises are wrong. You can't argue against the logic, its undeniable. Boom, obliterated by your own cited WLC argument.

[Cris Barrows]

No the cosmos begins.  That does not mean there is nothing else.  In fact you are correct, it implies something beside the Cosmos that does not need a cause.  I said, the cosmos begin to exist and it did.

 

If there is something that does not need a cause then your earlier assertion "Every thing that begins has a cause." is invalid. Your claims directly conflict with each other. 

 

If you maintain that "everything has a cause" then anything outside the cosmos must also have a cause, and that must have a cause, etc, in an infinite sequence.

 

If you maintain that there can be something that was not caused, i.e. has an infinite past, then there is no reason why that description could not apply to the cosmos without a need for anything else. 

[shadowhawk]

 

Time did not cause anything which requires time, to exist.

 

Not sure what you mean here. No one is suggesting that "time" causes anything, just that time is required for anything to occur. 

 

In essence time cannot have had a beginning since any event, like a beginning, would require a change of state and for anything to change requires time to exist. If time didn't exist then nothing could have begun. 

 

 

There is speculation that time and inflation occurred in the first moment of the big bang.
 

[Cris Barrows]

There was no time before the big bang.

 

That statement is a paradox. The term "before" implies time. 

 

To go from "before" the BB to the BB requires the passage of time. Time necessarily existed before the BB to allow the BB to occur. 

 

No event can occur without time pre-existing.

 

And even the argument that time had a beginning is a nonsensical statement since that also requires a transition from a before to an after state - i.e. time is required. 

[serp777]

 

 

Time did not cause anything which requires time, to exist.

 

Not sure what you mean here. No one is suggesting that "time" causes anything, just that time is required for anything to occur. 

 

In essence time cannot have had a beginning since any event, like a beginning, would require a change of state and for anything to change requires time to exist. If time didn't exist then nothing could have begun. 

 

 

There is speculation that time and inflation occurred in the first moment of the big bang.
 

 

 

Its speculation that everything which begins to exist has a cause. That would require you to know everything that has begun to exist.

 

Its actually not speculation that time first occured at the big bang. Both space and time emerged according to the theory of relativity and most of the scientific evidence.

 

if inflation existed before the big bang that its likely the multiverse theory is true and many universes of space and time are propping into existence. Either way i didn't think that you wanted to argue that there is a multiverse so its weird how you flip flop positions.
 

[Cris Barrows]

 

 

Time did not cause anything which requires time, to exist.

 

Not sure what you mean here. No one is suggesting that "time" causes anything, just that time is required for anything to occur. 

 

In essence time cannot have had a beginning since any event, like a beginning, would require a change of state and for anything to change requires time to exist. If time didn't exist then nothing could have begun. 

 

 

There is speculation that time and inflation occurred in the first moment of the big bang.
 

 

Yes I have heard that before. It doesn't make sense. Any transition from a before state to an after state necessarily requires time to exist first. If time didn't pre-exist then there could not be a first moment for it to come into existence.  

[serp777]

 

There was no time before the big bang.

 

That statement is a paradox. The term "before" implies time. 

 

To go from "before" the BB to the BB requires the passage of time. Time necessarily existed before the BB to allow the BB to occur. 

 

No event can occur without time pre-existing.

 

And even the argument that time had a beginning is a nonsensical statement since that also requires a transition from a before to an after state - i.e. time is required. 

 

Not really. Its mostly a limitation of English. Its not very paradoxical because I'm saying there is no time before time, which means that before doesn't point to anything and therefore doesn't imply time.

 

"No event can occur without time pre-existing."

This is entirely an assertion and is logically flawed. The spontaneous emergence of time and space is an event. By your logic time could never have come in existence because time didn't pre exist time.

 

"

 

And even the argument that time had a beginning is a nonsensical statement since that also requires a transition from a before to an after state - i.e. time is required. "

Well this was my argument actually. If there was no time before time then there was no causal state that occurred prior to the emergence of time.

[shadowhawk]

But a necessary being, outside  of time, which did not become, could have started it.  In fact it is an argument for God.

[Cris Barrows]

serp,

 

I don't think the science is solid on time arising at the BB, but I do favor a multiverse concept since that does appear to avoid a paradox. 

[serp777]

But a necessary being, outside  of time, which did not become, could have started it.  In fact it is an argument for God.

