DISCUSSION 1 - "Before the Beginning" - Closing 11

Well I truly have not thought about this before now. Well I could really say that I think that there properly was lots and lots of different gases all floating around. And then well the merged together and created this HUGE chemical reaction and pow.

I think what polly said might very well be true, but whenever I've been thinking about this it came down to one question: Where did these gases come from? Nobody I know was ever able to give a reasonable answer to this, so does anyone have an idea?
Besides that, I really am not religious, but the complexity of this matter actually makes me understand why people believe in the world being created by God in 7 days or stuff like that, I mean, that's a way to understand and accept things. However, as far as I know, the theory I just mentioned does not give any answer as to why the universe is still expanding, does it?
Considering all of this, I think that we'll never be able to fully figure out what has happened to cause the Big Bang...and that's what makes it a great topic to discuss ^^

well gasses are formed from chemical reactions.... i think.... so there had to be something out there creating these gasses..... but what could it be

The problem is that everything has to come from something, right? But at some point, there must have been a nothing, at least that's logical to me. Then again, how does something come from nothing? That's the problem.
If there were gases which came from chemical reactions, there must have been something to react and thus there must have been something to create the something that reacts...I hope you know what I mean.

I get what ya mean that something came from nothing.... but how is that possible.... everything must come from something... so there had to be something out there... maybe the something came from another Galaxy... i dont know

This is something I've never been able to get my head around. I just can't accept that before there was something there was nothing.

I really don't know what came before the Big Bang - which I do think happened, I'm not a believer in creationism - but as I said before I just cannot accept there was nothing.

I was watching an old episode of Doctor Who the other day, and the Doctor says something about how he exists outside of time and space, and I can only think that there is some entity (not necessarily sentient) that was around before the Big Bang. I am not religious, so I don't think it was any sort of God.

I also find it hard to imagine that the Universe goes on forever. It's infinite, and that's hard to picture, when we are so used to things being finite.

Have you ever read/watched/seen The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? They travel to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Milliways), and sit back, have a meal and watch the universe explode. So Douglas Adams (whether with his tongue in his cheek or not) thought there was something that existed outside the realms of possibility.

I'm not really sure how much more I can contribute to this discussion, because I am so baffled by these ideas.

well i am religous but i will not let that get into the way of our discussion... i do believe that god did create the world in seven days but i will look past that for now.... i do agree with you that it is hard to imagine that the universe goes on forever.... i do not believe... i believe that everything has a beginning and an end.... i believe that there is an end to the universe its just so big that we just havent got the technology to go to the end and see it.... so since we do not see it we believe that it isnt there.... thats how most poeple think that if they cant see it then it is not real

stephy, I agree that that's the way most people think about it. Then again, nobody can possibly say what could be at the end of the universe, I mean, is there like another universe, or just a big nothing, or something else? And if there is another universe or something else, how about the something that created the Big Bang came from there?
All this thinking about things I can hardly imagine is confusing me...
EDIT: And, OMG, I'm student of the month!!!!!! Sorry, I got carried away ^^

Well nothing comes from nothing...personally I'm a creationist, but even if I weren't I would have problems with the big bang theory. It's almost too simplistic (although some would argue that so is creationism). The truth of the matter is that there is so much out there, the universe is so huge. I really thought when I was a little kid that by now we would have more answers on what was out there, that we would have the option of living on other planets. I'm realizing now that we haven't even scratched the surface on what is out there. If you believe, as I do, that God is infinite, then you could also believe, as I do, that the universe is infinite. We might very well be just one teeny tiny part of the universe, and maybe there are new worlds being created every day...I just think there is too much unknown to be made known in our life time.

I agree with Laura, to an extent. I too find it very difficult to think about the fact that the universe is infinite; that's too much for me to take in.

So...before the beginning, I don't know what there was. There's a theory that there was a previous universe, which sort of reached its end, imploded and then what was thrown out (ie. the Big Bang) started our universe.

I quite like this theory - that we're part of a neverending cyclical universe, and that when ours ends, billions of years into the future, it will go on to form another new universe, starting from the beginning again.

