Before Big Bang God or Singularity

You still thinking of things like this:Nothing.........spacetime....positive curvature...singularity...big bangThis is wrong.Spacetime is a four dimensional entity. At some coordinates in that entity there exists postitive curvature of spacetime. One such coordinate is at T=0.

No, I'm saying the big bang is not about spawning the universe. The big bang is just part of the universe just like any other part of the universe we might give a name. The universe doesn't 'come into existence' at the big bang. The universe exists - past, present and future as one four dimensional entity.

Exactly - this is the case with the model as it stands. Other models may argue along different lines but they still don't explain the origin of all reality. That is, if an event occurred which 'caused' the universe to appear - then they still don't attempt to explain the origins of the 'metaverse' in which our universe is a resident. It doesn't serve any 'function', it just is. The question makes no sense. There is no 'when' it came into existence - there is no time outside of the universe by which to judge 'when' it happened. It exists and we exist within it at a certain coordinate within that which is billions of years from time=0. No, your view is that time stretches into infinity in both directions. The view I explained can have the time dimension with a finite 'length'.

It can't.It hasn't 'always' been. You're still not thinking in 4 dimensions. You have to avoid using temporal words, or at least understand how they don't work.The singularity is an integral part of a description of the universe in four dimensions. The end of what? There is just a 4d object. It might have boundaries which you could call 'ends'. The 'cause' of those boundaries is also the 'cause' for the geometry of the rest of spacetime.

What I said was: It hasn't 'always' been. The scare quotes had a meaning. They were implying that the word isn't really the right word to discuss the issue. No it isn't. You are still suffering under a misunderstanding. A little humility might help you here. You are still thinking that time has to exist independent of the universe. That the universe is nested within a higher dimensional area with a metatime within it. That might be the case, but it isn't the Big Bang.No, the universe simply exists. The whole thing - all four dimensions in their entirety. The whole of time, the whole of space, is described as a single entity. This 'spacetime' has some areas which contain a singularity.There is no 'always existing' there is simply 'existing'. If there is no time dimension outside of the universe then it makes no sense to think of things in terms ofno universe -> singularity -> universe -> ?Whenever time exists, the universe exists. One can view this as something 'always existing', but it is not eternal - which is what I think you mean by 'always existing'. It exists, and we can describe it. Some parts are weird. The lower the time coordinate, the hotter and denser the universe is. At some points the local mass density is so great it distorts space time and forms a singularity. T=0 is one such point.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Ask where did the point 3 inches from your nose 5 seconds ago came from. It is the same answer. The question should not be 'where did the singularity come from?' but 'is spacetime self-existing or do dimensions exist that cannot be readily accessed by us, within which some event happened that lead to the existence of the spacetime that we call the universe?'Once you ask the right kind of questions, and understand why they are the right kind of questions, you might get (and understand) the right kind of answers

That's right, and the singularity existed at T=0 regardless of where your nose was at that moment. No he didn't. You just think he did. I'm not going to argue what you think he said with you, you can discuss it with him. A premise that was not held prior to this thread by those participating. As cavediver said in his first post:

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The Big Bang/Singularity is not the origin of the Universe, it is merely one end of it.

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Actually the scientific answer is that this premise is unfalsifiable and unverifiable, and some would argue that this renders the premise meaningless. You've set up A false dichotomy between two models. When people explain to you a third one, you take that to mean that the first one is falsified. You then explain that since one model is falsified that means there seems to be only one option remaining.However, you have still failed to understand and engage the third model (and a few others that have been put forward). The 130 plus posts have been trying to get you to understand this model so that you can correctly engage with it and raise any objections you might still have.This alternative model has been explained to you on a number of threads, but you have still not grasped it. It is a difficult model to understand, I accept that. However you can't adequately criticize a model you don't understand - you at least understand that, right?

You might as well have a thread where we discuss what is the best explanation for the origin of the universe:A Gigantic alien sneezeORJupiter, 2012AD 5th February, 17:15 GMT, as defined by David Walsh, 3 Warburton Road, Hull.The Gigantic alien sneeze wins every time because the second option is not a proposed origin of the universe.A more sane argument might beIs the universe as we know it, self-existing?
Did it originate out of a higher dimensional 'universe' which itself is self-existing?
Did it originate out of the creative influence of a self-existing deity?
Did it originate out of the creative influence of a deity who was in turn created by a self-existent mega-deity?If you are going to compare models, make sure they are comparable first

The question makes no sense. If everything stops at T=0, then there wouldn't be T>0.The only explanation for your question not making sense is that you are still thinking of the universe as a 3d entity with time independently ticking away - which is not accurate. And this is the cosmology forum. I gave you two non-religious models and two creationistic models of how the universe came to be. On the other hand, you gave a model that is not about how the universe came to exist and a single creation model about how the universe came to exist. You see why this is a problem?You want to discuss which model is best for explaining the origins of the universe, I gave four such models:1. It has no origin, it just exists.
2. It has an origin, the thing it comes from has no origin.
3. It was originated by a deity that has no origin.
4. It was originated by a deity that has an origin.The reason that the discussion isn't moving forward is because we are trying to explain why the big bang model is not about the origins of the universe. If you want to discuss actual models about the origins of the universe, then that is great. If you want to insist that a model that is not proposed to explain the origin of the universe does not explain the origin of the universe - then you go right ahead...you'll excuse the rest of us for not being interested and trying to steer the conversation into the real world.Hopefully we can move on and discuss actual proposals about the origin of the universe.

