What came before the Big Bang?

What came before the Big Bang? A trip through cosmology, multiverses, fifth dimensions and a big bounce
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-09-19/before-the-big-bang-universe-cosmology-theoretical-physics-space/11452992

Where were you before you were conceived?

The question itself has no meaning: there was no “you” to be anywhere at all.

Asking questions like “what happened before the Big Bang?” is similarly meaningless.

===

I’m going with, “silent anticipation.”

Tau.Neutrino said:

Where were you before you were conceived?

The question itself has no meaning: there was no “you” to be anywhere at all.

Asking questions like “what happened before the Big Bang?” is similarly meaningless.

Except the question can be revised so that it does have meaning, such as:

Who existed before I was conceived?

which makes perfect sense.

Similarly the question:

What existed before the big bang?

is a question that makes sense.

It is possible that the answer is “nothing”, but that is certainly not certain.

>Where were you before you were conceived?

clearly the you that eventuated was a possibility, for it to have happened

i’m going to say you existed in possibility space, as a possibility

I’ve only been able to go back two lives using several sessions of hypno therapy with the Amazing Trevor.
We discovered that my most recent incarnation was as a ships cat, that was a long happy life growing fat on fish bones and rats and sleeping in the sun or in the sail loft a lot.
Before that I was an Egyptian Princess but died young, murdered by my brother due to family lineage machinations.
WTF I was doing before the Big Bang is unknown.
The Amazing Trevor said he could possibly go back that far but it could drain most of his powers and he could die.

Peak Warming Man said:

I’ve only been able to go back two lives using several sessions of hypno therapy with the Amazing Trevor.
We discovered that my most recent incarnation was as a ships cat, that was a long happy life growing fat on fish bones and rats and sleeping in the sun or in the sail loft a lot.
Before that I was an Egyptian Princess but died young, murdered by my brother due to family lineage machinations.
WTF I was doing before the Big Bang is unknown.
The Amazing Trevor said he could possibly go back that far but it could drain most of his powers and he could die.

chuckle

neutrino’s pondering God

Peak Warming Man said:

We discovered that my most recent incarnation was as a ships cat,

Trim? He was eaten don’t you know.

transition said:

>Where were you before you were conceived?

clearly the you that eventuated was a possibility, for it to have happened

i’m going to say you existed in possibility space, as a possibility

Possibility space ?

Existence before conception would be as a duality co existence between an egg in a women and as one sperm in a male

Eggs in a woman are as old as the woman ( she is born with all her eggs. Sperm age in male testicles usually do not exceed 74 days, sperm can for a further 5 days in the vagina

In a sense half of you exists in the female when she is born, your other half as a sperm 74 days before conception.

Tau.Neutrino said:

transition said:

>Where were you before you were conceived?

clearly the you that eventuated was a possibility, for it to have happened

i’m going to say you existed in possibility space, as a possibility

Possibility space ?

Existence before conception would be as a duality co existence between an egg in a women and as one sperm in a male

Eggs in a woman are as old as the woman ( she is born with all her eggs. Sperm age in male testicles usually do not exceed 74 days, sperm can for a further 5 days in the vagina

In a sense half of you exists in the female when she is born, your other half as a sperm 74 days before conception.

there’s the neural unfolding during gestation, and after, all sorts of possibilities

you and I are largely the consequence of accidents, well, that’s what my phrenologist told me

transition said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

transition said:

>Where were you before you were conceived?

clearly the you that eventuated was a possibility, for it to have happened

i’m going to say you existed in possibility space, as a possibility

Possibility space ?

Existence before conception would be as a duality co existence between an egg in a women and as one sperm in a male

Eggs in a woman are as old as the woman ( she is born with all her eggs. Sperm age in male testicles usually do not exceed 74 days, sperm can for a further 5 days in the vagina

In a sense half of you exists in the female when she is born, your other half as a sperm 74 days before conception.

there’s the neural unfolding during gestation, and after, all sorts of possibilities

you and I are largely the consequence of accidents, well, that’s what my phrenologist told me

You need your head read.

transition said:

Peak Warming Man said:

I’ve only been able to go back two lives using several sessions of hypno therapy with the Amazing Trevor.
We discovered that my most recent incarnation was as a ships cat, that was a long happy life growing fat on fish bones and rats and sleeping in the sun or in the sail loft a lot.
Before that I was an Egyptian Princess but died young, murdered by my brother due to family lineage machinations.
WTF I was doing before the Big Bang is unknown.
The Amazing Trevor said he could possibly go back that far but it could drain most of his powers and he could die.

chuckle

neutrino’s pondering God

You can dispense with the presumptions transition, I’m here to put you back in reality.

