How Old is the Universe

[Guille]

Let's say, for arguments sake, nothing is all there "is". Then it's impossible that there will ever be "something", because "ever" doesn't exist for one and because for something to happen there must be a cause which isn't present and will never be present, because there "is" nothing. For the everything we know now to exist there has to be a cause and that's of course everything, because it can't be nothing and there are no more flavours. Everything isn't a constant thing (nothing "is"), but it has a few constant laws. 1. there's always movement somewhere in everything. 2. everything can never be nothing, because nothing isn't something that can "be". 3. everything can create something out of nothing, but everything as a whole isn't created out of nothing, only partially.
I might have forgotten some laws, but it's late and they can wait...forever if need be...

There are many other laws about the discourse of nothing, everything and something, but they are all jsut as fallacious and paradoxical as the three you give. You don't understand that we cannot say nothing is all or anything there is, cause nothing is not.

[Omni]

ps. : I don't know if the law is "there's allways movement somewhere in space" or "space is allways in motion everywhere". I will think about that one.

[Omni]

You don't understand that we cannot say nothing is all or anything there is, cause nothing is not.

Explain that one please. I don't know what it is I don't understand.

[TinyTree]

If you imagine the earliest part of the universe being a curve, which asymptotically approaches zero, then you may be imagining the curve of time of the early universe.

Now if you ask "how old is the universe" you are asking in a sense "what is the measure of this line". In our normal space here, the time moves in a straightforward manner forwards and it is meaningful to measure sections of the "time line" and compare them to other sections.

But if we go back to the earliest universe, and the time line is bent substantially, and in fact completely so that it never approaches another line- what is the measure here?

The measure could well go to infinity, even though it does not cross the axis. That is to say, one could state with this situation that the universe "existed forever" but "not before the outer axis". This appears to be a contradiction but only insofar as the person measuring the straight lines later on in the universe evolution is trying to comprehend the earlier universe.

[Guille]

Explain that one please. I don't know what it is I don't understand.

The begining of your post said that nothing is all that there is (or you assume it). But as 'nothing' can't really be because only things exist, then you must be wrong when you say that nothing is all there is, in fact, it is nothing that there is. It's the misconception that before something there was nothing. This is a complete fallacy, as something cannot come out of nothing. Before something I don't knwo what there was, maybe another thing, and thus the universe is eternal (this doesn't mean I agree with you, cause I don't think that 'things' were always there, I only think there was existence there, of other things). Or, on the contrary, the universe isn't eternal but before the universe there was another universe. Or maybe, befor ethe universe there wasn't. I don't mean that there was nothing, I mean that simply anything couldn't 'be', there was not, and existence started onyl when something started, there was no nothing before it, for there was no such thing as 'before it'.

[Omni]

The begining of your post said that nothing is all that there is (or you assume it).

No, you misread that. I said "for arguments sake" and used "is" between "'s to make clear that it's only to make something clear. I wanted to show that "everything before the big bang" (elastic space which is stretching at one "point" so much that it rips) is the cause of "everything after the big bang" (space + vacuumspace (which is created by that ripping)) and "nothing" is non-existent and therefor of course isn't the cause of "everything after the big bang" and therefor everything always existed. Before the big bang, during and after. Eternal.

[dleviwing]

The law is "Conservation of MASS and ENERGY" when referring to thermodynamics. The law that states a conservation of matter is limited to the type of matter that is primarily in the particulate form and thus is a law of chemistry. Not all laws of physics are universal in their nature.

If you were to apply this law as meaning the absolute fundamental stuff of the universe, then Conservation of matter would be appropriate and universal. Of course that is only an opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Conservation_of_Matter

[mkirkpatrick]

If you imagine the earliest part of the universe being a curve, which asymptotically approaches zero, then you may be imagining the curve of time of the early universe.

Now if you ask "how old is the universe" you are asking in a sense "what is the measure of this line". In our normal space here, the time moves in a straightforward manner forwards and it is meaningful to measure sections of the "time line" and compare them to other sections.

But if we go back to the earliest universe, and the time line is bent substantially, and in fact completely so that it never approaches another line- what is the measure here?

The measure could well go to infinity, even though it does not cross the axis. That is to say, one could state with this situation that the universe "existed forever" but "not before the outer axis". This appears to be a contradiction but only insofar as the person measuring the straight lines later on in the universe evolution is trying to comprehend the earlier universe.

What you have explained Tinytree is an interesting idea of universal outworking,I wonder if these lines would eventually become circular!
kind regards michael.

[subversion]

I think it is best to admit that until we've ascertained where matter/energy came from and where it is going we do not know if it is always conserved, that is, we can't prove that it won't dissappear when the universe's expansion exceeds lightspeed across less than a planck length. Really we can't prove anything is impossible unless we live for an infintely long amount of time. The only thing you can ever really prove is that something is possible, thus we can prove that energy CAN be conserved, but we still don't know where it came from and where it is going, thus we don't know if it is always conserved. SO based on principle, how much do we really know about the nature of energy and matter? As a matter of principle, we can say that energy is always conserved, but that is just a principle assumption.

In the end, we must always concede naievety. And that is why true understanding and true naievety are the same thing. This sounds like a bad thing but it's really not. Naievety is the only thing which allows us to understand everything. Can you see the contradiction of truth? Is it consistent in it's inconsistency?

[dleviwing]

Sub;
Denying facts does not make a person right Sub, it just keeps him ignorant and naive. Learn the facts and you will not have so much trouble forming good opinions.
BTW: Where's your TOE.