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

by David Turell , Thursday, September 16, 2021, 16:13 (1164 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Do you or do you not believe that it is POSSIBLE that your God may have created BBs before ours? If you think it is possible, then you do not believe that Guth & Co have proven that there was no ‘Before’ before our BB, and that time started with our BB.

DAVID: My theory covers your discomfort: time exists only in BB's. Time starts with our BB (Guth).

dhw: First mistake. The only time we know of starts with our BB. But that does not prove that there was no time before our BB. You believe in God, and you believe that your God could have created earlier BBs, and therefore there may have been time before our BB. For you, with your fixed belief in God, it is impossible to prove that time did not exist before our BB.

More confusion. Is the time you imagine before our BB the same time as our time? Past imagined times might have different qualities as long as we are imagining. What Guth says is prior to our BB time did not exist. He never discussed possible prior BB's as we do.

DAVID: God exists timelessly (eternal) before our BB.

dhw: Your God’s eternalness tells us that there must have been something before our BB. According to you, Guth tells us there was no “before before the BB”. You disagree with him.

By definition, if not yours, God is eternal and timeless because He doesn't change. When God created our BB He created time because what He creates changes.

DAVID: Those imagined sequences we have discussed are timeless…

dhw: If time exists in BBs, imagined BBs can’t be timeless (i.e. without time!).

I never said that. Each imagined BB contains its time.

DAVID: ….but seem like time in our concept of time, from our existence in the time of this BB and our development of a concept of time.

dhw: Why “seem”? You wrote: “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.” If possible BBs contained time, then Guth and Co according to you have not proven that there was no time before ours. How long are you going to go on tying yourself in knots in order to demonstrate that you agree with Guth, although you disagree with Guth?

It is your confused disagreement, not mine. Guth's only point is time started with our BB. Reviewers of his article use it to say our BB came from nothing!!!