Origin of the universe

wlminex said:
MY take? . . . .I think 'spacetime' has always existed . . . our present, material (> Planck length) universe is simply evolving into a pre-existent spacetime matrix by conversion of subquantal 'stuff' into matter. I refer you to the EEMU Hypothesis for details.
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I looked at it, but I couldn't get my teeth into it.
 
AID: . . . that's O.K. . . . thanks for looking . . . besides . . . AlexG probably couldn't either . . . he prefers 'getting his' teeth into my ass! (<-- Note: humor here!)
 
Aqueous Id said:
Or they're running game, maybe. Who knows. It's a cosmology thread, so it would be interesting to have some actual participation at that level. Some of the experts wandered in and left. Some remarked that the OP is beyond science, which is of course true. Some I think are finding more interesting material where there is less BS.

I had a good few days of interaction, almost getting some of the better qualified folks to comment on a question, relevant to the OP, that is interesting to me: if it is not creatio ex nihilo, then the singularity presumably exists outside of spacetime. Is so, is it eternal?

I found it interesting that some of the better informed folks had some actual rationale for arguing one way or the other on this question. But it fizzled out when harping and BS set in, and they wandered off.
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Well I hope I haven't disappointed you Aqueous for you were asking some difficult questions and trying to elicit some difficult answers. I never shy away from the fact that I am a God believer, not that I know what God is or does or looks like, it is just that I feel connected to something more powerful and knowledgeable than myself.
So I have had my revelations given to me, OK if they do hold out, then maybe I'd have to question the concept of belief.
So when you keep asking "if it is not creatio ex nihilo, then the singularity presumably exists outside of spacetime. Is so, is it eternal?" I have let you down for I never spent time understanding what "creatio ex nihilo" really meant. OK I think it means "came from nothing" but the "creatio" might mean created which then asks if there was a creator?

Creator concepts aren't liked on this forum. Eternal and “before time” concepts are God-like attributes as well; so that would scare off most of the others.

OK on one post I made today I said the energy in the Universe is not zero, and showed why I felt it wasn't zero, and have not had any replies to that.
So if the Total Energy in the Universe is not Zero and Energy can't be created or destroyed where did it come from?
I would love to know how Hawking was able to show the positive and negative energy balanced.
I read that often and he gets quoted saying that but it never seems to have verified it.
Or is it as long as God is not part of the equation anything goes? :)
 
Following a report from a member suggesting I move this thread to another forum, I started looking through it to see if I could split it into a science part and a pseudoscience part. I found that after the first four or five posts the rest is basically pseudoscience. So, I've moved the entire thread. I seriously considered the Cesspool, and it may still become necessary to move it there.
 
Robittybob1 said:
Well I hope I haven't disappointed you Aqueous for you were asking some difficult questions and trying to elicit some difficult answers. I never shy away from the fact that I am a God believer, not that I know what God is or does or looks like, it is just that I feel connected to something more powerful and knowledgeable than myself.
So I have had my revelations given to me, OK if they do hold out, then maybe I'd have to question the concept of belief.
So when you keep asking "if it is not creatio ex nihilo, then the singularity presumably exists outside of spacetime. Is so, is it eternal?" I have let you down for I never spent time understanding what "creatio ex nihilo" really meant. OK I think it means "came from nothing" but the "creatio" might mean created which then asks if there was a creator?

Creator concepts aren't liked on this forum. Eternal and “before time” concepts are God-like attributes as well; so that would scare off most of the others.

OK on one post I made today I said the energy in the Universe is not zero, and showed why I felt it wasn't zero, and have not had any replies to that.
So if the Total Energy in the Universe is not Zero and Energy can't be created or destroyed where did it come from?
I would love to know how Hawking was able to show the positive and negative energy balanced.
I read that often and he gets quoted saying that but it never seems to have verified it.
Or is it as long as God is not part of the equation anything goes? :)
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I think the question of negative energy is more directed to explaining inflation and expansion than it is to inquiring into the origins. It's an interpretation, but not a bald one. He has the ability to connect the dots within his own theory and knowledge, but it didn't resonate with me because I wasn't interested in expansion as a mechanism as much as I was interested in the "first cause" raised by the OP.

I think this OP sets up a way to split the cosmology away from theology. Science begins, Hawking says, right after the Big Bang. I think this is where the yawning comes in - the speculation it invites may be a turn off to people who like to work proofs and exercise their chops.

As far as connecting anything I was saying to notions of God or Creationism, the only reason any connection might be drawn, as you note, is that I was speaking to the question of what came first. From my perspective, it's just a coincidence that the God of Creation is cast in religion as what came first.

By assigning creation to God, we deprive ourselves of a degree of inquiry that we might otherwise undertake. Who knows how many great minds have been wasted because they were either reluctant or forbidden to inquire further.

It so happens that over the ages the documented attributes of God have grown by accretion, until he absorbs all the unanswered questions, by acquiring every form of power and magic necessary to staunch the bleeding, so to speak. So he is eternal yet also rides along the timestream, kicking ass and taking names. He is omnipresent. He reads minds. Whatever.

But some of those attributes are directly tied to the abstractions made in cosmology concerning dimensionality. So, for example the photon that is eternal yet interacts along the timeline in mysterious ways - but clearly visible in its effect - this is analogous to the divine power I mentioned above. Or, the concept that the photon has forever to cut through every path in space to trace every light ray conceivable, instantaneously - this could be analogous to the omnipresence of God.

Who knows, if Tycho Brahe hadn't been burned at the stake, or if Galileo hadn't been locked up, what extremely cool stuff we might be discussing today.

It just sticks in my craw, that if there ever is an object off the timeline, it must be trapped in eternity since never the twain shall meet. AlexG asked the very valid question, what's to say they never shall meet? I think he already alluded to multiverses, but from reading his posts elsewhere, I could see that he is also connecting a lot of other dots when mentioning temporal overlaps.

So where does that leave us? Back to the start. Several people suggested that the universe is both infinite and arrives ex nihilo. I prefer this idea myself. Because if we say it is infinite, we can just as easily say that infinity is the superset of all possible scenarios, one of which is arrival ex nihilo. Alternatively, I can rewind time to t-zero and say the universe exists in a crunch forever, but also blooms into the Big Bang precisely then, when time was created.
 
AID: . . . I agree . . . . w/your post #229 . . . and think JamesR is over-reaching in his response to one of his "bud's reports. I am enjoying your discussions here.
 
I have found this one of the most interesting threads, so while it is still unlocked let's not fret about it. It was philosophical and not particularly scientific for we were discussing the moment before Science begins.
I have saved it to my subscribed threads so while I can contribute I will do my best.
 
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