Did the universe have a beginning?

any comments most welcome , please.

Since you post this in science I would rephrase:

What is the scientific state of knowledge about the beginning of the universe.

Philosophically we could assume that the universe has been there forever, then we would have to answer all the nasty questions about the entropy....

So the answer is: if we do extrapolate some 10exp9 years we come to something called the big bang. Some scientists however question the ability to extarpolate that wide.

Originally posted by Ponderable
Since you post this in science I would rephrase:

What is the scientific state of knowledge about the beginning of the universe.

Philosophically we could assume that the universe has been there forever, then we would have to answer all the nasty questions about the entropy....

So the answer is: if we do extrapolate some 10exp9 years we come to som ...[text shortened]... hing called the big bang. Some scientists however question the ability to extarpolate that wide.

Flip sake, i thought it was a simple, yes, no, cant be sure!

The short answer is that nobody knows. From what i understand when the Big Bang theory was first put forward scientists believed there must have been a beginning. But now scientists aren't too sure.

In 1983, James Hartle and Stephen Hawking proposed that a cosmic wave function be applied to the entire universe similar to the wave function that quantum mechanics had applied to elementary particles. "According to this approach, the usual distinction between future and past breaks down in the very early universe; the time direction takes on the properties of a spatial direction. Just as there is no edge to space, there is no identifiable beginning to time."3

Hawking writes elsewhere: "the quantum theory of gravity has opened up a new possibility, in which there would be no boundary to space-time and so there would be no need to specify the behavior at the boundary. There would be no singularities at which the laws of science broke down and no edge of space-time at which one would have to appeal to God or some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time. One could say: "The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary." The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE."4

from http://www.innerexplorations.com/chtheomortext/origin.htm

Originally posted by Proper Knob
The short answer is that nobody knows. From what i understand when the Big Bang theory was first put forward scientists believed there must have been a beginning. But now scientists aren't too sure.

In 1983, James Hartle and Stephen Hawking proposed that a cosmic wave function be applied to the entire universe similar to the wave function that quantum ...[text shortened]... d. It would just BE."4

from http://www.innerexplorations.com/chtheomortext/origin.htm

Fabians correct, i never understood a word of that 🙁

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Fabians correct, i never understood a word of that 🙁

That doesn't surprise me. 39 studies since 1927 have shown that the higher your IQ and the more educated you are, the less likely you are to hold religious beliefs.

In short, stupid people belive in God.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
That doesn't surprise me. 39 studies since 1927 have shown that the higher your IQ and the more educated you are, the less likely you are to hold religious beliefs.

In short, stupid people belive in God.

Did not Fischer the King of Chess have a profound belief in God, well then, are you saying he was stupid, hardly! Sir Issac Newton, the eminent scientist also had a profound belief in God, are you saying he was also stupid, no, well then shut up and stop talking nonsense, this is the science forum and Fabian wants to discuss science here, so if you don't mind take your prejudice back down to the spirituality forum, perhaps someone here may be better able to explain the ideas in a more lucid fashion than you, imbecile!🙂

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Did not Fischer the King of Chess have a profound belief in God, well then, are you saying he was stupid, hardly! Sir Issac Newton, the eminent scientist also had a profound belief in God, are you saying he was also stupid, no, well then shut up and stop talking nonsense, this is the science forum and Fabian wants to discuss science here, so if you ...[text shortened]... eone here may be better able to explain the ideas in a more lucid fashion than you, imbecile!🙂

“Sociologist Zena Blau of the University of Houston recently conducted a study of more than a thousand children in Chicago. [...] In 1981 Blau reported that IQs were lowest among children whose mothers have overly strict religious beliefs. Children whose mothers were from a non-denominational or non-religious background had the highest average IQs - 110 for whites, 109 for blacks. Children whose mothers belonged to "fundamentalist" religious groups tended to have IQs that were 7 to 10 points lower. According to Blau, these religion-IQ differences hold even when you take into account the mother's social class, current occupational status, and education.”
"Understanding Human Behavior" by James V. McConnel (1986)6

“Several research studies have been published on the statistical relationship between religiosity and educational level, or religiosity and IQ. Michael Shermer, in How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science, describes a large survey of randomly chosen Americans that he and his colleague Frank Sulloway carried out. [...] Religiosity is indeed negatively correlated with education (more highly educated people are less likely to be religious). Religiosity is also negatively correlated with interest in science. [...]
[Paul Bell in Mensa Magazine, 2002, reviewed all studies taken of religion and IQ. He concluded:]

"Of 43 studies carried out since 1927 on the relationship between religious belief and one's intelligence and/or educational level, all but four found an inverse connection. That is, the higher one's intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold "beliefs" of any kind."”

