Subj : Re: The universe
To   : JOSHUA LEE
From : TODD HENSON
Date : Thu Dec 07 2000 07:10 pm

> SGID: 1:167/133.0 3a0bac6e
> -=> DAVE OLDRIDGE wrote to JOHN WILSON <=-
> 
>  DO> Not necessarily.  The world has a North pole, but there is
>  DO> nothing north of it.
> 
>  DO> And I'm not being facetious here.  Time-space does seem to focus
>  DO> on a singularity that we refer to as "the beginning" and we see
>  DO> copious astronomical evidence in support of this.  If this model
>  DO> is correct, then "before" the Big Bang is about as meaningless as
>  DO> "north of the North Pole."
> 
> Are you contradicting or agreeing with the classic understanding of
> creatio ex nihlo? (Or, as we say in Jewish thought, yesh m'ayin.)


Nobody seems to care to comment (not that they need to) on my Zen stories I
posted, perhaps 
the bicker-mongers are still only interested in bickering (as has been
evidenced recently). So, I 
thought I'd dig up an older topic that might be looked at afresh.

I'm not quite sure why people find it so meaningless to speak of "before"
the big bang. By the 
very fact that they say the universe had a *beginning*, it introduces the
question of "before" the 
big bang, because there was SOMETHING before it which gave it existencem,
whether it be a 
quantum fluctuation, God, moldy cheese, or whatever. They seem to assume
that the only 
temporal reality in existence is the one that was created along with our
space.

Even science rejects that. For one, many a scientist theorize that there
are MANY different 
expanses of space-time that were created in many big bangs. These universes
are seemingly 
separate from ours. Even though these different universes (if they even
exist) might not explain 
the origin of our own, the concept of other temporal frames of reference
outside THIS space-time 
continuum is a valid one.

So if our universe had a beginning, then something had to come before it to
initiate the action 
which made the universe. Now perhaps that primordial temporal context might
not operate the 
same way that ours does. Maybe it's even non-linear. But it seems awful
contradictory for a 
person to speak of a created universe yet deny any discussion as to what
brought it into 
existence BEFORE it existed. 

What do you think about that?
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