How did everything really begin?

[12padams]

After some amazing (yet personal) events have occurred the question of how did everything begin really is important to me. The last time I was desperate to know the answer was 10 years ago when I was 8 years old. I was surrounded by Jehovah's wittiness's explaining how god created the earth and then asked the question "What was god doing before he created the earth? Where did god's life begin?". And the answer I got just annoyed the crap out of me: "God is eternal, He's always been there". Then I said "but that's impossible, everything needs to have a beginning!"

I was the one who would always say "Where was god a year before he created earth, the year before that and the year before that. If you keep going backwards there has got to be a point of change, a point when god was discovering things, a point where he began". That's pretty deep for an 8 year old but that behavior got me in trouble and I forgot that logic once I was told over and over that god has always been there.

In highschool the theory of the big bang and things slowly evolving to what they are today made a lot more sense to me but the same massive logic loophole was still there. My 8 year old self would have been able to ask the same questions he did about the god theory and still find the breaking point. The questions are: "Why did the big bang occur? What caused all those elements to be a point and then suddenly explode to slowly evolve and create the universe? Where was that "dense point of existence" an hour before that explosion of existence? What happened a year before the explosion? How was that dense point of existence first created? What existed before it was created? If time is infinite... Keep telling me about the past, what happened before each event and there should be no beginning but rather a never ending sequence of events. If there is no beginning then why are we searching for one?

Well the theory that "time repeats itself" and goes in a loop popped into my head. Basically civilization feels that everything is doomed and needs to start over. With their advanced technology they condense the universe into a single point and hope it explodes into a more successful one. Or maybe the big crunch occurs and sucks the universe back to a single point so it can explode again and again as all life repeats itself exactly. This theory even makes "backwards" time travel possible because you would actually be moving forwards through a loop until you arrive at the point "in the past" you wish to experience. But then that question I asked as an 8 year old breaks the theory once again... "When did the first cycle occur? What set the cycle of events into motion? What happened an hour before the first cycle? What happened the year before that?

Lastly what if the world was all a computer program? As an ex-programmer myself I know that all code has a beginning and an end. A program running off that same code can also have a beginning yet an end can be avoided if a loop function is implemented. A program simulating the evolution of life such as Simearth (1990) can go on forever looping and looping with never ending random events that shape the earth and the life on it without ever having an end. But the program still had a beginning even though no life was there to witness it. Time within the computer program literally did not exist until the program was first executed. Yet before it was started it was coded and before that it existed only in the mind of a person who would soon create it. The existence of living and non-living things within the program didn't exist before it was first run but something existing in an "outer dimension" following a different system of time and existence created it.

If it's true that we are apart of a computer program and I have just become the "singularity" that has gained consciousness realizing that it is simply a "program" working aside a system of others then I have just a few questions for the creator of this program: What created you? What happened an hour before you were created? What about a year or two before that? Where did it all really begin?

[Jeff]

I was the same as a child.It didn't go over well with the people in Sunday school.It was lucky for me that my parents weren't hyper religious and they took me out of it and let me find my own way...


So I think we can't really know the answer for sure,but I'll tell you where I stand on this at the moment:

For one,I'm skeptical of the BB because,AFAIK,there are other scientific theories that can account for 'redshift' and other observations such as cosmic microwave background radiation,etc  -all without assuming such things as ad hoc 'inflation fields' and dark energy.I think it should be an open question;yet many talk about the BB as if it is an indisputable fact.

One thing I think we can say,given what we think we know, is that the so called 'initial conditions' may have been,and still may be,unresolved.This is because of 'computational irreducibility'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computatio ... ducibility and quantum mechanical indeterminacy.

My understanding is that any sufficiently complex system,such as the current state of the entire known universe,is unpredictable in principle.There can be no short cut program or algorithm to calculate faster than just allowing the events to run out.At this moment,if we knew the state of every physical thing in the universe (as Laplace or maybe Liebniz suggested?) we still could not predict it's next state.

Because the laws of physics are time symmetric,and because our decisions we make couldn't have been predicted at the time of the so called initial conditions,we may very well resolve some of the fuzziness of the past at every moment of choice.Another reason to believe that the limited freewill that you feel that you possess is in fact 'real'. We could be co creators in a sense....

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs ... ts-origin/

I also agree with some the stuff in these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4IDDy ... ure=fvwrel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL7-t9p ... ure=relmfu

[breadbassed]

Infinity doesn't have a beginning. Can time ever 'stop'? Will there be an end of time? Even if there is a so called 'end' of the universe as we know it, will 'time' still be ticking by, how could time cease to exist? Therefore if there is no end, there doesn't necessarily have to be a beginning. How would 'time' start? Was there not time before that?  I think the loop theory is valid, the universe evolves into its omega state, and then 'collapses' back into its alpha state, then to evolve back to its omega point again.

Although this does imply that the alpha state would be the beginning, which raises your question, when was the first loop? If time is eternal then there cannot have been a first loop right? Its a complete head fuck, perhaps too much for our tiny human minds to comprehend!

[Summerlander]

As we all know, there is strong evidence for the Big Bang theory.  Undeniably, there are cosmic remnants of a massive explosion that occurred billions of years ago and had the potential to spawn the known universe.

Science is making good process.  Its equations have been able to explain and even predict the outcome of experiments and a wide range of phenomena.  Physicists rejoice when everything fits.  Sometimes they need theoretical things to make calculations work and work well.  Most of the time, if there calculations work well, then nine times out of ten the theoretical something is true and is unsurprisingly (or surprisingly, depending...) discovered at a later stage.

One of the most fundamental discoveries was the existence of the Higgs field that pervades space and is the giver of mass.  It had been theoretical for so long but now it is a fact.

For me, our existence is a chance one.  No God created the universe.  Yes, it did create itself, but it only happened because of the laws that govern it.  These laws were not written by some deity.  They are natural laws that arise from interaction, cause and effect.

Beneath it all lies an astounding reality of probabilities.  A realm where Newton's rationale and human logic can be defied because concepts such as possible and impossible are no longer appropriate - there is only probable and improbable.  If this means that we have to let go of some of our prejudices about the nature of reality in order to crack the code than so be it.

Thus, and I say this firmly, there is no supernatural higher power, no real paranormal activity and certainly no magic.  It is all natural.  Just like a game of billiards with eyes in awe of the flukes that they don't yet understand.  Many of these flukes have been explained by intelligent and inquisitive minds and they have proved time and again that it is premature to "explain" them away as divine intervention.

The presents did not come from Santa Claus as attractive and appealing this is to a child .  Mummy and daddy went shopping and they paid for them with their credit card.

My two cents.