From: Hermit (virus@hermit.net)
Date: Wed Sep 03 2003 - 11:12:58 MDT
[Jonathan 1] This appears to be a handy cop out. "Before" refers to
time/space and since time/space only started at Big Bang, there can be no
"before" Big Bang. Only that is the very problem: From whence/what comes
space/time?
[Hermit 2] From a gravitational fluctuation in the quantum flux. Happens all the time. We've measured it. Hint: Zero Point Energy. All is made clear here. Please read the many-times-provided link (http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=32;action=display;threadid=28497;start=0) before you make statements which run counter to the well accepted consensus position (or become abusive). I can't summarise it in a line which will somehow convey all of the state of cosmology to you. You have to be prepared, willing and have the time to do some work yourself.
[Jonathan 3] I think Rhino did a good job there: "In the core of this line of reasoning we find the same old "paradox": Neither a (spacially) infinite universe nor a (spacially) finite universe is acceptable by our perception and our logic.
[Jonathan 3] If the universe is finite,
[Hermit 4] It is finite. This is known. How we deal with that is a different issue.
[Jonathan 3] what if we take one more step.
[Hermit 4] We either follow a perceptually flat path, which causes our path to wrap, conforming to the hyperbolic which defines the Universe, or if you mean not following a path, then we will be creating mass-energy in space, instantiating a new reference frame and extending the Universe slightly,
[Jonathan 3] If time has a beginning,
[Hermit 4] It did. Approximately one plank unit after the instantiation of the big bang.
[Jonathan 3] what was there one minute before?
[Hermit 4] There wasn't a minute before, because without a reference frame there is no time. You are being confused by the fact that you have learned to think of time as having a separate existence from space and don't have the math to join it back together again. The Universe suffers from no such illusion.
[Jonathan 3] And still, how can we accept infinity in the light of logical arguments such as the one for the impossibility of infinite causal regress?...
[Hermit 4] Infinity only means that we can't count something. When you get to something behind the Heisenberg limit or a Schwartzchild radius (barring Hawking Radiation), then there is no causation, and thus no infinite causal regress.
[Jonathan 3] What can we do then? We can make any conjectures we want.
[Hermit 4] But they have no validity whatsoever until supported.
[Jonathan 3] Our imagination is the limit. If our conjectures have any practical implications they can be tested and possibly made into a falsifiable scientific theory. If not, we can keep them and talk about them if it pleases us or helps us keep our thoughts together, or we can just use Occam's razor to discard them."
[Hermit 4] Indeed.
[Jonathan 3] Are those who chose to use their imaginations to populate the non-before "Big Bang" with a God or "blanket entity" any less rational then those who choose not to do so at all?
[Hermit 4] Only when they lose track of the fact that imaginary things don't affect external reality.
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