before existence... what did it look like?

[droog]

ok. so the other night a few friends and i were smoking some very good hydro, resulting in a very intense, yet enlightening discussion. after smoking, we were chilling and somehow we got on the topic of existence. so i proposed an unanswerable, yet legitimate question:

what did life, as we know it, look like, before anything existed? before bacteria, ants, humans, cities, countries, planets, solar systems, the universe...

my answer was that it looked clear... but then my friend said, what color is clear? what would the background be? white, black, gray... but the thing is that those colors simply wouldn't exist if there was nothing, so my best guess is that it would be the color of air, but then that's not a color. so really, it would have to "look like" millions of miles of air with no background (a clear background). but the funny thing is our minds cannot imagine this spectacle. we are unable to imagine it because we always see some sort of a background (or at least a color) when we look at things, which does not allow us to imagine nothingness. perhaps, to simplify the question: what does nothing look like?

after lots of thinking, we realized that we had just blown our minds, so we decided to go to the strip club, which doesn't require much thinking at all.

[hippifried]

Well I'm thinking that it would've all be pitch black since there'd be a total absense of light. But you could have watched the whole thing happen in the wall texture if y'all'd been droppin' acid instead of smokin' pot. Aaahh, the good old days...

[BlackMath]

The answer is it would be nothing.

Because there is no universe, there is literally nothing.

So there is nothing to BE coloured.

[NYBURBS]

I would say it was dark, but then again darkness is something and yet there was supposedly nothing. On an interesting side note I listened to this show with some physicists from a university and they were saying that they think the Universe expands at a rate faster than light travels (just something else to ponder next time you get high).

[MacShreach]

I would say it was dark, but then again darkness is something and yet there was supposedly nothing.

Black holes are dark because there gravity is such that light itself is unable to escape. There must have been a point before the Big Bang when all matter and energy that exists was collected together, and the gravity of this mind-boggling mass would be such that the same would surely be true, so yes...total darkness and silence.

Nothing.

[rcatf]

ok. so the other night a few friends and i were smoking some very good hydro, resulting in a very intense, yet enlightening discussion. after smoking, we were chilling and somehow we got on the topic of existence. so i proposed an unanswerable, yet legitimate question:

what did life, as we know it, look like, before anything existed? before bacteria, ants, humans, cities, countries, planets, solar systems, the universe...

my answer was that it looked clear... but then my friend said, what color is clear? what would the background be? white, black, gray... but the thing is that those colors simply wouldn't exist if there was nothing, so my best guess is that it would be the color of air, but then that's not a color. so really, it would have to "look like" millions of miles of air with no background (a clear background). but the funny thing is our minds cannot imagine this spectacle. we are unable to imagine it because we always see some sort of a background (or at least a color) when we look at things, which does not allow us to imagine nothingness. perhaps, to simplify the question: what does nothing look like?

after lots of thinking, we realized that we had just blown our minds, so we decided to go to the strip club, which doesn't require much thinking at all.

First, sounds like you had some good stuff going before your "question". As to the question itself, those that said blackness/nothing are right, IMO...there is no light, no "eyes" to see it, no reference point (or anything for comparison against) in any sense that could be understood or compaired to. Basically you're question could lead to what was the evolution of God or, at least, God's senses. I suspect had you decided to visit a Budist monestary instead of a strip club you could have had some very lively conversations (not as many breasts jiggling or loose dollar bills tho...probably).

[ScottyBabe]

firstly, reading your post makes want to get shhtoned!

secondly, as to what the instant before the Big Bang was like has many answers. for me, it's wasn't nothing. i'm of the opinion that the universe expands rapidly then cools, contracts and ends in a concentration of mass and gravity so infinite it is incomprehensible to our minds and therefore leaves us unable to answer the question "what did it look like before the big bang?"

also, the duration of this mass and gravity would be so infinitesimal that the instant it happens also can't be comprehended. but i don't believe that there was nothing, it may have seemed like it or been close to it, but not "nothing"

but hey, we'll never know, so let's just get stoned off our biscuits and enjoy the now!

[MacShreach]

firstly, reading your post makes want to get shhtoned!

!

LOL Yup it's a real toker's question. There was clearly not "nothing," but he asked what it would have looked like, and whether you subscribe to the "One Big Bang" or "Pulsating Universe" theories-- and I'm with you on this-- there must have been a point, however short, when all matter and energy was locked together; and at that point, since all the light energy was contained and we need light to see, we would have seen....nothing. Total silence and darkness....And then the greatest firework show ever.

Of course the "Pulsating Universe" theory just puts the question back in time.....what prompted the first pulse? Is this the first pulse? Are there other universes pulsating away? Are the Laws of Physics constant across them? Why do flies circle round light-bulbs...?

It's your turn to skin up.

[nitron]

Hi there, good question , I've thought about this problem a great deal of time and have come to the conclusion that our Universe must be in beaded in a much greater Multiverse/ Megaverse/ Infinity. I say this because logic suggests that "something" arising from "nothing" is impossible. The very nature of nothingness precludes "things". So before the big bang, there would have been "things", but light is a byproduct of our universes laws. Therefore if in this Multiverse the laws are different to ours ,the existance of light is a non started. So darkness should be the outcome. But hey I could be wrong. We will get an answer some day in the future to this question, as long as humanity doesn't screw up. Take care.

[jaycanuck]

I've had many a talk like this..the thing is it always ended up at an end point (though when you're high that doesn't matter ). That end point or circle was "where did "x" come from?"...be it God, nothing, big bang, before the big bang...then if someone comes up with an answer..same question.

We also enter into the quantum world and believe we're all God.

....I need bud for a talk like this so early in the morning.