time, causes, existence and the big bang

[HarryKeogh]

if time presupposes the big bang then how can the singularity exist to cause the big bang without the presence of time? I guess I'm asking can something exist without the existence of time?

Also, In George H. Smith's Atheism The Case Against God (pgs. 240-1)he argues that causality presupposes existence since if something does not exist it cannot be a cause. So, as he states, the question "What caused the universe?" is an absurd question because before something can act as a cause it must first exist. From this he extrapolates that therefore the universe has always existed and always will exist. How does this position reflect on the big bang theory which states the universe is approximately 14 billion years old and caused the universe to be.

I think I'm missing something here...

 

[shemp]

Pick up the May issue of Scientific American. There's an interesting article about whether there was something before The Big Bang(TM).

 

[Dancing David]

if time presupposes the big bang then how can the singularity exist to cause the big bang without the presence of time? I guess I'm asking can something exist without the existence of time?

Also, In George H. Smith's Atheism The Case Against God (pgs. 240-1)he argues that causality presupposes existence since if something does not exist it cannot be a cause. So, as he states, the question "What caused the universe?" is an absurd question because before something can act as a cause it must first exist. From this he extrapolates that therefore the universe has always existed and always will exist. How does this position reflect on the big bang theory which states the universe is approximately 14 billion years old and caused the universe to be.

I think I'm missing something here...

Hello!

This has been discussed in many a thead with Lifegazer but I think that there is a lot to read to find it.

First off there is a misconception that Something came from Nothing, that is the basis of misinterpretation of the Big Band starting to play. I will have to read the SciAM article, but basicaly the Big Bang happened in a framework of energy of some sort. But at this point it is beyond our ability to detect.

This is akin to the, There must be god because there is order in the universe argument.

 

[triadboy]

How does this position reflect on the big bang theory which states the universe is approximately 14 billion years old and caused the universe to be.

I think I'm missing something here...

Hindus had the answer:

"Indian cosmologists, the first to estimate the age of the earth at more than 4 billion years. They came closest to modern ideas of atomism, quantum physics, and other current theories. India developed very early, enduring atomist theories of matter. Possibly Greek atomistic thought was influenced by India, via the Persian civilization."

The cycle of creation and destruction continues forever, manifested in the Hindu deity Shiva, Lord of the Dance, who holds the drum that sounds the universe’s creation in his right hand and the flame that, billions of years later, will destroy the universe in his left. Meanwhile Brahma is but one of untold numbers of other gods dreaming their own universes.

The 8.64 billion years that mark a full day-and-night cycle in Brahma’s life is about half the modern estimate for the age of the universe. The ancient Hindus believed that each Brahma day and each Brahma night lasted a kalpa, 4.32 billion years, with 72,000 kalpas equaling a Brahma century, 311,040 billion years in all. That the Hindus could conceive of the universe in terms of billions.

The similarities between Indian and modern cosmology do not seem accidental. Perhaps ideas of creation from nothing, or alternating cycles of creation and destruction are hardwired in the human psyche. Certainly Shiva’s percussive drumbeat suggests the sudden energetic impulse that could have propelled the big bang. And if, as some theorists have proposed, the big bang is merely the prelude to the big crunch and the universe is caught in an infinite cycle of expansion and contraction, then ancient Indian cosmology is clearly cutting edge compared to the one-directional vision of the big bang. The infinite number of Hindu universes is currently called the many world hypothesis, which is no less undocumentable nor unthinkable.

http://www.atributetohinduism.com/Hindu_Cosmology.htm

So the universe has always existed and always will - as a pulsating egg of existence. We are 14 billion years into one of the expansions.

 

[Bikewer]

I just read Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...3510742/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-2425284-3440040

Where he explains the current thinking on these things in some detail. The book is geared to the layman, and it's a pretty good read.
The universe is very odd, indeed.

 

[RussDill]

if time presupposes the big bang then how can the singularity exist to cause the big bang without the presence of time? I guess I'm asking can something exist without the existence of time?

Also, In George H. Smith's Atheism The Case Against God (pgs. 240-1)he argues that causality presupposes existence since if something does not exist it cannot be a cause. So, as he states, the question "What caused the universe?" is an absurd question because before something can act as a cause it must first exist. From this he extrapolates that therefore the universe has always existed and always will exist. How does this position reflect on the big bang theory which states the universe is approximately 14 billion years old and caused the universe to be.

I think I'm missing something here...

His logic assumes that time would exist outside of existence, and therefore, existence would need to fill that time out, less it have a boundry. However, because our universe does not have a notion of just "time", but spacetime. As you turn the "clock" (I put it in quotes because there is no universal timekeeper for the universe) back, the universe becomes more and more dense. As it becomes more dense, spacetime becomes more and more warped. Just as when the universe was very small, traveling 1 meter in any direction wouldn't get you anywhere but where you started, the same was true for time.

The classical/without spacetime model for the big bang views existence emenating from a point, and expanding outward, ie, a cone. With spacetime, it could be best said that the bottom of the cone is curved.

 

[c4ts]

What's the difference between an acausal event and one that causes itself to happen?

 

[uruk]

if time presupposes the big bang then how can the singularity exist to cause the big bang without the presence of time? I guess I'm asking can something exist without the existence of time?

Well that depends on which time framework your talking about.
Time as in big bang/our time reference in this universe, or the time refrence framework of where/when-ever bigbang is taking place?

the time we experiance is only in this univers which started at bigbang. The other time reference is the big where/when-ever of where/when-ever bigbang is taking place.
Our time started at big bang. What/when before BB is part of the other frame work which is undetectable to us. So from our perspective the was no before BB. From outside our perspective, we may never know unless some info crossed over into BB.

Lord help you if you understood this!!!!!!!!!!

edited to correct spelling. not all though

 

[uruk]

What's the difference between an acausal event and one that causes itself to happen?

Ask Lifegazer. I think he knows the answer to this one.

 

[Silicon]

Our time started at big bang. What/when before BB is part of the other frame work which is undetectable to us. So from our perspective the was no before BB. From outside our perspective, we may never know unless some info crossed over into BB.

Short analogy.


Walk to the north pole.




Walk north from there.



"North" has no meaning at the north pole, just as "before" has no meaning at T=0.

It's a limitation of the term "north", not something that limits the possibilities of various outside processes.

 

[Frostbite]

I read an article a couple months ago about something called a multiverse, whereas our universe could be just one occurence in an infinite sea of universes. Now, if the big bang is just another one of them big bangs, then I dont see what's so special about ours.

 

[uruk]

"North" has no meaning at the north pole, just as "before" has no meaning at T=0.

It's a limitation of the term "north", not something that limits the possibilities of various outside processes.

That was kind of my point. Time is only a term which has meaning within the unverse. You need a different set of refrence frames to deal with what's outside this universe (if there is an outside as we think of the term or if it is even comprehensible to us and mathmatics)

counter analogy

Walk to the north pole


"North" looses it's meaning


"up" does not.

 

[Iconoclast]

I read an article a couple months ago about something called a multiverse, whereas our universe could be just one occurence in an infinite sea of universes. Now, if the big bang is just another one of them big bangs, then I dont see what's so special about ours.

Well, the multiverse theory has problems from a philosophical point of view. It postulates that there exists an infinite number of different universes just to explain why this one looks the way it does. IMHO it's just a brute force approach.

 

[Bikewer]

The "brane" idea recently postulated involves a infinite series of "bang" events, resulting in a similar infinite series of universes.

There wouldn't appear to be any reason why other universes couldn't form at any rate, either historically or contemporaneously in some other part of the "void".