BIG BANG AND MATERIALISM
                          Rafael Pla-López
  B.A.in Physics & Ph.D.in Mathematics (Universitat de Valčncia, Spain)
          Coordinator of the Ideological Section of the PCPV
              member of the Federal Committee of the PCE
 
(on reply of The "Big Bang", creation and materialism, of Peter Symon)
 
     Traditional creationism implies a beginning and an end of the World.
But the theory of the Big Bang don't imply the existence of God. Moreover, 
to discuss the theory of the Big Bang in order to deny the existence of 
God is a dangerous game which seems to give scientific arguments to the 
defenders of God's existence.
    In fact, the existence of a beginning of the World is a scientific
question, which can be scientifically argued. If it implied the
existence of God, this existence could be scientifically proved: what
favour to the philosophical idealism! Furthermore, the theory of the Big
Bang is in the mainstream of the cosmological science... which could 
imply a sad situation for the philosophical materialism.
    Nevertheless, the existence of God is not a topic of the
cosmological science, and it is not an usual matter of discussion
between cosmologists. You must distingish between scientists and
ideologists who interpret these results. In fact, present cosmologists
are yet usually "spontaneous materialists", like the majority of
the scientists; and some of them, as outstanding as Stephen Hawkings,
are explicitely atheists.
     In order to understand and philosophically interpret the theory of
the Big Bang and the problem of the beginning of the World, one must study
Physics. One cannot understand the problem of the beginning of time
without understand the General Theory of Relativity about time.
     Relativistic Time isn't the linear time of Classical
Mechanics. On the contrary, Relativistic Time is contracted or
expanded according to the velocity and mass: in short, the
measure of time depends on the system of reference.
     In particular, in the environment of a Black Hole, its huge mass
strongly distorts the space-time, and thus a body which passed inside the 
so-named "event horizont" would live in a finite time while outside would 
pass an infinite time.
     One could imagine it like a spring infinitely compressed in an end:
its straight length would be finite, but its self length would be
infinite.
     In the opposite direction, you can use this image to understand the
time in the Big Bang, with its immense concentration of mass: the 
so-named age of the Universe is the time on the path of a particle which 
emerges from the Big Bang following its expansion. And this age is 
finite. Like outside a Black Hole, the corresponding time would be infinite 
for an external observer... but this external observer cannot exist in our 
Universe, according the theory of the Big Bang: the whole Universe comes 
from the Big Bang.
     In this framework, to introduce a God to give a "first impulse" to
the World in the Big Bang hasn't any meaning: a such God hasn't any
place in relativistic cosmology. The defenders of its existence must
place God out of the World... and out of the Scientific Theories. From
a philosophical point of view nothing is changed: theists cannot argue 
the theory of the Big Bang in their favour.
      Of course, I don't intend to discuss here the statements of the
Dr James Dunlop about the age of the stars or the galaxies. But I
want to underline that this discussion, and the general discussion about
the Big Bang, should be made in the field of scientific research,
without philosophical prejudices and without mixing this scientific debate
which the philosophical debate between materialism and idealism.
 
     Campus de Burjassot, 12 September 1996
     Department of Applied Mathematics
     Universitat de Valencia
     Spain
     Rafael.Pla@uv.es
     http://www.uv.es/~pla

Answer of Peter Symon



My colleague Miquel Portilla shows me a mistake in my previous explanation, " No es correcte el que dius sobre el temps desde el punt de vista d'una particula que emergeix del BB", which don't affect my conclussion: "Per supost estic d'acord en que Deu nostre senyor no te res a vore amb el que s'esta parlant."



"L'anomenada edat del Univers es el temps sobre la linia d'Univers d'una particula que emergeix del BB i es mou de determinada manera (Seguint l'expansio de Hubble per dir-ho d'alguna manera)"
Miquel Portilla