Cosmologic philosophy: 'before' is a quagmire (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, February 14, 2023, 11:45 (438 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTES: "The basic laws of physics are, we now know, only our present layer of understanding. They are basic only to the extent that nothing more basic has yet been discovered. They are subject to drastic revision. That even our most successful laws are almost guaranteed to give way was established by Kenneth Wilson. He explained that any level of understating at a given energy level rests upon integrating away all higher energy excitations.” (dhw's bold)

"Going back, there is no before before; going out, there is no space beyond space; and going down, there is no end."

DAVID: marvelous point in this philosophical tidbit. We don't know why we were given the items we have to study. Why those starting points? Why the confusing extra particles or is thare something underling we do not yet understand? And Guth is full accepted after all, isn't he? So, if dhw and I imagine previous befores, that is all they are, imagined concepts of possibilities, not really tangible items for intensive discussion.

dhw: The marvellous point is what I have bolded, and the imagined concept of possibilities includes your God and all other explanations of the Big Bang, which itself may be subject to drastic revision. “There is no before before” etc. is equally imagined. You could hardly have a clearer defence of agnosticism, but of course that will not and should not stop us from proposing our theories and testing them with our limited scientific knowledge and our equally limited powers of reason.

DAVID: The bold is the exact point of his discussion. He accepts no before, before the BB. If our time starts at the BB, we have to accept it. No imagination, as much as you squirm. This is our current state of conjecturing.

You yourself refuse to accept that there was "no before, before the BB". You insist that there was a conscious mind which engineered the BB. And it is just as likely that your imagined God spent the previous eternity making other universes as it is that he spent past eternity twiddling his metaphorical thumbs doing nothing. The quote above sounds impressive but does not stand up to analysis. The balance to "no end" is "no beginning", i.e. NOT "no before". This would allow for your concept of a first-cause eternal God, so I don't know why you continue to disagree with yourself. But of course we have absolutely no way of knowing whether there was or wasn’t a before, whether space is or is not finite, whether there will or won’t be an end.