One thing is still missing from the 'Big Bang Theory"

Great Debates
41

So if we don’t know, we’re supposed to just arbitrarily pick something that sounds nice? Sorry, no dice.

Incorrect. Which do you think is more unlikely, or more unbelievable: that a bunch of energy or matter has always existed, or that a supernatural and intelligent entity that can create matter and energy has always created?

With regards to the OP: I think the only honest answer any of us can give is, “I don’t know.” We may never know. That kinda sucks, because I like to know things, especially very interesting things like this. We’ll just have to deal with it, I guess.

42

Which is more believable? Well, if there be an Existence or Entity that created the universe or the world, it is supernatural, as you say. By definition, it is beyond our natural world and hence incomprehensible to us. I tend to believe that it is more believable that there exists some things (or at least some thing) beyond our knowledge, ken, and comprehension than things have always been ad infinitum.

43

south333 wrote:

Absolutely. But we don’t know that, and using God as an explanation without evidence is silly and prideful. If you want to be a good Christian, wouldn’t it be more humble to say, “I don’t know,” than to have to have an explanation for everything?
Milossarian wrote:

No, it’s more like, “We don’t know, but those who claim to know only have it on faith, not fact. These are the facts that lead us to our theories, which in the absence of faith seem to explain it pretty well.”

44

Ok, moronmountain made this statement, which several people (including me) called him to task on:

I assumed (and I think some others did too) that moronmountain was talking about the fairly well known story about Darwin recanting the whole theory of evolution on his deathbed, and posted links to refute that story.

It turns out he was talking about something else entirely, and posts this statement from Darwin as evidence:

Well, this doesn’t exactly say that Darwin refuted his own theory, but it does look like it might mean that Darwin believed in a creationist view, and not in evolution after all. But lets take a look at the full quote from Origin of the Species, shall we?

(bolding mine) (and many thanks to the folks at Project Gutenberg for the online text of Origin of the Species, found at:
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext99/otoos610.txt )

Hmmm. This seems different from what moronmountain claimed. It seems that Darwin very plainly says that all forms of life currently alive “have all been produced by laws acting around us”. He very plainly says that life “from so simple a beginning … have been, and are being evolved”

This full quote IMHO clearly says that Darwin didn’t refute his own theory. He backs off from claiming abiogenesis, but that fits in with modern theories quite well. Others have already pointed out that the theory of evolution is a different animal than abiogenesis. One does not preclude or require the other. Likewise with the notion of a god and evolution. One does not preclude the other, and several people here have stated this.

So now we get back to moronmountain’s statement about Darwin refuting his own theory. From the evidence here, clearly he did not, either in his book, or on his deathbed. moronmountain should either now admit his claim was wrong, or face being called a liar (this time for real).

Ugly

45

Hmmmm, needs a little fine tuning.

I have no clue.
Current theories guarantee that we will never have direct evidence. They also make the idea of “before the Big Bang” meaningless. To say the energy “always existed” is indistinguishable from saying “it came into existence in the moment of the Big Bang”.
I don’t see any need to further point out the ridiculous, but if someone else gets tired feel free to tag me in.

46

So the very work in which Darwin was proposing evolution, in fact he actually was refuting it! Who knew?? :rolleyes:

Man, the sheer audacity of this chain of illogic amazes me. There is no way you could possibly have read one paragraph from The Origin of Species and still be able to make such a whacked out claim. I’m so stunned, I can only conceive of three alternatives:

[ul]
[li] You are being misled by someone you trust and regurgitating what they have said.[/li][li] The Ryan had you pegged from the outset.[/li][li] They now allow access to the internet while the orderlies clean out the rubber rooms.[/li][/ul]

47

Whew. I stay away from Great Debates because of threads like this.

First, moronmountain, take a step back and understand the paradigm that God (I don’t believe, but your premise depends on God, so I’ll grant it)…ok…now here is the paradigm.

God created everything. No evolution, no big bang…we’re talking creationism from Genesis, baby. From the universe, to the snot running out my nose, this was all God’s work. Yeah, that belch from the mediocre tuna salad sandwich - God took care of that when he created man.

Man’s inquiring mind? God’s work.