I pondered God when I was younger, not any more.

Now it more about how space time and atomic particles et el came into existence from nothing or from another state in space time

I’m going with the singularity evolved from another state which we don’t understand yet.

The universe has motion, if the singularity existed as another state it too might have had motion or maybe not.

Tau.Neutrino said:

transition said:

Peak Warming Man said:

I’ve only been able to go back two lives using several sessions of hypno therapy with the Amazing Trevor.
We discovered that my most recent incarnation was as a ships cat, that was a long happy life growing fat on fish bones and rats and sleeping in the sun or in the sail loft a lot.
Before that I was an Egyptian Princess but died young, murdered by my brother due to family lineage machinations.
WTF I was doing before the Big Bang is unknown.
The Amazing Trevor said he could possibly go back that far but it could drain most of his powers and he could die.

chuckle

neutrino’s pondering God

You can dispense with the presumptions transition, I’m here to put you back in reality.

I pondered God when I was younger, not any more.

Now it more about how space time and atomic particles et el came into existence from nothing or from another state in space time

I’m going with the singularity evolved from another state which we don’t understand yet.

So you don’t agree with the “it’s a meaningless question” response either then.

>I’m here to put you back in reality.

will you recognize yourself after the effort

The Rev Dodgson said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

transition said:

chuckle

neutrino’s pondering God

You can dispense with the presumptions transition, I’m here to put you back in reality.

I pondered God when I was younger, not any more.

Now it more about how space time and atomic particles et el came into existence from nothing or from another state in space time

I’m going with the singularity evolved from another state which we don’t understand yet.

So you don’t agree with the “it’s a meaningless question” response either then.

Well half of myself was walking around with my mother since her birth and my other was walking around with my father 75 days before conception.

At the plank limit 13.7 billion years ago there was some sexual tension, then a big bang, so Im going with it was in another state.

Nobody knows.

a possibility is the birth of this universe required detachment from its origin, requiring total obliteration of the origin that initiated the universe you inhabit, sort of a bubble emerged, but no physical connection remained, so there is no trail to follow back

part of the energy transformation involved (required even a) complete nothingness of an elsewhere (seen from here, the physics of this universe)

the cause and effect physics you inhabit, or understand things, doesn’t apply, and really it’s a retrospective effort, applied of a past that not only doesn’t exist, but good as never did

you can conjecture, talk to your shadow about it, which probably wouldn’t yield less

Bubblecar said:

Nobody knows.

That seems a bit defeatist.

Dinner and a movie…

ChrispenEvan said:

Peak Warming Man said:

We discovered that my most recent incarnation was as a ships cat,

Trim? He was eaten don’t you know.

Eh? I thought Aussiepedia said he’d run away in Mauritius when Flinders was imprisoned there.

Neophyte said:

ChrispenEvan said:

Peak Warming Man said:

We discovered that my most recent incarnation was as a ships cat,

Trim? He was eaten don’t you know.

Eh? I thought Aussiepedia said he’d run away in Mauritius when Flinders was imprisoned there.

Trim sailed with Flinders on HMS Investigator on his voyage of circumnavigation around the Australian mainland and survived the shipwreck of HMS Porpoise on Wreck Reef in 1803. When Flinders was accused of spying and imprisoned by the French in Mauritius on his return voyage to England, Trim shared his captivity until his unexplained disappearance, which Flinders attributed to his having been stolen and eaten by a hungry slave.

wiki. also mentioned in a book on flinders that i have.

Neophyte said:

ChrispenEvan said:

Peak Warming Man said:

We discovered that my most recent incarnation was as a ships cat,

Trim? He was eaten don’t you know.

Eh? I thought Aussiepedia said he’d run away in Mauritius when Flinders was imprisoned there.

conjecture though.

ChrispenEvan said:

Neophyte said:

ChrispenEvan said:

Trim? He was eaten don’t you know.

Eh? I thought Aussiepedia said he’d run away in Mauritius when Flinders was imprisoned there.

conjecture though.

Probably some French Short-Hair vixen stole him away…

ChrispenEvan said:

Neophyte said:

ChrispenEvan said:

Trim? He was eaten don’t you know.

Eh? I thought Aussiepedia said he’d run away in Mauritius when Flinders was imprisoned there.

