# The Paradox of Existence **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 23, 2003, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494 "2003-03-23T03:45:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/41 "2003-03-24T21:46:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Theoretical hyperphysics can be tested; it can’t be currently tested by human beings. The only method we have of examining such theories is to determine if they’re mathematically consistent. In principle, however, such theories can be falsified. Is there any particular hypothesis of a Blane that can be falsified by experiment and observation? (Is “theory” a particularly appropriate term here?) * * * Spiritus I think your response of “unanswerable” is perfectly accurate. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/42 "2003-03-24T22:56:22Z")
Yes. Brane theories (with the word “theory” being used in the non-scientific sense) make certain predictions about phenomenon observable only at extremely high energy densities. There are a variety of popular books and websites available to laypeople about branes. I suggest you take a look at them. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/43 "2003-03-24T23:19:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes. Brane theories (with the word “theory” being used in the non-scientific sense) make certain predictions about phenomenon observable only at extremely high energy densities. What predictions do they make? Are there other hypotheses that make the same predictions? Why is the term “theory” used in a “non-scientific sense” about a scientific matter? ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/44 "2003-03-24T23:30:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > **What predictions do they make? Are there other hypotheses that make the same predictions?** A wide variety, mainly about the nature of space-time. Predictions include certain forms of action-at-a-distance and various manifestations of fundamental mathematics, otherwise known as “physics”. > [@](#): > > \*\*Why is the term “theory” used in a “non-scientific sense” about a scientific matter? \*\* Because they’re more than hypotheses, essentially. They don’t have the weight of evidence that confirms true theories, such as the Atomic Theory or the Theory of Evolution, but they’re not true hypotheses either. Theoretical physics is dedicated to generating mathematically consistent systems whose behavior can be used to describe (and ideally, predict) the physical universe. Sadly, history has seen to it that the name of the hypothetical sciences carries the word “theory” in it. It’s just one of those funny things about life. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/45 "2003-03-24T23:35:06Z")
Set theory, for one example. ---
**Author:** ![jct103](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@jct103](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jct103)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/46 "2003-03-24T23:37:19Z")
The basic problem with what you’re saying is that everything does not have a beginning!! time has no beginning!! We only measure it against something. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/47 "2003-03-24T23:39:49Z")
Precisely. “Theory” in the mathematical sense refers to a consistent system. “Theory” in the sciences can be used in a technical sense: a set of principles that attempts to explain observations and can make meaningful predictions about the world while withstanding attempts at falsification and competition from other hypotheses. It can also be used in the vernacular sense, which is somewhat similar to the mathematical. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/48 "2003-03-25T00:14:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jct103 \* > time has no beginning!! How so ? The other coordinates of spacetime all have a beginning, back at t[sub]0[/sub] when the big bang was nothing but a dimensionless point. There was no X, no Y, and no Z. What makes you so certain that the range over which time holds is larger than any of the other axes ? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/49 "2003-03-25T00:19:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jct103 \* > time has no beginning!! How so ? The other coordinates of spacetime all have a beginning, back at t[sub]0[/sub] when the big bang was nothing but a dimensionless point. There was no X, no Y, and no Z. What makes you so certain that the range over which time holds is larger than any of the other axes ? ---
**Author:** ![Kempis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kempis/32/19248_2.png) [@Kempis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kempis)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/50 "2003-03-25T03:26:58Z")
Has it been show that there is a t=0? I haven’t studied it much, but I imagine that time can be defined in fractions of a second after zero. Is there a limit to how small of a fraction of a second can exist? -k ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/51 "2003-03-25T03:39:04Z")
