In the Beginning: How Many Object to Creation-Like Events?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the concept of creation-like events, particularly in relation to the Big Bang (BB) theory. Participants explore the implications of a potential "creation event," the nature of the universe's beginnings, and the philosophical and scientific considerations surrounding these ideas.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Philosophical inquiry
  • Technical explanation

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants question the meaning of "impossibly complicated" in the context of a creation event, suggesting that existing models of the BB are not overly complex.
  • Others express skepticism about the idea of a unique beginning, proposing instead that the universe has been evolving for eternity.
  • One participant argues that the complexity of a creation event does not necessarily imply the existence of a creator, raising the question of whether a creator would also be subject to the same complexities.
  • Concerns are raised about the compatibility of current scientific theories with the notion of a creation event, with some suggesting that singularities in cosmology may indicate limitations in our understanding rather than definitive proof of creation.
  • There is a contention regarding the relationship between cosmology and observational science, with differing views on whether cosmology can be considered a science in the same way as astronomy.
  • Another participant highlights the challenges of proving events prior to the Big Bang and the limitations of human understanding in this context.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the nature of creation-like events or their implications. Multiple competing views are presented, with ongoing debate about the philosophical and scientific aspects of the discussion.

Contextual Notes

Participants express uncertainty regarding the definitions and implications of terms like "creation event" and "impossibly complicated." There are unresolved questions about the relationship between cosmology and observational science, as well as the nature of singularities in current models.

Chronos
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I am curious. How many people object to a creation [like BB] event? I'm not suggesting this requires a 'creator', merely impossibly complicated circumstances.
 
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Chronos said:
I am curious. How many people object to a creation [like BB] event? I'm not suggesting this requires a 'creator', merely impossibly complicated circumstances.

Not sure what "impossibly complicated" means.

The BB itself does not seem to be impossibly complicated, we already have models that are fairly simple and go back further in time.

(some don't require anything very exotic in the way of extra baggage: no extra dimensions, no multiverse, no colliding branes)

Assuming we can push the horizon back into time before the beginning of expansion, at what time point in the past were you thinking to place this "creation event" ["like BB" but presumably before the big bang]?

Where on the timeline would you imagine that there are the "impossibly complicated" circumstances?

=======================

It seems to me that our picture of the universe will always have areas that seem nearly impossible to understand----but I would hesitate to say we will never understand. The boundaries do get pushed back, sometimes even more quickly than one expects. So how can we call some part of our universe picture impossible to understand?
 
I find any beginning hard to swallow, it implies a unique event, so why would a unique event
include us?
Edit

I prefer the idea that the universe has been evolving over an eternity.
 
Last edited:
wolram said:
I find any beginning hard to swallow, it implies a unique event, so why would a unique event
include us?
Edit

I prefer the idea that the universe has been evolving over an eternity.

i'm just wondering wouldn't it necessarily inolve us and our planet/solar system/galaxy etc... ?

we do exist after all.
 
Well stated, marcus. It merely seems impossibly complicated to evolve something like a big bang because precursor events are observationally inaccessible. The events, in and of themselves, are not incomprehensible, just the landscape of possibilities.
 
Chronos - I'm not saying this directed against you but generally when someone says something like “the universe is too complicated to have just happened, God or a creation event must be involved” my response is “Well is God too complicated to have just happened? For surely the creator is more complicated than the creation?” The concept that God had simply existed for eternity before he created the Earth/universe (or other religious creation stories I've come across) does not really push the horizon any further than what I know of cosmology.

The notion of creation doesn't seem to be incompatible with scientific cosmology but it doesn't seem to add anything to it or resolve any mysteries.
 
Doesn't this belong in philosophy? Current scientific theories and observations neither require or are at odds with a moment of creation. Whether or not an individual 'objects' to this or not based, presumably, on their own personal philosophy or theology has no bearing on the science of cosmology.
 
Our current understanding of quantum theory conflicts at minute scales with GR. Our current understanding of GR results in singularities on large scales, like BHs and perhaps a creation event like the BB. Singularities are not necessarily features - they may be (and probably are, IMO) bugs that point to failures in our understanding. Cosmologies that feature singularities and creation events as theoretical constructs are suspect.

Extrapolating some imagined expansion back to a BB does not prove a creation event, and calculating the GR equivalent of a very massive object to a singularity does not prove the existence of black holes. Astronomy is an an observational science, and cosmology is so far removed from astronomy that it can hardly be considered a science. There are many cheerleaders for "standard cosmology" these days and a paucity of critical thinkers practicing epistemology.

The answer is right around the next corner? Yeah, right.
 
turbo-1 said:
Cosmologies that feature singularities and creation events as theoretical constructs are suspect.

Phew! Lucky for us the standard model of cosmology contains neither of these things.

turbo-1 said:
Extrapolating some imagined expansion back to a BB does not prove a creation event

Agreed. Again, fortunately, this is not a feature of the standard model of cosmology.

turbo-1 said:
Astronomy is an an observational science, and cosmology is so far removed from astronomy that it can hardly be considered a science.

Um, so if something is not astronomy it is not a science?? Interesting. I wonder what chemists think about that. Cosmology is very strongly an observational science that it obviously closely related to astronomy.

turbo-1 said:
There are many cheerleaders for "standard cosmology" these days and a paucity of critical thinkers practicing epistemology.

There are a lot people who like to decry a strawman version of what cosmology is, without bothering to understand the difference between cosmology and what they erroneously believe cosmology to be. Actually you could probably substitute almost any branch of science for cosmology and the previous statement still holds.

turbo-1 said:
The answer is right around the next corner? Yeah, right.

I've no idea what this statement refers to? The answer to what?
 
  • #10
well in your world there are things that we can't think with are imagination like making a new line formation that doesn't already exsist, so it hints that's there can be a list made of the things we can or can't do at any givin point of time, and one of them is that we could never prove what happened before the big bang. there things that we can't do, just like proving to everyone that there's a creator or a point of creation. Blind faith people have in most things in life. i hope this would be posted in the correct section nexted time around, the concepts could led to better understanding of other matters of thought, and that's mainly not cosmology :/
 

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