What Existed Before the Big Bang

You're far more interested in discussing ME than in discussing any other topic.

So, party on!

 

The hardest thing is for people to simply accept that there is no answer. It is mystery. People have a hard time dealing with mysteries. Even the big bang itself is an opinion used to explain why the edges of the universe are accelerating away from each other rather than slowing down. The cosmologists don't even suggest that the acceleration was caused by the big bang. They invented yet another thing called dark matter that can't be observed or measured. Mysteries, folks. Plain and simple.

 

Amen to that. We as humans seem to have to have an answers.

However, science deserves a little more credit that that.

Science does give labels to known phenomena that are observed, but not understood.

So, "dark energy" refers to the mass that is detectable by gravity, yet it is not like any of the other matter we know about - what Earth and the rest of our solar system, the stars, etc., is made of. And, "dark energy" refers to the energy that is causing expansion, again something where the effect can be measured, but where it can not be considered understood.

The mass and energy we know about, what we experience, actually amounts to only 5% of what this universe is made of.

The other 95% (dark matter at 27%, dark energy at 68%) is in the category where many or even most questions are in the "I don't know" bucket.

And, that is science presenting us with a GIGANTIC "I don't know".

 

The question is pretty straightforward. If nothing existed before it did, then what? If something did exist before the infinite expansion of the universe, what happened to it, and let's be clear here, that universe is singular, and not a construct of multiverses. The concept is everything, not duplicates of itself. The real question is what the acceleration of growth means.

 

I don't know of any physicist who thinks the big bang or the likely singularity from which that expansion came was a creation event in the absolute sense you are demanding the answer to be.

And, I don't see you presenting ANY evidence for the model you demand.

 

What's up with this "demanding"... I asked questions. Questions aren't demands. So it doesn't seem likely that you understood then what I wrote? Universe is a word with a definition. It is all encompassing. Do you disagree then with the context of it? So there are two questions.

First, if nothing existed, how was everything then created. Second if something already existed, what happened to it. And if expansion is infinite, is what existed prior then destroyed to make way for what is now infinitely expanding? I'm not the only one expressing this as a question, it underlies the basic set of questions around universe creation.

 

You said:
"let's be clear here, that universe is singular, and not a construct of multiverses"

"Universe" is used to describe everything that came from that initial Big Bang.

For example, our universe is comprised of space-time as shown by Einstein. That says nothing about what may or may not have been the source of the singularity that expanded into this universe.

1. I don't agree with your premise. There is no indication that nothing existed.

2. that's another one where I would suggest we don't know the answer. However, one explanation is that there are more dimensions than our own space-time, thus no "collision" is necessary.

There are lots of these questions where we don't know the answer.

In fact, the entire field of theoretical physics involves stuff where we don't have answers.

There's nothing wrong with "I don't know". We are not God. Any claim that we know it all is ridiculous and any attempt to PRETEND we know it all is ... a lot worse than not knowing!!

 

Actually what they call dark matter isn't detectable at all. It arose from mathematics. The rest of your post needs to be offered as opinion.

 

While we can't directly see dark matter, it is detectable through gravitational effects. That does involve math - is that what you mean?

https://www.nasa.gov/content/discoveries-highlights-shining-a-light-on-dark-matter

Please help by identifying where it's opinion as opposed to general consensus of scientists. I want to keep my opinion to a minimum, or at least identify what's my opinion.

 

The entire concept of dark matter arose from mathematics. No "gravitational effects" have been measured to my knowledge but my knowledge is pretty limited. I don't say that it isn't possible that dark matter exists. I didn't say there isn't a contingent of physicists that like the concept. I just said that it isn't settled science.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "dark matter arose from mathematics". Math is used as a tool in every aspect of physics, so it certainly was involved just based on that.

As for being "settled science", its existence is settled. What it actually is composed of is not. That's why it is called dark.

https://www.britannica.com/science/dark-matter
"Originally known as the “missing mass,” dark matter’s existence was first inferred by Swiss American astronomer Fritz Zwicky, who in 1933 discovered that the mass of all the stars in the Coma cluster of galaxies provided only about 1 percent of the mass needed to keep the galaxies from escaping the cluster’s gravitational pull. The reality of this missing mass remained in question for decades, until the 1970s when American astronomers Vera Rubin and W. Kent Ford confirmed its existence by the observation of a similar phenomenon: the mass of the stars visible within a typical galaxy is only about 10 percent of that required to keep those stars orbiting the galaxy’s centre."

