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My pet theory: Something has always existed. There was no beginning. No origin. No first cause. No t=0. No start. It's always been there. What was before that?

My pet theory: Something has always existed. There was no beginning. No origin. No first cause. No t=0. No start. It's always been there. What was before that? That. And that. And that. Always that. And the Second Law of Thermodynamics is not absolute and can be broken.

pixl97 4y ago
Understanding what time is and what time isn't can deeply affect ones view of the universe. Being stuck down here in a gravity well we think of time as a fundamental thing that ticks along the same for everyone. But when we start looking at things at cosmological scales even the idea of a t=0 starts to bend and break. For example look at particle interactions. The vast majority of them you can play them forward and backwards and they look exactly the same. You wouldn't be able to tell which way the video is running. The only way we can tell there is an arrow of time is because at some point a field asymmetry occurred. In a universe where all fields are symmetrical the idea of time simply breaks down and has no meaning. The history of the Universe channel touches on this in their latest video. Linked the wrong video, this is the one I meant to link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9m0sz2sUfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9m0sz2sUfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSCrSkK2HcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSCrSkK2HcQ
stackbutterflow 4y ago
If time exists then there's always a before. Unless at some point time didn't exist. But if time didn't exist and then suddenly something started to tick, that's still a transition from "no time" to "time" and this "no time" was before "time". These thoughts are driving me crazy. There must be a piece of the puzzle we're missing. There must be something about time that isn't or wasn't always linear. Otherwise there's no end to the "who created it" question. It's similar to asking what contains the universe. And what contains the thing that contains the universe.
- chiefalchemist 4y ago
  It feels as if there's a force (?) that we're not yet recognizing. Else, it's a crazy infinite loop. Not that I'm saying this is true (just an example), but is the Big Bang simply (?) the introduction of time into the then time-less universe? It just doesn't make sense to say "The universe started with the Big Bang" when what that was prior was the universe but in a different form (or so we guess). So it seems that something else had to be introduced to change the nature of the old universe into the new universe. Else the "start" is more like a "transformation" and even that opens a ton of questions. My head hurts.
jondeval 4y ago
> My pet theory: Something has always existed. There was no beginning. No origin. No first cause. No t=0. No start. It's always been there. What was before that? That. And that. And that. Always that. Your pet theory is the view of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and the Roman Catholic Church. The mistake that people make (you can even see it in this thread), is that they start with some preconceived conception of God, with all it's baggage, and then they attempt argue for, or against, this concept. The more productive approach is to recognize and acknowledge the necessary existence of a base reality. Then you simply assign the English word 'God' as a reference pointer to this base reality. const God = (the one base reality that exists necessarily)
- ben_w 4y ago
  > The more productive approach is to recognize and acknowledge the necessary existence of a base reality. Then you simply assign the English word 'God' as a reference pointer to this base reality. You can, but I'm not sure how "then" onwards is going to help — the people I've seen conflating these things before will still conflate them after doing this.
  - jondeval 4y ago
    I don't follow you. Can you elaborate?
    - ben_w 4y ago
      Alice: "So, we're all agreed, the word 'god' just means 'base reality'?" Bob: "Yup." Christine: "Sure. And because this base reality exists, that proves I was right all along about Jesus: he did die for our sins." Dhvan: "You mean it proves me right about Brahma." Eris: "…the horned god." Freya: "…Ragnarök." and so on.
      - jondeval 4y ago
        Yup. I see what you mean and I do think in practice conversations may proceed this way. And I think you are illustrating well the point I made above. The key idea though is that if you make a dispassionate analysis of what this base reality must be, you find that it has certain 'attributes'. So for example, anything that has horns would not be good candidate for base reality since the contingent concept of 'horn' would need to be explained by, and derive its very existence from something much more simple. So that simpler thing would be the less bad candidate. Etc.

pixl97 4y ago

Understanding what time is and what time isn't can deeply affect ones view of the universe. Being stuck down here in a gravity well we think of time as a fundamental thing that ticks along the same for everyone. But when we start looking at things at cosmological scales even the idea of a t=0 starts to bend and break. For example look at particle interactions. The vast majority of them you can play them forward and backwards and they look exactly the same. You wouldn't be able to tell which way the video is running. The only way we can tell there is an arrow of time is because at some point a field asymmetry occurred. In a universe where all fields are symmetrical the idea of time simply breaks down and has no meaning. The history of the Universe channel touches on this in their latest video. Linked the wrong video, this is the one I meant to link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9m0sz2sUfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9m0sz2sUfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSCrSkK2HcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSCrSkK2HcQ

stackbutterflow 4y ago

If time exists then there's always a before. Unless at some point time didn't exist. But if time didn't exist and then suddenly something started to tick, that's still a transition from "no time" to "time" and this "no time" was before "time". These thoughts are driving me crazy. There must be a piece of the puzzle we're missing. There must be something about time that isn't or wasn't always linear. Otherwise there's no end to the "who created it" question. It's similar to asking what contains the universe. And what contains the thing that contains the universe.

chiefalchemist 4y ago
It feels as if there's a force (?) that we're not yet recognizing. Else, it's a crazy infinite loop. Not that I'm saying this is true (just an example), but is the Big Bang simply (?) the introduction of time into the then time-less universe? It just doesn't make sense to say "The universe started with the Big Bang" when what that was prior was the universe but in a different form (or so we guess). So it seems that something else had to be introduced to change the nature of the old universe into the new universe. Else the "start" is more like a "transformation" and even that opens a ton of questions. My head hurts.

jondeval 4y ago

> My pet theory: Something has always existed. There was no beginning. No origin. No first cause. No t=0. No start. It's always been there. What was before that? That. And that. And that. Always that. Your pet theory is the view of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and the Roman Catholic Church. The mistake that people make (you can even see it in this thread), is that they start with some preconceived conception of God, with all it's baggage, and then they attempt argue for, or against, this concept. The more productive approach is to recognize and acknowledge the necessary existence of a base reality. Then you simply assign the English word 'God' as a reference pointer to this base reality. const God = (the one base reality that exists necessarily)

ben_w 4y ago
> The more productive approach is to recognize and acknowledge the necessary existence of a base reality. Then you simply assign the English word 'God' as a reference pointer to this base reality. You can, but I'm not sure how "then" onwards is going to help — the people I've seen conflating these things before will still conflate them after doing this.
- jondeval 4y ago
  I don't follow you. Can you elaborate?
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Alice: "So, we're all agreed, the word 'god' just means 'base reality'?" Bob: "Yup." Christine: "Sure. And because this base reality exists, that proves I was right all along about Jesus: he did die for our sins." Dhvan: "You mean it proves me right about Brahma." Eris: "…the horned god." Freya: "…Ragnarök." and so on.
    - jondeval 4y ago
      Yup. I see what you mean and I do think in practice conversations may proceed this way. And I think you are illustrating well the point I made above. The key idea though is that if you make a dispassionate analysis of what this base reality must be, you find that it has certain 'attributes'. So for example, anything that has horns would not be good candidate for base reality since the contingent concept of 'horn' would need to be explained by, and derive its very existence from something much more simple. So that simpler thing would be the less bad candidate. Etc.