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

by David Turell , Monday, September 06, 2021, 16:09 (957 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: The presence of God before He made our BB does not create time before our BB.

dhw: The presence of God is already a “before”, and you agreed that he might well have created other BBs.

DAVID: That creates a theoretical sequence but that sequence in not in physical time.

dhw: What is a “sequence in physical time”? The sequence of before-during-after is our DEFINITION of time […]

DAVID: I used physical to make time a thing, as in spacetime used by Einstein. Your imaginary sequences are not time.

DAVID: I accept the definition of time as a sequence of events only when they exist in a BB that contains time, which by definition ours does and therefore possible/imaginary prior BB's did.

dhw: You have accepted my definition of time, and you agree that there could have been BBs before ours! Therefore you believe it is possible that time existed before our BB. So please stop disagreeing with yourself.

Don't you read what I write? I agree to the definition of time as a sequence of events, BUT only if that sequence occurs within the spacetime of an exiting BB universe

DAVID: We are discussing past each other. My position is time only exists within BB's, not in-between. Imagined sequences do not make real time. Guth's position is reasonable.

dhw: But you believe that there could have been BBs before ours, and therefore you believe it is possible that time existed before our BB (regardless of your refusal to accept that between events = before and after). Therefore you do not accept Guth’s position as “proven” (where does “reasonable” appear?), and in fact through your belief in God and the possibility of earlier BBs, you emphatically reject his position and so you emphatically reject your own bolded statement at the start of this post. The whole point of all our discussions is to test different ideas. Together we have tested Guth & Co’s theory and for slightly different reasons, neither of us accepts it. Shouldn’t that be the end of this discussion?

Where did you get the idea I reject Guth. You do. My unchanging position repeated: "I agree to the definition of time as a sequence of events, BUT only if that sequence occurs within the spacetime of an exiting BB universe."