I understand perfectly well your point of view, you don't need to lecture me on it, I've heard it many times before, as I alluded previously.
The universe did not come from nothing. Consider the following two claims:
* The universe has a finite age.
* The universe has always existed.
Both of these claims are true.
This is a perfect example of the reasoning I described, thank you.
Here's the other bit:
[1] It so happens that "negative time", or even time t=0, is equally as
meaningless as Elephant Time or Verb Time. They are all undefined.
I understand this concoction you've formulated, but it isn't very convincing. There's absolutely no evidence that this interpretation of the word "always" is true, and further, it's a violation of Occam's Razor. It would be simpler to take "always" literally, but you are in fact, through what amounts to simple verbal trickery, changing its meaning.
You can state it's "meaningless" to speak of t=0, but you provide zero backup for this, other than it satisfies your fantasy.
You can state it's "meaningless" to ask what happened X minutes before the Big Bang, but again, this is only in the service of satisfying your fantastical theory.
Meanwhile, back in the Universe and the realm of Logic, it's very meaningful to ask what happened at "t=0", because such a state did exist. It even existed in your Big Bang Theory, which states there was an "initial state."
It is highly improbable (if not provably impossible), that such an "initial state" is realistically feasible, and it certainly violates Occam's Razor. Your "initial state" has no explanation. You in fact vehemently object to any attempts at an explanation, deriding them as "undefined." This is faith in its purest form.
Sorry, but I think you are a very religious man and don't realize it. Thank you, however, for the wonderful illustration of my point, I can use it as a historical example of the problem. :-)
Smugness doesn't constitute an argument. For any statement you make, I can respond "Ha, I knew you'd say that, how naive and predictable!" I can also add "I perfectly understand your position" despite giving no one any reason to believe this is true.
If our physicist friend didn't provide "backup" for his points, it's probably because he's just trying to set you on the right track. You can't reasonably expect someone to lay out the experimental results of every test we've ever run that has led us to assert TBB. And if you're going to persist in claiming that you understand the theory anyway despite all evidence to the contrary, I really doubt it would make any difference.
I am curious how you became so very confident that you are an enlightened genius and all physicists are naive and irrational fools. Especially since physics arrives at it's theories by empirical evidence whereas you seem to arrive at yours by proclaiming inapplicable truisms.
You said: it certainly violates Occam's Razor. Your "initial state" has no explanation. You in fact vehemently object to any attempts at an explanation, deriding them as "undefined." This is faith in its purest form.
Occam's Razor says to go with whatever the simplest model is that accurately predicts everything, not just the simplest model.
The Razor is a rule of thumb. If you have multiple theories / models that all accurately explain all observed phenomena, then they're all correct. In fact, since they make the same predictions, they're all equivalent. Occam's Razor basically says "don't waste time with theories that accurately explain the world but also make unfalsifiable / meaningless predictions."
To those downvoting me, you're welcome to speak up. This is a game of logic, and I was hoping that this community could keep the religious knee-jerk reactions down to a minimum. :-\
FWIW, I did not downvote you. But you still do not seem to comprehend the fact that the standard theory assumes time is finite. In order to disprove such a theory, you cannot just assume that time is infinite, because you are assuming the conclusion. If you convince me that you actually understand this, I will continue responding to you.
I know, HN doesn't allow downvoting of responses. :-p
But you still do not seem to comprehend the fact that the standard theory assumes time is finite.
Really? I thought I was very clear in demonstrating that I understood this through and through, hence the accusation of faith. I did not simply use an assumption that time is infinite as disproof, in fact I did not disprove BBT at all in my response, but merely gave reasons why I thought it was extremely unlikely to have a start.
You sound like a crackpot. You don't sound like you understand physics. You also sound cranky. If you want to have a discussion, you should stop using grandiose language.
Yes I do, though shouldn't that line of reasoning be another strike against some of the tenants of the BBT? If you have an infinitely dense object that represents everything, time shouldn't pass, so how could anything have ever gotten anywhere?
Here's the other bit:
I understand this concoction you've formulated, but it isn't very convincing. There's absolutely no evidence that this interpretation of the word "always" is true, and further, it's a violation of Occam's Razor. It would be simpler to take "always" literally, but you are in fact, through what amounts to simple verbal trickery, changing its meaning.You can state it's "meaningless" to speak of t=0, but you provide zero backup for this, other than it satisfies your fantasy.
You can state it's "meaningless" to ask what happened X minutes before the Big Bang, but again, this is only in the service of satisfying your fantastical theory.
Meanwhile, back in the Universe and the realm of Logic, it's very meaningful to ask what happened at "t=0", because such a state did exist. It even existed in your Big Bang Theory, which states there was an "initial state."
It is highly improbable (if not provably impossible), that such an "initial state" is realistically feasible, and it certainly violates Occam's Razor. Your "initial state" has no explanation. You in fact vehemently object to any attempts at an explanation, deriding them as "undefined." This is faith in its purest form.
Sorry, but I think you are a very religious man and don't realize it. Thank you, however, for the wonderful illustration of my point, I can use it as a historical example of the problem. :-)