the origin of the universe

[antony mizen]

scientists say that the origin of the universe is the result of the natural laws of physics, beginning with the 'big bang'. If there was absolutely nothing before the big bang, how can the laws of physics ever emerge? Something emerging without a cause is contrary to the laws of physics. I've heard of 'singularities' etc but I'm still not convinced that something can come from nothing...  

[ll_billym]

No one knows I'm afraid bud.

[vikramdave1]

 

Well, you can see the reason for the existance of religion on earth. Where science has unexplainable defiencies religion steps forward to answer. I do believe in the big bang theory, however something must have triggered it off, surely.

[Loosehead]

No scientist is claiming to know. Things can be explained down to the tiniest fraction of a second after the big bang, lots of evidence points to the big bang, but what triggerred it is the object of much speculation. What I think is most difficult to imagine is the concept of "before" when time spewed forth with the matter so there is no "before". I know it's hard to get your head round but you have to think outside normal parameters

[rojash]

I don't think you'll find any scientist who claims that the origin of the universe is a natural result of the laws of physics. The whole point of the theory is that the laws of physics as we understand them didn't come into being until after the big bang.

The problem with trying to subsitute religion for science, is that you are left with almost the same question - where did God come from?

[jake-the-peg]

You have to be very careful in this area. The words we use in English are often completely inadequate to express the concepts involved.

Remembering that the big bang is not an explosion into an existing universe but the creation of space and hence time itself, the use of words that express notions of time like "emerge" or "cause" are not meaningful.

In my personal opinion science itself is probably not actually meaningful when concepts of time break down. The whole notion of physical laws and science revolves around prediction. Otherwise you're left with theories that are judged merely on their "beauty"  and from there it's a short hop to having turtles standing on the backs of other turtles or Charlton Heston in a long flowing beard.  

[jake-the-peg]

Oh by the way things can come out of nothing, we call them virtual particles. As long as they don't stick around too long - the bigger they are the less time they can live (an electron positron pair can live for 10 to the -21 sec) it's called the Casimir effect.

If you can get you head around particles appearing and disapperaing like that it's not that hard to accept whole universes doing the same - it's only a matter of scale!

[MargeB]

There really aint too much evidence that there was 'nothing' before the big bang. There aint too much evidence that there wasn't either. We're all children of our culture, and seem to suffer from the subconscious assumption that our universe was created 'ex nihilo'. No evidence for that.
By the way, space and time were not created AT the big bang. There is a state when you do not have the big bang, and there is a state where you have space and time. There is an interposed section (of a certain particle state) where the quantum-based requirements for 'space' and 'time' do not exist.

Overall, the worst place to be really in the world at the present time is as a philosopher, they spoke a ton of bs for many years and then science walked in and in a couple of strokes answered many of their questions. Now, I think there's going to be a reversal and the poorer cousins are going to be welcomed in again. Philosophers are needed to put the whole thing in perspective again, ask the right questions in the right ways.
When a priest is giving a sermon, and a scientist walks in and starts waving his fist at him and saying that Jesus didn't ascend into heaven because gravity wouldn't allow it, everyone would rightly laugh, because that is not even the REALM of science. HOWEVER, just because science has been classically predictive and explanative, does not mean that it cannot be realigned to meet the challenges of phenomena that do not classically fall within its remit. Who else but physicists are really going to come up with the best answers for the big bang.
They're a funny bunch, these humans. On the face of it, they would appear to be limited to carrying out a bunch of tests in labs, but! with the strange way their heads work, they seem able to come up with highly credible explanations for even the most theoretical of questions. Otherwise, we might as well give up and go home. What do you want to do? Recreate a big bang in a test tube?

[jake-the-peg]

So if you "realign" science so that it is no longer explanative or predictive, in what way can it's theories be considered credible?

Don't you end up with no more than a form of performance art appealing to the asthetics of a handful of people?

[MargeB]

thats not what I said, jake. I agree, it cannot stop being explanative or predictive. I said "just because science has been classically predictive and explanative, does not mean that it cannot be realigned to meet the challenges of phenomena that do not classically fall within its remit."

[jake-the-peg]

I'm intrigued then, what exactly do you mean by "realigned"?