The problems of big bang theory. What are they?

As I've tried to tell you in the other thread, there was no "before the Big Bang"."Before" and "After" denote relative coordinates in time. There was no time before the Big Bang, and hence there was no "before". You need time to be able to speak of "before" -- without time you cannot speak about "before" or "after". "Before the Big Bang" is like speaking about "North of the North Pole". It just doesn't make sense.

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In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

The problem isn't with the English. The problem is that the core of your argument relies on concepts based on everyday experience and applying those concepts to a situation where they do not necessarily apply.- No, I do not believe that the universe requires a cause. Maybe there was a cause, maybe there wasn't. The problem is, I don't understand what "cause" means when it's applied to the universe as a whole.When we say, "A causes B", we mean that whenever we see B, we see that A precedes it in time.For the case of the universe, there is no "precedes". Since time began at the beginning of the universe, there was no time "before" this -- there was no "before". Nothing can precede the universe since the word "precede" has no meaning in this situation.Therefore, the word "cause" has no meaning. It makes no sense to discuss "what caused the universe to exist".This is the problem with these sorts of discussions. People don't realize the conceptual difficulties that are involved, how one cannot apply logic like they think that they can because logic requires precisely defined terms, and the words that they are using simply do not apply to this situation.

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In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

I would like to believe that, but the evidence seems to indicate that the universe has only existed for a finite amount of time.Unlike some religious folk, I don't feel I have the luxury of believing what I want; I have to let the evidence influence my beliefs.- How can there be a cause if there was no time preceding the universe?

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In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

That's usually my line. I tend to take two tracks in discussions about the origins of the universe: I either try to point out that our current understanding of the laws of physics break down at some point shortly after the alleged singularity, so we don't even know whether there was a singularity or a beginning, or I go with the question of why the universe needs a "cause".This time I decided to go with the second.- But that just pushes back the question. It might explain where our part of the universe, the part that we see, came from, but there is still the question of where the whole shebang came from.

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In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

You are correct in this. I, too, find it logically problematic that people use phenomena and physical laws that occur in the existing universe to try to explain how the universe came about.Quantum mechanics tells us what happens within the universe. It does not logically follow that these laws will tell us anything about why the universe itself exists.On the other hand, the creationists do the same thing. They talk about the law of conservation of energy, or the "law" that all events need a cause -- but these, too, are merely descriptions of what occurs within the universe -- they, too, may very well be irrelevant in regards to the origin of the universe.So, it remains a distinct possibility (and one that I hold) that the universe simply exists.

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In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

I said nothing about the universe being infinite or finite.

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In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

No, I am saying that I believe that it exists. That it simply exists. That trying to discuss things like "causes" proposes too many logical/semantic problems to be terribly fruitful, and so simply postulating that the universe exists is the simplest way to avoid these logical/semantics difficulties. At least until someone can introduce concepts that will allow us to discuss things like "origin of the universe" and "cause of the universe" intelligently. As it is, almost any discussion about the origin of the universe becomes, to use a colloquial phrase, "word salad": just strings of words without any clear meaning.

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In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

So? I'm not trying to prove that there is no god, at least not in this thread.On the other hand, there are creationists who insist that there must be a god, and who insist that it is silly not to believe in a god, and they try to use the exact arguments that you have been bringing up to "prove" that a god exists.At least if you recognize that the origins of the universe give no "proof" of the existence of any god, then you are a bit brighter than the average creationist.

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In many respects, the Bible was the world's first Wikipedia article. -- Doug Brown (quoted by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review)

That may or may not be true, but it is the subject for a different thread.This thread is supposed to be about problems with the Big Bang model. So far, no one has really come up with any real compelling problems with the Big Bang model.

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Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein

Welcome to EvC, Elhardt.The post to which you are replying is part of a conversation that is off-topic for this thread. This thread is supposed to be about whether there are any problems with the Big Bang model. Whether or not there is evidence for or against the existence of a god, or whether a god can be proven or disproven is better discussed in another thread.

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Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein

I doubt that this is true.- Actually, the amount of red-shift of a galaxy correlates strongly with the distance between us and the galaxy. This is what would be expected if the universe is expanding -- in fact, I can't think of anything else that would create a red-shift that correlates with distance.Also, the General Theory of Relativity is an extremely well verified theory. And according to GR, the universe should be contracting or expanding. So in that context, an expansion of the universe seems to be a pretty good bet.- That has been mentioned before. No one says that our theories are completely precise. If the age calculated for the universe is off by a couple of billion years, and if the ages calculated for various stars or other objects are also off by a couple of billion years, then it's perfectly plausible that the ages of the various objects might be calculated to be older than the calculated age of the universe.These would be problems if it were believed that the theories and calculations describing these things were completely, totally precise.So: is not a problem is the Big Bang model -- it is a problem with understanding in better detail the theories that describe these phenomena and making better measurements of what we see in the sky with our instruments.And, in fact, new measurements and better, more accurate theories have eliminated most of these discrepancies.- I don't believe this, either.

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Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein

And it is a significant point, I think, that it is the very same theory that not only predicts (precisely) the red-shift of the light from the sun, but also predicts that light from distant galaxies should be red-shifted in proportion to their distance from the earth -- that is, General Relativity tells us that the light from the sun should be red-shifted due to gravitational effects and that the universe is expanding.In other words, the existence of the red-shift in solar light is actually evidence in favor of the expanding universe.Neat how this works out, isn't it?

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Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein

I should also add: I found some information on this so-called problem.

quote:

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The bottom line is that there is not now a conflict between the astrophysically determined ages of the oldest stars, and the cosmologically determined age of the universe. While there was one in 1994 it was predictably short lived. While it made good reading for the popular press, astronomers were already busy trying to find the right solution. The result was that the cosmological age moved up (as H0 moved down), through the addition of more and better data, and the astrophysical ages moved down, through the addition of more precise techniques and more detailed models. In short, we learned more about the problem, and exercised that knowledge to reach a new conclusion.

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As I predicted, further observations and more detailed models have resolved this discrepency. The ages of the known objects within the universe are no older than the universe itself.

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Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. -- Rick Perlstein

That doesn't make it science, nor does mean that it was science at one time."Science" doesn't mean proposed explanations of physical observable data that are believed by people. There's a lot more to science than that.- Well, considering that there are many, many different peer-reviewed journals in the biological and geological sciences, each with its own independent editorial boards,publishing papers by many, many different researchers, from different countries and cultures, from different social classes, and believing different religions (some of whom are Christian, by the way),working in many, many different scientific fields, with their own standard procedures and their own training methods,funded by many, many different agencies, each with their own independent review boards and making their decisions independently, andare hired by many, many different research institutions and private business, each with their own independent hiring committees,I think we can rule out the evolutionists from suffering from a common delusion, don't you? I mean, how could the same delusion be maintained among such a disparate group of independent entities for over a hundred years?- Creationist "researchers, by the way, are a fairly small group and all pretty much adherents to rather small sects that take a very literal reading of their sacred scriptures. I think that such a group is more likely to suffer from a common delusion, don't you?