 

Its not an argument for any particular God or multiverse or multiple dimensions. Its also speculation because there may be things about physics which are unexpected. For example it may be that there is a supreme God, but that at the same time the universe emerged by natural means. Its not simply the false dilemma that either God exists and he created the universe or not.

[Cris Barrows]

But a necessary being, outside  of time, which did not become, could have started it.  In fact it is an argument for God.

I understand the argument. The invention of a god concept arose based on the concept that everything has a cause and effect. But it doesn't move the argument forward since asserting an uncaused cause to explain why everything must have a cause is simply an internally conflicted argument.

 

If we look to physics we observe that nothing is ever created, everything, matter and energy, are simply interchangeable, and nothing is ever created or destroyed. This does not support a precedent for a creation event. 

[shadowhawk]

serp,

 

I don't think the science is solid on time arising at the BB, but I do favor a multiverse concept since that does appear to avoid a paradox. 

 

There is no evidence for the Multiverse and it, if it exists is likewise expanding and has the same problem of a beginning,  We can discuss it if you like but that does not answer the topic question.
 

[cats_lover]

serp,

 

I don't think the science is solid on time arising at the BB, but I do favor a multiverse concept since that does appear to avoid a paradox. 

 

And what about simulated universe theory to avoid a paradox??

 

(nice sunglasses by the way)
 

[shadowhawk]

 

But a necessary being, outside  of time, which did not become, could have started it.  In fact it is an argument for God.

I understand the argument. The invention of a god concept arose based on the concept that everything has a cause and effect. But it doesn't move the argument forward since asserting an uncaused cause to explain why everything must have a cause is simply an internally conflicted argument.

 

If we look to physics we observe that nothing is ever created, everything, matter and energy, are simply interchangeable, and nothing is ever created or destroyed. This does not support a precedent for a creation event. 

 

No, science for the majority of history did not believe in a universe that had a beginning.  This is modern cosmology.  Many theists believed God created an eternal universe.

 

[serp777]

 

serp,

 

I don't think the science is solid on time arising at the BB, but I do favor a multiverse concept since that does appear to avoid a paradox. 

 

There is no evidence for the Multiverse and it, if it exists is likewise expanding and has the same problem of a beginning,  We can discuss it if you like but that does not answer the topic question.
 

 

 

The multiverse does answer partially why there is something rather than nothing. Inflation expands infinitely, meaning that there is an infinite amount of nothingness in which multiverses are popping into existence. And there is evidence for multiverse inflation

 

"

In many models of inflation, the inflationary phase of the Universe's expansion lasts forever in at least some regions of the Universe. This occurs because inflating regions expand very rapidly, reproducing themselves. Unless the rate of decay to the non-inflating phase is sufficiently fast, new inflating regions are produced more rapidly than non-inflating regions. In such models most of the volume of the Universe at any given time is inflating. All models of eternal inflation produce an infinite multiverse, typically a fractal.

Although new inflation is classically rolling down the potential, quantum fluctuations can sometimes bring it back up to previous levels. These regions in which the inflaton fluctuates upwards expand much faster than regions in which the inflaton has a lower potential energy, and tend to dominate in terms of physical volume. This steady state, which first developed by Vilenkin,^[90] is called "eternal inflation". It has been shown that any inflationary theory with an unbounded potential is eternal.^{[91][not in citation given]} It is a popular conclusion among physicists that this steady state cannot continue forever into the past.^[92][93][94] The inflationary spacetime, which is similar to de Sitter space, is incomplete without a contracting region. However, unlike de Sitter space, fluctuations in a contracting inflationary space will collapse to form a gravitational singularity, a point where densities become infinite. Therefore, it is necessary to have a theory for the Universe's initial conditions. Linde, however, believes inflation may be past eternal.^[95]

In eternal inflation, regions with inflation have an exponentially growing volume, while regions that are not inflating don't. This suggests that the volume of the inflating part of the Universe in the global picture is always unimaginably larger than the part that has stopped inflating, even though inflation eventually ends as seen by any single pre-inflationary observer. Scientists disagree about how to assign a probability distribution to this hypothetical anthropic landscape. If the probability of different regions is counted by volume, one should expect that inflation will never end, or applying boundary conditions that a local observer exists to observe it, that inflation will end as late as possible. Some physicists believe this paradox can be resolved by weighting observers by their pre-inflationary volume."

