Quote Originally Posted by Scatterbrain View Post
You correctly pointed out there's a paradox but saying it lies in the big bang is incorrect. The paradox comes from the nature of existence: whatever you try to use as an explanation for the origin of the universe it will always come down to either something having always existed or reaction with no action, both are perceived by our mind as paradoxical.
The paradox is not about the big bang, because there is no problem explaining the big bang by using the virtual model. The paradox arises with the "Objective Reality" model.

Page 11 The physical world as a virtual reality, Brian Whitworth

"Where did the universe come from?
The traditional view of our universe was that as an objective reality it “just is”, and so has always
existed. While its parts may transform, its total is in a “steady state” that always was and always
will be. The alternative view is that the universe did not always exist, but arose at some specific
point, which also created space and time. During the last century these two theories have battled it
out for supremacy on the stage of science. Steady-state theory proponents included respected
physicists, who thought that the idea that the entire universe expanded from a single point was
highly unlikely to be true. However Hubble’s finding that all the stars around us are red-shifted
suggested that the entire universe is indeed expanding at the speed of light. Now an expanding
universe has to expand from somewhere, so scientists could run the expansion backwards to a
source, a “big bang” that began our universe about 15 billion years ago. The discovery of cosmic
background radiation, left over from the big bang, has largely confirmed the theory today in the
minds of most physicists.
Big bang theory sidesteps questions like: “What existed before the big bang?” by answering:
“There was no time or space before the big bang”, but if time and space suddenly “appeared” for
no apparent reason at the big bang, could they not equally suddenly disappear tomorrow? Big
bang theory implies a dependent universe, so what is it dependent upon is a valid question even
without time and space. If nothing in our universe is created from nothing, how can an entire
universe come from nothing? That our universe arose from nothing is not just incredible, it is
inconceivable. One can state the problems simply:
1. What caused the big bang?
2. What caused space to start?
3. What caused time to start?
4. How can a big bang arise when there is no time or space?
5. How can space be caused if there is no “there” for a cause to exist within?
6. How can time be started if there is no time flow for the starting to occur within?
The big bang contradicts any theory that assumes the universe is objectively real and complete in
itself. How can an objective reality, existing in and of itself, be created out of nothing? The
failure of the steady state theory of the universe removes a cornerstone of support for the
objective reality hypothesis. In contrast virtual reality theory fits well with a big bang. No virtual
reality can have existed forever, since it needs a processor to start it up. All virtual realities “start
up” at a specific moment of time, typically with a sudden influx of information. Every time one
starts a computer game or boots up a computer, such a “big bang” occurs. From the perspective of
the virtual world itself, its creation is always from “nothing”, as before the virtual world startup
there was indeed no time or space as defined by that world. There was nothing relative to that
world because the world itself did not exist. It is a hallmark of virtual realities that they must
come into existence at a specific event in their space and time, which also initiates their spacetime
fabric. Note that in a virtual world there is no logical reason why all initiating information
cannot initially “point” to a single arbitrary location, i.e. no reason why an entire universe cannot
exist at a single point. In VR theory the big bang was simply when our universe was “booted up”.
The big bang is an accepted aspect of modern physics that VR theory accommodates but OR
theory does not. It illustrates that VR/OR arguments can be resolved by appeal to experimental
data from this world. Just as the steady state versus big bang theories were resolved by research,
so can the more general virtual vs. objective theoretical contrast be resolved. To decide if the
world is objective or virtual we simply need to consider what data from the world is telling us."