I'm off on my jolly holidays but a quick summary. ICANT's original position is this: The big bang is
Have a happy holiday, may you have good weather.
I have not been trying to convince ICANT that the big bang is correct or the best explanation for the cosmos. I have not been trying to convince him that Genesis 1:1 isn't good enough for him. I have simply been trying to show him what cosmologists have concluded with regards to the early universe.
I thank you for this and commend you on your debating in good faith.
My problem is not with what happened after T=0
But with where this massive amount of matter that form our universe came from.
Modulous writes:
Once again I quote Hawking, in a lecture to an intelligent lay audience, which should clear this up:
Hawking writes:
[After Einstein our view of Time and Space was that] they were dynamical quantities that were shaped by the matter and energy in the universe. They were defined only within the universe, so it made no sense to talk of the time before the universe began. It would be like asking for a point south of the south pole. It is not defined.
...
Although the singularity theorems of Penrose and myself predicted the universe had a beginning, they didn't say how it had begun.
I have no problem with the universe having a beginning.
I have no problem with science not being able to say how it begun.
I do have a problem with just about everyone telling me I have to accept singularity as the beginning.
I ask where singularity came from? Best answer science has is we don't know.
So I am asked to believe by faith it happened as it is the most accepted scientific theory.
ICANT has found a couple of sections of a very complex lecture that he thinks supports his points, but the man himself refutes the idea right there.
Saying:
quote:
singularity theorems of Penrose and myself predicted the universe had a beginning, they didn't say how it had begun.
Does not refute:
Dr. Hawking writes:
I have emphasized what I consider the two most remarkable features
that I have learnt in my research on space and time: first, that gravity curls up spacetime
so that it has a begining and an end. Second, that there is a deep connection between
gravity and thermodynamics that arises because gravity itself determines the topology of
the manifold on which it acts.
The positive curvature of spacetime produced singularities at which classical general relativity broke down.
Lectures the nature of space and time at:
The page you were looking for doesn't exist (404)
The statement:
gravity curls up spacetime....
(it) Spacetime has a beginning and an end.
The positive curvature of spacetime produced singularities.
No gravity No Spacetime.
No Spacetime No singularity.
No singularity No big bang.
Therefore if singularity happened it had to happen out of an absence of anything.
I am not saying this is what happened.
I am saying that with the foregoing information that is the only logical conclusion that I can come to.
If the universe was created, then we need another theory to explain it, relativity (Big Bang) is not up to the task.
The universe is definitely here and it had to come from somewhere, or did it?
Modulous points out my choices I came to the conclusion that existed in
Message 2571. The universe was created out of the absence of anything. OR 2. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Gen. 1:1"
Modulous adds other possibilities.
Modulous writes:
There is a third and fourth option:
3 The universe was created out of something and we need another theory to explain how that happened.
4. The universe is self existing in the same fashion theists sometimes attempt to visualise the prime deity.
#3 would be a possibility but as I understand it no one is looking into that possibility only trying to prove the big bang model by shoring it up with some type of string theory.
#4 is a definite possibility as you can incorporate this one into my understanding of Genesis 1:1.
As I have stated in earlier posts I am an eternalist. I believe the universe has always been here in some form or other and will always exist in some form.
-The singularity is an artefact of an incomplete mathematical model.
If by artefact you are referring to Philosophy I agree.
-The big bang singularity didn't 'come' from anywhere, it is the Alpha.
Alpha the first letter of the Greek alphabet, the beginning.
The big bang singularity may not have come from anywhere but it had to exist somewhere.
If the big bang was the beginning of everything there was an absence of anything for the singularity to exist in.
-The big bang is not a theory of cosmic origins.
I agree.
I'll allow the reader to make up their mind.
Nice thought but they will do that anyway.
What I have been trying to point out is that Science does not have all the answers, far from it.
But there are those who have come to believe their conclusion which much of it has to be based on faith that they have made a religion out of Science.
This is the worst possible thing that could happen to True Science as Science as I understand it must have open fresh minds to proceed forward.
I leave the reader with this thought.
A quote from Dr. Hawking which he made in the lectures I have been referencing. Dr. Hawking probably made this statement not meaning it to be a complement. But it was the most profound statement that I found that he made.
quote:
It seems God still has a few tricks up his sleeve.
Lectures the nature of space and time at:
The page you were looking for doesn't exist (404)
You decide, your decision determines your destiny.
"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
™ Version 4.2