I believ the point that the “time has no beginning” folks are making is that time is the word “beginning” itself implies a flow of time (i.e. a change of state which is possible only _in_ time). Thus, it makes no real sense, semantically, to speak of time itself having a beginning. There was no “moment” before time began, since “moment” already implies time. For myself, I prefer to simply reference anything before t[sub]0[/sub] as out-of-scope for any discussions grounded in our physical reality. t[sub]0[/sub] represents a terminus point beyond which we can gather no information. Whether that terminus separates us from “something” or “nothing” or “everything” is a matter that will always be necessarily speculative. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/52 "2003-03-25T03:43:51Z")
According to quantum theory, yes. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/53 "2003-03-25T03:51:34Z")
wow, that one took a while to post. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/54 "2003-03-25T04:14:27Z")
The big bang is not considered to be simply an explosive outpouring of matter into a pre-existing geometry, but rather involved the creation of spacetime itself. I’ll get beat up by a mob of angry mathematicians and physicists if I say much more than that. However, Stephen Hawking has a nice little pdf (~25K) lecture titled [The Beginning of Time](http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/bot.html), which covers things nicely: > [@](#): > > At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang. > Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there’s no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/55 "2003-03-25T04:16:26Z")
Well, the link was pdf when I opened it, but now it comes up as html :smack: It’s an interesting read, regardless. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/56 "2003-03-25T09:27:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > Not necessarily. A photon, for example, “comes from” an electron dropping to a lower energy state even though there is no “cause” for the drop. But doesn’t that still occur as an event _in time_? My point was, at t=0, nothing could “come from” anything, because time is not defined, right? Forgive my piggybacking Squink’s Hawking quote: “the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang.” Wheelchair Guy says it better than I can. If the universe _does_ have a cause, it can’t be measured in terms of our time. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/57 "2003-03-25T10:27:47Z")
Blowero Now you and I are on the same page, I think — or at least close. Your answer is more along the lines of that from Spiritus and me, namely that there is no answer. Dodgy business about theories that aren’t really theories doesn’t contribute anything substantive that I can discern. But just to be clear — and to reiterate a point I already made — I’m not saying that the universe must have had a cause. I’m saying that it must have had a mechanism. Nothingness implies the lack of any mechanism. That’s the problem. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/58 "2003-03-25T12:49:51Z")
There’s a difference between the lack of an answer and the lack of a humanly comprehensible answer. There will always be unanswerable questions, but that does not imply that there is no truth. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/59 "2003-03-25T19:59:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > I’m not saying that the universe must have had a cause. I’m saying that it must have had a mechanism. It may have had a “cause” (or mechanism, or whatever you want to call it), or it may be eternal. We don’t have any way to know that right now, since any reality that may or may not exist outside of the universe is not measurable by any standards within the universe. > [@](#): > > But if it is eternal, then there must be some mechanism by which energy available to do work is restored to a closed system; otherwise, the universe would almost certainly be in a state of 100% entropy. To be honest, I don’t understand what you’re talking about here. My understanding is that nothing “before” (for lack of a better word) t=0 can have any effect on how events play out _after_ t=0. So the question of whether our universe was “spawned” from another universe, or simply exists eternally is irrelevant to the current state of entropy, is it not? > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by TVAA_ > There’s a difference between the lack of an answer and the lack of a humanly comprehensible answer. There will always be unanswerable questions, but that does not imply that there is no truth. Well said. But you should add that it should never be taken as carte blanche to substitute overt speculation (or wishful thinking) for unknowns and try to pass it off as fact. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494/60 "2003-03-25T20:18:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kempis \* > \*\*Has it been show that there is a t=0? > > I haven’t studied it much, but I imagine that time can be defined in fractions of a second after zero. Is there a limit to how small of a fraction of a second can exist? > > -k \*\* Here’s my admittedly layman’s understanding of it (and again I offer the standard disclaimer to correct me if I’m wrong): t=0 is a mathematical limit where density is infinite at t=0. So yes, time is defined at increasingly smaller and smaller fractions of a second after t=0. We can’t really talk about what occurs _at_ t=0, because the rules by which we describe things don’t exist at t=0. It’s really a mathematical construct that we lack the ability to understand intuitively. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-paradox-of-existence/163494.md?page=4)