--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "PaliGap" <compost1uk@> wrote: > > > > -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltablues@> > > wrote: > > > > > > Barry > > > > Me and Curtis, not so much. We don't hold much of anyone's > > > > declarations to be Truth, just because they said them. > > > > > > Judy > > > Curtis isn't questioning the premise that the universe > > > had a beginning, actually. > > > > > > I hadn't been but in my most recent post I may be changing > > > my mind. Although the universe in its present form is > > > thought to have a beginning and may have a starting point, > > > the matter contained in it may not. It may have all been > > > contained in the inconceivable density of the singularity > > > that existed before the big bang. > > > > It's an odd thing this. I think we are almost unavoidably > > thinking of Time as a backdrop "within which" the Big Bang > > happened. e.g. "the inconceivable density of the singularity that > > existed before the big bang". > > > > But there is no "before the Big bang". Time itself emerged (is > > that the right word?) at the Big Bang. At least that's how I > > understand it. > > Yup, that's what they say.
Now I've caught up I see you have been making just this point! But I'm not sure it's getting home? John - you say "This is the way I understand the present cosmology as well. There is no present method in science to determine what happened 'before the Big Bang'". But it's not for want of capability to probe that far, or for not having the method. As Hawking would have it, you're trying to ask "what's north (on the globe) of the north pole?". > > I find myself, like Barry, intuitively drawn to eternalism. > > Why could there not be a sequence of Bangs? But then you have > > to stop yourself, swallow hard, and try to intone until it > > starts to sink in: "No, there WAS no *before*, No, there WAS > > no *before*..." > > On the other hand, there's a sense in which we can say > that the universe "always" existed, since there was no > "time" when it didn't exist. Indeedy. Good point. It makes me think that Big Bang cosmology is perhaps best thought of as neither eternalist nor creationist. Of course just when you think it's safe to dip your toe in the cosmological waters (quagmire?), something pops up to rock the boat. I saw a program recently in which Penrose put forward his idea of a cyclical universe (which to be honest I would *prefer* to believe in, though what my preferences should have to do with anything, I don't know!). The idea (if I get it correctly) is like that Yin/Yangy thing whereby if you push something to its complete extreme, it turns into its opposite. In this case he seems to think that if you extrapolate into the VERY far distant future, at extreme entropy the universe shares key characteristics of the extreme singularity. So, puff! there you go again... http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/44388 (Any congruence between Penrose's actual views and my cartoon characterization above would be purely down to chance. But in an infinite universe, anything that is *possible* not only CAN happen, but has already happened an infinite number of times to date. So we can't rule out my having gotten it right. But don't bet on it...). > I think the idea that the universe didn't have a beginning, > all the evidence that it did notwithstanding, is actually a > function of the inability to conceive of there having been > no "before" that beginning. > > It's very much akin to the terror many people feel at the > notion that they will no longer exist in any sense after > death. What they're subconsciously imagining is *being > there* to experience not existing, being conscious of not > existing (which would indeed be horrible). > > Me, I harbor the suspicion that at some point it will > become crystal clear that we have completely misconstrued > what time is. > > > (Also, I suspect the idea of matter expressed in the statement > > "matter was *contained in* the singularity" is meaningless). > > Same here. I wonder, in fact, whether the singularity could > be described as "Neti, neti"--not this, not that.
