[Fredrick]

This thread is looking good already with some interesting angles. I am not going to answer each specific question and idea, but rather pick one thing that interests me for now.

When I mention that nothing did not exist before the Big Bang (the BB is more seen like an inflation of matter — though I did read somewhere about an extra speed-up of matter occurring not long after the initial expansion, which may have been caused by an extra expulsion, explosion, or what you have) then I mean a nothing that is important, functional, fundamental. Whatever existed before contained potentially everything that came out of it. Yet while all matter could have existed in concord with all matter that was, I imagine the nothing (before the BB) to be highly unimportant. In potential it could be created, but as such it did not exist. There was no concord between (unmaterialized) matter and the (unmaterialized) phenomenon of nothing; the nothing was simply not important.

If you have problems understanding this, it may be easiest to replace nothing with the word separation. Before the BB there was no separation, after the BB (with the BB) there was separation. Separation indicates a nothing that is in-between, it is a nothing that takes up space (nice discussion, fellows, not my cup of tea actually, for me space is just a whole lot of nothing). Before the BB there was a concord in which separation was only potentially available. When separation was created the absolute aspect of concord was gone. It would now only exist as part of the materialized matter.

While before the BB there was no separation, after the BB the separation does not only exist between matter, but also within matter. The matter used to be (before the BB) in concord with everything. Well it is mighty hard to be in concord with everything if separation is part of everything. No matter how short or long you think about it, separation indicates choice (going back together, going it alone, going with this but not with that), and as such each particle of matter — each separated entity if you wish — has to make a choice (out of fairly limited options) to become materialized. Whether it was really a choice is ofcourse a different discussion. Let's replace that with option, possibility.

Becoming materialized in various ways indicates conflict (Kaboom) for me. Water and fire don't go together well.