Religion
Related: About this forumStephen Hawking Has an Idea Regarding What Came Before the Big Bang
Before we begin, it doesn't involve any deities. As Hawking said in 2013, the Big Bang didn't need a God to make it happen. What did come before the event that initiated the expansion of our known universe, perhaps from a naked singularity, is a difficult question to answer, since we can't see our universe from outside of it. If this interests you, here's an interesting video, which is part of a video series on cosmology. It's 50 minutes long, and pretty dense, but if you have some time, and such things interest you, I encourage you to watch it. As you might imagine, imaginary numbers are involved, as they appear to be in most of esoteric physics.
It's all informed hypotheses, but it's probably better to have that than magical thinking, I believe:
Cary
(11,746 posts)If time is an illusion then how does something exist in time before the big bang.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)the Big Bang. It begins with the event and becomes a dimension of its own.
shraby
(21,946 posts)the big bang, but his theory is plausible.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)which would necessarily have to exist outside of what was being created. As theories develop and are compared, we are seeing that they can lead to similar conditions at the very beginning, with different results, depending on minor fluctuations. That's what I took from this video, and it seems to bear itself out.
Look at Newtonian physics. It works perfectly in the small scale we deal with, but when one looks at more recent physics, it's clear that the Newtonian model is simply a subset of overall physics. I think something similar is at work today as we look at cosmology. Conceptually, which is the only way I can really examine it, it seems similar to the tie between Newtonian and more well-developed physics theories.
Sadly, I'm unable to follow the actual math being used completely. Conceptually, though, I get what is being discussed and how the theories or hypotheses relate to one another. It's very complicated in detail, but conceptually graspable, I think.
Part of the problem is in language. The words being used by the people in that video are used with different from conventional meanings. When, for example, references are made to "communication" between universes, that word means something different from how we use it in everyday speech or writing.
Also, if you don't understand imaginary and complex numbers at all, references to concepts like "imaginary time" make little sense. So, many people will simply bail out of such discussions and consider them nonsense. For many, they even sound like nonsense, but are not nonsense at all. They're just difficult to understand.
Anyhow, this is fun to follow, for me, anyhow.
mitch96
(13,885 posts)And visa versa. I remember "someone" saying before the big bang there was just energy and bang! there was a bunch of mass flying out from the singularity.. I might be misquoting but it worked for me..
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Eliot Rosewater
(31,109 posts)InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,122 posts)MineralMan
(146,284 posts)Last edited Sat Mar 3, 2018, 12:42 PM - Edit history (1)
"God did it. I believe it. That's all there is to it."
Then, you can go back to doing whatever it was you were doing.
edhopper
(33,556 posts)according to the Collector, before Creation itself, there were six singularities...
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)That video is very amusing, though, I admit.
edhopper
(33,556 posts)was a very fun movie.
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)Thank you for posting.
Thyla
(791 posts)All authored by Hartle, Hawking and Hertog in which they propose something called the "No Boundary Measure"
https://arxiv.org/abs/0711.4630
https://arxiv.org/abs/0803.1663
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)once people have watched the video, which deals with exactly that.
Thyla
(791 posts)I always like to check out the source after or before too. Even if it is a heavy read.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Sounds better than sheer speculation.
Sounds even better than a guess.
But since we cannot see our universe as spectators, it is speculation. And since it cannot be proven or disproven, we can believe or not.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)Look into it. Get informed. Or remain stolidly unwilling to learn. Up to you.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Only way they can compete.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Unless scientists can somehow travel back to the moment prior to the Big Bang, or can observe another Big Bang in an adjacent universe, this is speculation.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)Please do try, at least a little. That'd be great.
longship
(40,416 posts)That is one of the oldest theist arguments. If one cannot supply a witness to the Big Bang, god must have done it.
Well, first, the argument is utter poppycock. That's not the way science works. If you do not understand that I suggest that you enroll in a science class.
Second, because of relativity we do have eyewitnesses to the Big Bang. It's written all over the sky as the cosmic background radiation (CBR), among other methods. And anybody can view it. Just detune an analog television set to an unused channel. The snow you see is partially the CBR.
So you too can be an eyewitness. To the Big Bang, about 13.7 billion years ago.
Easy peasey!
And before the Big Bang? We have top people working on that question, too.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)But thanks for writing them!
longship
(40,416 posts)There's always hope for anybody.
I hope.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)1) The Creator did it.
2) It just happened, with matter that just happened to be lying around.
I am not disputing that the Big Bang happened, if that was the point of your response.
longship
(40,416 posts)Which either way puts theism first.
The first presumes the existence of a creator, which is the most popular kind of theist begging the question.
The second is just interposing a gap in knowledge, with the invitation to presume a god in that gap, yet another common utterly fatuous theist argument. Plus, it's a god damned straw man. It just happened???
Theists just do not understand how this works.