I'm also going to do as Laura did and reference popular culture. I was watching Doctor Who series two yesterday, an episode called "The Satan Pit". In this episode, the Doctor meets a great beast, and there's a scene where he's talking to it:

Quote :

THE DOCTOR
When was this?

THE VOICE OF THE BEAST
Before time.

THE DOCTOR
What does that mean?!

THE VOICE OF THE BEAST
Before time.

THE DOCTOR
What does 'before time' mean?

THE VOICE OF THE BEAST
Before light and time and space and matter. Before the cataclysm. Before this universe was created.

THE DOCTOR
That's impossible. No life could have existed back then.

Now, this is not just gratuitous Doctor Who quotes (Ok...it sort of is :D). But there is a point to it - you see the beast says he was abandoned on the planet "before light and time and space and matter", and this is kind of what I'm getting at...perhaps something did exist before all of these things.

I don't think we'll ever know what happened though, in our lifetime.

The thought of one universe ending and giving birth to another universe, and the pattern repeating over and over again is intriguing one. What if time isn't a straight line, but a complicated loop- with no clear begining? Maybe we can't make sense of it now, because we as a species still haven't even tapped the full potential of our minds. But we are curious, there is something is us that searches for answers to questions we can't even fully form. I wonder if there is life on distant planets, and if they are similar to us, capable of thought and reason, what answers or theories to they have?

I swear, I wasn't planning on using any more quotes from Doctor Who, but what you've said there Kate feeds perfectly into something the Doctor says.

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff."

lol

The cool thing about the universe is that there is no rules it has to follow, we have no model foir comparison. Well, other than Dr. Who *g*

Rigby Dumbledore wrote:

I wonder if there is life on distant planets, and if they are similar to us, capable of thought and reason, what answers or theories to they have?

Well many poeple thougth that there was life on MArs for the longest time there.... Once we got little robots up there we didnt find any type of life form there but they did find water... i think that it would have been cool if we found another life form out there... just imagine all that they could have told us... what they could have taught us

I think maybe some time way in the past every planet might have had life on it but our planet was the one that had the right temperature and resources to stay alive. But the thing is when everyone says that nothing cannot come out of nothing was it all black if so where did the black come from it all just confuses me and I don't really see why the gases just can't be there why does there have to be something that created it all. I also think that the religions side of things is quite a good explanation but i do not think it was in 7 days I think it was years on going and I think that evolution ties in with it.

I personally don't believe that religion and evolution need to be at odds with each other- God creating the world in 7 days- but what does time mean to God? Those 7 days could have been thousands or millions of years. If one does believe in God is it not possible that our universe is just one of his creations? It gives credence to the fact that there may be life out there in the stars beyond our own- just think of the worlds and creatures that we create in our own minds here on earth. If we actually had the power to bring our vision to life, wouldn't we? Especially if we had no limits. Scientists are always trying to create and replicate life, artists, writers, television producers attempt the same thing in their chosen fields.

I don't know if it really matters how the world got created, but I do know that it matters that we strive to discover the reason. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but I believe it is what keeps us humans going.

Rigby Dumbledore wrote:

I personally don't believe that religion and evolution need to be at odds with each other- God creating the world in 7 days- but what does time mean to God? Those 7 days could have been thousands or millions of years.

Though I do not believe in any kind of God at all, that definitely makes sense, it could actually be what we explain as the evolution today.
Nobody knows, however, what time means in general. While it could mean something else to God than it does to us, who says that there isn't some other form of life where time is measured (?) totally different? Personally, I most like the abstract theories, such as us humans being nothing but the dreams of other, superior beings, meaning that one human life is only one night on another plante or even in another universe.
To the original question, this would mean that the world simply is the creation of other beings, maybe only one of them, even, thus there being no Big Bang. After all, the whole world could also be the dream of one being, so all the time we count as billions of years would be nothing but one period of sleep of someone (something) else.
This might not be too reasonable, but I rather like these kinds of theories, as I said before. But if it actually were like this, noone would ever be able to prove it. And one day, all of our so-called lives would end because somewhere else, a 'something' wakes up. Personally, I find this rather appealing, in a strange way.