Evolution? Who’s work is this? I am man…I SEE evolution before me. Like, this little flu bug that mutates every year, or the bacteria that grows resistant to anti-biotics. Are we to ignore this?

I think it’s funny that creationists never understand that man’s survival depends on his understanding of the world around him, and that understanding evolution is a key to our survival as a species.

Everything isn’t in special neat order. People bust their asses everyday to fight the crappy order that exists and threatens man. Earth isn’t as man-friendly as you think.

This great planet, so wonderfully created, could not support the human life on it unless man understood evolution and addressed it.

Fetilizer? To feed the people on this planet, you need to grow “X” amount of crops, and to do so, you need “Y” amount of fertilizer. Guess what? We would have run out of natural fertilizer (mostly nitrogen) and a way of feeding ourselves if some very inventive scientists didn’t meddle with the environment and meddle with the building blocks of life. I refer you to the April Edition of Discover Magazine, because it’s a good way to show people that this wonderful harmonic balance we call the Earth ain’t so wonderful.
I don’t even want to go on. Stop living in your fantasy world that depicts everything in nature as lovely and balanced. Nature and the natural order threaten the existence of man everyday

48

Stephen Hawking, for one, has thought about what came ‘before’ the Big Bang and has put some equations to it, under the description quantum cosmology. (Not that I understand this stuff.)

The main point of the following link is that Hartle & Hawking’s quantum cosmology is inconsistent with theism, because it features a parameter (representing the unconditional probability of the universe appearing from nothing) which is > 0 but < 1.

My observation on this point is that scientific theories normally do not have implications for theism one way or the other. To the extent quantum cosmology has implications for theism, it has apparently crossed over the line & is no longer science.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/quentin_smith/quantum.html

49

I think when we say a God or matter/energy has always existed we have to look at the definition of always. Always would be from since time began until now, and what created time? The Big Bang. It seems we can say two things: a) an all powerful omnipotent God has ‘always’ existed or b) matter has ‘always’ existed. If we say a) then that would mean instead of nothing spawning matter, it creates a God and this “nothing” decides to give it unlimited powers (which seems bogus, of course). God also decides that ‘it is good’ to create a universe, and (in the absence of time) he does so. If we say b) then we say nothing created matter, and when this nothing created matter, that is when the big bang occured and time began. By nothing, I am essentially saying it just popped into existance, if someone wants to say a God has always existed (according to their various definitions, anyways) then that’s fine - all i’m saying is that He did come into existance at one point in “time”, and the same with matter. However, a simple application of Occam’s razor favors the second possibility.

Now the big question seems to be: Why? Well, we not only will never know, but it’s just like questioning what was before the Big Bang. In order to question something there needs to be something, and what is this something? Nothing.

One further note: i’m sure that Christian philosophers will just argue their views by saying that God transcends time, and that people will just say, “But how can he do something without time?” and their reply will be: “He is God.”

To which my reply is, “And who made him God?”

50

I alluded to this in my first post: virtual particles. But my limited understanding is that the pair of virtual particles would annihilate each other within the Planck’s constant. I realized after I posted, that I read somewhere there are incidents when they don’t. This is one of the mechanisms whereby black holes evaporate.

I, of course, don’t understand it. Perhaps Chronos or some other learned individual in quantum theory can enlighten us to some extent. I guess that a lot of the proof is mathematical, but there must be some other way to explain it, at least in part.

As to the last post, it was said that people would say that God transcends time because It is God, but who made him God? That’s a non sequitor. If there be a God, as I said before, It does transcend time. We cannot understand It, because we are finite beings in a temporal world.

51

Virtual particle pairs mutually annihilate each other in less than a planck interval. However, in extreme environments (gravitational well of a black hole, area of very high energy photons) the particle pair can be “pulled apart”, allowing a virtual particle to persist beyond a planck interval. This is the theoretical source for Hawking radiation and a possible mechanism for the spontaneous creation of matter. (I believe that the matter created is balanced by a loss of energy by the photons in the high-enregy photon environmant. I do not remember where the balance comes about in Hawking radiation.)

