Aethelwulf

So if it's not all knowing and not all powerful, why refer to it as God, with all of the connotations that word carries?

 

But why do we need to call that something God, especially if we're positing it's a natural, not supernatural source.

''So if it's not all knowing and not all powerful, why refer to it as God, with all of the connotations that word carries?''

Because such a God would be something I couldn't describe. It might as well be in that case, the kind of care-free evaluation a normal church-goer who see's God, something beyond the normal bounds of what could be called for the sake of arguments, the limits of science.

''But why do we need to call that something God, especially if we're positing it's a natural, not supernatural source.''

We don't need to call him God. I've simply called him a superintelligence a couple of times.

Hi

 

What is time?

 

Some say it is just measure of movement or an aggregation of events. Time is not a constant and I would like you guys to put forward your own ideas on the topic before adding my peace to the story.

 

Alan

Well, we recently had a thread which tackled this question. I can tell you, that time does not mean change. Things can be unchanging while time trucks on, so they are not synonymous. Time is certainly not a constant as you say, it's a variable.

But time may not even exist, through the eyes of the Wheeler de Witt equation, so time is a very complicated subject. It has no flow and if it has any precedence in quantum mechanics, it can be seen rather as stops and starts.

Which cosmologist did you ask?

I don't need to, I am a physicist. If someone asked me, ''how did the universe come about'', I wouldn't ignore the spacetime singularity, even though I agree every conventional sense of time breaks down. I agreed with this point before.

But I still wouldn't ignore the singularity and say the universe existed sometime after. It's the precurser of anything existing. It's a state of infinite energy, space and curvature.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this I think. It's quite a quibble, because on one hand I agree with you, it does break down, but on the other hand, it's not as if we are led to think it did not exist (just not in any normal physical kind of sense).

I'll be back soon. I need to run a quick errand.

But if we assume that our "God" entity is already all knowing, why would he need observations at all? Doesn't the idea of knowing everything already sort of preclude the need to make observations to learn something?

I don't believe something is just all-knowing. I think something is only aware of certain information through the act of measuring to know something; the act of measuring does indeed bring potential existence into the real world. Such was the measurement problem of the Big Bang. Something needed to be there to bring order out of the potential chaos, so-to-speak.

Do yourself a favor and try not to piss off people you are conversing with.

 

I did not add words to your claim and insist they were yours. I added words to your claim and asked if you also believed that. It is a way gaining a further understanding of a person's position.

 

If someone says they 'enjoyed the restaurant' it doesn't really give me a good understanding of their experience. It is perfectly reasonable of me to say 'did you enjoy the restaurant because the food was good?'. Or, 'did you enjoy the restaurant because of the atmosphere?'. Or 'did you enjoy the restaurant because your first date went very well?'.

 

When people ask you questions you may want to take it as a sign that they are making an honest effort to understand your position. I'm here for conversation and debate, not a lecture.

Don't ask a question and then posit the answer in some form of a statement - considering how delicate this conversation is, I think it would be wiser to just ask a question and wait for the answer.

Of course there can be nothing outside the universe, the trick is to actually define the entirety of the universe, we simply do not know if we know enough to say what you are asserting. i agree that within the bounds of our knowledge what we see as the universe is indeed the universe but saying that is a known fact is a bit misleading i think.

 

 

 

I understand that you are approaching this from the point of view of the current understanding of the universe but any fundamentalist theist would immediately dismiss your point by saying God doesn't have to play by our rules and by definition is not bound by any rules what so ever.

 

 

Most of your statements was just rubbish, so I have ended up ignoring... like the one ''does the Vatican Trump science''?

''Of course there can be nothing outside the universe, the trick is to actually define the entirety of the universe.''

Do you know the definition of a universe? It means something which encompasses everything... and in the context of relativity, that means strictly within spacetime.

'' understand that you are approaching this from the point of view of the current understanding of the universe but any fundamentalist theist would immediately dismiss your point by saying God doesn't have to play by our rules and by definition is not bound by any rules what so ever. ''

Only if they are ignorant of science they would.

No I don't know why but I'll take your word that it applies to the natural world. Are you saying that "the relativistic equations which explain the dynamical features of our universe" apply to the supernatural? If so, can you cite any evidence?

 

 

When you say 'everything in nature abides by this rule', are you saying that God and his abilities are 'natural', and not 'supernatural'? If so, can you cite any evidence?

Do yourself a favor and stop adding words to claims.

The relativistic equations says there is nothing outside of the universe for a number of reasons. One of them being there is no boundary to the universe. There is no edge.