Trim sailed with Flinders on HMS Investigator on his voyage of circumnavigation around the Australian mainland and survived the shipwreck of HMS Porpoise on Wreck Reef in 1803. When Flinders was accused of spying and imprisoned by the French in Mauritius on his return voyage to England, Trim shared his captivity until his unexplained disappearance, which Flinders attributed to his having been stolen and eaten by a hungry slave.

wiki. also mentioned in a book on flinders that i have.

Bloody French, they ruined a fine explorer, I think he died not long after they released him.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Where were you before you were conceived?

The question itself has no meaning: there was no “you” to be anywhere at all.

Asking questions like “what happened before the Big Bang?” is similarly meaningless.

Except the question can be revised so that it does have meaning, such as:

Who existed before I was conceived?

which makes perfect sense.

Similarly the question:

What existed before the big bang?

is a question that makes sense.

It is possible that the answer is “nothing”, but that is certainly not certain.

“What existed before the big bang?:- nothing that makes sense” is also quite reasonable.

We exist in a particular type of post-big-bang universe, and we have evolved to make enough sense of said universe to an extent that allows for our current evolutionary success. That does not mean that our evolutionary derived faculties reflect the fundamental reality of the universe; it only means our brains have evolved in such a way to understand the universe in ways that convey evolutionary advantages.

My thinking on this has been greatly influenced by a science-fiction novel I once read: “Light” – by M. John Harrison.

In this novel, the Milky Way is seen as largely a boring and monotonous place – except for one thing. From memory, it is called the Kehfahuci Tract – essentially it’s a Star Trek style spatial/temporal anomaly. What’s important is that as a unique feature of the Milky Way, it has attracted every interstellar-faring civilization that has existed in the history of the galaxy. Human beings make their way there and discover countless relics of extinct extra-terrestrial space faring civilizations – everything from small reconnaissance craft to massive space stations… as humans investigate the various relics they discover that none of the technology that allowed for the faster than light travel each civilization used to reach the Tract makes any sense in terms of Einstienian relativity. The conclusion is that each and every civilization had concepts about the universe which are totally alien to human intelligence; every species understood the universe in unique ways and invented technology that allowed them to travel “interstellar distances” (as we humans understand that concept) in unique and unfathomable (to the human mind) ways.

We know that most of our perception of reality is invented and fed to our consciousness in real-time by our minds. Light enters the eye and strikes the retina, but the degree of this vision is no larger than a finger-nail at arms length. Peripheral vision, things seen outside this small finger-nail sized area is little more than a hallucination, updated somewhat by minute and rapid eye movements but still something mostly derived from imaginative faculties.

Why should we expect the rest of what we call reality to be any different? Why should we expect reality to be anything other than what our minds have evolved to perceive it as.

Successful evolution does not depend upon the truth or objective-reality (in the Platonic sense) of a situation, but rather on how successfully any feature allows for continued existence and procreation in what we imagine that reality to be. In a sense we are all entirely delusional – but those delusions are the ones that happened to advantageously propagate to the current state we find ourselves in. Alien species minds may have evolved entirely differently but just as successfully. It’s possible we don’t even inhabit the same “reality” as ET species… they inhabit their understanding of whatever the meta-reality is, as we inhabit ours.

I see the question “What came before the Big Bang” as akin to “What existed before those things that our brains have evolved to understand exist?”. The answer, tautologically being, “nothing that we are capable of understanding”. Can a dog learn calculus? Can a flea feel compassion? Can a human understand the pre-Big-Bang state of reality? All the same question with the same answer.

i’m thinking the universe doesn’t want to be understood, not completely, that it’s got secrets

transition said:

i’m thinking the universe doesn’t want to be understood, not completely, that it’s got secrets

It’s an agreeable whimsy, but inevitably anthropocentric.

The universe doesn’t care whether we understand it or not, and is not actually equipped with a mind, as far as we can tell.

The very idea of “a universe” required us to come along and find a need for such a concept.

Whatever is out there is happy doing its thing, whether or not we poke it with this or that stick.

Bubblecar said:

The very idea of “a universe” required us to come along and find a need for such a concept.

The concept that is anthropocentric in this statement is not the concept of “a universe”, it is the concept of “idea”.

The universe as we understand it could exist very happily without human beings or their ideas about it. Indeed, at some time in the future, it inevitably will.

