Thread: Infinite time + Nothingness = Universe?

I think the general idea with general relativity is that before the big bang, there was no time.

It's still an unknown area though, scientifically speaking.

I seem to have a difficult time (harr) grasping why there wouldn't be time? I'm going to read into it of course, but the usual argument I hear as to why there wouldn't be time appears to be because there's either A: Nothing to Perceive it or B: Nothing around to be compared to something else (which I suppose still requires perceiving?).

First of all, it seems rather egocentric for A to be the case, as I think most people who say part A is true--assuming I'm not misunderstanding, which I probably am-- seem to believe that a conscious person, a human for example, have to be around to perceive movement in order for there to be time.

It seems to me that time would be eternal, regardless whether we or anything else is here to observe it.

Again, I don't really have the best grasp of the subject. I'm gonna look into it more.

I've juggled the question "why does anything at all exist?" quite a bit. Unfortunately there's no answer and I've kind of came to grasp the idea that our conception of time is probably severely limited.

If infinite time is a variable though, why infinite time + nothingness = universe? Why not infinite time + energy = universe? Saying there was nothing at one point is no more justified than saying there was energy or matter at the same point. That is if infinite time is a factor.

Originally Posted by SpecialInterests

I've juggled the question "why does anything at all exist?" quite a bit. Unfortunately there's no answer and I've kind of came to grasp the idea that our conception of time is probably severely limited.

If infinite time is a variable though, why infinite time + nothingness = universe? Why not infinite time + energy = universe? Saying there was nothing at one point is no more justified than saying there was energy or matter at the same point. That is if infinite time is a factor.

Well, my question did not precisely concern "The universe", but rather the very first thing to ever exist (which, would assumingly somehow lead up into the big bang). Taking that into consideration, I don't see how, or at least it seems counter-intuitive, that at the VERY beginning there was "something." So, my logic was that in this nothingness, over some unfathomable course of time, something occurred that would have sparked a chain of events leading to the big bang, and up to this very point.

The difficult thing to grasp is that all space and all time expanded out of the big bang. That's EVERYTHING. There is no "before the bang" for this reason. One tends to imagine empty space that the big bang occured in, but this is incorrect, the universe, with all it's time, and all it's space, expanded from a singular point, and outside of it, there's is a special kind of "nothing", an unfathomable nothing, no empty space, no time, just absolute nonexistance.

I don't believe that the question of the origin of the big bang can ever be answered, because, the universe is a 100% closed system, with everything in it coming from another part of it, simply changing forms, and it ALL comes down to a single point at the beginning, ALL space, and ALL time, in that single point. The point was not IN a space or time, it WAS all space and time.

I have a bit of a hard time articulating what I mean, but hopefully this points the way.

I really like the view of the original poster. It's one of the major possibilities I came upon when asking myself where it all came from. The other being that the universe follows very simple logic in its most fundamental levels - but then, it would have to be symmetrical etc etc etc.

And what Forsaken said is true. What if we are the Schrodinger's cat in the box, and can't perceive anything that's outside? (I don't mean outside spatially, but outside as in something of different essence, something that doesn't intersect with our universe)

About a year ago I was looking through some theories online about this. And it does get confusing if you think things like "before the universe there was nothing" and "outside the universe there is nothing". In one of the theories it said that the best way to phrase it would be "there was no before the universe" and "there is no outside the universe".

It gets quite scary when you get deep in thought about it all, because you realise that the fact that we exist at all is impossible. Maybe it's just that our logic is flawed and we aren't looking at it the right way. I for one think that man will never be able to understand the concept of eternity and nothingness.

along with what forsaken said about a special nothing being outside the universe...if we took a manned spacecraft to the edge of the universe and went out in to this special kind of nothing...would we be expanding the universe by being there?

Originally Posted by tkdyo

along with what forsaken said about a special nothing being outside the universe...if we took a manned spacecraft to the edge of the universe and went out in to this special kind of nothing...would we be expanding the universe by being there?

Conceptual mistake here. The "out there" isn't spatial. Take it like this: our universe is a dream world, and the "out there" is waking world. You can travel a fucking lot in the dream world without reaching the waking world. Because they're not in the same space. Actually, one inside the dream world can't ever know if there is a waking world at all. Get my analogy?

I get what you mean...but it doesnt make sense to me if the universe is finite..whats to stop you from going beyond wherever the last galaxies are?

Originally Posted by tkdyo

I get what you mean...but it doesnt make sense to me if the universe is finite..whats to stop you from going beyond wherever the last galaxies are?

