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

by David Turell , Tuesday, August 31, 2021, 16:26 (968 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: […] you wrote: “there is no before before the BB. Time didn’t exist. This was proven by Guth, Borde and Valenkin by mathematics years ago, presented by my books and here.”

DAVID: My only prior to the/our BB reality is God.

dhw: Which already = a before, and which leaves open the possibility that your God could have created countless BBs, and which therefore leaves open the possibility that Guth and Co. have got it wrong. (And even if one doesn't believe in God, no-one can possibly know that there was nothing before our BB.)

DAVID: Or that there was something other than God.

dhw: Indeed, an alternative which I know you reject would be an impersonal but eternal combination of matter and energy constantly producing new combinations and BBs. How does that justify your claim that Guth & Co. proved that time did not exist before our BB?

DAVID: Guth & Co. believe as I do that time appeared with the BB, and was not present before it.

dhw: And yet you believe in a God who was present before it, and you accept the possibility that instead of twiddling his metaphorical thumbs for the past ever and ever, he may have created other BBs, in which case time may have existed before our BB. Why do you keep falling over yourself to defend a statement which you have already dismissed as false. Nobody can prove that nothing (including time) existed before our BB.

You are still missing the point that time can exist only within previous BB's.

DAVID: I am totally in agreement with Egnor and Guth. Our ability to imagine a sequence of BB's doesn't translate into real time existing between those imagined BB's.

dhw: You agree, however, that time would have existed during those imagined BBs, and so you are already contradicting Guth and Co’s claim that time did not exist before our BB. They imagine that there was nothing before it, while your imagined BBs still = time before our BB. And you just go on ignoring the fact that if time means a sequence of before-during-after, then each imagined BB would have come after one and before the other, which = time between BBs.
Please stop pretending that you agree with Guth and Co when you have clearly expressed your disagreement by allowing for possible BBs instead of a possible nothing.

Your twisted interpretation continues. Exactly before this existing BB there was no 'before' (as interpreted as time). Guth et al and cosmologists and I accept this. All we can know is time starts at our BB. Anything before is imagined and has created this long discussion.