What was God doing?

[robrecht]

No, it's just something that is postulated.

No, that is not what String Theory is built upon at all. You are confusing two very different things. One is an interpretation of the wave-function in QM, and the other is a Theory of Everything that also incorporates quantum gravity.

Thanks, I thought I had read in Hawking and Mlodinow's The Grand Design that their cosmological use of M-theory was tied to the Everett many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, but I very well may be mistaken about this or otherwise misunderstood.

[JimL]

So is your view that energy, space, and time existed prior to the Big Bang, but no matter--is that correct? More specifically, time existed prior to the Big Bang in essentially the same sense in which time exists now--is that correct?

Well I certainly think that it is a possibilty. Nobody even knows exactly what space itself is and our universe could just be a stretching of a portion of an already existing infinite space, due to a fluctuation of its energy field. I'm not exactly sure how to think about time, or even if there is any such thing as time, so whatever it is it may or may not exist prior to universe creation.

[Tassman]

They are completely separate disciplines with very different methodologies, but theology can also take that which has been substantiated, verified or falsified in other disciplines as a starting point for continued or even new reflection upon reality. It is not as if theologians are not allowed to learn from developments in modern science.

The problem is that theologians have been known to cherry-pick science to reinforce their own religious presuppositions.

[Tassman]

Come back to me when science has figured it out,

You will still deny the science if if it conflicts with your religions beliefs no matter how much evidence supports it...'evolution' being a case in point.

until then it is speculation, and based on a faith that science can actually figure it out.

Scientific speculation is based upon educated guesses grounded in existing knowledge and has a long history of “figuring it out”...unlike religious revelation, which has no methodology to test its assertions.

[robrecht]

The problem is that theologians have been known to cherry-pick science to reinforce their own religious presuppositions.

Some, not all, and none of the better ones.

[seer]

You will still deny the science if if it conflicts with your religions beliefs no matter how much evidence supports it...'evolution' being a case in point.

How many times have you told me that science does not prove anything? So you want me to accept unproven things?

[Tassman]

How many times have you told me that science does not prove anything? So you want me to accept unproven things?

As opposed to religion, which is not supported by any verifiable evidence at all, scientific enquiry can result in conclusions validated to such an extent that scientists act on the basis they are true, e.g. the speed of light has been verified numerous times. The same is true of all constants and laws so far discovered in nature.

[robrecht]

Two reasons.

First, that inflation leaves us with these other 'pockets' invites that possibility. The second is that String theory (which is incredibly popular among those researching qauntum gravity) has 10^500 vacua states, and it's speculated each state might correspond to a Big Bang.

So it's a speculation based on an assumption.

What us the "assumption", that string theory is correct?

[shunyadragon]

How many times have you told me that science does not prove anything? So you want me to accept unproven things?

The Theory of Gravity is not proven, but I would not advise testing it by jumping off ten story buildings.

[Jedidiah]

What us the "assumption", that string theory is correct?

There us no one string theory, but a plethora of various theories.

[shunyadragon]

What is the "assumption", that string theory is correct?

I would also like to know what the assumption(s) Sea of Red is referring to.

[Tassman]

The Theory of Gravity is not proven, but I would not advise testing it by jumping off ten story buildings.

Exactly! The Theory of Gravity has been validated to such an extent that we act on the basis it's true...as per all the constants and laws so far discovered in nature.

[JimL]

The Theory of Gravity is not proven, but I would not advise testing it by jumping off ten story buildings.

Don't tempt him now shunya.