X-Message-Number: 14483 From: Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2000 00:33:44 EDT Subject: Re: CryoNet #14443 Robert Ettinger writes: > The Big Bang envisages a "beginning" of time itself. What existed "before" > time began? A meaningless (?) question; since "before" presupposes time > before time--like saying the universe is bounded in space and then asking > what is outside. I've read a lot about string theory etc. recently, and finally think I understand the paradox. Those who say that given all space and time, huge quantum fluctuations will occur, and one started our universe (including space and time) are just neglecting to state their underlying assumption that before and outside was a much larger universe containing many (as many as 26) spatial dimensions plus one -- or more! -- time dimensions. Our universe was born with the collapse of most of these spatial dimensions to infinitesmal size. It's as though we in three-space created flatland by printing a piece of paper, or perhaps by making a block of material and slowly imersing it in a glass of water -- each level being a flatland plane at a particular time, and the present being the water level. Flatlanders could rightly say that their space and time began when we made the block, but the larger universe preceeded it. Quite an assumption to leave out. Then again, maybe they were just drinking when they composed the explanation... Read carefully, cosmologists often make little sense. Alan Mole Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14483