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

by David Turell , Wednesday, September 22, 2021, 15:50 (1158 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: We are imagining the possibility. [And later:] Guth is not looking at our imagined interval for a prior BB, and is not addressing past time in other previous BB's. Your objection is pointless.

dhw: The fact that neither you nor Guth considered the possibility of BBs before our own explains your error in agreeing that he had proven that there was no before and no time before our BB. Your attempt to cover up his and your failure to consider this possibility is pointless.

A so-called error created in a theoretical discussion 15 years after the fact of my book isas foolish point.

DAVID: I can alter it to fit the current constant confusion on your part. Guth's says our time started with our BB and prior to our time, time did not exist.

dhw: Yet again, YOU wrote: bbb“there is no before before the BB. Time did not exist. This was proven by Guth […] presented by my books and here.”The quote does not say OUR time started with OUR BB, but it certainly does mean that prior to our time, time did not exist. That is what you now disagree with, and yet you accuse me of twisting!!!! You have changed your mind, so why can’t you leave it at that?

DAVID: My mind is unchanged.

dhw: Do you or do you not accept the possibility that your God created BBs before our own? If it is possible, do you or do you not agree that it is therefore possible that time existed before our BB? Please give a direct answer.

Following our thought that prior BB's might have occurred, yes time existed in each of them.

DAVID: We are arguing basic cosmology: time starts within a BB. a sequence of imagined BB's does not make time. Only event sequences within a BB are time.

dhw: You agree that time is a sequence of before-during-after. The time within a BB starts with the start of that BB. If there is a sequence of BBs, there is a sequence of before-during-after each BB – and that is also time. Your denial that there is time between BBs makes no difference to your agreement that any previous BB contained time, and since you have so far accepted that your God might have created earlier BBs, you can only accept that Guth did not prove that time did not exist before our BB. I have no idea why you continue to support your own statement about you and Guth when you have admitted that you both failed to consider a possibility which invalidates the quote that started this discussion.

Guth never considered previous BB's. His answer within the framework of his considerations is entirely true. Our time started with our BB. Your silly compliant about prior time in older BB's is logical but a distortion from the timing of the discussion of theories. Where you are totally wrong is thinking a series of BB's are in a time external to them. BB's contain time, no more.