For there to be something outside of the universe, it almost certainly requires a boundary between this universe and something else, which none of today's current equations in mainstream science support...

...well... actually there is one case for certain classes of string theory but I prefer to stick to the science that makes most sense. In certain classes of string theory, our universe is a branch/brane floating in a multidimensional pool. But compared to the case where there is no boundary and no outside to string theory, one is a real science, the other isn't.

I have said from the outset, I believe God is nature. He is Spinoza's God, the same God referenced by Einstein when pressed whether he believes in a God.

What rules of physics are applicable to whether the supernatural must be inside or outside the universe?

 

 

What observation of God's ability led you to the conclusion that God was not capable of 'measuring' the actual individuality of particles from outside the universe?

''What rules of physics are applicable to whether the supernatural must be inside or outside the universe?''

The relativistic equations which explain the dynamical features of our universe are currently tested to such a high degree that the solutions to the equations fitting a beginning of time in the form of a Big Bang preclude that there is nothing outside the universe.. Do you know why?

''What observation of God's ability led you to the conclusion that God was not capable of 'measuring' the actual individuality of particles from outside the universe?''

The fact everything in nature abides by this rule. Even non-sentient beings cannot observe complimentary observable's of neighboring systems without causing even the slightest disruption.

So if God could measure everything about particles, we'd know... in fact, everything would just crumble in physical world.

Conversely, I feel it's extremely fortunate that the unscientific notion of a deity beyond the conditions of reality is becoming increasingly absent from scientific discussions.

 

Did you miss the part where Hawking was almost certainly not discussing God in the context of supernatural being and actually using the term as a metaphor?

No... he wasn't meaning it as a metaphor. At the time he had a lot of pressure from authorities like the Vatican to assure them he would not denounce God, so he came to an appropriate settlement.... that being that God could still be part of science or at least not outside mentioning him or her. It is strangely enough, only recently Hawking has said there is now no need for God saying that M-theory is the theory of everything, which many scientists don't believe.

I believe he was fortunate enough to get away with the ''no-creation'' card, but I guess not many people knew what that really meant. I kind of agree with Hawking on this one though, it probably wasn't the kind of creation one can associate to ''a sentient decision maker''.

As I comprehend

 

if the universe is infinite it hasn't beginning. it could not started from nothing

 

It's hard to talk about the beginning to anything without matter clocks which define time. Therefore, the universe could not have had a beginning within the framework of relativity simply because for a beginning to exist, you need to be able to define time.

Also another time-problem, is the fact that the universe arose with no geometry originally, so spacetime as geometry ceases to exist. Again, relativistically-speaking, we can't speak about ordered sets of events in your usual sense.

Whatever it is you need to solve the problem of the Problem of Universals if you think that QM is all there is. Roger Penrose is one of them who is a strong Platonist and Platonists believed in realism that universals and mathematical concepts exist outside of the universe eternally. There are many reasons why you could be wrong too.

I never said quantum mechanics is all there is, but, that's speculative. I am well aware of things like Plato's Cave, for instance.

I have stated that quantum mechanics is incomplete, but this shouldn't be taken that there is definitely something outside of it.

Yes, I understand. You said IF God exists. I notice the IF.

 

 

No, I am treating this as saying "IF God exists He would be subject to the laws of Quantum Mechanics".

 

 

You should consider the possibility that perhaps people disagree with you not because they didn't read what you wrote, but because they think you are wrong. You do understand that you could be wrong, don't you?

 

Your assertion has inspired me to make one of my own:

 

God is not subject to the rules of quantum mechanics. If a God truly exists, he therefore must exist outside of the universe. If he did exist inside the universe it surely would cause a tremendous discharge of energy from each and every particle in the universe due to [math]\Delta E \Delta t[/math]. Since this has not happened, it is proof that IF he exists, he exists outside the universe.

''No, I am treating this as saying "IF God exists He would be subject to the laws of Quantum Mechanics".''

Yes that's right, under the doctrine he is omniscient, but I stressed this fact.

''

God is not subject to the rules of quantum mechanics. If a God truly exists, he therefore must exist outside of the universe.''

There is no outside to the universe. Not according to relativity. You see, I made the statements I made because they where as close to my understanding of physics. Of course the idea of an outside of the universe crossed my mind. Indeed, the only way for instance the universe can have an energy, is if someone was either

1. sitting outside the universe

2. or was sitting at the last instance of time and was measuring the universe

However, as most physicists know, including a paper I can recite on Fotini Markopoulou, neither case is physical valid. So no, your argument makes no sense to me.

