What came to be first - time and laws of nature or Big Bang?

[Nacelunk]

Based on the theory of Big Bang, there once was singularity and because of it's incredibly large density it exploded creating our Universe. Should we consider that the start of the World and all its laws of nature or did they exist before Big Bang? I think so, because if there were no laws and time, nothing would exist in our understanding. But if time and the laws of nature existed before BigBang, then it would have to follow them. It would need space in order to expand, and a reason for it. (the reason why it expanded is because of laws of nature). So what was that staff around the singular point? Ordinary vacuum? Dark matter?

[Klaynos]

If you don't think that big bang - crush - bang is the true theory.

 

Then there was NOTHING before the big bang, nothing at all, no time, no space, therefore no laws of physics as there was nothing physical. The modern, current laws of physics, which is low energy physics evolved as the universe expanded and cooled down, but the laws are fundementally the same which is why particle accelerators doing high energy physics give us clues as to the big bang.

 

Of course if the crunch - bang - crunch - bang idea is correct then there was probably a differnt set of laws before hand in a different universe, which we have and can have no link to.

 

But saying all of this it's not really understood fully yet. These are just two of the main views that are held in the astrophysics world.

[YT2095]

I say certain Laws must have existed in order for the "big bang" to occur in the 1`st place.

[fredrik]

The question can possibly be given several interpretations but in a loose general sense I'd like to say that "nature" and the "laws of nature" are relational concepts and thus *evolved together*. I can't see how one without the other makes much sense because they depend on each other from a logical point of view.

 

To apply the theories of todays "current awareness" in the human intelligence to the imagined big bang is not that obviously sensible IMO. Back in the big bang there was hardly much intelligent questions asked and hardly many "theories" or "laws" preceived, so describing that in the light of today seems like a non-real construct.

 

The way we picture the past today, is not comparable to the way the past was pictured in the proper context (the "past now").

 

/Fredrik

[spikerz66]

isnt this more of a philisophical question than a scientific one?

[fredrik]

> isnt this more of a philisophical question than a scientific one?

 

Yes. In any case I think it's a bit subjective or ambigous.

 

However in general, I think it is sometimes a mistake to think that "philosophical questions" is completely and irreversibly irrelevant to science. Traditionally it has been used to reject fuzzy problems by saying it's philosophical and metaphysical nonsense. I think often because the physicists has been unable to grasp the what these questions mean, and the possible value in elaborating them. This seems to rely on some beleiefe that science is somehow a perfected machinery to delivere forever lasting truths. This is I think an idealized and unrealistic view.

 

What is spacetime? has sometimes been claimed to be a philosophical question... which it is, however it is also relevant to science, or maybe more properly to the "development of science", which is a dynamic and highly real process, not static. I am personally more interested in the scientific process, than the result. And in that sense philosophical questions overlap to a high degree.

 

Wether we like it or not, even science does have an underlying philosophy.

 

/Fredrik

[foodchain]

> isnt this more of a philisophical question than a scientific one?

 

Yes. In any case I think it's a bit subjective or ambigous.

 

However in general, I think it is sometimes a mistake to think that "philosophical questions" is completely and irreversibly irrelevant to science. Traditionally it has been used to reject fuzzy problems by saying it's philosophical and metaphysical nonsense. I think often because the physicists has been unable to grasp the what these questions mean, and the possible value in elaborating them. This seems to rely on some beleiefe that science is somehow a perfected machinery to delivere forever lasting truths. This is I think an idealized and unrealistic view.

 

What is spacetime? has sometimes been claimed to be a philosophical question... which it is, however it is also relevant to science, or maybe more properly to the "development of science", which is a dynamic and highly real process, not static. I am personally more interested in the scientific process, than the result. And in that sense philosophical questions overlap to a high degree.

 

Wether we like it or not, even science does have an underlying philosophy.

 

/Fredrik

 

I agree.

 

We cant take physics to some place in which nothing exists in order to conduct experiments and see what exists, though I think such would be utterly cool really.

 

I follow bang, crunch, bang. Simply because of conservation laws really, or foremost I would say. The other is simply stating something came from nothing, not to say such is impossible I just really cant grasp that, again does not mean its not true. People look for a start and an end to much, it may not always have to apply.

 

I disagreed with Hawkins’s interpretation of black holes initially for this reason, that at the singularity or center laws of conservation happened to stop having effect, of course this lead to two different views of such, which I think one aides string theory, again who knows currently.

 

One thing I always wondered though is that what happens to a photon that never interacts with anything else, and just floats off to the nothing of empty space? Maybe if matter does eventually come back together into one unit such gets sucked back in, or maybe during that process conservation laws don’t apply, either way all you can do is be purely hypothetical about such, because we cant really test such.

 

I am glad though that science does produce science fiction, I think such is healthy, as long as such never happens to be taken as solid impervious fact with no need to look anymore, or replaces the need to use the scientific method overall. To me that’s creationist science at its best and truest nature, taking the gaps in our understanding and putting the supernatural there and then claiming truth, but that’s another(and pointless) debate!