The Seed of Origin

Billy Baxter said:
Bald assertion; give me conclusive proof.
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It wasn't a bald assertion, and you would have known that if you knew anything about the Big Bang beyond its name.
The Big Bang was the beginning, not just of space, but of time. Nothing happened before the Big Bang because there was no 'before the Big Bang': time hadn't started yet.
The proof you asked for is the actual definition of the Big Bang.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
It wasn't a bald assertion, and you would have known that if you knew anything about the Big Bang beyond its name.
The Big Bang was the beginning, not just of space, but of time. Nothing happened before the Big Bang because there was no 'before the Big Bang': time hadn't started yet.
The proof you asked for is the actual definition of the Big Bang.
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And you know this with absolute certainty?
 
Billy Baxter said:
So it's an unfalsifiable theory?
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It’s a theory that fits all the available evidence of how the universe works and evolves.
God is a theory that fits none of it.
God and religion fits all the available evidence of being a product of psychology.
 
Billy Baxter said:
And you know this with absolute certainty?
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Billy Baxter said:
So it's an unfalsifiable theory?
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Cheetah said:
It’s a theory that fits all the available evidence of how the universe works and evolves.
God is a theory that fits none of it.
God and religion fits all the available evidence of being a product of psychology.
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Foster Zygote said:
Incorrect. There are numerous ways in which expansion cosmology could be falsified.
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Billy Baxter, you are doubling down on your ignorance of the Big Bang. It would be better if you actually tried to understand it first, before dismissing it as false. This knee-jerk negativity is a result of your religious indoctrination, but it can be overcome, if you wish to.
As for absolute certainty, no, I don't know that, or indeed anything else, with absolute certainty. Science doesn't work that way. It is provisional and subject to change, should new evidence come our way. This is why science is different from religion. Religion deals in absolutes, is not based on evidence, and does not change if new evidence comes to light.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
Billy Baxter, you are doubling down on your ignorance of the Big Bang.
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We are all ignorant of the Big Bang.

What we have is an interpretation of the data that explains what happened AFTER time (as we know it) began.

It may be a better explanation than "Goddidit" but it is incomplete and subject to constant refinement and may even change completely as new information comes to light.

Some people may be reluctant to place their faith in what is probably still a primitive theory but "you are more ignorant than I am" is not a terrific rebuttal and "you are ignorant and I am not" is even worse.
 
psionl0 said:
We are all ignorant of the Big Bang.
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No. If you read my original post, it talked about the definition of the Big Bang. That is trivially easy to learn, it contained the answer to Billy Baxter's question, and that is what I was talking about.

psionl0 said:
What we have is an interpretation of the data that explains what happened AFTER time (as we know it) began.
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And therefore we are not ignorant of the Big Bang.

psionl0 said:
It may be a better explanation than "Goddidit" but it is incomplete and subject to constant refinement and may even change completely as new information comes to light.
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Which is also what I said in my last post.

psionl0 said:
Some people may be reluctant to place their faith in what is probably still a primitive theory but "you are more ignorant than I am" is not a terrific rebuttal and "you are ignorant and I am not" is even worse.
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Then it's just as well I didn't use that argument then, isn't it?
 
Cosmic Yak said:
No. If you read my original post, it talked about the definition of the Big Bang. That is trivially easy to learn, it contained the answer to Billy Baxter's question, and that is what I was talking about.
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You posted about the theory of the origins of the universe which is called the Big Bang theory. Just because it has a name doesn't mean that it is proven (which is what Billy Baxter asked for).

You might argue that the speed with which an object falls is proportional to its weight. You could even name this theory the "falling velocity weight ratio". Does the definition of this ratio add any validity to the theory?

Cosmic Yak said:
Then it's just as well I didn't use that argument then, isn't it?
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A lot of that post was about Billy Baxter's ignorance due to his indoctrination. It sound like that was exactly the argument you were using.

His posts may be meritless but we wouldn't know from your response because you went straight for the arguer instead.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
It wasn't a bald assertion, and you would have known that if you knew anything about the Big Bang beyond its name.
The Big Bang was the beginning, not just of space, but of time. Nothing happened before the Big Bang because there was no 'before the Big Bang': time hadn't started yet.
The proof you asked for is the actual definition of the Big Bang.
Click to expand...