The above, of course, whould be read in the full realization that I am not a particle physicist, though I have impersonated one for purposes of financial gain. :wink:

52

Virtual particle pairs mutually annihilate each other in less than a planck interval. However, in extreme environments (gravitational well of a black hole, area of very high energy photons) the particle pair can be “pulled apart”, allowing a virtual particle to persist beyond a planck interval. This is the theoretical source for Hawking radiation and a possible mechanism for the spontaneous creation of matter. (I believe that the matter created is balanced by a loss of energy by the photons in the high-enregy photon environmant. I do not remember where the balance comes about in Hawking radiation.)

The above, of course, whould be read in the full realization that I am not a particle physicist, though I have impersonated one for purposes of financial gain. :wink:

53

I think you missed my point. Let me use an analogy: we don’t fully understand the atom , does that mean that there’s little people living inside the atoms making choices for us? It’s possible, just as possible as a God is - but there is a simpler explanation - that these little people living within atoms do not exist. It’s also more possible that we created our own image of God, to let us be able to cope with death, make us feel less lonely, gain strength from, have a sense of belonging and that we aren’t just here for no reason, and that if we act good, we will be whisked away to a far off land after we die.

There’s a difference between trying to explain the facts through what we know as truth, and just saying, “We don’t know. Therefore, there is an all powerful being.” I know that science cannot explain the birth of the universe, but all i’m saying is to take a look at what is more plausible. FTR, i’m an agnostic, I don’t “deny” the existance of a higher power like an atheist, it’s possible, but there is an alternative that is much more within the realm of possibility. Also FTR I understand and respect that some people have had religious experiences and have truly been touched, and i’m not trying to drive them away from their religion, i’m just putting in my two cents.

Basically, theres two sides of the coin here:
a) God popped into existance, proceeds to make the universe and time. Creates people, they begin to sin immediately (and with his infinite wisdom, he of course saw this happening… Because… He is God!) and in essence creates a human race only to doom it to hell (pre-Jesus, anyways).
b) The Universe just occured, and as there is no before, it is pointless to question where the big bang came from.

Science tells us it is pointless to question before the Big Bang. Christianity says that there is a before the Big Bang - God created it, but it is pointless to question before God.

It may seem like i’m attacking Christianity as a whole, but what i’m just tired of is the Christian philosophers (i’m taking Religion this semester) who also try to approach the existance of God from a logic prespective, and in doing so, give extremely shallow “logical” arguements (ex. “He is God, and by definition…”, “Take a look at what happened before the Big Bang…”, (Re: Pagan Religions) “This God created other ‘gods’.”, etc, etc.) If you want to believe in one all-powerful omniscient God, thats fine, just dont even bother trying to explain it to me, and also don’t tell me He exists just because it’s possible. If I ever do choose to believe in a God, it will only happen if it comes to me.

54

Ian Fan - I disagree with your premises.

**
No. Always means Always. Transcending time, or at least our current definition of it.

**
And thank you for reiterating my assertion, that the scientific explanation for how “all this” began is as fantastic and beyond our understanding as is the idea of a Creator/God who has always been.

**
Only because you’ve limited the definition of always. And please explain how Occam’s razor favors the second. You’re right that principles of science and physics help explain science and physics, not religion or faith.

And, as you’ve so clearly illustrated, shed no further light on The Big Question.

**

**
Careful with that paintbrush, Ian. You’ve essentially said the same thing with the non-religious theory. Time didn’t exist until the Big Bang, and the stuff that comprised what banged big popped into existence from nothingness.

Seems to me the idea that this stuff transcended time makes infinitely more sense than that it popped into existence from nowhere, without a God involved. (And yes, even making infinitely more sense, it still doesn’t make sense. I know.)

Spiritus Mundi - Wow. That was certainly over my head. But the same problems befuddle this theory, even if it precedes the creation of matter, and shows how it might have worked.

Where did the Big Black Hole come from? In what medium did it exist? How about the photons? They are quantifiable, discernable things. Have they always been? (My definition of always; not Ian’s.)

55

http://www.biols.susx.ac.uk/Home/John_Gribbin/cosmo.htm

"The idea that the Universe may have appeared out of nothing at all, and contains zero energy overall, was developed by Edward Tryon, of the City University in New York, who suggested in the 1970s, that it might have appeared out of nothing as a so-called vacuum fluctuation, allowed by quantum theory.

