Yeah humanity will likely never know for sure.

I'm partial to the Mathematical Universe / Ruliad class of ideas, which are both just different ways of expressing "everything that's possible to exist does exist", where "possible" is defined by some domain like mathematics or computations.

In that view, the rules of this universe are simply a system expressible in mathematical or computable terms, and the beginning of this universe is just some starting conditions.

In my opinion, our earthly powers of logic and reason are insufficient to answer such a question. — an-salad

What is the basis for you opinion? Is this a subject about which you have specific experience or education? Is this a scientific judgment? A religious one? A philosophical one?

As for me - It's not clear the big bang was caused at all.

Yep, especially if notions of time and space come into existence and have sense emerging from the big bang. Thus, asking questions of “cause” may have little sense. But our imaginations do not want to be bound by any thing physical, thus we our doomed to ask disguised questions that seem intelligible but are really are distress calls for new conceptions.

As for me - It's not clear the big bang was caused at all. — T Clark

:up:

:up:

The physical just has existed since the beginning of time. It is absurd to ask what was before the beginning of time hence it is also absurd to ask what caused the physical before the beginning of time.

I think it’s a necessity of structure itself — the nature of nature, its underlying architecture. Like how perception structures thinking through differences, which eventually culminates in the consciousness of the difference between self, world, and others. But who knows. Just speaking loosely. I wasn't there as it happened.

I'd speculate that before the Big Bang, there were (and still are) fluctuating quantities of energy at the most fundamental level of reality. Possibly more fundamental than spacetime (e.g. it makes little sense to ask what caused something prior spacetime). Their fluctuations arise from the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and it's possible that spacetime emerges from them. When spacetime began to emerge, all the energy of the universe could be released, and that's the Big Bang.

:up:

Time is the fundamental variable of any physical theory therefore time cannot be an emergent property of such a physical theory since time cannot be the fundamental variable and emergent property at the same time.

Anxiety, neurotic instability, something like that, at a wild guess. A sentient pre-big-bang substance can't cease to exist, but it can act. Not acting I suspect might be absolutely intolerable.

That's a false dichotomy. Here's a link to an article that has many references to current physical theories on emergent spacetime.

What caused the Big Bang, in your opinion?

In my opinion, our earthly powers of logic and reason are insufficient to answer such a question. — an-salad

For almost everything in our space-time Cosmos --- except Dark Energy & Matter --- our scientific logic & reason have proven capable of answering most causal questions. So, I suppose it's temporal empirical Science that you find "insufficient" for such pre-Bang questions*1 for which we have no objective measurable data. And un-earthly powers, such as divine revelation might be suspect, as disguised human opinions.

But, this is a Philosophy forum. So, would you allow theoretical philosophical conjectures*2 in your thread? :smile:


*1. Questions Outside the Scope of Scientific Inquiry :
# Subjective Experiences and Values:
Science is focused on objective, measurable data, so questions about the meaning of life, the value of art, or personal experiences like happiness are not within its purview.
# Morality and Ethics:
Science can analyze the consequences of actions, but it cannot dictate what is right or wrong.
# Supernatural and Divine:
Questions about the existence of gods, ghosts, or other supernatural entities are beyond the scope of scientific investigation, as they deal with concepts that cannot be observed or tested.
# Meaning and Purpose:
While science can explain how things work, it cannot provide answers to questions about the meaning of existence or purpose.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=questions+science+can%27t+answer

*2. Questions Philosophy Can Answer :
Philosophy grapples with fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, and reality, often exploring topics like the nature of consciousness, the meaning of life, and the foundations of morality, without necessarily providing definitive answers, but rather encouraging critical thinking and exploration.
Here are some examples of questions that philosophy explores :
# Metaphysics (the nature of reality) {including Causation?}
# The Origin of the Universe: What came before the Big Bang? {First Cause?}
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=questions+science+can%27t+answer

That's a false dichotomy. Here's a link to an article that has many references to current physical theories on emergent spacetime. — jkop

The fundamental entities from which time emerges are either dynamic or static. In the first case, we are dealing with my argument. In the second case, we are dealing with strong emergence and I have to say a big no to it.

I think "before" the big bang there is no time dimension. Therefore there is no cause. It is an incausal spontaneous beginning of something. One might assume a god or any other metaphysical entity may have started it, but I guess that's not logical as this idea would re-introduce a time dimension. So the next question is: Since when does logic exist? I would say logic is a timeless principle. Logic isn't linked with any empirical principle. For example, the logical axiom "a statement is either true or false, never both" is valid in general, independent of space and time. Conclusion: The statement "there is no time before the big bang, yet there is a cause before" is a false statement.

I think "before" the big bang there is no time dimension. Therefore there is no cause. It is an incausal spontaneous beginning of something. One might assume a god or any other metaphysical entity may have started it, but I guess that's not logical as this idea would re-introduce a time dimension. So the next question is: Since when does logic exist? I would say logic is a timeless principle. Logic isn't linked with any empirical principle. For example, the logical axiom "a statement is either true or false, never both" is valid in general, independent of space and time. Conclusion: The statement "there is no time before the big bang, yet there is a cause before" is a false statement.