Billy Baxter said:
And you know this with absolute certainty?
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psionl0 said:
You posted about the theory of the origins of the universe which is called the Big Bang theory. Just because it has a name doesn't mean that it is proven (which is what Billy Baxter asked for).

You might argue that the speed with which an object falls is proportional to its weight. You could even name this theory the "falling velocity weight ratio". Does the definition of this ratio add any validity to the theory?
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I'm reposting this, because it seems you have misread or forgotten what I said.
The Big Bang is the posited beginning of the universe. By definition, there is no 'before' the Big Bang, because that's what the Big Bang is. I know this with absolute certainty, because that's what the Big Bang is.
Not, the question of whether this idea is a proven fact is provisional, and subject to change in the light of new evidence- which I said, twice. That's not what Billy Baxter was asking. To ask what happened before the Big Bang shows that you do not understand what the Big Bang is: it is not a question about whether this idea has been proven.

psionl0 said:
A lot of that post was about Billy Baxter's ignorance due to his indoctrination. It sound like that was exactly the argument you were using.
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One sentence of that post actually, but anyway: to repeat, asking what happened before the Big Bang shows an ignorance of that theory, and that ignorance is most likely because Billy Baxter has only the strawman version given to him by his Mormon community. I think it reasonable to point this out.

psionl0 said:
His posts may be meritless but we wouldn't know from your response because you went straight for the arguer instead.
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I suggested a reason for his lack of knowledge of the Big Bang theory, and suggested he remedy it. That is not 'going straight for the arguer'. You are free to report my post if you wish. Once again, you have taken one sentence of my post, and focussed on that to the exclusion of all the others. I find this curious and unhelpful.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
By definition, there is no 'before' the Big Bang, because that's what the Big Bang is. I know this with absolute certainty, because that's what the Big Bang is.
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There you go with the proof by definition again. It doesn't prove that time didn't exist in any form 'before' the Big Bang. It only argues that time as we understand it started with the Big Bang.
 
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psionl0 said:
There you go with the proof by definition again. It doesn't prove that time didn't exist in any form 'before' the Big Bang. It only argues that time as we understand it started with the Big Bang.
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And therefore, if time started with the Big Bang, then there was no 'before the Big Bang', because time hadn't started yet.
Now, yes, I am aware of multiverse concepts, and that the Big Bang theory has been refined and developed since its first conception, but still- time, as we know it, as it applies to this universe, started with the Big Bang.
Your disagreement with me is based, at least in part, of your interpretation of Billy Baxter's question to me. It is, I think, up to him to clarify this.
Billy Baxter: when you asked what happened before the Big Bang, were you asking because you were not aware that time started with the Big Bang, or were you asking for proof of the Big Bang theory?

psion10, as a last point here, I do find your depiction of science, as a mix of ignorance supplemented by fiction, to be rather more applicable to religion. Is that really how you view science?
 
The Seed Of Origin

Q: Is it possible that the infinitesimal super hot object preceding the Big Bang, didn't in fact contain the vastness of the matter within our universe but rather, was the event in which the energy from the blast resulted in the formation of Galaxies and everything else which we call "The Universe" from the field of inert material which already existed as 'space'?
Matter + Energy + Space = Time.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
And therefore, if time as we understand it started with the Big Bang , then there was no 'before the Big Bang as we understand it', because time as we understand it hadn't started yet.
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ftfy.

Cosmic Yak said:
psion10, as a last point here, I do find your depiction of science, as a mix of ignorance supplemented by fiction, to be rather more applicable to religion. Is that really how you view science?
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I have no idea of how you are misinterpreting what I have posted but if you believe that we are any where near having definitive answers to these origins of the universe questions then you are pointing your finger in the wrong direction.
 
As far as I know, it is "possible" since I don't think we have a widely accepted explanation of what existed "before" the Big Bang (assuming that there even was a "before").

The short answer I think is that nobody really knows anything for certain. But everyone is free to speculate.

One idea that seems interesting to me is the notion that the Big Bang was a "white hole", which is the opposite of a black hole. In a black hole, nothing inside the event horizon can get out. Time slows down and then stops. In a white hole, nothing outside of the event horizon can get in (but things from the inside will come out). Time itself is a mysterious thing. It's not flat and constant everywhere as we experience it here, but varies according to general relativity.
 
There's not much basis for speculating about what came before the big bang.