>It’s an agreeable whimsy, but inevitably anthropocentric.

true it can be seen as projection, but it’s literally correct, the universe doesn’t want to be understood

There are a number of realms or levels in the universe dealing with scale
https://tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/?main=https%3A//tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/topics/11817/

Scale from tiny plank limit up tot he scale of the universe and everything between

I think the singularity is another level or realm where space time could be very different to how we know it.

I’m suggesting that the pre universe existed as another state on a much smaller scale before the singularity and the scale of the universe with get larger in the future.

The pre universe could have been even smaller than the plank limit that exists in our scale now.

transition said:

>It’s an agreeable whimsy, but inevitably anthropocentric.

true it can be seen as projection, but it’s literally correct, the universe doesn’t want to be understood

While that’s true, it’s also trivial. The universe doesn’t want anything, as far as we can tell.

Bubblecar said:

transition said:

>It’s an agreeable whimsy, but inevitably anthropocentric.

true it can be seen as projection, but it’s literally correct, the universe doesn’t want to be understood

While that’s true, it’s also trivial. The universe doesn’t want anything, as far as we can tell.

It seems to want to push things away while trying to hold things together.

Like some strange reflection.

Tau.Neutrino said:

I think the singularity is another level or realm where space time could be very different to how we know it.

I’m suggesting that the pre universe existed as another state on a much smaller scale before the singularity and the scale of the universe with get larger in the future.

The pre-Big Bang singularity is a mathematical singularity, not a physical one. It’s literally the state wherein the maths we use to describe the universe hits a 1/0 undefined limit. It is not really supposed to suggest any physical size or scale.

>The concept that is anthropocentric in this statement is not the concept of “a universe”, it is the concept of “idea”.

Obviously its both. The concept of “a universe” or “a world” predates the concept of “concept”. Long before we thought about such things, we inhabited a world that our minds shaped to meet our own needs, hopes and desires.

Bubblecar said:

transition said:

>It’s an agreeable whimsy, but inevitably anthropocentric.

true it can be seen as projection, but it’s literally correct, the universe doesn’t want to be understood

While that’s true, it’s also trivial. The universe doesn’t want anything, as far as we can tell.

it’s not trivial if considering that anthro business

what’s a want anyway, they must involve physics, surely the same physics that causes the accretion forming galaxies is at work here in the forum causing geniuses to come together and discuss such things

esselte said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

I think the singularity is another level or realm where space time could be very different to how we know it.

I’m suggesting that the pre universe existed as another state on a much smaller scale before the singularity and the scale of the universe with get larger in the future.

The pre-Big Bang singularity is a mathematical singularity, not a physical one. It’s literally the state wherein the maths we use to describe the universe hits a 1/0 undefined limit. It is not really supposed to suggest any physical size or scale.

It could be another possibility like multiverses.

This universe exists with physical properties, why cant a pre universe also have physical properties as another state ?

I think this universe will go on to exist as different states in much a larger future as its expansion continues .

Maybe the preuniverse could be something completely different ?

Bubblecar said:

>The concept that is anthropocentric in this statement is not the concept of “a universe”, it is the concept of “idea”.

Obviously its both. The concept of “a universe” or “a world” predates the concept of “concept”. Long before we thought about such things, we inhabited a world that our minds shaped to meet our own needs, hopes and desires.

Sure, if we are talking about the conceptualization of things. But in the realm of the existence of things, as we understand it, the universe is not just a concept.

You could say that without human beings there would be no such thing as money, for example. Money is a concept invented to describe a useful transfer of energy. Without humans there would be no such thing as money, but there still would be such a thing as energy… even if no one was around to call it such.

Tau.Neutrino said:

This universe exists with physical properties, why cant a pre universe also have physical properties as another state ?

I’m not saying a pre-universe couldn’t have physical properties, just that the initial singularity is not a description of physical properties.

esselte said:

Bubblecar said:

>The concept that is anthropocentric in this statement is not the concept of “a universe”, it is the concept of “idea”.

Obviously its both. The concept of “a universe” or “a world” predates the concept of “concept”. Long before we thought about such things, we inhabited a world that our minds shaped to meet our own needs, hopes and desires.

Sure, if we are talking about the conceptualization of things. But in the realm of the existence of things, as we understand it, the universe is not just a concept.

You could say that without human beings there would be no such thing as money, for example. Money is a concept invented to describe a useful transfer of energy. Without humans there would be no such thing as money, but there still would be such a thing as energy… even if no one was around to call it such.