And if God was outside the universe, he would view the universe as a single system - not ''measuring'' the actual individuality of particles as in my case. My case is an inside knowledge, yours would be like observing the universe as a single particle with a definite energy. Still unphysically possible.

Exactly, that's so right.

 

But his definition of a God seems to be a natural one, so he believe that God could be found in some kind of unified theory and we have got no idea what properties this God has so that we can even make some arguments or talk about it. He just says "If God exist... deal with it" without precisely defining what that word means and its very difficult to comprehend what concept of God he has in his mind.

 

 

So wrong... actually. And I have given reasons why.

As I pointed out, knowledge is not necessarily the same as observation.

Actually if you invoke observations, there can only be extracting information. Remember, this involves all types of observation, even those particles who do not have eyes. Observations in physics means extracting information, and omniscience in this case would mean knowing the entire framework of your model.

If the whole concept is unscientific, why are you demanding scientists/we "wake up to the possibility" and "deal with it" ?

I want people to wake up to the idea, which seems to have been lost the last 50 years. Ok, we still have people like Hawking who are not afraid to speculate about God. We had much more contributors however in the past century than we do today, which is unfortunate.

(Sorry Greg, I was typing so fast) - ''Actually if you invoke observations, there can only be extracting information.''

ok.

Nothing for nothing, but nothing is no longer nothing. Looking into a box of nothing you will see something. The something just comes and goes, just like the thoughts in your head.

 

 

 

What ever it is, it must come from somewhere, because if it does not come from somewhere then it comes from nowhere and that is where God exists.

 

 

 

This is where my nothing comes from:

 

 

 

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/09/10076985-how-to-get-a-cosmos-from-nothing?lite

 

 

 

 

 

 

When someone talks to me about a Null Energy Hypothesis, I think about the vacuum condition

[math]E=Mc^2 - \frac{GM}{2R}[/math]

Where when [math]M=0[/math] what is left over is the metric.

You may want to brush up a touch on the scientific method and experimental design.

 

http://en.wikipedia...._of_experiments

http://en.wikipedia....Null_hypothesis

http://en.wikipedia....othesis_testing

 

Generally, a test hypothesis will take the form of a positive expression - i.e.

H1: God exists.

 

The null hypothesis will counter the test with a negative, null position - i.e.

H0: God does not exist.

 

The experiment, or observations will attempt to reject the null hypothesis, in relation to a predetermined statistical significance - e.g. p <0.01

 

If the experiment cannot reject the null hypothesis at this predetermined level, the test hypothesis is unsupported, and thus the null position is maintained. As such, a lack of proof God does not exist not only prevents the acceptance of the test hypothesis, but dictates, under strict application of the scientific method that we retain the null position until such time as sufficient evidence to reject the null is provided.

 

Given that God is generally defined as beyond objective reality and thus we are prevented from gathering evidence to conduct any tests which would result in the rejection of the null hypothesis - the strict scientific position must be one that accepts that no evidence to support God's existence has been provided and thus assumes non-existence. However in the absence of any empirical data either way and the unlikeliness of the ever being any, the notion of a deity's potential existence is not a very compelling scientific topic - certainly not one I'd think the scientific community needs to "wake up" to.

I'm well aware of the Null Hypothesis.

And we have already covered this ''proving scientific theories by measurement and observations.'' I have explained that God isn't something which falls into that catagory. Now this might mean God is not a scientific topic, but I have also explained there are also many different area's of science which cannot be measured and are awaiting for the right kind of technology, such as string theory. Or there are speculations on things which are awaiting for the right kind of mathematical framework.

I am not saying God is a part of science, because usually today too many scientists like to stay clear from that topic, but it certainly didn't stop Hawking's famous words

''then we would know the mind of God''

In reference to unifying the theories of physics in a consistent framework, in his popular book, a brief history of time. In much the same sense, I am simply saying ''If a God exists'' so deal with it.

How do you know what the universe is made up of? We infact don't know whether these particles exist in the external physical world or not. So why would God want to know your abstract concepts which you have made up in your models.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You did used the word "must" why the hell I should lie.

 

 

 

You said I am rephrasing my arguments, my arguments have not changed a single iota, I've used the same arguments over and over again. They all depend on ''If''... you even quoted that thinking it was a rebuttel, so you must be trolling if you claim you are not lying.

