Time and evolution

Nathan Poe

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My position is clear to the theist, the atheist, as ever, is in denial.
I find it mildly amusing that the atheist/naturalist will claim a lack of evidence of/for a creator as a/the reason for their atheism/naturalism and yet will accept that the universe came into existence from nothing/nowhere without any evidence to support it.

FoeHammer.

I find it incredibly amusing that the thest does the exact opposite: Claim that everything that exists must have a creator, and then fabricate a "Creator" immune from the rule they invented.
 
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Wiccan_Child

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Did singularity exist before the universe?

FoeHammer.
As ever, that depends on your definition of 'before', and 'universe'. It is entierly possible that nothing (the philosophers nothing, not the not-quite-empty vacuum) existed 'before' the Big Bang singularity. Then again, it is eniterly possible that the Spongebob Squarepants existed 'before' the Big Bang. Occam's Razor, I believe, points to the former.
 
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FoeHammer

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As ever, that depends on your definition of 'before', and 'universe'. It is entierly possible that nothing (the philosophers nothing, not the not-quite-empty vacuum) existed 'before' the Big Bang singularity. Then again, it is eniterly possible that the Spongebob Squarepants existed 'before' the Big Bang. Occam's Razor, I believe, points to the former.
A not-quite-empty vacuum is not nothing.

FoeHammer.
 
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FoeHammer

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No. Singularity describes the state of the universe at its beginning.

Having said that, if there was something before the universe (e.g. hyper-branes) then singularity could have existed there.
If there was no space, matter, energy, or time, then where and when did singularity exist? In what form? And what triggered it's expansion?

FoeHammer.
 
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BeamMeUpScotty

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If there was no space, matter, energy, or time, then where and when did singularity exist? In what form? And what triggered it's expansion?

FoeHammer.

Questions are good. Just because we as humans might not yet be able to answer every one of them doesn't mean we should stop looking for answers.

Your sig makes it pretty clear where you think the answers lie, but tell me, why should I believe your Judeo/Christian/Islamic god over any of the other thousands also invented by humans?
 
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FoeHammer

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Questions are good. Just because we as humans might not yet be able to answer every one of them doesn't mean we should stop looking for answers.

Your sig makes it pretty clear where you think the answers lie, but tell me, why should I believe your Judeo/Christian/Islamic god over any of the other thousands also invented by humans?
It's perfectly clear to me, from the wording of your question, that a serious answer from me would not be taken seriously by you I therefore decline to answer.

FoeHammer.
 
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flatworm

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If there was no space, matter, energy, or time, then where and when did singularity exist? In what form? And what triggered it's expansion?

FoeHammer.

You seem to be having trouble wrapping your head around the idea of space and time being part of the universe.

If the initial state of the universe was a singularity, the singularity itself is then when, where and what. It is quite possible there was never a moment when it was not expanding.
 
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FishFace

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If there was no space, matter, energy, or time, then where and when did singularity exist?


It didn't - not when there was no space, matter, energy or time. As I said - singularity describes the universe at the start of its life. Not before. If there did exist things before then (e.g. hyper-branes) then there could've been singularities beforehand, of course.

And what triggered it's expansion?

I don't know, since I have no evidence. Neither do you. Certain modern physical hypotheses turn up these hyper-branes, but they're not exactly accepted scientific theory.
 
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FoeHammer

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You seem to be having trouble wrapping your head around the idea of space and time being part of the universe.

If the initial state of the universe was a singularity, the singularity itself is then when, where and what. It is quite possible there was never a moment when it was not expanding.
Not at all, I have, on numerous occasions in this thread, described the universe as space, matter, energy and time.
It would seem that the singularity would have to have come from nothing/nowhere but it has not been explained to me how this cold/did/might have happened.
If there was no space where did it occur? If there was no time when did it occur? If there was no matter or energy what occurred?

FoeHammer.
 
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FoeHammer

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It didn't - not when there was no space, matter, energy or time. As I said - singularity describes the universe at the start of its life. Not before. If there did exist things before then (e.g. hyper-branes) then there could've been singularities beforehand, of course.
Singularity
  1. In the beginning there was singularity:

    1. [*]In the beginning
      (about 8 to 15 billion years ago) the universe in which we inhabit did not exist. In its place there was an incredibly hot and dense region referred to as a singularity.
      1. we are not sure where singularity came from
      2. we are not sure of its properties
      3. we are not sure how old it was
      4. we are not even sure if time (i.e., causation) had meaning in the beginning
    2. All we really know for sure are those events that followed singularity. That is, observations made billions of years later (i.e., recently) are consistent with some concept of singularity: an extremely hot and dense universal beginning.