We can take that for granted. There’s something here, and I’m visiting it in the form of a transient cognitive assemblage. Holds true whether we’re talking “universe” or “Holiday Forum” :)

transition said:

Bubblecar said:

transition said:

>It’s an agreeable whimsy, but inevitably anthropocentric.

true it can be seen as projection, but it’s literally correct, the universe doesn’t want to be understood

While that’s true, it’s also trivial. The universe doesn’t want anything, as far as we can tell.

it’s not trivial if considering that anthro business

It depends how you interpret the statement “it’s literally correct, the universe doesn’t want to be understood”.

When I read that, I immediately translated it to: “it’s literally correct, the universe wants not to be understood”, which is not trivial, but in my opinion is almost certainly not literally correct.

Bubblecar on the other hand (I presume) read what the words actually said, and agreed that the universe literally doesn’t want to be understood because it doesn’t have any wants at all; and I agree with Mr Car that that statement is both literally true (probably) and trivial.

transition said:

what’s a want anyway, they must involve physics, surely the same physics that causes the accretion forming galaxies is at work here in the forum causing geniuses to come together and discuss such things

Fair question.

Everything involves the same physics. but that doesn’t make everything the same.

I would say that a “want” requires a conscious brain which finds some things rewarding, and is capable of planning its actions to increase the number of those things that it encounters.

It seems to me highly unlikely that the Universe has such a conscious brain.

>I would say that a “want” requires a conscious brain which finds some things rewarding, and is capable of planning its actions to increase the number of those things that it encounters.
It seems to me highly unlikely that the Universe has such a conscious brain.

(ignoring attractors) what about forces of repulsion/aversion, I may be thick and by way of accident of my stupid avoid your nuanced propositions, not so different to most of the rest of the universe

i’m thinking the universe doesn’t want to be understood, not completely, that it’s got secrets

transition said:

>I would say that a “want” requires a conscious brain which finds some things rewarding, and is capable of planning its actions to increase the number of those things that it encounters.
It seems to me highly unlikely that the Universe has such a conscious brain.

(ignoring attractors) what about forces of repulsion/aversion, I may be thick and by way of accident of my stupid avoid your nuanced propositions, not so different to most of the rest of the universe

i’m thinking the universe doesn’t want to be understood, not completely, that it’s got secrets

Are you saying that it doesn’t want to be understood, or that it wants not to be understood?

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

>I would say that a “want” requires a conscious brain which finds some things rewarding, and is capable of planning its actions to increase the number of those things that it encounters.
It seems to me highly unlikely that the Universe has such a conscious brain.

(ignoring attractors) what about forces of repulsion/aversion, I may be thick and by way of accident of my stupid avoid your nuanced propositions, not so different to most of the rest of the universe

i’m thinking the universe doesn’t want to be understood, not completely, that it’s got secrets

Are you saying that it doesn’t want to be understood, or that it wants not to be understood?

i’m playing, playing with the human want to understand, and wondering what would happen if nothing existed outside (isolated from) that want, wondering if this universe and human thought would exist

similar to the idea, if you weren’t substantially what you don’t know, could you know anything at all

transition said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

>I would say that a “want” requires a conscious brain which finds some things rewarding, and is capable of planning its actions to increase the number of those things that it encounters.
It seems to me highly unlikely that the Universe has such a conscious brain.

(ignoring attractors) what about forces of repulsion/aversion, I may be thick and by way of accident of my stupid avoid your nuanced propositions, not so different to most of the rest of the universe

i’m thinking the universe doesn’t want to be understood, not completely, that it’s got secrets

Are you saying that it doesn’t want to be understood, or that it wants not to be understood?

i’m playing, playing with the human want to understand, and wondering what would happen if nothing existed outside (isolated from) that want, wondering if this universe and human thought would exist

similar to the idea, if you weren’t substantially what you don’t know, could you know anything at all

I don’t get that one.

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Are you saying that it doesn’t want to be understood, or that it wants not to be understood?

i’m playing, playing with the human want to understand, and wondering what would happen if nothing existed outside (isolated from) that want, wondering if this universe and human thought would exist

similar to the idea, if you weren’t substantially what you don’t know, could you know anything at all

I don’t get that one.

start with you view the world from structure of which you don’t completely understand, that the effort of understanding (the motivation) is the product of incomplete understanding

your motivation to understand completely is the outcome of it being impossible, that the secrets motivate you

you are mostly what you don’t know