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Big Bang, Time and Truth
Name: Benny
Status: other
Age: 20s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 2000-2001
Question:
I've heard many mentions that TIME did not exist before
the BIG BANG, that it only existed since th BIG BANG. Is this a consensus
amongst the scientific community? Or is it only a
theory? If it is a scientific theory, how is it falsifiable?
Replies:
I've searched the archive for the strings: "time" and "big bang"; "time"
and "existence". And as I mentioned in my question, the subject is
addressed by some of the answers. However my question was not the subject
matter itself, but rather whether the claim is a concensus amongst the
scientific community in general, and of its falsifiability. When I say "is
it only a theory?", what I mean is that whether it still has
competing/disagreeing theories of equal merit.
In my search of the archive I've not found that these questions have been
addressed. If it has been addressed before, could you point me as in which
question in the archive it can be found, as I'm really interested to
seeing the question being addressed.
As to other sources such as search engines, and encyclopediae, I would
doubt it very much any of them would go into such depth as to the
consensus of the scientific community and the falsifiability of a theory.
Here's a shot at a tough question. Current cosmology does not address
what happened prior to the Big Bang, and in fact your question may be
meaningless. Let me illustrate with the question:
Considering the theory of real numbers:
What does the square root of (-1) mean?
What does 1/0 mean?
The only answer is that within the constraints of the theory of real numbers
the questions have no meaning. It is not that they are stupid; but the
mathematical scaffolding we call real number theory just does not address
the question.
Is the Big Bang theory falsifiable? You bet your last dollar it is! EVERY
SCIENTIFIC THEORY MUST BE FALSIFIABLE, OR IT IS NOT A SCIENTIFIC THEORY.
Every scientific theory must be able to be modified or even discarded in
light of experimental data. EXPERIMENTAL DATA is the sole judge of the
validity of any theory. Any set of principles that does not allow
falsifiability becomes an act of FAITH, not SCIENCE. This is the conundrum
that adversaries of Darwin's Theory of Evolution get trapped, because the
tenets of creationism are not falsifiable. The Bible is the absolute source
of all truth -- END OF DISCUSSION. But the evolutionists show with pride how
Darwin's theory has been modified in the light of generations of new
increasingly sophisticated experimental findings and still remains basically
sound.
But don't say "just a theory". A scientific theory is the pinnacle of
scientific knowledge because from a few principles a good theory, like the
theory of relativity, not only explains a vast amount experimental data
already measured, but it also correctly predicts the results of experiments
that have not even been measured yet! Now that is a powerful theory!
Vince Calder
The point of concern relates to a definition of time. Before the Big Bang,
before the universe existed, could time be measured? Time is measured by
things changing. If there is nothing to change, then there is no way to
define the passage of time. This is the sense in which time does not exist
before the Big Bang. This is a consensus.
Kenneth Mellendorf
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Update: June 2012
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