What if there was no beginning?
By John Welford
@indexer (4852)
Leicester, England
October 5, 2018 10:50am CST
Cosmologists are amazing people who ponder long and hard about the Universe - where it came from, how it will end, and much more besides. They are paid to think the unthinkable, and what they come up with is not always easy for the Average Joe and Jo to get their heads around!
Here's one that is really mind-numbing. Just suppose that the Universe never did begin, and that it was always in existence?
OK, you might say, what was all that talk about the Big Bang 13 billion years ago - wasn't that supposed to be when everything came into being, including time and space, and that the question "what happened before?" is meaningless, because there was no before?
But just suppose that this Universe is just one of an infinite number of parallel universes, and that each one goes through an immensely long life cycle, beginning and ending as an infinitely small point of infinitely massive energy that then transforms itself into matter? In other words, there was never just one Big Bang but an infinite series of them - or even an infinite series of parallel Big Bangs of which we can never be aware?
Can you get your head round that lot? I'm not sure that I can!
12 people like this
11 responses
@xander6464 (44420)
• Wapello, Iowa
5 Oct 18
The Many Worlds Theory makes the most sense to me...Though Simulation Theory might replace it because it provides an answer for many problems such as the Fermi Paradox and the Double Slit mysteries...but we're still left with the question of "Where did matter and energy come from?" Simply saying that there was nothing before so the question doesn't make sense makes no sense. All this stuff is here and it had to come from somewhere. Even if it turns out that there is a God, nothing is solved because where did He come from?
3 people like this
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
5 Oct 18
Well - that's the big question - why did it have to come from somewhere? That is a philosophical question to me. We are thinking of this based on our current perceptions of what is possible, but suppose that we're completely wrong with our perceptions?
4 people like this
@xander6464 (44420)
• Wapello, Iowa
5 Oct 18
@indexer Our perceptions about just about everything are wrong, we know that. And as Einstein said, our knowledge would fit on a matchbook cover. But still, can something come from nothing or can it always just have existed? Or maybe a better question would be, "Why is our intellect advanced enough to ask questions that we can't answer?" At least right now, it doesn't appear that we will ever find the answer.
2 people like this
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
6 Oct 18
@akalinus I would say good. If we are going to really understand our Universe, we need the best brains we can get on the job, given the huge complexities involved. Have you ever tried to read a scientific paper in a top peer-reviewed journal, or a Physics PhD thesis? Fortunately there are people who can understand these things, and even more fortunately there are people who can translate them into language that you and I can follow!
1 person likes this
@1hopefulman (45120)
• Canada
5 Oct 18
We know the universe had a beginning. The question is who was the Beginner?
2 people like this
@1hopefulman (45120)
• Canada
6 Oct 18
@indexer We can measure the age of material and 13.5 billion years, while it is a long time, is nowhere close to not having a beginning.
2 people like this
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
6 Oct 18
@1hopefulman OK - that material had a beginning, but the argument under discussion is that that beginning marked the end-point of a Universe that preceded it. If we can accept that as a concept, then there is no reason for not assuming that the process could occur an infinite number of times. Our brains are programmed to work according to a scheme of "beginning-middle-end", but just suppose that there are other schemes that can accept existence as not being conditional on process and time?
1 person likes this
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
5 Oct 18
But that's the point - we don't know that the Universe had a beginning. Way back in my youth I had a Sunday School teacher who thought he had proved the existence of God by saying "You can't have a creation without a Creator" - it did not take me long - once I started studying Philosophy at University - to realise just how circular this argument was.
2 people like this
@cupkitties (7421)
• United States
6 Oct 18
I know I can't. I've gotten that response before when asking who created God. Just had me more confused
2 people like this
@arthurchappell (44998)
• Preston, England
5 Oct 18
Neil De Grasse Tyson has argued that there is and never can be, therefore never was any such thing as true nothing - there are always some kind of sub-atomic activities - a universe is created by a shift in the sub-atomic activity
3 people like this
@lookatdesktop (27134)
• Dallas, Texas
6 Oct 18
@indexer , Yea, Neil De Grasse Tyson was the other guy I was trying to mention but I couldn't remember his name. I love to listen to his highly enlightening ideas.
2 people like this
@arthurchappell (44998)
• Preston, England
6 Oct 18
@lookatdesktop his books are very good too
1 person likes this
@lookatdesktop (27134)
• Dallas, Texas
5 Oct 18
The multiverse theory. Yea. That is one to ponder. I do not think there was a big bang, but that the universe has existed forever and we are all eternal in spirit. The body is but a vessel for our soul and the things all around us that rely on gravity and energy are but a stage.
2 people like this
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
5 Oct 18
I think the idea is that there was more than one Big Bang! The evidence for there having been at least one is pretty strong, based on what has been discovered about the radiation left over from the initial "bang", the fact of universal expansion and the theories of quantum mechanics.
1 person likes this
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
6 Oct 18
@lookatdesktop Brian Cox is well worth listening to. He is a regular on British TV due to his ability to explain complex things in layman's language. There are some excellent clips of him on YouTube, including a brilliant one where he floors an Australian fellow panelist who refused to believe in climate change.
@lookatdesktop (27134)
• Dallas, Texas
6 Oct 18
@indexer , Yea, I know. I have researched it in depth. Stephen Hawkings and others have discussed it at length. One or two leading physicists I enjoy watching on YouTube videos are the following: Michio Kaku for one and that other guy and another guy who is a professor who's name is Brian Cox. I have watched so many wonderful videos in the past several years lately that I have been quite well satisfied that there are many things going on in the universe to be both awed and inspired by.
Space, Astronomy, and the Search for Life
1 person likes this
@pinoycity (575)
• Philippines
6 Oct 18
It makes me dizzy every time I think about these multiverse, big bang and all these stuff. But the ultimate question for me is who or what created the matters before the big bang?
1 person likes this
@nela13 (58720)
• Portugal
6 Oct 18
The universe began somewhere in the past, I think the question is only when.
@sh2ker (503)
• Bury, England
8 Oct 18
No I definitely can’t get my mind around it.I don’t know why but I find the idea of the universe always existing than the idea of it not ending.Does that make sense probably not.
@stanws (126)
• Stoughton, Massachusetts
9 Oct 18
YES! I *love* this stuff! I once opined that maybe the big bang is a cosmic heartbeat, and that it has happened trillions or more times.
And yeah...the boundary thing! What came before? How? Not just temporily, but spacially as well. What is beyond the so-called end? Are we just going round and round, and if so, what exists beyond the bounds of this circular path??
Et cetera! :)
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
13 Oct 18
It depends what you mean by "The Universe". The idea is that this is only one of multiple universes, and that others exist in other dimensions, as well as each dying universe giving birth to the next one.