Navigator said:
Q: Is it possible that the infinitesimal super hot object preceding the Big Bang,
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Just a nit: That object would be part of the Big Bang. Everything back to the singularity is part of the Big Bang. The theory is not powerful enough to say if the singularity and the earliest fraction of a second after it are accurately described by the theory though.
 
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Navigator said:
Q: Is it possible that the infinitesimal super hot object preceding the Big Bang, didn't in fact contain the vastness of the matter within our universe but rather, was the event in which the energy from the blast resulted in the formation of Galaxies and everything else which we call "The Universe" from the field of inert material which already existed as 'space'?
Matter + Energy + Space = Time.
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Well whatever it was, this event has made a lot of people angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
 
Puppycow said:
As far as I know, it is "possible" since I don't think we have a widely accepted explanation of what existed "before" the Big Bang (assuming that there even was a "before").

The short answer I think is that nobody really knows anything for certain. But everyone is free to speculate.

One idea that seems interesting to me is the notion that the Big Bang was a "white hole", which is the opposite of a black hole. In a black hole, nothing inside the event horizon can get out.
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Hawking radiation would contradict you on this.


Puppycow said:
Time slows down and then stops.
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I think you are confusing how it looks to someone watching an object as it reaches a black hole with what goes on inside, something we don't know. But feel free to let me know how/what you know.I could always be wrong.


Puppycow said:
In a white hole, nothing outside of the event horizon can get in (but things from the inside will come out). Time itself is a mysterious thing. It's not flat and constant everywhere as we experience it here, but varies according to general relativity.
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Nice hypothesis but I ask you the same question I asked re the OP, do you have anything, theoretical or evidentiary, to support this universe contemplating?
 
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Stephen Hawking said asking what happened before the big bang is like asking what is north of the north pole.
Seems reasonable.?
 
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psionl0 said:
ftfy.
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Adding 'as we understand it' is completely redundant: this applies to absolutely everything.
I (as I understand it) made (as I understand it) a cup (as I understand it) of coffee (as I understand it). See?

psionl0 said:
I have no idea of how you are misinterpreting what I have posted but if you believe that we are any where near having definitive answers to these origins of the universe questions then you are pointing your finger in the wrong direction.
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Well, you said we were ignorant of the Big Bang- your own words- and also that any theory of what happened before that would be fiction- again, your own words. I therefore understood you to mean that our knowledge of the Big Bang was a mixture of ignorance and fiction, because those were the words that you used.
I have also said, twice, that we do not, and never will, have definitive answers, because science is provisional and subject to change. If I say this one more time, will you finally acknowledge that I have said this?
Science is provisional: it does not deal in absolutes. That is the realm of religion. Science gives the best answer we have right now, based on our interpretation of the available data. This is quite different from ignorance, and the opposite of what you keep saying I've said.
Clear now?
 
Navigator said:
Q: Is it possible that the infinitesimal super hot object preceding the Big Bang, didn't in fact contain the vastness of the matter within our universe but rather, was the event in which the energy from the blast resulted in the formation of Galaxies and everything else which we call "The Universe" from the field of inert material which already existed as 'space'?
Matter + Energy + Space = Time.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.ph...niverse&oldid=1070784766#The_first_20_minutes
 
Cosmic Yak said:
Adding 'as we understand it' is completely redundant: this applies to absolutely everything.
I (as I understand it) made (as I understand it) a cup (as I understand it) of coffee (as I understand it). See?
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Be silly if you wish. The idea remains that time can exist in forms other than what we understand today (even "before" the Big Bang).

Cosmic Yak said:
Well, you said we were ignorant of the Big Bang- your own words- and also that any theory of what happened before that would be fiction- again, your own words. I therefore understood you to mean that our knowledge of the Big Bang was a mixture of ignorance and fiction, because those were the words that you used.
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And that is still the case. You can't say on the one hand that we don't know everything about the Big Bang then in the same breath say that nothing existed "before" the Big Bang or that it is nonsense to suggest that there is even a concept of "before" the Big Bang.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Hawking radiation would contradict you on this.
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Nope. Hawking radiation does not contradict what I wrote there.

I think you are confusing how it looks to someone watching an object as it reaches a black hole with what goes on inside, something we don't know. But feel free to let me know how/what you know.I could always be wrong.
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Like I said in my post: Nobody knows anything for certain, but everyone is free to speculate.