Also, I like this:

Rigby Dumbledore wrote:

If we actually had the power to bring our vision to life, wouldn't we? Especially if we had no limits. Scientists are always trying to create and replicate life, artists, writers, television producers attempt the same thing in their chosen fields.

What if we are nothing but the creation of someone/something, figures in a book or something, unreal to creator as literary characters are to us?

I might have gotten a little carried away, but now I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on this...

i think that it is starnge to think that were are use characters in someone's dream. I had a freind who believed the same thing. I just find that too hard to believe. But it could be possible, maybe

I agree that it's rather hard to believe, I'm not really sure whether it's believable as well. But I am definitely intrigued by the fact of the possibilty even existing. Actually, I am generally fascinated by all the possibilities of how we might have been created and such things. I guess I simply dislike the creationism and the simple, scientific evolution because they are so plain and boring in some way...

well creationism is more exciting than evolution. evolution just states that after many years we had evolved from monkeys.... for some reason this makes me think of Pokemon.... lol

lol! yeah Pokemon is sort of a good example it shows how things change from one way to another and shows that they still have the same ability they had before but it greater and they have changed slightly in appearance but could still be reconised as a sort of brother speices to the thing.

I never thought of Pokemon as a relation to the evolution, but it's quite an interesting point of view...
But I don't really know about creationism being more interesting than evolution, I mean, what's so interesting about it? (Don't mean to offend anyone, thouugh!)

well theres god and he made everything in like seven days.... than he made poeple..... but the one question that i always wanted to know is that since god made everything.... who made god.... i wonder

Now that's a very good question, back when I still believed in God and all that I never thought about that at all. Maybe that one isn't answered yet because, well, those who believe in him don't think there's anything superior to him? Because if something/someone created him, they would have needed to be superior in my opinion.

well me and my sis joke and say that he made himself because he so powerful.... so thats uasally what i say when people ask me...

Sounds interesting, but not the kind of thing I could imagine. I guess I'm rather suspicious when it comes to religious things. If you do believe, that's probably a rather good explanation, however, it creates another question - well, to me it does. If he created himself, why wasn't it mentioned in the creation account (if that's what it's called)?

I dont know... just another one of those life mysteries....lol.... many people are suspicious when it comes to religion.... they just dont understand it and they have to see everything for themselves as to why many poeple believe in evoluion... people have better and more belivable infromation to bak that theory up then christans do with god making everything in seven days.

Yeah, that might be the reason. But as a matter of fact, it's rather interesting to imagine that the world might indeed have been made within seven days - whatever seven days means in this context - by someone like a god. I've never actually said this before, but I guess it's because I've never spent that much thought on it.
Now, are there any other popular theories we haven't discussed?

i dont really know that much about the Big Bang theroy to begin with.... In school we go over very little and when it came to the test we did have to kno that much about it.... so i dont really know weather or not we covered everything.. lol

I don't believe we covered what Scientoligist beleive...*g* There's lots of theories, but I believe that the reason this is such an intriguing discussion is that there is no definitive answer...maybe there was a big bang...maybe at that moment God was created and then he created the universe... maybe we are just one of a billion star systems... and maybe all of these things can be true all at once.

Whatever explanation we come up with, I think we would never be truly satisfied with it because we are so small in relation to the universe. We cannot begin to wrap our minds around such huge concepts and will forever be questioning and wondering. That is why some people just choose to believe in one thing and just stick to it (I am religious and believe that G-d created the world in seven days, and yes, I agree that G-d's 'days' aren't measured the same as our 'days').

I also often wonder, but not very seriously, if maybe we are all just characters in some random kid's video game, and one day he'll just decide to shut down the game...because all these centuries has just been one hour of his game...and it's time for him to go to dinner...lol.

Also, I don't think the universe is infinite, but I do think it is too big and complicated for us ever to understand it all, never mind travel through the whole thing. Consider the human brain--it is not infinite, we have had years to study it and we still do not have a sufficient grasp of all the workings of the brain. Every time a new discovery is made we realize how little we really know.