This would of course rely on a definition of causation as necessarily being temporal. Most of the arguments for God as "First Cause" deny such a deflationary account of causation, and charge that it is conflating generation and creation.

I have used this quote on this topic before, but I'll share it again because I think it is a good one.

Creare [creation] can never be used to indicate the generation of things from or by what is itself a contingent [temporal] finite being.Creation is the “act” whereby a thing has being; generation is what determines it, at any instant(including the instant of first creation), as this-or-that. As the Nicene Creed makes clear, all things are created by God: whatever is, insofar as it is, “participates” in self-subsistent being, or it would not be. As Aquinas puts it, “a created thing is called created because it is a being, not because it is this being. . . God is the cause, not of some particular kind of being, but of the whole universal being.” On the other hand, the changing and ephemeral identities of things are governed by the processes of nature, and in this sense, almost everything is subject to generation and corruption.

One might say: insofar as the metaphysics of Dante’s Comedy things exist, they “depend” directly on the Empyrean; insofar as they exist as this-or-that, most things also depend on nature (particularly on the spheres, beginning from the Primo Mobile).23 All things are therefore created, and most of them are also made. This does not imply that some things (such as the spheres or angels) were created first and then “made” others. It only means that some things are ontologically dependent on others: there is a hierarchy of being in the order of nature (distinction), in which some things cannot exist as what they are unless a whole series of other things exist as what they are. These other things may be said to
be logically prior or “prior in nature,” but they are not “prior in duration” or in time: nothing stands between any thing and the ground of its being. It is in this sense that Aquinas says, “The corporeal forms that bodies had when first produced came immediately from God”; as he explains, this simply means that “in the first production of corporeal creatures no transmutation from potentiality to act can have taken place.” In other words, there was no becoming.

This in no way implies that at the moment of first creation the hierarchy of ontological dependence inherent in the distinction of being did not exist, or that in the first production of things God “had to do something special,” which “later” the spheres did. The moment of first creation is only conceptually, but not essentially, different from any other: the only difference is that before that moment there was nothing. Indeed, for Aquinas the created world could very well have always existed, with little consequence for the Christian understanding of creation; we only know that the world is not eternal because Scripture tells us so. The “act” of creation (the radical dependence of all things on the ground of their being at every instant they exist) logically implies, but must not be identified with, the hierarchical dependencies of determinate form within spatiotemporal being.24

Christian Moevs - The Metaphysics of Dante's Comedy - Introduction: Non-Duality and Self-Knowledge - pg. 119-120

The point, as I have said, is that that home (the Empyrean [God]) is nowhere at all. It does not exist in space or time; thus neither does the spatiotemporal world it “contains.” The Empyrean is the subject of all experience, it is what does the experiencing. As pure awareness or conscious being, its relation to creation, that is, to everything that can be described or talked about, may be metaphorically conceived in one of two ways: It may be imagined as an infinite reality containing the entire universe of every possible object of experience (this cosmological picture is the framework of the Paradiso) or it may be conceived as a point with no extension in either space or time, which projects the world of space and time around itself, as a light paints a halo onto mist. In the Primo Mobile, the ninth sphere, which is the nexus between the Empyrean and the world of multiplicity, between the subject of experience and every possible object of experience, Dante takes both these tacks.

pg. 6

God is First Cause as final cause, as in Aristotle, but also as efficient cause. However, efficient cause does not imply "temporally prior," for there is nothing temporally prior to the creation of time itself. This is a communication of existence, not a mechanical "moving" of what exists prior.

The fundamental entities from which time emerges are either dynamic or static. In the first case, we are dealing with my argument. In the second case, we are dealing with strong emergence and I have to say a big no to it. — MoK

Is energy "either dynamic or static"? Its random fluctuations might seem "dynamic", but arise from the uncertainty principle. Perhaps it takes time to fluctuate, or perhaps the fluctuation is part of what generates time? Mass is generated by the Higgs mechanism, and now current research seems suggest that also spacetime is generated / emerges.

As for me - It's not clear the big bang was caused at all. — T Clark

That is a true statement. Yet, a cosmic explosion of matter & energy that continues to this day is an effectual event that deserves some kind of explanation. Empirical scientists are bound by the requirement for hard evidence to opt out of such questions. But Mathematical scientists and Theoretical Cosmologists do not shy away from implications of Causation. So they postulate a plethora of causes (e.g. quantum fluctuation) that serve for storytelling, but admit no proof. Yet, bringing clarity to confounding questions is the job description for philosophers. So let the speculation begin . . . . with a bang! :smile:

PS___The Count has already begun the count-down to a philosophical distinction between physical Causation and metaphysical Creation.

I want to know what caused the singularity. I don't much care about what caused it to collapse (explode).

Yet, a cosmic explosion of matter & energy that continues to this day is an effectual event that deserves some kind of explanation. — Gnomon

This is something I've been wrestling with. My first intuition is that, no, it doesn't need an explanation - at least science doesn't require one. It only needs a description - this is what happens and this is the process by which it happens. Is Newton's law of universal gravitation an explanation? It says there is an attractive force between any two massive objects that is directly proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them. To me that's a description.