 

In effect, many good models that describe the universe from the big bang imply infinite inflation, which implies an infinite multiverse. It also has explanatory power for why our universe has certain arbitrary values, which could have had a variety of values that produced approximately the same outcome. And more evidence:

 

"

Evidence from the fluctuation level in our universe

New inflation does not produce a perfectly symmetric universe; tiny quantum fluctuations in the inflaton are created. These tiny fluctuations form the primordial seeds for all structure created in the later universe. These fluctuations were first calculated by Viatcheslav Mukhanov and G. V. Chibisov in the Soviet Union in analyzing Starobinsky's similar model.^[15][16][17] In the context of inflation, they were worked out independently of the work of Mukhanov and Chibisov at the three-week 1982 Nuffield Workshop on the Very Early Universe at Cambridge University.^[18] The fluctuations were calculated by four groups working separately over the course of the workshop: Stephen Hawking;^[19] Starobinsky;^[20] Guth and So-Young Pi;^[21] and James M. Bardeen, Paul Steinhardt and Michael Turner.^[22]

The fact that these models are consistent with WMAP data adds weight to the idea that the Universe could be created in such a way. As a result, many physicists in the field agree it is possible, but needs further support to be accepted.^[23]"

^{http://en.wikipedia....ernal_inflation}

[shadowhawk]

Enjoy this in the multiverse.

 

 

 

 

 

[Cris Barrows]

 

 

There was no time before the big bang.

 

That statement is a paradox. The term "before" implies time. 

 

To go from "before" the BB to the BB requires the passage of time. Time necessarily existed before the BB to allow the BB to occur. 

 

No event can occur without time pre-existing.

 

And even the argument that time had a beginning is a nonsensical statement since that also requires a transition from a before to an after state - i.e. time is required. 

 

Not really. Its mostly a limitation of English. Its not very paradoxical because I'm saying there is no time before time, which means that before doesn't point to anything and therefore doesn't imply time.

 

"No event can occur without time pre-existing."

This is entirely an assertion and is logically flawed. The spontaneous emergence of time and space is an event. By your logic time could never have come in existence because time didn't pre exist time.

 

"

 

And even the argument that time had a beginning is a nonsensical statement since that also requires a transition from a before to an after state - i.e. time is required. "

Well this was my argument actually. If there was no time before time then there was no causal state that occurred prior to the emergence of time.

 

I do recognize that our language can get in the way, but I believe I am arguing from a conceptual perspective. 

 

Simply, an event cannot occur without time. An event is a transition in spacetime, there will always be a before state and an after state. So the idea of time spontaneously occurring is impossible - it would be an event requiring time. Without time nothing can occur, and nothing can exist. Time and space are merely two perspectives of the same thing - spacetime. The two aspects are interdependent. For anything to exist it must occupy space (3 dimensions) and be subject to time, the 4th dimension. And existence is simply a continuous sequence of state changes (events). All dimensions have finite positive values and are related in terms of time dilation and length contraction - stretch one and the other will dilate and vice versa. If any dimension is conceptually zero then the object would not exist. Or alternatively with no time the mass of the universe took no space and was infinitely dense - concepts that even intuitively feel entirely untenable. 

 

If time was zero, did not exist, then space would also not exist, or in other words, nothing existed. I will argue that in this state of nothingness there would not be anything that could trigger a beginning or that such a trigger could even exist without spacetime. I do not buy the hypothesis that time began at the BB. Both quantum mechanics and string theory suggest minimal dimensions and hence finite time. While the BB appears to have occurred it does not require that time began at that point. I believe this is supported by others who argue that special relativity does not appear to apply in those early moments, or at least behaves quite differently. 

 

 

Edited by Cris Barrows, 14 February 2015 - 01:46 AM.

[Cris Barrows]

 

 

But a necessary being, outside  of time, which did not become, could have started it.  In fact it is an argument for God.

I understand the argument. The invention of a god concept arose based on the concept that everything has a cause and effect. But it doesn't move the argument forward since asserting an uncaused cause to explain why everything must have a cause is simply an internally conflicted argument.

 

If we look to physics we observe that nothing is ever created, everything, matter and energy, are simply interchangeable, and nothing is ever created or destroyed. This does not support a precedent for a creation event. 

