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

by David Turell , Friday, August 20, 2021, 15:46 (970 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Time has to be created. It only exists within BB's. That is my point. Create all the sequences you wish. Not all sequences create time. Numbers seen in sequence don't create time.

dhw: We are not talking about numbers! We are talking about the sequence which you have accepted as a definition of time: before, during and after. You agreed with this definition and are now trying to squirm out of it. The only way you can squirm out of it is by coming up with a different definition. EXAMPLE of time sequence: 1st BB / after 1st BB and before 2nd BB / 2nd BB / after 2nd BB and before 3rd BB / 3rd BB etc. I am at a loss as to why you continue to accept the definition and yet pretend it does not mean what it says.

DAVID: I tried to show you a timeless sequence in the number example. You have ignored the point that time has to be created to exist. Or perhaps you don't believe that? My statement above stands.

dhw: Once more, we are not talking about numbers but about events. And “time” is a description, not a creation. Events have to take place (I’m not happy with “created”, which automatically entails a creator), i.e the sequence has to exist, before we use a term to describe it, and so it would be perfectly logical to argue that if there was NOTHING before our BB - no sequence of events – it would be absurd to claim that there was time. But in your great volte face, you have now disowned Guth and Co, agreed that there may well have been sequences of events before our BB, and therefore it is absurd to say that Guth & Co proved that time did not exist before our BB. Why do you continue to defend an argument which you yourself have explicitly rejected? But perhaps you would now like to argue that since we assume there were no English-speaking people around before our BB, the word “time” did not exist to describe the sequences of before-during-after which we call “time”.

You have agreed with the point that time has to be created to exist. Guth et al are not abandoned. Time, called a 'before', did not exist until our BB appeared. You agree. Any sequence of BB's is on our imaginations but doesn't create time as we know it, between BB's.