It is ordered energy: If you are talking in a theromdynamic sense, then it stands to reason that if 'disorder' is increasing into the future, it must be less in the past. The Big Bang represents the highest 'order' the universe has ever possessed.Then, chance doesn't come into it. The tendency for energy to dissipate (and the tendency for space to inflate) makes it a necessity. Probability is really only considered in the specifics.How the early universe could have this seemingly highly improbable state is interesting, and 'Fabric of the Cosmos', Brian Greene, has an interesting discussion of it.That was something of a digression, but its all I understood from your post.

You can believe both. As he says in that very lecture:

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If space and imaginary time are indeed like the surface of the Earth, there wouldn't be any singularities in the imaginary time direction, at which the laws of physics would break down. And there wouldn't be any boundaries, to the imaginary time space-time, just as there aren't any boundaries to the surface of the Earth. This absence of boundaries means that the laws of physics would determine the state of the universe uniquely, in imaginary time. But if one knows the state of the universe in imaginary time, one can calculate the state of the universe in real time. One would still expect some sort of Big Bang singularity in real time. So real time would still have a beginning. But one wouldn't have to appeal to something outside the universe, to determine how the universe began. Instead, the way the universe started out at the Big Bang would be determined by the state of the universe in imaginary time. Thus, the universe would be a completely self-contained system. It would not be determined by anything outside the physical universe, that we observe.

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That is the kind of thing that we are trying to explain to you - only using much easier to understand language to slowly coax you along. Once you get the gist of that, we might move on to more interesting avenues.

Still have no idea what you are talking about. How does energy span multiple realities? If you're going to take a leap, could you at least shine the flashlight back this way to give me a clue how you got there? I have no idea what a lot of workable energy from which emerged the universe we know has anything to do with intelligence or non-intelligence. The former piece of information cannot be used to conclude anything about intelligence. If we know what intelligence means, then we might conclude intelligence cannot exist during the big bang period. No, the two are not synonymous.

What he said was that it sounds like sci-fi but it is a genuine piece of science. ie not fiction. It is just a different way of treating time mathematically.Of course if you had not only 'know[n] what he said about his unbounded theory' but also understood it, the last 200 posts wouldn't have been necessary. It kind of explains what beginning in this context means. It doesn't have to mean 'originated from somewhere else at some externally derived time'. Indeed, Hawking explains it as meaning that 'the beginning' is a human invention since that reflects how we think the universe should be. You appealed to the authority of Hawking, and now you suggest that he is only trying 'shore up' the theory when you discover that he says everything we've been trying to explain to you for the past however many threads.Criticize his 'attempt' to 'shore up' the theory, or accept it. Dismissal is an intellectual failure. cavediver has already explained that words are not sufficient to understand what is going on, and that different people explain it in different ways hoping that a new approach might help you click. Nevertheless, it has never been in dispute that there are more than one cosmological model. It is not in dispute that what we know about it is incomplete and that a new theory is needed to complete it. Hawking talks about a new(ish) theory (which you casually dismissed as 'shoring up') but nobody thinks that any theory is complete and some think a whole new theory will be needed. You are getting yourself tangled in knots by trying to understand a complex issue by starting at the end of the laymen's end of learning, and trying to somehow bring disparate lay explanations together into a coherent whole. This won't work, because the lay explanations are incomplete, incongruous and sometimes (oftentimes?) misleading.It would be best if you just understand one of them, and that might help you in understanding other perspectives. I'm sure some might argue that believing Genesis 1:1 might preclude you from understanding cosmology. I'm not one of them, if you really want to you can both understand the idea - and choose to disbelieve it in favour of whatever religious scripture your heart desires.If you think that believing Genesis 1:1 is causing you problems with understanding cosmology, then I can't help you. You either need to find a way to do it, stop believing Genesis 1:1 or stop trying to understand (and criticize) cosmology.I can't recommend the latter, but the choice is yours.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I'm not sure 'perfectly' is mentioned anywhere... The easiest way to understand it is simply to say that in the early universe was hotter and denser than it is today. Whoever talked about complexity? If anything, it was much less complex. Ordered energy isn't 'complex'. If you could try rewording that question so that it isn't several lines long and correct as stated, then I'll try and decode it. An earthlike rock under earthlike conditions might result in the creation of a computer. Replace 'complex' with 'hot'. All that needs to happen is for the laws of physics to operate and at a certain point time is less spacelike and more timelike, and inflation occurs, but quantum fluctuations ensure that inflation is clumpy so that galaxies form etc etc etc. No intelligence required in gravity functioning as it does, for example.

I know. It's not causing me a problem. You could believe that the universe was the alien sneeze for all I care. That's great. My problem is that you seem to think this is what I'm saying. I'm trying to explain that it isn't what I'm saying. And I've answered. It got to where it was in the same fashion that spot 5 inches from your nose 5 seconds ago did. It's part of the universe. If you'd ask 'does the universe self exist (along with the singularity at T=0 in real time) or is there something more than the universe in which some event caused the universe to exist?' you'd be asking the right kind of question. His reply to message 91 seems to be disagreeing with you. Please don't simply repeat yourself to me. Refer to my previous answer when you discussed your premises with me earlier and address that. Thanks.