Nothing. But, there will only be emptiness there, get it. Neverending emptiness. The universe is not a box. It's more like... hmmm.. a group of fish in a neverending ocean.

Keep in mind, though, that "going beyond the universe" is just a hypothetical idea. Things in the universe move too, so you can't really go faster than them to reach the "border" of matter. You walk 1 mile, the border walks 2 miles.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

Nothing. But, there will only be emptiness there, get it. Neverending emptiness. The universe is not a box. It's more like... hmmm.. a group of fish in a neverending ocean.

Keep in mind, though, that "going beyond the universe" is just a hypothetical idea. Things in the universe move too, so you can't really go faster than them to reach the "border" of matter. You walk 1 mile, the border walks 2 miles.

Naw man, what I think is we are in a group as you said. But when you zoom out farther, there multiple groups of what we're in and so on.

I do think the universe is infinite with other universes out there. But I have no clue, just my opinion.

I suspect the universe is essentially static, or a better way of putting it might be 'complete.' It's one thing, unified, with no real distinctions between events, objects, or moments of time. From the perspective of the total, eternal universe, everything is happening at once, always: not just the events of our timeline which we consider to 'have happened,' rigidly and exclusively, but all possible events. We're sharing real estate in an infinite multiverse where all things already, always exist in all possible states, and 'happening' is a local phenomenon.

If you picture the universe in its eternal aspect as an enormous diamond with 10^112 facets--a great, refractive disco ball--then our perspective at any given moment is like a pencil beam of light moving over the surface of the diamond. To us, the universe appears to be a shifting web of coruscation, cause and effect, but the universe itself is not changing, only our perspective on it.

Taking the metaphor just one more step, there's not, in fact, a single beam striking the gem from somewhere outside; the gem itself generates the light, and its illumination is constant and total. Every point on its surface, crowding every facet, is an awareness from which an entire universe unfolds.

So returning to the OP, there is no "before the Big Bang" because at that point you move outside our spacetime and enter a field in which the Big Bang(s) is(are) always happening.

This kind of stuff screws with my head!

I don't think it's possible for something to come from nothing, definitely something has to have always been existing. Which is even more confusing because time doesn't exist until the space-time was created! So how long did this something exist? Wait, I can't even ask that question can I?

There are some things that I believe. One it isn't even possible for us on any level to leave this universe. Even if we had the technology to travel faster than the speed of light - even if we could reach the boundary of the ever expanding universe - we could never leave this boundary. Why? Because we are the stuff of the universe. If we do ever reach the expanding boundary and try to leave it, all we are doing is making the universe expand more!! I mean, that's why the universe is expanding right? Because things move forward in time?

Taosaur, your post is interesting, and I can barely wrap my ahead around it. Even just thinking about the relationship between space and time is enough to screw with your head! What you're saying reminds me of this new theory regarding atoms. It's hiding on TED some where. Basically the theory is all atoms are exactly the same thing - they aren't different at all. The atom is this whole and complete shape, I forgot which shape though. And the different atoms we see are only different perspectives of this complete shape. Meaning every where is every possibilty.

Originally Posted by juroara

This kind of stuff screws with my head!

I don't think it's possible for something to come from nothing, definitely something has to have always been existing. Which is even more confusing because time doesn't exist until the space-time was created! So how long did this something exist? Wait, I can't even ask that question can I?

There are some things that I believe. One it isn't even possible for us on any level to leave this universe. Even if we had the technology to travel faster than the speed of light - even if we could reach the boundary of the ever expanding universe - we could never leave this boundary. Why? Because we are the stuff of the universe. If we do ever reach the expanding boundary and try to leave it, all we are doing is making the universe expand more!! I mean, that's why the universe is expanding right? Because things move forward in time?

Taosaur, your post is interesting, and I can barely wrap my ahead around it. Even just thinking about the relationship between space and time is enough to screw with your head! What you're saying reminds me of this new theory regarding atoms. It's hiding on TED some where. Basically the theory is all atoms are exactly the same thing - they aren't different at all. The atom is this whole and complete shape, I forgot which shape though. And the different atoms we see are only different perspectives of this complete shape. Meaning every where is every possibilty.

I agree with you completely! And yes, this screws with my head on so many different levels!

But I love learning about this kind of stuff, even if it doesn't make sense to me. But hey, I don't think we are supposed to really know the full 'truth'.

Maybe we're just in an alien super simulator machine. Cool.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

Conceptual mistake here. The "out there" isn't spatial. Take it like this: our universe is a dream world, and the "out there" is waking world. You can travel a fucking lot in the dream world without reaching the waking world. Because they're not in the same space. Actually, one inside the dream world can't ever know if there is a waking world at all. Get my analogy?

