Nothingness, energy and the Big Bang

[Moses]

I am not certain where I am in regards to Atheism though I am open to the idea but I have some questions about some things I was hoping folks here could help me with.

Now I have read before that energy in some limited almost unquantifiable form existed before the big bang and that our present universe in relation to what it was before the big bang was like the change between water to ice. The old pre big bang universe was chaotic and supersymetric (like water) and therefore unstable and changed into the structured form (ice crystals etc) that we are now which allows for space and time since space and time was not quantifiable in the older state.

I have also believe other Atheist scientists that energy did not exist before the big bang and that it was the source of all ability to quantify anything. Can someone explain this stuff to me and if you could dumb it down for me I would appreciate it.

[Will]

Pay no attention to these theories, as they are without evidence. There is no record predating the big bang, and there isn't a definitive cause of the big bang. It's all speculative. It could have been anything or nothing.

[SteveS]

Hey Moses - I agree with Will's comments.  No pre-big-bang stuff has been substantiated.

There is a scientific theory of a cyclic model based on string theory (technically, I think M-theory - whichever one deals with "branes"), where big bangs keep recurring (different from the traditional big-crunch, which seems clearly wrong given the expansion of the universe), but this theory has not been accepted yet.  Currently, its predictions are indistinguishable (given the evidence at hand) from the big-bang hot-expansion model.

If you're interested in a scientifically valid search for answers "before" the big-bang, I recommend this book (you don't have to be scientifically educated to read it): "Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang" by Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok (ISBN: 0385509642).  

Here's a link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Universe-Beyond-Big-Bang/dp/0385509642

Regarding "origins" of the universe, I find this idea appealing, because it would seem to help solve a philosophical dilemma.  The philosophical dilemma, it seems to me (an admitted amateur so take me with a grain of salt), is that we either have to accept that:

1) Matter/Energy are eternal (which could be the case given the above cyclic model)
 -or-
2) Causality is a flawed concept, and there can be "uncaused" events (which could make sense given quantum behavior)
 -or-
3) Both.    

I call this a dilemma because not many people like these ideas.  People don't like 1) because of:

a) Religion (only the "gods", or "God", is eternal).

b) Big-Bang theory (although, this theory can't actually describe what happened at the Big Bang itself, as the authors of the above book point out, so there is possibly a mistaken inference being made here).

Pleople don't like 2) because of:

a) Our regular old worldly experience - causality seems to work and makes good human intuitive sense.

b) Classical physics and the idea of determinism.

Cheers, and welcome to the board!

[Moses]

Thanks, Steve and Will, glad to be here.

I read a few more things since I was last here and it seems Quantum Mechanics makes perfect room for a "void" universe.

It basically states that even in complete vacums, particles pop out of the nothingness and then pop out of existence. they say that this does not violate the law of conservation of energy since it happens at the subatomic level very briefly. This have been validated by actual experiments recently and in the past.

So complete nothingness is an abstract notion that does not apply to reality and that some form of energy must always exist for reality to be here. In a matterless universe something called zero point energy would exist. So even before the big bang energy must have existed in a motionless and non structured form. The Big Bang many scientists say was the formation of that energy into complex structure. But we still do not know what caused the bang so future science will have to figure that out.

I purchased that book you mentioned and so far it is really good. I guess I am just a little more inclined to the void universe since it has some empircal proof but I am still reading your book so I might have to eat my words.

After reading all this stuff in the above paragraphs and in the book, Steve mentioned I pretty much can say that I have gone complete Atheist.

[SteveS]

I pretty much can say that I have gone complete Atheist.

Sweet - welcome to the club!  Sorry we're not more popular in the world at large....

The "void universe" is an interesting theory.  I certainly wouldn't count that one out.  Do you remember where/what you read about this (book, url, etc.)?  I'd be curious to check it out.

Cheers!

[Moses]

Haha thanks.

Your can read about the void universe from Victor Stenger's "The Comprehensible Cosmos" and a little bit of it is in his "God: The Failed Hypothesis". Also just google Vacuum State, Vacuum energy and especially something called the Casimir Effect. Stenger is not the only one to talk about it however. He also does not rule out the brane theory either and has accomplished much scientific research over his career. Stephen Hawkins also seems to agree that if we did not come from another universe then the Big Bang was some sort of cosmic transition (as Stenger says "like from water to ice") from an "empty" universe (empty of matter) to a more structured one. Also if this is the case we are inside the big bang and the rest of the universe we are expanding into is this zero point energy that we came from. I guess alot of physists have used vacum energy to point out how there always has to be something so there must have been something before the big bang. Here are some links to check out:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... acuum.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_state

[SteveS]

Sweet, thanks, I'll check it out!

