(September 10, 2021 at 1:51 pm)Astreja Wrote:(September 10, 2021 at 11:37 am)polymath257 Wrote: Why cannot the universe itself 'simply exist' with no cause? That is, after all, what you {Klorophyll} are assuming about some deity.
As the Big Bang was the expansion of a hyper-dense singularity, that strongly suggests that something existed prior to the expansion.
And as I see it, unorganized units of matter/energy are a more plausible candidate for "always existed" than a sentient Arabic-speaking spirit-thing that has it in for foreskins and pork products.
Except that in the actual Big bang model, time cannot be extended past the singularity. it is literally meaningless (in that model) to talk about 'before the Big Bang'. It is analogous to talking about 'north of the North Pole'.
The problem, of course, is that the BB model is based on general relativity, which is a classical theory. We *know* that quantum mechanics becomes relevant at some point. And all versions of quantum gravity to date suggest *some* sort of smoothing of the singularity and an extension of time infinitely into the past.