The Creation of the Universe

As noted before, thinking about the creation of the universe is problematic.

(1) Time is part of the universe and creation is a temporal concept, so before the universe existed there could be no creation.

(2) “Before” is temporal also, so there can be no “before the universe”.

(3) The two previous problems are actually the same problem, because existence itself is a temporal concept. It implies its negative, non-existence, in a time-ordered manner.

So is the universe for all practical purposes, eternal? “Eternal” is not a temporal concept. Something that is eternal has no time, and so doesn’t exist as we experience existence.

Maybe the universe added all up has 0 time, though within it, time exists. The only way that could be is if all the time that is passing for us is also passing in reverse somehow. Physics allows this, but we don’t see it. Thermodynamics quite definitely doesn’t allow it.

So are the second law of thermodynamics and our experience of time somehow local phenomena?

If they are, “local” means everything that we have even the possibility of perceiving. If there is another mirror half of the universe, we can only infer it from the following kind of reasoning.

Here are two parallel tracks. (There may be others.)

Track 1

  1. Our universe as a whole cannot have begun and so must be eternal, meaning the total flow of time must be 0.
  2. We experience a temporal universe, so we must not experience the whole universe.
  3. There must be a mirror existence the exact temporal negative of ours in order for the total time to be 0. There could be multiple such pairs.

Track 2

  1. We find no fundamental physical reason for time to flow in only one direction, therefore it flows in both directions.
  2. Thermodynamics limits the flow of time to one direction; therefore thermodynamics is more local than fundamental physics.
  3. There must be a mirror locality, not perceivable to us, in which thermodynamics limits the flow of time to the direction opposite to that in our locality.

Perhaps creation is continuous in both localities, in two opposite instantaneous omnipresent temporal directions, adding everywhere and always to 0.

The universe as a whole would then be both eternal and non-existent.

 

Hugh Moffatt
Waltham, Massachusetts
January 23, 2019