Philosophy Now Forum

In reading about the Big Bang, I've heard that the initial singularity that existed prior to the event was an object with zero volume.

Zero Volume!

I'm having the hardest time wrapping my brain around an object that actually exists in the physical universe, yet has zero volume!

Can someone please help me understand this?

Apologies, can't help you with the physics.

However, we could perhaps have some fun with this "everything from nothing" idea in the religion section.

Most careful physicists are quick to say that they know nothing of the original state of the singularity before the big bang, as the laws of physics which we use to understand the universe simply break down at this point.

So, what is happening here is likely just an anomaly that crops up when trying to apply a scientific model onto phenomenon that doesn't fit within the parameters of the model. It's not that the singularity has no volume, it's that the concept of volume is meaningless when talking about the singularity.

Hm, never thought of it like that.

With respect to math and physics, my conscioussness has zero volume. Or, possibly, with respect to physical objects, the knowledge of my consciousness has infinite volume. I wrap my head around how we could know what existed before existance. Sounds like a metaphysical idea of physics.

I think we should start calling our scientists and phisicists 'clerics' or priests'. It might help us clarify some conceptual problems.

lancek4 wrote:I think we should start calling our scientists and phisicists 'clerics' or priests'. It might help us clarify some conceptual problems.

How so?
Scientists don't claim to understand what happened at t=0.