The Big Bang’s mysteries and unsolvable “first cause” problem

[C C]

https://bigthink.com/13-8/big-bang-first-cause/

KEY POINTS: The quest to understand the Universe’s origin has evolved from mythic narratives to the quantitative insights of modern cosmology, sparked by Einstein’s theory of relativity and its implications for understanding the cosmos’s structure and expansion. Key discoveries, such as the expanding Universe through Hubble’s observations and the Big Bang theory’s predictive success, have grounded our cosmic understanding in observable phenomena, revealing a Universe that was once hotter, denser, and more uniform. Despite significant advances, the earliest moments and the fundamental cause of the Universe’s inception remain shrouded in mystery — perhaps forever so... (MORE - details)

[Magical Realist]

"First", as in "first cause", still assumes a sequence that only exists in time. A relativity or contingency between past to future. What we need to imagine is an absolute state in which time does not exist, and hence no possibility of sequence or of causation. A state in which all possible states exist immediately and simultaneously at once forever and forever. A metaphysical ground state that never stopped existing at the Big Bang, but continues to manifest and unfold as entangled events without any causation or "before and after". An infinitely exuberant plethora or Pleroma of transcendentally creative novelty in which even now things emanate and emerge of their own accord, for their own sake, from the beginning of time-- the star-bespeckled womb of a trillion births.

“The ultimate metaphysical ground is the creative advance into novelty.”— Alfred North Whitehead

"The notion of the infinite, with the modern meaning of the term, was first introduced by the Greek philosopher Anaximander (6th Century BC). Anaximander introduced the apeiron (the boundless) as the beginning of everything (the first principle). According to his theory, the apeiron is undefined and ever moving. It gives birth to the contradictory terms of warm and cold, and of moist and dry, and their perpetual strife. Man is able to comprehend the result of this eternal process from the vast plurality of things and the infinite number of Universes. The cosmological aspect in Anaximander's theory is beautiful; innumerable worlds are born from the apeiron and absorbed by it, once they are destroyed. Thus, the apeiron is related to the eternal, through out time, cosmological procedure. The cosmological problem of the vastness of the Universe or of the innumerability of Universes is an elementary philosophical problem, while the Theory of Big Bang bounded with the notion of time-space, is a starting point for understanding the models that describe our Universe."--
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011A%...T/abstract

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.”
― Laozi, Tao Te Ching

[Syne]

"First", as in "first cause", still assumes a sequence that only exists in time. A relativity or contingency between past to future. What we need to imagine is an absolute state in which time does not exist, and hence no possibility of sequence or of causation. A state in which all possible states exist immediately and simultaneously at once forever and forever. A metaphysical ground state that never stopped existing at the Big Bang, but continues to manifest and unfold as entangled events without any causation or "before and after".

That only moves the question from "what was the cause" to "why did it happen when it did." Even if the universe is ultimately a timeless state, why would it suddenly manifest our universe (and time) only 13.8 billion years ago? What changed to initiate that? Then you're basically back to questioning a first cause. No avoiding it. So denying time just evades the question. It doesn't answer it.

[Magical Realist]

That only moves the question from "what was the cause" to "why did it happen when it did."

Same applies to any cosmological origin theory. Creationism: why did God create the universe when he did?" Crickets...

[stryder]

For want of a nail (wikipedia.org) would suggest a causality approach.

Just instead of a nail you have the birth of the universe which would likely lead up to life existing.

Incidentally the beginning of the universe doesn't have to be done in the beginning. It could of been made timelapsed somewhere in the middle.

[Syne]

That only moves the question from "what was the cause" to "why did it happen when it did."

Same applies to any cosmological origin theory. Creationism: why did God create the universe when he did?" Crickets...

Because creationism posits a will, that's actually the one origin hypothesis that DOES account for the timing.

Even the standard Big Bang theory doesn't account for the timing.

[Magical Realist]

that's actually the one origin hypothesis that DOES account for the timing.

LOL No it doesn't. It no more accounts for why the universe came to be at one time and not another than any other theory. Being the product of a magical being's inscrutable will makes its timing as unexplainable as that of a quantum vacuum.

[Syne]

Just because you don't understand someone's motives doesn't mean they don't have one.

[Zinjanthropos]

A two part series segment (1 hr ea) that is now 13 yrs old. I’m certain it contains information that is no longer part of BB physics, like a big explosion once happened. However it’s really good if you’re a non scientist like myself.

Scroll down to part 2. It’s about nothing. I particularly liked what was being said/demonstrated between 29-32 minute marks. First 29 mins basically a history lesson. Whether what is being said during those three mins is true or not I can’t say but, it was a Wow moment for me. Heisenberg was pretty damn smart.

https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/everything-and-nothing/