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Comment by codeshaman | Hacker News Reader

> As far as we know

What we 'know' is given to us by the mathematical models which we invented to describe the observed reality.

Currently, we have different models to describe reality based on the scale of observation.... Which is interesting because as you zoom into the microcosmos there's a point were the laws of physics magically 'switch' from relativity to quantum mechanics.

As a programmer who is not a physicist, I can smell a hack right there. Which brings me to the inevitable conclusion that maybe our model of reality is not entirely correct.

So if I were to bet on weather time existed before our model's mathematical moment zero or that our mathematical model is imprecise, I would definitely choose the infinity of time.

Our mathematical model is for us or future generations to adjust to whatever we discover in the future.

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> Currently, we have different models to describe reality based on the scale of observation.... Which is interesting because as you zoom into the microcosmos there's a point were the laws of physics magically 'switch' from relativity to quantum mechanics.

There is no hack and there is no switch. QM and relativity are just abstractions at different scales over the same underlying principles. We do have a problem of stiching them together, but that's just us not having figured out the relevant math yet. But you're not free to notice a problem in one part of the model and then discard the parts that match the reality pretty well. Any updated, better, unified model invented will not differ in its predictions from QM at scales and precision levels where QM is applicable, because our present models are based on empirical observation. Transition from Newtonian to relativistic models didn't make apples fall up.

"Time" is also something we define and is valid only within that definition. For now, "time" starts with the universe, so the question of what was before is meaningless and will be, until we find a plausible way to extend the concept beyond the beginning of the universe.

The map and territory analogy is a really good thing. The territory doesn't change in any way when you make a better map.

Try as they might, physicists haven't found any way to adjust it that allows for an infinite time while also being consistent with so many observed phenomena. Of course we could make up an ad hoc model that says "It just is" but the big bang model is more consistent with observation than anything else we have.

We don't have freedom to just change it. We first have to find a possible valid way to change it and nobody has. Also nobody's found a way to fuel a car with water, fly on magic carpets or travel back in time to meet our grandparents. It might turn out to be impossible. Would you bet on those things happening one day? As another commenter said, your intuition is no match for nature - it's based on human's very narrow experience of the world, our inability to see how limited the concepts we can imagine are and our arbitrary biases for the ideas we like at the expense of ones we don't understand.

> As a programmer who is not a physicist

Let me stop you right there...

>What we 'know' is given to us by the mathematical models which we invented to describe the observed reality

So, do you have to propose anything better?

Mere intuition "but time seems infinite" is not that.

> So, do you have to propose anything better?

If I did, would anyone listen to it here ?

The point being that, throughout history humans always had a dominant theory about the origin of Universe and it was considered the truth at the time.

The bing bang theory is one such theory which is currently accepted as 'truth' by the scientific majority, but it is not the last and not the only theory explaining the origins of the Universe.

The man himself said it:

"We may now be near the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature." - Stephen Hawking

> If I did, would anyone listen to it here ?

Maybe not here, but people would read a good paper on Arxiv.

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