Now you are asking me how do I know what the universe is made up of.... well, taking relativity and our current quantum (well-tested) theories at face value, four ingredients make up the world around us... those are ''space'', ''time'', ''matter'' and ''energy''.

You got a problem with that?

In case you are genuinely curious and honestly seeking to improve, this is the type of comment I would seriously consider neg repping.

That's cheap coming from you, who thinks it's acceptable to talk about other people mums ''being fucked''.

Incorrect. The big bang theory talks about how the universe develops over long cosmological time frames, and is NOT a theory about how the universe 'began' (there never will or can be a theory about that, since the universe did not begin in the first place).The conventional hot big bang model is in modern cosmology preceded with an inflationary period, a short timeframe in which the universe exponentially fast grew from a very tiny patch of false vacuum and then goes over in a more moderate rate of expansion, after the heat was converted into particles.

I disagree. If you ask a cosmologist how the universe began, they will loosely say it began as a singular region of spacetime with infinite curvature - if you ask them how this singularity came about, they will tell you we don't know because nothing in our equations can draw anything accurate from it.

Here's my contention - if our theoretical God entity really is all knowing, he wouldn't need to observe the particles. Knowing is not the same as observing - not really.

 

How do you know about any system without an observation of that system?

I have actually explained that God could have set the universe into motion and stayed ignorant inbetween, if that is what you mean. In that case yes, God could have known how to set the universe up, but if it involves any direct measurement of the universe's averages at any given period of time simultaneously, then no that would not happen. I guess... the question really is, if God is ignorant now of what is happening, or at least the greatest part of it, how can you truly know everything which followed the Big Bang. It's like a certain set of conditions - you might have a snowball and its been made in such a way that you know some outcomes, those being if you shake the ball the tiny snow flakes will start moving. But if these where real particles, there will always be a measure of uncertainty after shaking the ball.

One can apply the same standard and say that one would assume that if you meant points, you would have said points. But you didn't say points.

In the beginning, I said posts, which was a pure guestimate. I came back and said seven negatives. You quoted me saying that. If you didn't understand how to differentiate between the words ''post'' and ''negatives'' that isn't my problem, but you sure are trying to make it one.

Now, you're a mod. Lock it please.

The problem is that if you extend the notion of consciousness to the realm of the physical reality, the cosmos, then at some point you must assume everything is conscioussness. But then also nothing is consciousness. Because for every quality we can detect, we always need to detect a difference. We know light exists because there are places which are dark (where there is absence of light). If everything is light, then in a sense, there is no light, because we can only detect a difference in light, not light itself.

But consciousness is an artifact of physical statistical averages, inside your head. The physical nature of consciousness is almost certainly intertwined with the physical nature of the brain, this is a well-tested fact of nuerobiology.

If one was going to take a philosophical step and say, but anything which has meaning is understood by only things capable of understanding, then that's a hard philosophical stance to argue. I will argue though, that even in absence of beings capable of understanding the surrounding environment, the universe trucked on regardless.

Correct me if I am wrong (I am going somewhere with this), but according to the uncertainty principle, it is the actual measuring that causes the probability wave to collapse, and prevents you from accurately measuring the other property (for instance, if I measure position accurately, I cannot also measure velocity). Is that a correct summary?

That's correct - but an observation of types could also be thought about as having all the information about your system... the old saying ''an all-seeing, all-knowing God'' would be impossible to really comprehend in physics because particles would act in such erratic ways....

...But I am actually sick of explaining this to the above poster. Considering not even answering them... we'll see how I feel after a coffee break.

Again you're making factual claims by assuming your presupposed notions of God. Why should God be omniscient only by simultaneously knowing the position and momentum of a particle? He might acquire knowledge in ways which we don't know or his epistemology might be different. Now just because God cannot be omniscient in this way you seem to conclude that God cannot be omniscient in any other way.

 

 

''Why should God be omniscient only by simultaneously knowing the position and momentum of a particle? He might acquire knowledge in ways which we don't know or his epistemology might be different''

Which is why I have explained also, there are ways to gain knowledge about a particles position and trajectory through a paper I linked called ''Curious New Statistical Predictions of Quanutm Mechanics,'' do you remember me even posting it?

Omniscient is by definition knowing everything. The universe is made up statistical averages - other than that, there's nothing much more. So, for God to know everything, why wouldn't knowing the location and trajectory of every particle?????

''If you're arguing about God as a scientific hypothesis I request you to give a precise falsifiable defintion of God making testable predictions so that we can falsify your claims, someone else's subjective opinions are not science. ''

Now you're putting words in my mouth.