 

No, science for the majority of history did not believe in a universe that had a beginning.  This is modern cosmology.  Many theists believed God created an eternal universe.

 

Hmm, I thought the reverse was true. But no matter, what we have now are many speculations and where a god concept is not necessary to explain the universe, especially since it seems the least plausible requiring a supernatural state that has no precedent or potential explanation. 

[shadowhawk]

Creation can occur without time.  It is the beginning.

[Cris Barrows]

Creation can occur without time.  It is the beginning.

How would that be possible? To go from nothing to something there will be a before state - nothing, to an after state - something. That transition will mean time has passed, no matter how small. And there is no such thing as instant if there is a before and an after condition, which a creation event would involve.

 

Without time nothing can occur not even creation.

[shadowhawk]

Time is part of the Space/Time something.  It was created.

 

 

 

 

 

[brianjakub]

Space and matter measure time. Intelligence can comprehend time without a clock. Time existed as long as intelligence has existed. Time can have an infinite past without a universe as long as an intelligence such as God can comprehend it's passing.

[serp777]

Creation can occur without time.  It is the beginning.

 

It doesn't answer the initial question at all. You're simply left with: why is there God rather than nothing?

Enjoy this in the multiverse.

 

 

This doesn't address all of the evidence for inflationary theory and eternal inflation. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it less likely. it has evidence going for it; actual scientific evidence. If you can show the scientific evidence to be wrong, fine, but don't dismiss it because it doesn't align with your personal philosophy.

[Cris Barrows]

Time is part of the Space/Time something.  It was created.

 

​The presentation "beyond the BB" is an argument for a necessary beginning. The conclusion that therefore a god was the cause is the classic logical fallacy "argument from ignorance". The absence of an explanation does not provide any valid evidence for any particular imaginative speculation. 

 

If it is true there was a beginning the best we can say is that we don't know the cause. The argument presented does not offer any evidence that a god must be the cause. An equally valid speculation could simply be "magic happened", or any number of imaginative fantasies we could invent. Neither does it follow that the beginning was the result of an intelligence since the initial state appears to have simply needed a trigger and the inflation and expansion did the rest. If something metaphysical exists then it could just as easily have been entirely dumb and triggered the beginning accidentally. Intent and purpose are not necessary implications of a beginning. 

Edited by Cris Barrows, 17 February 2015 - 09:54 PM.

[Cris Barrows]

Space and matter measure time. Intelligence can comprehend time without a clock. Time existed as long as intelligence has existed. Time can have an infinite past without a universe as long as an intelligence such as God can comprehend it's passing.

Space, matter, and time are intricately linked - read special relativity. 

 

I do not see any justification to assert that time is dependent on the existence of intelligence. 

 

The idea that time only exists if a god can experience it is much like the argument that if a tree falls over in a forest and there is no one to hear then it doesn't make a sound.  

[shadowhawk]

 

Creation can occur without time.  It is the beginning.

 

It doesn't answer the initial question at all. You're simply left with: why is there God rather than nothing?

Enjoy this in the multiverse.

 

 

This doesn't address all of the evidence for inflationary theory and eternal inflation. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it less likely. it has evidence going for it; actual scientific evidence. If you can show the scientific evidence to be wrong, fine, but don't dismiss it because it doesn't align with your personal philosophy.

 

 

I don't think you have a clue.  Talk about a lack of evidence.
 

[shadowhawk]

 

Time is part of the Space/Time something.  It was created.

 

​The presentation "beyond the BB" is an argument for a necessary beginning. The conclusion that therefore a god was the cause is the classic logical fallacy "argument from ignorance". The absence of an explanation does not provide any valid evidence for any particular imaginative speculation. 

 

If it is true there was a beginning the best we can say is that we don't know the cause. The argument presented does not offer any evidence that a god must be the cause. An equally valid speculation could simply be "magic happened", or any number of imaginative fantasies we could invent. Neither does it follow that the beginning was the result of an intelligence since the initial state appears to have simply needed a trigger and the inflation and expansion did the rest. If something metaphysical exists then it could just as easily have been entirely dumb and triggered the beginning accidentally. Intent and purpose are not necessary implications of a beginning. 

 

Not a logical fallacy at all.  All I said is something with certain characteristics would be necessary to bring the cosmos we see into existence.  I did not argue what it was.  As for intelligence, that is all around us and in us.  Not so hard to grasp as beinng real.