No one will be satisfied with the answer... they would be forced to believe the evidence shown or else be mocked at for believe in thier old belifes.... i think that it is better that we dont know everything about it... it leaves room for the imganiation.... which i think is a good thing....

hm...i agree with stephy, people would 'try' to figure out what made the whole world but just letting people think what they want is pretty good. For example you could just say, you don't care about that, or if you're religious, say God made the world. But there was nothing before the Bang so even if you guess it right, you'll don't know it's correct, cause no one existed (let's assume that) before so no one & nothing can confirm your hypothesis...so just keep thinking

*jumps in*

I agree. However much we want to know what was "before the beginning" never knowing makes us wonder....makes us use our imaginations, which i also agree is a good thing. If we know everything, then there really is no point in exsistance anymore is there?

On the other hand, knowing what was "before the beginning" would most likely be a very valuable piece (or more xD) of information....

even if we did figure out what was there before the beginning we would just end up asking what was there before that and this cycle would just continue on.... because we think that something must come from something... well if we figure out what that somehtring came from then we will want to know where that something came from and so on.... do you understand what i mean

i think it's like cycle like the question : does the egg or the chicken come first. No one really knows the answer so well have to guess and just make up the solution

I agree.. it is like that... since it is a circle it dosent have a begginning or an end so there really isnt one definite answer to that

Okay I know this might sound a bit strange, but it is a theory I came up with when I was eleven and I still kind of think that it may be possible. This isn't that exact theory, but a sort of variation of that theory if the theory of the Big Bang is true.

Say time travel was possible. In the future we discover the mechanics, but with all new discoveries in science it doesn't start out perfect. Through tests someone decides to travel something back to before beginning. The chemicals with that time cause, before Beginning, collied with the chemicals the future brings back. Thus created the Big Bang. In other words everything is in a sort of cycle. The beginning being the future and the future the beginning, but along with that cycle part still keeps going.

^^an attempt of a drawing to explain

I know its a bit scratchy, but it's the best I could think of for now.

I dont fully understand this theory. Could you explain it a bit more

Okay its kind of like when people from one country go to a new country that has never had contact with people from their area of the world (such as the the English colonizing to North America and making contact with the Native Americans). Along with them they bring diseases and bacteria and what not that the other countries have never had on their land before (like the English introducing the Native Americans with small pox).

With Time Travel things have evolved and aren't like they were before. Things in the air that are foreign to before the beginning and whatever time travels also (which would carry stuff in the air with it likely) might cause an imbalance of some sort causing a chemical collision. During time travel something travels where it wasn't originally at, like teleportation, and everything around it after it shifts through time wasn't expecting it so it popped in and things rushed in different directions. Okay that probably doesn't make sense...umm, well the air moves as you move, moving around your body. It expects the movement and is ready for it, but before the beginning their was likely nothing thus no need for any movement to occur. But as the thing traveling through time pops into the time, things have to move out of the way and quickly to provide the thing space thus having whatever needs to give it space collide with things it moves towards at a rapid pace.

Was that clear? I am dreadful at explaining things sorry.

yea that makes sense... that is an interesting theory... how did you come up with that?

Well with tons of time on your hands and not many friends leads to a lot of time to ponder the workings of the universe. Also I discuss various concepts with my dad which add on more to it. I think this theory started with an idea I came up with in elementary school about how people from the future went back in time and became the first people on Earth. This is just an evolved theory for the theory of the Big Bang.

the one thing about that thoery is that i dont see how people can tarvel back in time. YEs i know many people believe that in the furture we will have th technology to do that but i still dont understand how one would be able to pull it off... mybe thats why no one has been able to sussfully to make one... and if there are people comign back through time through the furture why dont they leave us with this infromation that they posess so that we too can tarvel through time...

I think that a lot of theories end up going back to the idea that time is not a straight and unmoveable line. That its a twisting circle that is ever changing and evolving. I'm not a fan of the Big Bang Theory, I just don't think that the universt just *poofed* into exsistence. I also think that the universe is so vast we could never comprehend it. Despite our imaginations, there are mysteries out there that we can't begin to dream of. I don't think we will know for sure how the universe started, I don't think our minds are capable of thinking the way they would need to in order to understand the concept of "beginning". But it's human nature to search for answers. I just don't think we'll find them.