The Big Bang (Origins)

by dhw, Thursday, April 22, 2010, 23:18 (5327 days ago)

I'm taking this off the "Laetoli footprints" thread because, as George says, this discussion has nothing to do with the original subject.-GEORGE: Talk about what happened "before the big bang" is just meaningless, as the article by Paul Davies points out. There was no "before". The origin of space was also the origin of time.-DAVID: Absolutely on point. George and I agree on more than we disagree. His conclusions are just not mine, due to a different mind set.-There seems to be a general scientific consensus on the Big Bang theory, and as a non-scientist I have no reason to disbelieve it. However, just like the theory of evolution, it may be sound in its basic thrust, but it's far from complete in its details, and it's also wide open to different interpretations. Once again, George and David draw opposite conclusions from the same material, and yet strangely they agree on one aspect of the theory, which is George's authoritative statement that there was no "before".-This may fit in snugly with the materialist vision of the universe, as it appears to shut the door on further discussion. What we see is what we have, and what we have is what we see (though we can't see 95% of it). But can the theory of "no before" be tested? Is it any more logical than, for instance, the theory that there has been an endless cycle of bang ... expansion ... contraction ... bang...? One might argue that it doesn't make much difference to us either way, but why utter such statements in the first place? If you can say you don't know whether there are other universes, and you don't know whether there is life elsewhere, why can't you say you don't know if there was anything before? My question is not unconnected with the closed door metaphor, as you will see.-David's support of George's statement surprises me. If you argue that there was nothing before the Big Bang, then the Big Bang must have created the God you believe in. If it didn't, then the universal intelligence which you believe designed our universe must have existed before the Big Bang, in which case there's no limit to what else may have existed before it. (To believe that the Big Bang actually chanced to create a supreme intelligence would, of course, make the chance creation of Life on Earth seem an absolute doddle, so one needn't bother with God at all ... but I don't think anyone has ever proposed that theory!) Belief in a supreme intelligence that CAUSED the Big Bang doesn't solve the problem of where that intelligence came from in the first place, but at least it offers a "before" in which a designer could operate, and it allows for a power that can exist independently of the material world we know. That is why I talked of George's statement closing the door: if the Big Bang was the beginning of everything, there's no place for God. I'm not offering an opinion either way myself ... I'm simply railing against the definitive statement that there was no "before". No-one can possibly know that.