As I think I posted earlier, dark matter has been detected by observing gravitational lensing - how light from more distant galaxies is bent when encountering mass, much like light is bent when passing through a lense in a camera, only due to gravity.

Also:
https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2021.576034#:~:text=We can detect the dark,/CXC/CfA/ M.

https://www.space.com/20930-dark-matter.html#section-why-do-we-think-dark-matter-exists

https://www.nasa.gov/subject/6891/dark-energy-and-dark-matter/

 

I never understood the concept of dark matter. Or how to guesstimate the mass of a galaxy. I thought st first it was just matter you couldn't see. Now they give it almost mystical properties.

 

I am probably going to regret this but, just by way of ANALOGY, if we do not KNOW what Dark Matter is composed of, & so cannot really "study" it, how can we be SURE that we know ALL of its effects? Can you predict all of the possibilities? It took about 40 years, according to the history you provided, for its mere presence to be confirmed. So it is not IMPOSSIBLE that it works in some ways which are unique to our understandings of matter & energy-- can we say this is not true, based on anything other than our assumptions which, we know can prove, and have proven in the past, to be wrong? So is it inconceivable, that the operation of Dark Matter/Energy had some FORMATIVE influence on, or still exercises some degree of CONTROL over, the "functional" progress of the universe (its expansion, for example)?

Therefore, it is POSSIBLE, if & when we learn enough about Dark Matter/Energy, that it might fulfill the requirements that I had stipulated, which you had claimed would 1) ipso facto, be GOD (no it's, ands, or buts about it) and, as such-- according to your pre-determined set of assumptions-- 2) could not be detected, by science?

Am I mistaken?

 

It certainly is weird. But, there is a lot going on that is either too small or too big or too old for us to directly experience in our lifetimes in any way.

We have quarks, neutrinos, Higgs fields, the Big Bang, an initial singularity, the universe expanding at faster than the speed of light (in fact, accelerating!) a trillion galaxies (or whatever), etc., etc.

Really, the existence of matter that we can't directly see seems not much more mystical than that!

 

The way I understand it is this....there was no time before the big bang. There was in effect, nothing.

 

Dark Matter is being studied today. Like many things we study, we can't necessarily SEE them. Detecting neutrinos is incredibly hard, for example. So is studying Higgs fields.

And, I would say that a premise of science is that we can never know everything. That's a fundamental reason that science has no method of positive proof, and instead relies on falsification.

I cited sources that absolutely do indicate that dark matter has had an effect on the progression of our universe.

Remember that it was first postulated due to the fact that galaxies were not working the way they would if there were no dark matter.

As for the time that science takes, I don't understand your point.

As I've said many times, science has no way of addressing ANY question about god.

Your initial statements about this "intelligence" you postulated appear to me to specify a god - a supreme intelligent operator of the dimensions and power of our universe.

How can your idea be differentiated from, "God did it."? How could one tell if a particular phenomenon was direct from your postulated intelligent force or that it happened for some other reason? Or, is your intelligent force responsible for absolutely everything - like with god?

How does your idea predict what we will find, or help further investigation - like theories must be able to do?

I don't mean to be critical of your idea. This isn't really about whether your idea is correct. There is a possibility that there are religious ideas that are correct, too. Maybe there IS a god - this isn't about that.

It's just about what can be done with science.

 

I just don't trust the foundations of some of these theories. It may just be my own ignorance but how can you measure the mass of a galaxy? Now dark energy is easier for me to picture. If a compressed gas is released into a vaccum it expands to fill that vaccum....always....the molecules move apart.It also cools. Mr. Lee 7th grade science.

 

Astronomers can actually measure the mass, speed and direction of stars.

For a galaxy to work, there has to be enough mass at the center for gravity to keep stars spinning around the galactic center. What they find is that stars are moving way too fast in order for them to not simply fly out of the galaxy. That is one clear indication that there is mass that we can't directly detect. There is also the fact that mass bends light. Astronomers use that as a lense to detect galaxies VERY far away. They notice that galaxies provide more lensing capability than their mass should allow. In other words, there is mass that can not be directly detected - dark matter.

Dark Energy should bother you WAY more! The issue there is that the universe is expanding at an increasing rate. So, there has to be energy that is causing that to happen. Acceleration like that doesn't happen without energy being involved. What's going on is being studied, of course, but there is a long way to go on this one.

 

And as I've said, just as many times, I was not postulating anything that would objectively need to be called, "God," as, for as long as we are alive, that will almost irrevocably be a subjective, i.e., personal, determination.