So how about general relativity, which supplants Newton's law in extreme situations? Is all the talk about curvatures in space an explanation? That's the question I'm wrestling with. I want to say that's just a story we tell ourselves. The real theory is the mathematics that goes along with it, which is only descriptive. The same issue arises when we talk about quantum mechanics. Are all those different interpretations competing explanations or just stories, with the math doing all the real work?

Is everything we call scientific explanation really just metaphysics?

I want to know what caused the singularity. — AmadeusD

Why do you assume there is any causality "before" the big bang?

I've never seen anything uncaused. I have no reason to think that would fail prior to the big bang. Maybe a better thing would be to say "I want to know why the singularity existed".

I hear and see incausal things all the time: For example in transistor noise (audio amplifiers, analog screens etc.). There are countless micro events in there that occur at random positions and random time. If these were causal and deterministic the noise would turn into a pattern in the long run.

↪Quk
I've never seen anything uncaused. I have no reason to think that would fail prior to the big bang. Maybe a better thing would be to say "I want to know why the singularity existed" — AmadeusD

Good point. Years ago I published a mathematical result that, more or less in this context and under certain conditions, could be interpreted showing that the further back in time one goes from a current event the less it matters what the starting point is. This assumes no boundaries on what lengths the causal chain extends backward.

The Big Bang seems a bit like an essential singularity in complex analysis, as does a black hole. Absolutely bizarre things happen in its vicinity.

You just named their cause.

In my opinion, our earthly powers of logic and reason are insufficient to answer such a question. — an-salad

The big-bang theory must have had been inferred from the observations on the other galaxies with their old stars dying with the explosion, then the new stars being born. What intrigues me more is the existence of our solar system, and especially on the existence of the Earth with all the elements which make life possible. The Earth is a unique star in the universe so far, with all the lives and eco systems fragile they may be.

I didn't name their cause. Do you believe in determinism? I don't.

Is everything we call scientific explanation really just metaphysics? — T Clark

No. But when scientists go beyond compiling facts to explaining their significance, they are straying into metaphysics, and doing Philosophy. Us amateurs on the Philosophy Forum are not qualified to laboriously extract the facts from raw physics. But we can lean back in our easy-chairs and reason from facts to meanings. The Big Bang theory is generally accepted as an Axiom : a hypothetical fact. But for empirical scientists, that's the end of the story of Cosmology, told in reverse, and summarized as "Poof! let there be matter and motion".

For philosophers though, it's just the beginning of the story of "Life, the Universe, and Everything". Yet, unlike a super-duper-computer, we may not be content with a numerical summary : "42". We want the sexy juicy details, even if we have to make them up, by combining facts with a dash of Logic & a soupçon of imagination. That's called "cooking with Reason".

Unlike religious believers though, when philosophers are given an ex nihilo fact, they respond with ex nihilo, nihil fit. And instinctively look for a ding an sich to explain the contingent claim. Traditionally, that explanation has been an unconditional self-existent Cause, or First Principle. Which, of course, is a Metaphysical reason for being. And the rest is, as they say, history. :smile:


Metaphysics, often considered a branch of philosophy, explores fundamental questions about reality, existence, and the nature of being, going beyond the scope of empirical, physical science.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=science+metaphysics

Is energy "either dynamic or static"? — jkop

It depends on the model you use. In the standard model, most of the energies related to the forces are dynamic while the rest mass energy is not. In the string theory, however, all properties of elementary particles are due to the vibration of strings including the rest mass. Each model has however its own problems though. I, however, think that the problems of the string theory can be resolved eventually.

Its random fluctuations might seem "dynamic", but arise from the uncertainty principle. — jkop

Fluctuations are indeed dynamic things.

Perhaps it takes time to fluctuate — jkop

That is not an acceptable statement. Please read the last comment.

or perhaps the fluctuation is part of what generates time? — jkop

That is not an acceptable statement either. Please read the last comment.

Mass is generated by the Higgs mechanism — jkop

Correct in the standard model. The mass however explained as the vibration of strings in the string theory.

and now current research seems suggest that also spacetime is generated / emerges. — jkop

First I have to say that if someone finds a coherent theory of quantum gravity, then that would be like BOMB. There are three main theories of quantum gravity that are widely accepted: 1) String theory, 2) Loop quantum theory, and 3) AdS/CFT, each has its own problems. This article nicely discusses these theories in simple words and explains the problems with the string theory and AdS/CFT theory. This wiki page discusses the problem of loop quantum theory though.

when scientists go beyond compiling facts to explaining their significance, they are straying into metaphysics, and doing Philosophy. — Gnomon

You and I have always had different ideas of what is metaphysics and what isn't. It makes it hard for us to have a fruitful discussion.

But when scientists go beyond compiling facts to explaining their significance, they are straying into metaphysics, and doing Philosophy — Gnomon

Not if they speculate within the normal scope of science. But, if they conjecture that action at a distance has religious connotations, or that the universe is a reification of mathematics, then, yes.