''Yes you did, see my bolded part there is lot of difference between the words "must" and "would". You cannot use it interchangeably it changes the meaning of your claims.''

I didn't, because I said it even in the post above the one you bringing this up, I said ''If'' a God could exist then it ''Would'' mean bla bla bla. I haven't changed ANYTHING in the way of my claims. You are either lying or trolling, so stop it.

If a God did exist it surely would be impossible to think of physics in your usual way. He could not be omniscient because this is forbidden, we'd ACTUALLY notice this in the physical world if anything was observing and knowing everything around us, matter would act differently. Please start understanding this or I am terminating this discussion with you.

It is thought you can get smaller than it - ie before 10^-43 seconds we were in the planck era or epoch, in which all forces were unified and the entire universe was within the planck scale.

Such epochs are usually impossible to promote, not that it's impossible. For the sake of relativity, the Planck Scales could be a type of limit... in the sense anything below this is hard to make sense of physically.

And we could add: the "singularity" in the theory of gravity (general relativity) is not in any way different then for intance the singularity in Newton's theory of gravity (which contemplates about point masses with zero dimensions), since if we would take point masses at zero distance, also in Newton's theory the force of gravity becomes infinite. We know from experience however, this does not happen.

In a recent force equation I posted here at this forum, I showed how the forces are really down to nature refusing to have particles be converged to a single point. The more you tried to squeeze particles into a single region of space the more nature wanted to fight it and the force becomes greater and greater. Space (and time) would become massively unstable due to the uncertainty principle. I wanted to make use of this instability - instead of seeing it as physics breaking down - the reason why spacetime expanded in the first place was because it wanted to avoid this instability. So as a way for the zero-dimensional vacuum to make sense of how to overcome this unstableness, was to expand spacetime between all objects that where converged to the same location. It could even explain why there was a rapid acceleration to begin with. Hell, the idea could even explain what kind of conditions where there before big bang.... even though you cannot speak of time per se, one could argue if there was anything before the big bang, it couldn't have existed for very long because of the instabilities spoke of.

One idea that has been recently proposed by the pioneer Fred Alan Wolf, is that consciousness created the Big Bang. He is possibly well-known by many as being one scientist who has shined importance on the role of the observer and how things do not exist until they are observed. What you will find in many of his books however is that they don't actually define observers very well -- and anyone left after reading his books might believe that only human observers actually collapse the wave function and create the world around them.

It is true a thing does not really exist until it is pulled out of its wave function. The smearing of possibilities however can collapse without the aid of a human observer; particles are capable of collapsing the wave function as much as a human could theoretically observe a particle and pull it out of it' superpositioning. The idea however that the Big Bang was created using consciousness is something I will challenge in this thread. In Fred's model, he states that consciousness was involved in the beginning of space and time. He further expands on this model by saying observations made today in the present are sending signals back in time in the form of waves which are shaping the past universe. He manages this by introducing the Transactional Interpretation - waves which are moving to and fro time where there is no preferred directionality to time.

But how he can say consciousness was present at the Big Bang is a bit of a mystery. He did mention this in his book ''Parallel Universes'' where the mind of God, is the ''spillage of conciousnes minds'' in a universe. So does he believe that the creation of the universe is synonymous with the idea of ''consciousness''? It seems like he does.

Consciousness could not have had a direct role in the beginning of the universe and to explain why, we will use some objective facts which we can infer from science today. One of these facts involves the idea of an ordered set and treating the universe as a type of causally ordered set which is an idea which was used by Fotini Markopoulou http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9811053 .

Before we venture the idea I have had to tackle Fred Wolf's conjecture, I will say this approach depends on two things:

1) That the idea consciousness involves living creatures or beings and that death is the end of consciousness

2) That consciousness is understandable as a late phenomenon in the universe

Recently I have had some talks about what God is... if he or she existed. It is of course, a very ill-defined subject matter. This isn't a question of course, Fred tackles, but it does some evident that his approach is based from consciousness through the eye's of human beings - the consciousness he speaks about is the same kind of consciousness we may think about when we come to think about our own sentient existences and awareness. But on the order of things, we only came into the picture of things a couple of hundred thousand years ago - on the scale of evolution we are quite late phenomenon. Indeed, the first lifeform on Earth appeared (Abiogenesis) was a single prokaryote which according to our current scientific understanding, evolved from a soup in the primordial sea around 4 billion years ago. But consciousness on Earth had some way to evolve to the complex systems we have today involving the intelligent human civilization. Even if there was any other intelligent forms of life in the universe (which there most likely is), there is also a limit on when they evolved as well. Around 4 million years after the Big Bang, planetoids had been able to form stable orbits round their star-systems, entire galaxies had just started to form, but it was still a violent place (the universe) to live in. Before this, the universe was extremely volatile, the chances of life would have been very thin. Going back even further, when the universe was just a young thing, the universe was engulfed in a great soup of radiation called the Radiation Era. It wasn't until after 10,000 (some information might give it at about 400,000) years had the universe sufficiently cooled that matter began to dominate radiation - when it had, this would have been the processes known as Geometrogenesis.