It's a kind of making shit up.
I don't think that you want to go that way, my friend.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)MineralMan
(146,284 posts)You simply did not recognize it.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)But clearly didn't work.
You can lead a horse to water...
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)you never did respond to my question about the Giraudoux quote.
Cuthbert Allgood
(4,915 posts)marylandblue
(12,344 posts)We neither travelled back in time or observed one in another universe to arrive at the current theory.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)the aftereffects of the Big Bang.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)Except that it points the way to testable hypotheses about what happened before the big bang. When LeMaitre first developed his theory, he had no physical observations, just calculations based on general relativity.
LSFL
(1,109 posts)They are just speculating about their nature. I say they are the souls of dead warrior kings.
Response to MineralMan (Reply #14)
ollie10 This message was self-deleted by its author.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)then you looked down on him and told him to get informed.
OK inform us....since science deals with observable phenomena....just what observable facts, not subject to speculation, can you educate us about before the Big Bang?
I gotta laugh.
Can't you just admit you don't know something? Too much fun to look down your nose at someone, right?
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)There are several hypotheses about that question.
I do not know about a lot of things. When that happens, I go looking to see what people who study such things think. I do not consult ancient books for such answers. I know way more than those who wrote them.
Stephen Hawking, who is now gone, and his colleagues have thought and reasoned a lot of about this. They don't know, but they have credible ideas about it. Those will be refined as more information is available. The biblical account never changes. People who rely on it will never know much, and what they think they know will be incorrect.
So, watch the video. It's part of a series on cosmology. You can watch the other videos in that series, as well. From there, you can move on to books on the subject, scientific papers, and other materials. Or, you can post something here saying that I don't know anything. It's up to you, really.
BTW, this thread was started over a month ago. In that time, scientists have learned even more. Amazing, isn't it. The Bible, though, still has the same information that it has always had, written thousands of years ago. Is that what you prefer?
ollie10
(2,091 posts)Big sounding words, though! Even sounds educated! But still no answer.....
I repeat my question.....just what observable facts, not subject to speculation, can you educate us about before the Big Bang?
If you can't reveal any of these observable facts....just why can't you admit that you don't know what happened?
Or at least stop the looking down your snout at someone who rightly observed that this is speculation?
Pretty in that ivory tower I see
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)I already said I don't know what happened before the Big Bang. Nobody does. It's the subject of a great deal of research by cosmologists, though. I'm following that research. I am not a cosmologist. I'm a lay person with an interest in the subject.
Here's some advice, though: Stop telling people what to do and insulting them. It's really, really impolite. You can learn about the current state of cosmology research, if you want to. That's why I posted the video, so people who were interested could watch it. Or, you can ignore it and follow your own beliefs. I don't care.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)Guillie rightly observed that this is speculation. You scoffed at him as being uneducated for that! I would give you some advice...practice what you preach! Please stop insulting him just because he doesn't live in your ivory tower
"Science, guillaumeb.
Look into it. Get informed. Or remain stolidly unwilling to learn. Up to you."
ollie10
(2,091 posts)Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Why can't you just give an answer that would require a PhD in astrophysics to start to comprehend?
Mariana
(14,854 posts)It's very surprising to see someone doing that here. It's normally Republicans who dislike education, and have such contempt for educated people.
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/07/19/most-republicans-have-negative-view-of-higher.html
You are creating a straw man argument and I think it is hilarious!
The point was the poster evaded the question.
Education is good. I am a former teacher. Using high sounding words to evade instead of enlighten, not so much
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)We might be able to produce or simulate a singularity, then we can see what happens in one. That's what makes it science, if it is potentially falsifiable by actual testing. Unlike a god. We will never be able to produce a god, so we can't predict what it would do. Behavior ofnimaginary gods are all over the place, not one a testable hypothesis.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)Nanoseconds after the Big Bang on an atomic level. Collisions of gold or lead atoms at relativistic velocities. It's pretty amazing what they found.
https://gizmodo.com/physicists-observe-completely-unexpected-effect-in-coll-1821921762
More here:
https://www.bnl.gov/science/QCD-matter.php
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)it is a result of a direct action.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)#askingforafriend
Cuthbert Allgood
(4,915 posts)It's just a hoax I cannot see.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)The gods of science have proven it! According to their disciples and their orthodoxy.
The idea that you can speculate what happened before the big bang....can't have that!!! that is heresy!!!! It is established scientific fact as revealed by the Disciples!
RKP5637
(67,102 posts)YessirAtsaFact
(2,064 posts)LuvLoogie
(6,975 posts)Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)By people who refuse to open their minds. I guess believers have to see the world through their viewpoint, and can't comprehend how science works.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)Permanut
(5,597 posts)incredible stuff. I'd love to come back for a visit ten thousand years from now, to see if we made it, and to see if we figured out some of the answers to how we got here.