Nice hypothesis but I ask you the same question I asked re the OP, do you have anything, theoretical or evidentiary, to support this universe contemplating?
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If you mean about white holes, see here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hole
In general relativity, a white hole is a hypothetical region of spacetime and singularity that cannot be entered from the outside, although energy-matter, light and information can escape from it. In this sense, it is the reverse of a black hole, which can be entered only from the outside and from which energy-matter, light and information cannot escape. White holes appear in the theory of eternal black holes. In addition to a black hole region in the future, such a solution of the Einstein field equations has a white hole region in its past.[1] This region does not exist for black holes that have formed through gravitational collapse, however, nor are there any observed physical processes through which a white hole could be formed.
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Unlike black holes, which we know exist from observations, a white hole remains only hypothetical since we have never found any evidence of one, save for one possible candidate: the Big Bang itself. Every part of that description seems to cover the Big Bang. Is it a "singularity"? Yes, I've certainly heard it described as such. Can anything enter this singularity (The Big Bang) from the outside? I don't think so. Can energy-matter, light and information escape from it? Apparently so, given that we find an abundance of all those things in the universe.
 
psionl0 said:
Be silly if you wish. The idea remains that time can exist in forms other than what we understand today (even "before" the Big Bang).
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It's only silly if you don't understand it.
Now, this idea that time can exist in other forms- it that ignorance, or fiction?

psionl0 said:
And that is still the case. You can't say on the one hand that we don't know everything about the Big Bang then in the same breath say that nothing existed "before" the Big Bang or that it is nonsense to suggest that there is even a concept of "before" the Big Bang.
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You can if what we know about the Big Bang includes such knowledge- which it does.
 
This last seems like the "Science doesn't know everything, and what little it does know it knows only tentatively, therefore any random thing anyone proposes --- usually religious stuff, but I guess not necessarily confined to theistic superstitions --- is equally as valid" line of argument.

That said, a full-on discussion around " 'Before" the Big Bang' might be interesting, in its appropriate thread.
 
Chanakya said:
This last seems like the "Science doesn't know everything, and what little it does know it knows only tentatively, therefore any random thing anyone proposes --- usually religious stuff, but I guess not necessarily confined to theistic superstitions --- is equally as valid" line of argument.

That said, a full-on discussion around " 'Before" the Big Bang' might be interesting, in its appropriate thread.
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http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=357792
 
Navigator said:
Q: Is it possible that the infinitesimal super hot object preceding the Big Bang, didn't in fact contain the vastness of the matter within our universe but rather, was the event in which the energy from the blast resulted in the formation of Galaxies and everything else which we call "The Universe" from the field of inert material which already existed as 'space'?
Matter + Energy + Space = Time.
Click to expand...

Since we do not know what happened before the Big Bang and since it is quite unlikely that we will ever know what happened before the Big Bang, then the answer to your question is:

'Yes'.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
I am currently locked in debate with psion10 in another thread about this very subject. He appears to disagree with Mr Hawking.
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Actually, I think the very issue was debated here at some point, with the person (now forgotten but probably banned - it may have been a person whose name I forget, who was convinced that she was the reincarnation of Queen Elizabeth I, though she was ignorant of what a sonnet is, and who maintained that the earth is hollow) arguing that when you reach the north pole you can continue going north by going up it. There's always more north, and I suppose it's in the same kind of vein that no matter how nonexistent something is, there's always more of it.
 
Navigator said:
Q: Is it possible that the infinitesimal super hot object preceding the Big Bang, didn't in fact contain the vastness of the matter within our universe but rather, was the event in which the energy from the blast resulted in the formation of Galaxies and everything else which we call "The Universe" from the field of inert material which already existed as 'space'?
Matter + Energy + Space = Time.
Click to expand...

We have a good idea of the basic rules of how the universe works today. Applying those rules, we can describe how the universe must have worked in the recent past, and how it probably worked in the distant past - up to a point.

Beyond that point in the distant past, the rules we observe today lose all descriptive and explanatory power. The rules we observe today strongly suggest that in the distant past the universe was in a state where these rules do not apply. And we have so far been unable to figure out what rules do apply. Even such a basic rule as the passage of time seems to have no meaning there and then.

So, in one sense, sure. Anything goes! Anything is possible! Is your proposition possible? Absolutely!

That's the good news.

The bad news is that there's no way to test this possibility. The other bad news is that whatever the rules back then, they must necessarily somehow result in the rules we see today. Without that bridge from your speculative cause to the effects we observe, your speculation is meaningless.
 
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