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

by dhw, Saturday, August 21, 2021, 13:05 (1190 days ago) @ David Turell

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?

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?

DAVID: You have agreed with the point that time has to be created to exist.

This is a new form of argument: tell me I have agreed with a point I have just explicitly disagreed with! Please look at the bold: “time is a description, not a creation”. The events must exist, and the word "time" is used to describe the sequence of before-during-after the events.

DAVID: Guth et al are not abandoned. Time, called a 'before', did not exist until our BB appeared. You agree.

From the very beginning of this discussion I have DISAGREED! Because it is totally impossible for anyone to prove what did or did not exist before the BB. You yourself firmly believe that your God existed before the BB, and it is perfectly possible that he would have created lots of BBs, i.e. lots of those sequences of before-during-after which you have agreed is our definition of time.

DAVID: Any sequence of BB's is on our imaginations but doesn't create time as we know it, between BB's.

See above for your acceptance of the possibility of BBs before our own, which means you reject Guth & Co, and please stop ignoring the obvious point that “between” BBs means after one BB and before another. You seem to be arguing for arguing’s sake, since you know perfectly well that Guth & Co cannot possibly prove that time (i.e. sequences of events) did not exist before our BB.