Quantum uncertainty allows the temporary creation of bubbles of energy, or pairs of particles (such as electron-positron pairs) out of nothing, provided that they disappear in a short time. The less energy is involved, the longer the bubble can exist. Curiously, the energy in a gravitational field is negative, while the energy locked up in matter is positive. If the Universe is exactly flat , then as Tryon pointed out the two numbers cancel out, and the overall energy of the Universe is precisely zero. In that case, the quantum rules allow it to last forever. If you find this mind-blowing, you are in good company. George Gamow told in his book My World Line (Viking, New York, reprinted 1970) how he was having a conversation with Albert Einstein while walking through Princeton in the 1940s. Gamow casually mentioned that one of his colleagues had pointed out to him that according to Einstein’s equations a star could be created out of nothing at all, because its negative gravitational energy precisely cancels out its positive mass energy. ‘Einstein stopped in his tracks," says Gamow, "and, since we were crossing a street, several cars had to stop to avoid running us down’."

Also, you can go to:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/258587.asp
for a very interesting tutorial on the latest Big Bang (now inflation) Theories.

56

I guess I might be mistaken, but every definition of “always” that i’ve seen includes time, but nothing about its transcendence.

There is no scientific explanation for how it all began, it boils down to a matter of looking at the facts and making a personal decision.

I think you misunderstood what I said here, i’m not saying that He was created at the Big Bang (ie. He is the universe, which IIRC is a Muslim belief). Regardless if that scientific precept only belongs in the field of science, you can either make things more complicated by adding a God (and also gain the pshycological benefits of having one) or you only look what what is there, and not add anything.

I guess it was a hijack then, but i’m basically saying that the Big Bang Theory is not missing anything, and that it might be better reworded. However, I apologize for the hijack.

I’m not saying that matter transcends time, because with matter when it was created that was when time began, there was no matter ‘before’. But of course, the question as to why is the real question, imho.

IANAP obviously, but it doesn’t seem so to me, because when you have matter, you have time.

Of course, as I’m only a High School student, most of my assumptions are probably wrong, but as this board is devoted to fighting ignorance, feel free to correct me.
IIRC, the balance from Hawking Radiation occurs because the virtual particle that falls into the black hole has negative mass energy and consequently makes the black hole smaller.

57

I don’t think that the alternative is much more possible. And there are more than two sides to this coin. In the first place, if there be a God, It did not just pop into existence. It always has been since It lives in Eternity. And the universe did not just had to occur. It could have always been too, back ad infinitum, with infinite causes and no first cause.

Now, the possibility of virtual particles coming into existence out of nothing leaves another possibility. I don’t know how that could account for the Big Bang, however. Assuming that a virtual particle was not annihilated before the Planck interval, how could it explode into all the energy and matter we now have? Conservation of energy and matter is a scientific fact. Where did all the other energy and matter come from? Could many pairs of virtual particles come into existence, all survive, and create the Big Bang? If they came together, wouldn’t they annihilate each other?

58

But there was no science before the Big Bang. Also, yes they would annihilate each other, just like in the first fraction of a second after the big bang. However, at the end of the Grand Unification Epoch there was an excess of matter over antimatter, but how? It just leads us back to our original question where the matter from the Big Bang came from.

59

From what I understand, as far as the universe coming out of nothing, it isn’t a matter of a lot of individual particles popping into existence at the same instance, as much as it is a very large bubble of energy popping up, from which all of our matter and physical laws have been created.

Along those lines, some theories say that universes are popping into existence all the time, and being destroyed just as quickly.

60

I read somewhere explaining how it arose that there became an excess of matter over anti-matter, but I don’t remember the reasoning. Perhaps some one else can refresh my memory.

After I posted my last reply, I then realized that all the principles we know of science break down at the first nanoseconds of the Big Bang. Physics, as we know it, didn’t exist.

http://www.biols.susx.ac.uk/Home/John_Gribbin/cosmo.htm#Inflation gives an explanation that there are many universes, emanating from black holes. I was looking for the explanation of matter over anti-matter in that site, but didn’t find it.