The point of my post, is that you MISCHARACTERIZED the thing I speculated, AS GOD.
I am trying to bring to your attention, that the very things which led to your unfounded LEAP, of terminology, are things that COULD CONCEIVABLY BE TRUE OF DARK MATTER/ENERGY. One of these things, was merely that it exercised its influence in some NON-RANDOM way. This, you could only see as, "intelligence." If you cannot say that we know how Dark matter works, how can you possibly be certain that it is "random," in its action-- you can't, at least not with any evidence to support your assumption.

Therefore, were this to turn out to actually be shown-- that Dark Energy's influence works in a way that appears to be tailored to creating the particular type of universe we have, and so facilitates, makes possible, life as we know it (like my theorized mechanism)-- would you consider it GOD?
And, if not, why would not the same thing apply to my speculated characteristic, of the universe?



Because you have lost my confidence, in this matter, to be able to total one, plus one, I will try to be more specific: if Dark Matter or Dark Energy can do anything that could be said to fall in the same category, as the operation of my speculated Dynamic, it will be PROOF of one of 2 things--
1) either your defining of my idea as proposing, "God," was erroneous; or
2) your declaration that "science is not suited," to speak to anything related to "God," was wrong, because you would consider Dark Matter/Energy to be, "God."


To further spell it out, if nothing we learn about this unplumbed Dark Matter or its Energy, could ever make you regard it as "God," that proves my earlier point, that you had jumped to an unwarranted conclusion, about what my postulation must necessarily be.

If this is not true, please delineate, in specific detail-- quoting my actual posts, in lieu of your customary, personalized translations of my posts, naturally-- how what I speculated was intrinsically different from anything we might ever possibly find out, about Dark Matter or Dark Energy.

 

OK, this time you talk about this power taking effect in a nonrandom way.

What is it that is causing it to be nonrandom?

At one time, I believe you suggested it to be intelligence.

 

Really, Readmore? We have been over this, to death. What you, "believe," is utterly false, and I have even gone through the trouble of quoting my own posts, in their entirety (so re-posting, essentially) to prove this to you.

As you, however, know, the burden of proof lies on you. So look at your own content, and go to those posted in this thread, and see, in the ones addressed to me (which are a good proportion of them), what quotes of mine you have included. Or just skim through the last few pages, from wherever out exchange began, to read anything I have posted. You will find nothing of the sort, of me postulating an, "intelligence." And, until you can prove otherwise, can I trust you to follow the same proscription that is ever at the tip of your tongue, for us, to not make unverifiable statements? Or is all your talk about
accompanying claims, that others may question, with evidence, just applicable to others, and an expectation from which, you exclude yourself?

First, the MAIN IDEA of my first post, which you quoted, and I later quoted back, for your study, was that this mechanism could be NON-RANDOM. So I don't know how your brain is only reading that memo, now. Would you like for me to produce my initial post, for you to peruse a 3rd time? Or do you think you can go check on your own, like a big boy?

As to the latter half of your quote, above, that would be a legitimate thing to discuss, at least in my opinion. But let's get on the same page, first, about what things I have been proposing, from the start, and what things are only ideas fabricated and injected into the conversation, by you.


BTW, do you practice some speed-reading technique, at the forum, so that you can read more, Readmore? That might explain your very poor, and error-prone, retention of information from my posts. I suggest, if this is the case, that you make an exception for my posts, and actually read every word, and that you do so no more rapidly than you can truly absorb, what is being said. (This may be particularly true, earlier in our conversation, before your constant misstatements began to irritate me, and also convinced me to try being more redundant, for your benefit).

 

Well, I'm still interested in what it is that you mean by the "nonrandom" part if not related to intelligence.

 

I have a layman's understanding of a lot of cosmology and how some things are determined. The energy of a vaccum can be studied here. Dark matter is everywhere but can't be found.

 

Well, dark matter is being found, as astronomers are identifying where it is and how it behaves. I get your point in that we don't have a jar that has x particles of dark matter in it.

As for dark energy, vacuum energy can be seen as a contributor, but it is far from sufficient.

These are great challenges for physics. Humans don't know it all.

I think the most exciting thing about science is that the answers are NOT all known.

To me, it seems boring to be in a field where the answers ARE known! Scientists certainly don't have to worry about THAT problem!

I think that should be more emphasized in K-12 education. There IS a lot to learn. Then, you get to figure out stuff that no human being has ever figured out! And, not just in physics!