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I think we don't know. But even if time or anything else existed before the Big Bang, we have seemingly no evidence of it, no reasonable expectation we could ev
by kadoban 5y ago
I think we don't know. But even if time or anything else existed before the Big Bang, we have seemingly no evidence of it, no reasonable expectation we could ever have any evidence of it, or any way to measure or deduce anything about it. It might as well not exist, for all intents and purposes it no longer does if it ever did.
By contrast, we _do_ see evidence of the Big Bang itself, and our best models today are that everything we see is evidence of (and a product of) that Big Bang.
Additionally, the space expansion aspect of the Big Bang means that space itself in some sense came from the Big Bang. Everything we see was indescribably compacted at that point and then expanded from there, over time.
So if there was anything before the Big Bang, it wasn't space as we know it and it didn't have any knowable effect on the universe we see.
In conclusion, if you have nothing, in no space, does time even mean anything?
- flatline 5y agoHow certain are we of this? Why could the big bang have not happened in space, at a point in some time continuum that started before the event itself? Why could it not be a relatively local phenomenon that we simply cannot observe beyond?
- kadoban 5y agoI believe that's possible, but seems equivalent to there being multiple universes, none of which we can see.
- galaxyLogic 5y ago> if you have nothing, in no space, does time even mean anything? True. But I have hard time just thinking about what time means as a physical entity in our current universe. If nothing changes, does Time stop existing?
- kadoban 5y agoI'd say that if everything stops changing, then time is either meaningless or doesn't exist (I think depending on whatever stances are in your view of philosophy, you can pick either).
- galaxyLogic 5y agoWell let's say that something is happening at a certain pace. Then it starts slowing down. The reason we can say it is "slowing down" is because we have the notion of time that exists regardless of how fast things are changing, or not. So if nothing is happening I would think it means that things are happening at zero speed. Again we can say the speed is zero, because we have the notion of time that doesn't change juts because things slow down.