"The God Delusion" by Prof. Richard Dawkins (2006)7

My Assertion is backed up by scientific studies. Not one but two. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
“Sociologist Zena Blau of the University of Houston recently conducted a study of more than a thousand children in Chicago. [...] In 1981 Blau reported that IQs were lowest among children whose mothers have overly strict religious beliefs. Children whose mothers were from a non-denominational or non-religious background had the highest average IQs - 110 ...[text shortened]... up by scientific studies. Not one but two. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.

what has this got to do with the universe and having a beginning? zilch, well take it somewhere else bozo, as for me i have no need of others telling me how stupid i am, i knew that already, but your propensity for stating the obvious is quite remarkable, now if you don't mind, move over rover and let someone answer the question.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
what has this got to do with the universe and having a beginning? zilch, well take it somewhere else bozo, as for me i have no need of others telling me how stupid i am, i knew that already, but your propensity for stating the obvious is quite remarkable, now if you don't mind, move over rover and let someone answer the question.

I'll play it back to you.

I gave you an answer to your question, of which you said you didn't understand it. I then pointed out that it didn't surpise me because of the link between IQ and religious beliefs. You said it was nonsense and called me an imbecile, i then provided you with two surveys which backed up my claim.

It's not that hard to follow 9 threads is it?? But you do believe in God................that answers my question.

I must apologize Fabian, i have tried to keep the spiritual stuff to the spirituality forum, but ol Proper Noob here has dragged it in, tell him you wont have it and he should immediately issue a public apology and a recantation for his misuse of the science forum!🙂

Originally posted by Proper Knob
I'll play it back to you.

I gave you an answer to your question, of which you said you didn't understand it. I then pointed out that it didn't surpise me because of the link between IQ and religious beliefs. You said it was nonsense and called me an imbecile, i then provided you with two surveys which backed up my claim.

It's not that hard to follow 9 threads is it?? But you do believe in God................that answers my question.

actually Scriabin gave a much more comprehensive and lucid statement in the spirituality forum, clearly you were unable to do the same, why? one can only speculate, perhaps lack of teaching ability, inability to take a complex subject matter and break it down into its constituent parts, lack of illustrations, all in all a very shoddy piece of work if you ask me, perhaps thats what you are used to, who can tell, but listen, i got better things to do, than trade insults wid you, so if you dont mind, get lost !

"Did the universe have a beginning?" That's the question.

First we have to define the word "Universe".
One definition can be "All there is". This means that there are nothing more than the universe. Everything more than the universe does not exist. Right?

Then we have to define the word "Beginning".
One definition can be that the beginning is the start of "All there is". So before the universe there were nothing. Right?

One misunderstanding about the BigBang theory is that it is supposed to explain how the Universe started, i.e. the beginning of universe, i.e. how universe was when t = 0. This is not so. The BigBang theory start somewhere when t > 0, right after the beginning, at the era when the Universe was pure Energy and matter has not came into being yet. What about before that? BigBang theory is silent. What about when the time t < 0? Again BigBang theory is silent. "Did the universe have a beginning?" Yet again BigBang theory is silent. BigBang explains things rather well, but only when t > 0, nothing more.

When t = 0 or t < 0, then we have to speculate. We can do that by introduce another term: "Our Universe"

One definition of "Our Universe" can be the "Current Universe".
This speculates if there are more Universe than just ours? And there are no theory saying anything but speculations. There can be Universes as a string of pearls on a rosary, or the Universes can be at the same time, but in paralell. Or one universe can spring out of another, like a pregnancy. Well, feel free to speculate at your own wish.

The theory of many universes can be called a multiverse theory. The collection of all the universes and everything in between can be called a supraverse.

The string theory speculates if the point of BigBang ( when t = 0 ) is only a intermediary between our universe and the one before, or when another universe gives birth to our one. Currents of energy in small scale, or largen scale, perhaps flow in the Supraverse between the bubbles of universes, can suddenly pop up and form a universe, perhaps our universe. Again, the field is open for private speculations.

What about time? Did the time start at t = 0, at the point of BigBang? Does the BigBang theory say anything? No, it doesn't. We don't know much about time in our universe. Is time a leftover from an earlier universe? Noone knows. Open for speculations.

Non-scientific people think often that science people know everything? That's not true. But science people know what is higly probable (the BigBang) and what is only probable (inside of a black hole) and what is purely speculations (wormholes through space and time). "Not knowing" is not the same thing as "don't want to know"", merely "wanting to know". There are no dogma in good science. Many times has one 'dogma' been replaced by another 'dogma'. Like the StadyState theory replaced by the BigBang theory. The scientific community is not ashamed by that. Progress is always welcomed.

So the question again: "Did the universe have a beginning?" My answer is: No, there were something before. That's my speculation. The BigBang theory says nothing. Future will tell.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
My Assertion is backed up by scientific studies. Not one but two. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Your assertion that there is a correlation between IQ and religiosity is backed up by scientific studies. Your assertion that "stupid people belive in God" is not, neither is "clever people don't believe in God" which robbie essentially disproved with an example of an exception.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
any comments most welcome , please.

It is not known at this time.