    [*]Cosmology jargon:
    1. As a cosmologist might put it:
      1. "In this scenario, once our universe grows beyond about 10-33 centimeters in size (the Planck scale), 10-43 seconds after quantum genesis, it evolves classically and can be completely described by general relativity. Prior to that moment, it cannot be described by general relativity, which tells us that within the Planck scale, space becomes 'infinitely small' and energy density becomes 'infinitely large.' To describe the precise physical conditions (e.g., temperature, density, volume) requires a quantum theory of gravity that is still forthcoming." (Crowe, 1995)
http://mansfield.osu.edu/~sabedon/biol1005.htm#singularity

''In the beginning the universe did not exist'' no space, no matter, no energy or time. Without space where was it? without matter or energy what was it? How can you have a ''beginning'' without time?

FoeHammer.
 
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flatworm

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Not at all, I have, on numerous occasions in this thread, described the universe as space, matter, energy and time.
It would seem that the singularity would have to have come from nothing/nowhere but it has not been explained to me how this cold/did/might have happened.
If there was no space where did it occur? If there was no time when did it occur? If there was no matter or energy what occurred?

FoeHammer.

Nope, apparently despite your protests to the contrary you still don't understand the concept of space and time being integral to the universe.

The singularity need not "come from nothing" because there need not be any time when it did not exist. The singularity would have been, essentially, the universe in a much more compact state, complete with matter, space and time. It's not that there was time, then space appeared then matter appeared. It was all there for as far back as time goes.
 
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flatworm

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''In the beginning the universe did not exist'' no space, no matter, no energy or time.

Wrong. Next time read further than the first sentence of your cut-and-paste job.

In its place there was an incredibly hot and dense region referred to as a singularity.

The Hot and dense part should have clued you in to the existence of matter and energy at this point. The region part should have clued you in to the existence of space. The was should have clued you in on the existence of time.
 
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Psudopod

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I find it mildly amusing that the atheist/naturalist will claim a lack of evidence of/for a creator as a/the reason for their atheism/naturalism and yet will accept that the universe came into existence from nothing/nowhere without any evidence to support it.

You're asking for evidence to support the fact that there is no evidence of a creator? How does that work? We're willing to believe that there was no creator behind the universe because there is no evidence to support the existence of one.
 
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FoeHammer

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Nope, apparently despite your protests to the contrary you still don't understand the concept of space and time being integral to the universe.

The singularity need not "come from nothing" because there need not be any time when it did not exist. The singularity would have been, essentially, the universe in a much more compact state, complete with matter, space and time. It's not that there was time, then space appeared then matter appeared. It was all there for as far back as time goes.
Let me see if I've got this straight...
Singularity
Singularity explains universe, universe explains singularity? What appears to be two is one?

FoeHammer.
 
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flatworm

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Let me see if I've got this straight...
Singularity
Singularity explains universe, universe explains singularity? What appears to be two is one?

FoeHammer.

The singularity was the universe, including time, space and matter. Just the universe compacted into a very dense state.

Current theories of physics are unable to determine what would have happened before a certain point because the size of the universe would have been smaller than the Planck length, the smallest unit of length that has any meaning in the context of current understanding. Perhaps, if we could continue rewinding the action, the universe would shrink down to a mathematical point, and endpoint in spacetime. Perhaps it would rebound, as per the cyclic universe model. Perhaps there is a higher-dimensional solution which may involve additional spacelike dimensions, additional timelike dimensions, or both.
 
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FishFace

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''In the beginning the universe did not exist'' no space, no matter, no energy or time. Without space where was it? without matter or energy what was it? How can you have a ''beginning'' without time?

Welcome to equivocation. You define "universe" as "space, matter, energy and time" (or something like that) and then say that, because someone else said the universe didn't exist, none of these things existed. Spot the flaw?

This is also a prime example of "A little knowledge..." First of all, neither space nor time mean a thing if there is only one thing, as far as I know - that's relativity. You have no frame of reference from which to evaluate the position and time of the singularity, so time and space, as you understand them, did not make sense.
Matter and energy, though, had to exist for there to be anything.
 
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FishFace

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Let me see if I've got this straight...
Singularity
Singularity explains universe, universe explains singularity? What appears to be two is one?

Where on earth in flatworm's post did you extract this?

The early universe was a singularity. He mentioned nothing about any explanation.
 
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