Before the Big Bang? (Origins)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 30, 2014, 21:10 (3767 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The more you talk of “pure energy”, the more nebulous the concept becomes. How “pure” can it be if it is able to give rise to all these particles? I can understand the argument that matter came from energy, so perhaps we need a definition of “pure”. Otherwise, it sounds exactly the same as Stenger and Krauss arguing that matter came from “nothing”.-DAVID: In the aftermath of the bb there was plasma, and the particles fell out later (300,000 years)-But plasma is matter! I don't understand what this has to do with your claim that the BB must have been preceded by “pure energy” or with my request for a definition of “pure”.-dhw: Why does the first cause logically have to be pure energy? Why can't the first cause have been energy with particles? “In some form, which is really unknown to us” suggests that you yourself cannot conceive of “pure energy”, so why do you need to? 
DAVID: Think of the plasma. -I have done more than think of plasma. I have tried to find out more about it. This is what I have found.-What is Plasma? | Fusion Future
http://www.fusionfuture.org/why-fusion-energy/what-is-plasma/-QUOTE:“Since plasmas are made of charged particles every particle can interact with every other particle, even over very long distances. This makes plasmas behave very strangely compared to the other states of matter. When every particle “talks” to every other particle the material can form all sorts of waves and move in many complex ways. This makes studying plasmas very interesting and hard to do. The fact that 99% of the universe is made of plasmas makes studying them very important if we are to understand how the universe works. Lessons learned in plasma experiments on Earth can tell us things about how distant stars work.”-If plasma is made of charged particles, I don't understand how particles “fell out” 300,000 years after the formation of plasma, but in any case it doesn't help me to understand what you mean by “pure” energy. And it doesn't help me to understand why the first cause should not be energy transmuting itself into matter.-dhw: You and I both accept cause and effect, but once again you insist on “timeless” energy being first cause, even though cause and effect depend on time. Following Ockham, why not opt for the simplest scenario: the first cause as energy eternally transmuting itself into matter? Since the only energy/matter we know of is that of our own universe, why assume that the eternal past has been any different? In other words, why assume that energy in the past has been devoid of particles, which is the only definition of “pure” energy that I can think of? You cannot get something new from a “pure” anything!
DAVID: Again, the bb evolution of the universe went through a plasma energy phase. I'm stuck with that. Current theory, is that the bb was cold and heat and plasma followed. And all I can follow is the theory, and admit what was before the bb is unknown but following cause and effect it was energy, because energy is what appeared first.-Since plasma is matter, what is “plasma energy”? In any case I don't see how current theory about the course of events AFTER the BB can help us understand what happened BEFORE the BB, so why have you brought up the subject of plasma? None of this explains what you mean by “pure” energy!