So, the universe around the Big Bang certainly could not have sustained life as we know it, or consciousness as we know it. There is of course the argument that Fred Wolf could define God as ''not really a living creature'' but then how do you argue it in favor of a God being the spill of consciousness, if indeed consciousness spilled so late in the evolution of the universe?

In order to tackle a mathematical way to view this order, We appeared in the matter-dominated regions. This means that if we where to sum the universe up as a set which has a ''causal nature'', then consciousness would be a sub-set. No subsystem can model precisely the larger system it is made of - and this seems like a statement which would work well since whilst we are capable of ''taking in the information'' of the objective world around us, the mind never truly models the larger system it is made of with 100% accuracy. Of course, this is not hard to realize when you consider that we have an incomplete information of the universe at large anyway, and even if we could observe the whole universe, certain information will always be restricted due the uncertainty principle.

So, for this ordered set, we shall denote the universe as [math]\mathcal{A}[/math] and consciousness as a set [math]\mathcal{B}[/math] and that [math]\mathcal{B}[/math] is a subset of [math]\mathcal{A}[/math] such that

[math]\mathcal{B} \subsetneq \mathcal{A}[/math]

In this simple notation, we have a case to present consciousness with an order in the universe. To understand such a causal event, is that for a partially-ordered set,

there may be an element [math]E[/math] that is later than every other element [math]Q[/math] such that [math]p \leq E[/math] for all [math]p \in \mathcal{C}[/math]

where [math]\mathcal{C}[/math] is our causual set.

This is such a case such a ''supremum'' gives the universe a beginning state which all other states continue from. In such a model, we may give a ''strict'' inquality for consciousness .

We therefore have provided a unique way to show that consciousness could not have had anything to do with the Big Bang (if this is indeed modelled accurately to how we know consciousness exists). It can be argued that God has a type of consciousnesss that does not require the assistance of biological lifeforms, which is all and well... but as has been discussed, God is an ill-defined concept in regards of definition and speaking of consciousness for God is quite limited - and perhaps not even acceptable. I have in my own time, decided that if a God did exist, he would not be an artifect of a thinking sentient being. It could be just some sort of unified type of information which brings about a type of super-order - the kind of order which might have set into motion all types of order we may find in a causal theory of our universe... a driving force if you like of all events. But that is quite speculative, the nature of this post was just to show that if consciousness in Fred's eyes is based on what we know, then it is unlikely consciousness had any role in the Big Bang.

I did.

 

 

It hasn't

Where was it before?

I will be stopping talking in this thread under advisement, so mods please feel free to lock it now. Thanks pmb.

It is not. A singularity is only a mathematical point with zero dimension, but physical space time can not be a point, every part of spacetime has a minimum extension, like planck length and planck time.

 

precisely.

Who says so? The big bang theory does not explicity presuposes that there was no time before the big bang, ie. big bang theory does not equate a model with a singularity at the beginning, many more models are possible.

The Big Bang model does... If you want to talk about time before the Big Bang, you need a new model. Then it wouldn't really be the Big Bang theory, because in the BB theory, space and time began at some point.

And yes, the Big Bang theory does equate a singularity at the beginning. Some might see it as a breakdown of the theory, I don't though.

To: KatzAndMice

 

For the following message"

mr.spaceman, on 1 July 2012 - 11:21 PM, said:Also if the universe began with certain amount of energy and had a definite size how can be universe infinite?

You have replied:

A process could repeat itself for infinity

 

 

So, how come that the Big Bang is a very singular process?

Is there any chance that it is a repeat process (Even one time more...)?

Yes... it is possible, they are called cyclic cosmological theories. Roger Penrose first solved equations to try and give evidence for this model. Where he once said nothing existed before big bang, he is now saying ... well... maybe something did. The reporter here is a bit arrogant

''Cosmic Bruises'' could be a way to detect this theory.