What happened before the Big Bang?

The title of a TV program which explored what I personally feel are just different versions of nonsense. The problem lies in the word “before”. Before implies the presence of time, a concept we cannot fully comprehend because we are within its machination. We are objects of matter, living in space and time which are the essential parts of the universe.

To ask what was before, is nonsense since there is no “before”. Time is a thing within the scope of the universe’s existence. Not something outside of its existence.

Even so, the program explored competing theories of this “beforeness” while acknowledging in the program that whenever one confronts *infinity or a concept requiring infinity then one has failed.

Yet it hits infinity in every one of the competing theories but the proponents seem blinded to it because, well I don’t know why. Surely these men aren’t fools, but they have become so enamoured of their own ideas that they fail to see the appeal to infinity their theories contain.

Linde thinks of the universe as “eternal inflation”. Note that the word “eternal” is simply a disguised infinity. So he has failed right there without further discussion of his strange analogy of an inflation bubble within a “Swiss cheese” - again not stated in so many words, but necessarily infinite cheese.

Singh puts forward an alternate to the Big Bang by implying that there is a Big Bounce where a mathematical reversal coefficient can mean that the Big Bang was actually a bounce from a Big Crunch. Again there are some infinities hidden here. Firstly our universe does not seem to be headed for a crunch given an accelerating expansion we observe. Leaving that aside though and coming back to this bounce concept, it is presumably an infinite bounce that has always existed somehow. There is no mention of a first bounce so this is another appeal to infinity to erase the concept of a first cause.

Then we see Turok gently mocking the other theories and putting forward his concept of “branes” which he explains must always exist as a pair and are three dimensional structures existing in a fourth dimension and Big Bangs occurring at points of collision of the branes. Fine, except that the branes seemingly exist from nothing and again must be infinite since it would make no sense if they were finite.

The real battle here is the battle against the finiteness of this universe which implies a cause, a First Cause. It’s a battle against a Creator. And every one of the theories fails to eliminate it and is simply an appeal to infinity.

Now it was interesting that Penrose, whose several books I have read had always struck me as a believer in a First Cause but his views have strayed towards the appeal to infinity. Ignorant observers of this program might be swayed also but the whole gamut of theories designed to deny the Big Bang and look for a “before” are simply looking for a way to explain away God.