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

by dhw, Saturday, August 07, 2021, 13:12 (986 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: We have only scientific thought to try to guide us to the truth about our reality. It is the most recent evidentiary presentation I can reference. It says this spacetime containing universe simply appeared from nothing.

dhw: But you disagree, because you believe there was pure conscious energy before our universe appeared, and you agree that it is perfectly possible that this conscious energy may have produced other universes. So you and I agree that current scientific thought has no more access to the truth than our own theory that nothing can come from nothing, and there must have been something that preceded our universe.

DAVID: The truism is nothing can come from nothing. It is not THEORY for me. Something comes from something. Some form of conscious energy had to preexist our reality.

And so you agree with me that this spacetime containing universe did NOT simply appear from nothing, and the most recent evidence is wrong. […]

dhw: If we both agree that time is a sequence and there may have been an eternity of sequences, then we agree that time could have existed before our own series of sequences.

DAVID: That uses our human in-spacetime definition for a period not in spacetime. Why contort our basic definition we agree upon to fit a theoretical period which is timeless, ecspt when BB's have appeared?

You do not know that the period preceding the BB, in which your God may have created countless spacetime universes, was not in spacetime. And how can you say time did not exist if time existed when BBs appeared?

dhw: There is no “illusion” – this whole discussion is based on theories concerning what cannot be known. One theory is that the BB came from nothing, and so there could not have been any sequences (= time) before the BB. Another theory is that nothing can come from nothing, and so there could have been any number of sequences (= time) before the BB. Both theories are based on our experience of time within our universe, so why should that make you believe one theory and reject the other? In actual fact, you really do believe in my theory, because you believe in a something that existed before the BB and may well have created lots of sequences. So why do you continue to argue against your own theory?

DAVID: My theory is not yours about before the BB. I see a timeless sequence back there of time filled BB's.

How can you possibly have a sequence that is timeless if your definition of time is a sequence? We now have the possibility, according to your theory, of God creating a sequence of universes, and between each one he has a break. This = before each BB, during each BB, and after each BB. Therefore according to you, since time is a sequence of before-now-after, time existed before the BB. That should be the end of this discussion.