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Comment by westcort | Hacker News Reader

We may not know the answer to how the universe began, but a time loop at the beginning of the universe is my favorite explanation. Gott and Li proposed this model and you can see Gott explain it elegantly here: https://youtu.be/raTqAyLikLU

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The thing about time loop is that, how and when did it began? I just can't wrap my head around something being here, there and everywhere at all times.

with time loops. It began half way though me writing this sentence — that's the thing

That's the thing about time-loops; you don't need to have a start and a beginning. There's a good movie about that concept; Interstellar.

Interstellar is pretty much nonsense even given the premise. Even if you are talking about time travel you can easily make something more plasuible than that.

Also Interstellar had information passing from the future to the past which isn't really what's typically sufficent to consider it a time loop.

The time loop is allowed by the current understanding of physics. The math checks out.

Interstellar has one, but for that topic I'd suggest Predestination: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_(film)

I'd also suggest watching it before reading that plot synopsis.

It's something we learn very early in the philosophy of science, is that our vision of the world will always be inherently limited by the capabilities of our perception and the way we process it

You're right. In fact a time loop has the same something from nothing problem any other theory has.

Imagine a flatlander universe. Package up time in another dimension and you can represent their entire existence as a static 3d cube. Timeloops would just be a static torus in the cube.

The same is true of a 3 spatial dimension + 1 time dimension universe. You can view it as a static 4d tesseract. Timeloops are just a 4-taurus. Where did that 4 Taurus come from? It's the same something from nothing problem.

It's a metaphysical assumption, meaning beyond the realm of experimental science. Science has inherent limitations, and cannot be used to explain everything. This is a good starting point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If3cNUixEBM

How did I know before I clicked that link that it was going to be apologetics.

Faith is not a shortcut to knowledge. "Hey, we can't yet find the answer to big questions through rational means, so let's try irrational means!"

You can throw around words like "apolegetics", but that doesn't make it less correct.

Islam has proof and evidence (e.g. http://provingislam.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTsEZXx8kRg, https://www.reddit.com/r/islam/comments/hxn276/here_are_some..., and much more). Don't present a false dichotomy between science and faith where there isn't any for us in Islam.

Interesting how you just said science "cannot be used to explain everything" and yet now you're claiming "proof" and "evidence" (i.e. science) for your particular religion. Make up your mind.

There are only two alternatives for the origin of the universe: Either creation out of nothing, or no creation through eternal existence.

Both are hard to wrap your head around.

I for one am glad that Gott has finally joined youtube to explain to everyone the meaning of the universe and everything. Cool move bro!

Thanks for the link. I love how Gott started with simple everyday objects.

He is a great teacher and a really awesome person in general.

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