[Enlightened777]

Well considering those theories here's something think about, if you are not completely sure about atheism, Zacharia Stichin, an author, has a book talking about the Sumerians. The book talked about Genesis's reference to the Nefilim. Those were the Giants that fought and caused Chaos. As a result God flooded the earth, but anyway the Sumers had all these calculations about planets and math, and they even had descriptions of planets(they didn't have telescopes) they have texts written about a planet whose inhabitants came to earth and shared knowledge with the Sumers.  

[Titan]

So basically the two theories are:

1. There was nothing; which exploded.
2. There has always been something and it has always been exploding.

Is that right?

[PipeBox]

Well, I'd say that science will eventually show both of those to be gross generalizations.  Nothing comes from nothing, and besides, choice A is identical to choice B, considering that choice A is without time.  

[Titan]

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't these all simply complex mathematical ideas?

[PipeBox]

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't these all simply complex mathematical ideas?

That agree with the universe as it is observed at this time, yeah.  They're "simply" mathematical ideas that can account for the present day universe and that tie in with present theory and evidence.  They'll also only be "simply" updated when more evidence comes along if that evidence supports them.  They'll "simply" have to pass the scrutiny and test of anyone willing to provide it.  They'll "simply" have to be capable of answering some of the greatest, toughest questions man has ever asked.

But hey, it's all "just" complex math that agrees with the rest of science as it stands.  So feel free to hold them in contempt.

[Titan]

That wasn't contempt, honestly. I had just heard about a theory proposed by Stephen Hawking and what it actually came down to was this purely speculative mathematical idea. I can't remember what it was though. I said simply because I thought I remembered it being based on some assumptions about the universe but again, I'm not sure.

[karadan]

We accept that the three dimensions of space we live in are curved, that space-time describes a hypersphere, just as the two dimensions of length and width on the surface of a totally smooth planet curve in a third dimension to produce a three-dimensional sphere. The idea is that - when you imagine the hypersphere which is our expanding universe - rather than thinking of a growing hollow sphere (like a inflating beach-ball, for example), think of an onion.

An expanding onion, certainly, but an onion, nevertheless. Within our universe, our hypersphere, there are whole layers of younger, smaller hyperspheres. And we are not the very outer-most skin of that expanding onion, either; there are older, larger universes beyond ours, too. Between each universe there is something called the Energy Grid. And of course, if you could get through the Energy Grid, to a younger universe, and then repeat the process... You'd really be talking about immortality.

Now comes the difficult bit; switch to seven dimensions and even our four dimensional universe can be described as a circle. So forget about the onion; think of a doughnut. A doughnut with only a very tiny hole in the middle. That hole is the Cosmic Centre, the singularity, the great initiating fireball, the place the universes come from; and it didn't exist just in the instant our universe came into being; it exists all the time, and it's exploding all the time, like some Cosmic car engine, producing universes like exhaust smoke.

As each universe comes into being, detonating and spreading and expanding, it - or rather the single circle we are using to describe it - goes gradually up the inner slope of our doughnut, like a widening ripple from a stone flung in a pond. It goes over the top of the doughnut, reaches its furthest extent on the outside edge of the doughnut, and then starts the long, contracting, collapsing journey back in towards the Cosmic Centre again, to be reborn...

Or at least it does if it's on that doughnut; the doughnut is itself hollow, filled with smaller ones where the universes don't live so long. And there are larger ones outside it, where the universes live longer, and maybe there are universes that aren't on doughnuts at all, and never fall back in, and just dissipate out into... some form of meta-space? Where fragments of them are captured eventually by the attraction of another doughnut, and fall in towards its Cosmic Centre with the debris of lots of other dissipated universes, to be reborn as something quite different again? Who knows. (I know it's all nonsense, but you've got to admit it's impressive nonsense.

(my favourite theory as to where we come from, created by Scottish author - Iain M Banks)

[DennisK]

This is making my brain hurt -7 dimensions?  I think I'll go back to being a christian.  It's a lot easier to say, "god works in mysterious ways" and "don't question god" and "Why?  Because it god's will, that's why you little shit!".  Ahhh, the simpler times...