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A "Before" the Big Bang?

Forget the films, Iacchus; they're not relevant.

Try to think about the balloon. Not what's inside it, not what's outside it. Just consider the suface of the balloon. Think about what happens to the two-dimensional surface as the balloon expands. Does it expand into a surrounding two-dimensional surface?
Trying thinking of the surface area of a water droplet when you heat it up. Does it expand into the surrounding atmosphere (the air) or, nothing?
 
Trying thinking of the surface area of a water droplet when you heat it up. Does it expand into the surrounding atmosphere (the air) or, nothing?

the air. ooo...that hit it outta the ballpark, let me tell you. My entire world view is shattered to lil itty bitty bits by that amazing analogy. <yawn>
 
Trying thinking of the surface area of a water droplet when you heat it up. Does it expand into the surrounding atmosphere (the air) or, nothing?
Wrong analogy. What's the problem, can you not grasp the balloon example? In fact, the balloon, while a very nice analogy, is still two-dimensional, so it should be easier to grasp than the space-time question.

All of your examples still demonstrate you are thinking of nothing as something. What is worse, you are insisting that it is you who has the real grasp of the picture. Are you sure you are actually trying to figure this out? Or are you actually trying to keep from figuring it out? I am genuinely curious.
 
How much space would that be? "Infinite" is not an amount, it's a limit.

Actually, infinite is the definition of not having a limit. Now, in math, you do try to find out if there is a finite limit as some variable goes to infinity, or if the "limit" is infinity, which is to say, unlimited.

Where is the "middle" of infinity? How far is it from the edges?

And, as has been long realized by physicists, if the universe, regardless of size, is infinitely old, it should long since be clogged with infinitely bright light everywhere.

Sort of correct, assuming a real cardboard box and not just a rectangular shape. If there are atoms in the cardboard, then there are electrons whizzing around their nuclei. Since something is moving in relationship to something else, then time exists.

While observing something moving with respect to something else is sufficient to demonstrate time exists, is it required in order for time to exist? In a forest with no trees nor anything else, is time still ticking?


Totally hypothetical. Matter/energy cannot be destroyed, only changed. You can't "take it away" because there is nowhere for it to go.

Within a hypothetically sealed universe, yes. But this matter and energy had to come from somewhere, didn't it? Something had to re-order it so it could re-distribute statistically via entropy. Or create it highly ordered ex nihilo.

But staying on the hypothetical level, if there is no matter or energy in the universe, then nothing can happen in relationship to anything else, hence, no time.

Again, is the presense of stuff required for the existence of time? I don't think so.


And you can't quantify infinity anyway, so it is not logical to speak of the "difference in infinities". They have no value, so you cannot perform subtraction on them.

Sure you can. There's an entire mathematical branch dedicated to "transfinite numbers", which are cardinal numbers, if unknown, that represent the magnitude of various infinite sets, such as the set of whole numbers (which is the same size as the integers and rational numbers), and the set of real numbers (which is infinitely larger, i.e. there is no way to map counting numbers to it) and so on.

These transfinite numbers are analyzed with respect to cardinality and ordinality.
 
Trying thinking of the surface area of a water droplet when you heat it up. Does it expand into the surrounding atmosphere (the air) or, nothing?
Just try to answer the following questions:

Consider the suface of a balloon. Does it have an edge?

Think about what happens to the two-dimensional surface as the balloon expands. Does it expand into a surrounding two-dimensional surface?
 
Wrong analogy. What's the problem, can you not grasp the balloon example? In fact, the balloon, while a very nice analogy, is still two-dimensional, so it should be easier to grasp than the space-time question.
No, all he's doing is putting "a skin" over the problem, to conceal it.

All of your examples still demonstrate you are thinking of nothing as something. What is worse, you are insisting that it is you who has the real grasp of the picture. Are you sure you are actually trying to figure this out? Or are you actually trying to keep from figuring it out? I am genuinely curious.
Hey, I'm willing to concede that we're living in a sort of Matrix, are you? In fact, this would give more credence to what you're saying, wouldn't it? ;)
 
Just try to answer the following questions:

Consider the suface of a balloon. Does it have an edge?

Think about what happens to the two-dimensional surface as the balloon expands. Does it expand into a surrounding two-dimensional surface?
No, actually it stretches (gets thinner) to accomodate the expansion of the inside and the "diminishment" of the outside (volume) it is expanding into.
 
