Cosmologic philosophy: Egnor on Big Bang, etc. (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, August 01, 2021, 16:42 (1210 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Your objections don't recognize the obvious point time starts with the BB. Of course whatever was 'before' is all theoretical.

dhw: I am disputing your claim that the point is obvious. How can it be, if we do not know what preceded the BB? One theory is that there was no time before the BB, and another theory is that there WAS time before the BB.

Time before BB. Whose theory is that besides yours?

DAVID: When did your 'time' start?

dhw: Like everyone else, I have no idea when time as I define it started, and that is why I cannot accept any theory as being the ultimate truth.

DAVID: I agree there is no known proof prior to the BB, but time as you define it defies current cosmological philosophical thinking about our spacetime and its start.

dhw: Since you tell us that your current philosophical thinkers don’t even define time, I obviously have a distinct advantage over them. I propose that it is perfectly possible that before the BB (if it happened) there were other, and possibly even continuous events that followed the sequence of cause and effect, of before-present-after, of past-present-future. Your theorists propose that there were no such events. Since nobody can possibly know the truth, my theory should carry exactly the same amount of possible truth as theirs.

So it is your theory!!! All possibilities in an unknown before the BB. Very inventive and highly dependent on what ifs style of thought.

DAVID: Sequential time is the way we humans experience it, nothing more. If before the BB there are no humans to experience the sequences to create the impression of a passage of events, no clocks, is time present?

dhw: Back to solipsism! There were no humans present throughout most of the Earth’s history, and therefore there was no history? What would you say if I said that I wasn’t there when there was supposed to have been a BB, and therefore the BB never happened? We humans give definitions to everything, but that does not mean that the things we define did not exist before we defined them.

Not solipsism. Time is a human concept subject to philosophical interpretation as we are doing. And we create the past history before us, not the solipsism you imagine. We can't interpret nor create any events before the BB

DAVID: Does God see a series of BB's as creating time for Him? Many BB's could have happened. All this discussion is created in our heads. As I view God time doesn't exist for Him, but He sees its operation for us.

dhw: Yes, the discussion is created in our heads. Anything could have happened before the BB, and if God exists, for all we know, he defines time in exactly the same way as I do. It is sheer human arrogance (not an attack on you, but a general observation) to assume that one theory is true and all others are wrong when nobody can possibly know the truth.

There are logical and illogical 'truths'. I agree with your basic interpretation of time as sequences of events we observe. Your 'events' prior the BB are totally your mind's inventions. The only time we know starts at the BB. That is fact to work with. And remember dear Einstein. Time is relative to each observer's viewpoint. Einstein's spacetime approach is proven. Still event based.