Poor dream characters.

Ok, semi-humorous answer, but it does encapsulate what I believe... ever played the game Asteroids? When you go off the screen on one side you come in on the other side.

It's like a torus... a sort of donut shape. You can move all over the surface of it and think you're getting somewhere, but you keep ending up back where you began.

Pondering this stuff is so mind-expandingly profound... I believe science at the level its at today plays the role religious worship and contemplation once played. To really even understand (or to hope to TRY to understand I should say) the modern conception of the universe, you pretty much have to study Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. But then, the idea of curved space and of gravity not as a force but as movement along the curved surface of that spacetime continuum is really not something you can grasp... more something to ponder endlessly and try to wrap your head around.

Alucinor XIII you are closer than you think. I know the answer to the question you seek.

First let me ask you this. What causes nothingness? Then you will be closer to solving the first key.

Taosaur is right on the money I think.

I wonder if perhaps the universe tried starting a whole bunch of times ("times" is not the right word. There wouldn't be any way of measuring this. Nor would it matter, since it would be completely separate from this universe.). The ones with screwed up constants (or perhaps, constants which provide exact equilibrium? Matter + antimatter=0?) folded in on themselves. . .

Eh. My roommate's view on life, is that it's like water in a vase. The vase was not designed to hold the water, the water adapted to fit the vase. Apply that thinking to the origin of the universe, key particles adapt to fit existing particles, which adapted from an original particle/energy.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

Keep in mind, though, that "going beyond the universe" is just a hypothetical idea. Things in the universe move too, so you can't really go faster than them to reach the "border" of matter. You walk 1 mile, the border walks 2 miles.

Singularities (black holes) provide evidence that the universe curves in on itself in the next dimension (a 4-D sphere). So if you kept going long enough, you'd end up where you originally were. Or something.

I'd like to know how the vacuum of space compares with whatever's outside the universe. Apparently, they both amount to nothing, but maybe the outside of the universe is "nothing" in the sense that matter cannot occupy it?

My view is that there is no before the universe or outside the universe. Or, rather, there is but it is always now and always here, and it is pure consciousness, which is finer than space. I believe the big bang came from consciousness, and that consciousness is always here and now and that consciousness is you and me and them.

Matter is crystallized energy is crystallized consciousness. The consciousness, although infinite and without edges, looks like a giant diamond disco ball of luminous light. You can see it if you look inside and up.

What I mean is, dimesionally speaking, from this third dimension we would call it in and up but it is really towards the new direction or the next dimension. If we represent this third dimension and everything in it by a horizontal line then 'in and up' would be out of the third dimension and it would be a vertical line.

This intersects our third dimension only in the moment of here and now which is really outside of time. Time is a line from past to future but the present is the only real real thing.

Is the past real? Is the future real? Now is real, it is because it is the only time and place where 'I' exist. This existential "I" that is "real" "NOW" is the consciousness that exists before and outside the universe "HERE and NOW". Dwelling in this here and now there is no time, but looking off to any side creates a fractalization of self which gives birth to the Universe.

The Universe is a dream as are all the laws whcih govern it. All of our scientists and our technologies are a projection of our inner quest for knowledge. As we look off into space it keeps we will forever be 'discovering' new things. As we disect quantum particles we will 'discover' new things. Forever. But it is all our mind that we are discovering, and what we discover is created by our mind as we look for it. Matter is a dream of consciousness. Let's become lucid!

Originally Posted by Abra

Singularities (black holes) provide evidence that the universe curves in on itself in the next dimension (a 4-D sphere). So if you kept going long enough, you'd end up where you originally were. Or something.

Modest Mouse concurs.

Originally Posted by Abra

Singularities (black holes) provide evidence that the universe curves in on itself in the next dimension (a 4-D sphere). So if you kept going long enough, you'd end up where you originally were. Or something.

I'd like to know how the vacuum of space compares with whatever's outside the universe. Apparently, they both amount to nothing, but maybe the outside of the universe is "nothing" in the sense that matter cannot occupy it?

Exactly, BUT. You don't actually know how far you have to go until you come back on the other side. It could be infinite length - which, for all practical reasons, means you don't come back on the other side at all. But it is true that the universe is made up of at least 4 spatial dimensions, not 3 as we think of it. It would explain why sometimes the shortest rote to a place is seen by us as a curve.

You know, this universe could even be the result of events in another universe. The problem with ideas like this is that we get to the information paradox - there is a limit of how much you can know, and possible different universes are beyond that limit - just like Schrodinger's cat is.