No, actually it stretches (gets thinner) to accomodate the expansion of the inside and the "diminishment" of the outside (volume) it is expanding into.
You are still thinking three-dimensionally. The problem is two-dimensional. This is why you are not seeing it.
 
Just because a number is not real does preclude it having a mathematical definition. Use Dr. Kitten's example of the square root of negative numbers. There is a defintion and mathematical use for i, but that does not mean it is a real number.

Exactly true. But it is a complex number. And remember that the set of real numbers is a subset of complex numbers. Same way that the set of integers is a subset of real numbers.

I think Dr. Kitten said it much better and more precisely than I did, that while all operations are not defined for every number in the set of real numbers that doesn't mean they are not real numbers.

0 * x = 0 - you have taken no sets of "x". You have done nothing
I would consider
1 * x = x
as doing nothing.
Your wording there is a bit wrong (sets of "x"). I think you see what I mean by that after you read ahead.
As I say, my terminology may be incorrect, but I don't think you or Dr. Kitten would argue when I say the null set is much different from other "real" numbers.
True and true. You are mixing here the concept of a number and a set.
Null set would be A = {}
While set which contains the real number 0 is B = {0} (Yes I'm still considering 0 as a number :))
I would describe zero as the absence of real numbers.
Absence of numbers is a null set which is completely different concept than 0.

Edit:
This just occured to me:
I think you can argue wether 0 is a natural number. I think mathematicians are not in an agreement wheter it is.
Set of natural numbers N = {1, 2, 3,...} Or N = {0, 1 ,2,...} depending on your view. Maybe you've heard about this argument and you are confusing things a bit. Set of natural numbers is a subset of integers. And 0 is in that set. There's no argument about that among mathematicians (I think).
 
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Hey, I'm willing to concede that we're living in a sort of Matrix, are you? In fact, this would give more credence to what you're saying, wouldn't it? ;)
Of course if we put it in this (holographic) "light" -- hmm ... -- God doesn't have to be any bigger than a man and, maybe He is Jesus Christ? :eek: :eek: :eek:
 
No, actually it stretches (gets thinner) to accomodate the expansion of the inside and the "diminishment" of the outside (volume) it is expanding into.
No, forget about what is inside or outside the balloon; we're not talking about that. For the purposes of the analogy we're only concerned with the two-dimensional surface of the balloon.

Does it have an edge?

When the balloon expands, does its two-dimensional surface expand into a surrounding two-dimensional surface?

Answer the first question, and then think about the implications of that answer as far as the second question is concerned.
 
No, forget about what is inside or outside the balloon; we're not talking about that. For the purposes of the analogy we're only concerned with the two-dimensional surface of the balloon.

Does it have an edge?

When the balloon expands, does its two-dimensional surface expand into a surrounding two-dimensional surface?

Answer the first question, and then think about the implications of that answer as far as the second question is concerned.

Mojo,
isn't this fun...having to explain yourself in two threads at once TO THE SAME FRICKING GUY?
 
The God of the Universe ...

The God of the Universe, if in fact there is one, must be pragmatic, in every single last detail or, this is what the Universe leads us to conclude. Perhaps this is why it's such a mystery, and we can't see Him, because His works are so practical and, "stand alone?" And yet, aren't these the very same attributes we would apply to the "Good Programmer?"
 
Perhaps this has been mentioned here, perhaps not, but it's something I brought up in another thread:

Asking what came before the Big Bang is like asking what is south of the south pole. It's the wrong question to ask.

The Universe has a shape in spacetime, one that flares outward due to inflation. That shape ends at a singularity, a point at the "bottom" or beginning. If you think of it in terms of the sphere analogy with a north and south pole, and the longitudinal lines represent time, we exist on the surface of the sphere, as 2 dimensional beings.

It makes no sense to think of a causal relationship between some creator initiating the first "southness" of the sphere which preceded a movement north, much in the same way that it makes no sense to think about a creator initiating the begining or "beginingness" of the Universe. It's simply the border of the shape.

We don't quite know much if anything about the exterior construct this Universe 'rests' inside. Some physicists speculate that the Big Bang was actually the product of a collision between two multidimensional membranes.

Either way, talking about a creator before the Big Bang is as silly as talking about a creator south of the south pole. It's just the wrong way to look at it.
 
Asking what came before the Big Bang is like asking what is south of the south pole. It's the wrong question to ask.
Really, I always thought that was Space ... The Final Frontier. :D
 
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