[serp777]

 

 

Creation can occur without time.  It is the beginning.

 

It doesn't answer the initial question at all. You're simply left with: why is there God rather than nothing?

Enjoy this in the multiverse.

 

 

This doesn't address all of the evidence for inflationary theory and eternal inflation. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it less likely. it has evidence going for it; actual scientific evidence. If you can show the scientific evidence to be wrong, fine, but don't dismiss it because it doesn't align with your personal philosophy.

 

 

I don't think you have a clue.  Talk about a lack of evidence.
 

 

 

You are truly hopeless if you couldn't see what i posted. Its nearly impossible to argue against someone who cant even see your evidence or arguments. Your video is an irrelevant and foolish response because eternal inflation does not depend on the many worlds interpretation. It has many individual universes, not many universes that started from one point, one big bang. 

 

The multiverse does answer partially why there is something rather than nothing. Inflation expands infinitely, meaning that there is an infinite amount of nothingness in which multiverses are popping into existence. And there is evidence for multiverse inflation

 

"

In many models of inflation, the inflationary phase of the Universe's expansion lasts forever in at least some regions of the Universe. This occurs because inflating regions expand very rapidly, reproducing themselves. Unless the rate of decay to the non-inflating phase is sufficiently fast, new inflating regions are produced more rapidly than non-inflating regions. In such models most of the volume of the Universe at any given time is inflating. All models of eternal inflation produce an infinite multiverse, typically a fractal.

Although new inflation is classically rolling down the potential, quantum fluctuations can sometimes bring it back up to previous levels. These regions in which the inflaton fluctuates upwards expand much faster than regions in which the inflaton has a lower potential energy, and tend to dominate in terms of physical volume. This steady state, which first developed by Vilenkin,^[90] is called "eternal inflation". It has been shown that any inflationary theory with an unbounded potential is eternal.^{[91][not in citation given]} It is a popular conclusion among physicists that this steady state cannot continue forever into the past.^[92][93][94] The inflationary spacetime, which is similar to de Sitter space, is incomplete without a contracting region. However, unlike de Sitter space, fluctuations in a contracting inflationary space will collapse to form a gravitational singularity, a point where densities become infinite. Therefore, it is necessary to have a theory for the Universe's initial conditions. Linde, however, believes inflation may be past eternal.^[95]

In eternal inflation, regions with inflation have an exponentially growing volume, while regions that are not inflating don't. This suggests that the volume of the inflating part of the Universe in the global picture is always unimaginably larger than the part that has stopped inflating, even though inflation eventually ends as seen by any single pre-inflationary observer. Scientists disagree about how to assign a probability distribution to this hypothetical anthropic landscape. If the probability of different regions is counted by volume, one should expect that inflation will never end, or applying boundary conditions that a local observer exists to observe it, that inflation will end as late as possible. Some physicists believe this paradox can be resolved by weighting observers by their pre-inflationary volume."

 

In effect, many good models that describe the universe from the big bang imply infinite inflation, which implies an infinite multiverse. It also has explanatory power for why our universe has certain arbitrary values, which could have had a variety of values that produced approximately the same outcome. And more evidence:

 

"

Evidence from the fluctuation level in our universe

New inflation does not produce a perfectly symmetric universe; tiny quantum fluctuations in the inflaton are created. These tiny fluctuations form the primordial seeds for all structure created in the later universe. These fluctuations were first calculated by Viatcheslav Mukhanov and G. V. Chibisov in the Soviet Union in analyzing Starobinsky's similar model.^[15][16][17] In the context of inflation, they were worked out independently of the work of Mukhanov and Chibisov at the three-week 1982 Nuffield Workshop on the Very Early Universe at Cambridge University.^[18] The fluctuations were calculated by four groups working separately over the course of the workshop: Stephen Hawking;^[19] Starobinsky;^[20] Guth and So-Young Pi;^[21] and James M. Bardeen, Paul Steinhardt and Michael Turner.^[22]

The fact that these models are consistent with WMAP data adds weight to the idea that the Universe could be created in such a way. As a result, many physicists in the field agree it is possible, but needs further support to be accepted.^[23]"

^{http://en.wikipedia....ernal_inflation}

 

Observational studies from WMAP confirm that observations align with calculations which use eternal inflation as a basis

Edited by serp777, 17 February 2015 - 10:34 PM.