The Big Bang Theory Does Not Require A Singularity At T=0

An excellent reply, I will begin addressing your claims in the following order: (1) The ontology of nature with respect to natural things within it. (2) The claim that an infinite universe is a tautology. (3) The claim that an infinite universe violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. (4) The claim that an infinite universe relies on imaginary time (5) The claim that an infinite universe violates the "Law of Conservation of Matter" (6) The claim that an infinite universe violates the First Law of Thermodynamics (1) The ontology of nature with respect to natural things: Paradigm asks: "what IS nature if it is not natural things themselves?" I would respond with, again, that nature is the set of all things within it, and by this I mean mountains, trees, humans, planets, etc. However, what I do not mean by nature are things that are not really within it, but that ‘define it'. For instance, natural laws, space and time, and energy necessarily exist in order to give us the universe we live in. Everything else in existence requires these four basics. Thus, when I say we cannot apply causality to nature itself, I am in essence referring to these four things: there can be no origin of space, time, energy, or natural law. (*note energy may change forms but never does it violate the First Law, so in essence, energy's constancy can be placed as a subset under natural law.) As a final note, the dictionary does back up this definition when it recognizes the set-subset nature of the universe, see definition 3. (2) The claim that an infinite universe is a tautology. Paradigm's other philosophical quarrel with an infinite universe is that he feels it is entirely bereft of explanation as to why it should be timeless. I fail to see how the Big Bang model does anything better. Why, for instance, would a universe have, at some arbitrary point, come into being bereft of all natural law? And where and when would it, or could it, have come from, seeing as space and time did not exist prior to it? In fact, there are many theories regarding infinite universes that only do the same thing those with the singularity model do: take known physical laws, run them in reverse, and see what happens. Doing this, we get models that predict a cyclic universe, or one that succumbs to chaotic inflation, but regardless of the mechanism, they certainly do tell us why the universe does not contain a singularity. As to asking why it is infinite (as if the mechanism wasn't good enough), it is just as poor of a question as why the Big Bang began when it did. It is left to the philosophers, something experimentalists or theoretical physicists cannot hope to answer. They have no laws to work with ‘prior' to the Big Bang model and so can formulate nothing. And there was no beginning in a timeless universe, so likewise they can enforce no initial conditions upon it. If a timeless universe is a tautology, so is the Big Bang model with a singularity. (3) The claim that an infinite universe violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Leaving philosophy and entering the empirical realm the first claim is (and this one is common) that an infinite universe violates the Second Law. The solution provided by a cyclic universe is a very subtle one (I had to do quite a bit of delving into arxiv.org to pick up on it, and I will be the first to admit I do not fully understand it.) However, in it's known formulation, it is stated that the Second Law reads "entropy can only increase in a closed system, reaching some maximum value." The assumption made in most arguments against a cyclic universe is that our universe is a closed system. This is circumnavigated by the use of branes (which I will admit I am not very fond of) and dark energy, which does have observational backing. I am going to describe the Baum-Frampton model of a cyclic universe as it contains inflation (as opposed to the Steinhardt-Turok model) which has been experimentally verified. But first, dark energy and branes must be explained in brief. Dark energy is a repulsive energy dominating our universe on large scales (composing some 70% of it.) It is most easily described as the energy that comes with having space. The notion of non-zero vacuum energy is not new. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that over any finite time, there is an energy uncertainty, and the relationship between these two denies the possibility of zero energy. Thus, the universe has some finite energy. Unfortunately for my argument, this energy is attractive (but only when considering objects very close to one another, see the Casimir Effect). However, the argument is similarly utilized for dark energy. While it does not have the theoretical understanding of vacuum fluctuations, it is supposed that dark energy comes with a certain volume of space. Branes are the result of M-Theory calculations. Brane Theory predicts that there are hyperdimensional objects called n-branes (n=1,2,3…) which drift around in an infinitely large Bulk. Granted I do not like utilizing all these fanciful notions of branes, bulks, etc., as I feel they add a bit too much that is, at present or the near future, unverifiable. However, for sake of argument, let us assume these objects exist. Moving on then, to the Baum-Frampton model, we suppose the universe we live in today is comprised of it's experimentally verified components (including 70% dark energy.) Given enough time, the universe will have expanded enough so that all fundamental forces (including gravity) act negligibly. Dark energy takes over, and we head towards a scenario called "the Big Rip", in which all matter is ripped apart by this expansion energy, as it continues to accelerate. The Baum-Frampton model introduces branes which, VERY close to when the Big Rip would occur, introduce an extra parameter in the differential equations which ultimately cause the universe to rapidly contract. The result negatively affects the scale factor of the universe, causing it to shrink. It is simply a result that comes out of the mathematics, and where my understanding suffers (see http://arxiv.org... for the paper). However, the universe contracts into many smaller universes which are no longer casually connected to one another, as the contraction of space exceeds that of the speed of light (which is not a violation of relativity, which only pertains to objects within space, not space itself). The only things left in these universes is dark energy and some radiation, which is important because, if it is perfectly homogenous, has zero entropy. Thus, while entropy in the entire Bulk grows, it divides itself by a substantial amount and thus decreases back to a value. This value is constant, and because of this, the number of universes in the Baum-Frampton model is infinite. So, the second law is circumnavigated by a fractioning universe containing dark energy, which has no entropy, and radiation. When the universe contracts, it does so adiabatically, which results in no heat change, and thus by definition no entropy change, so the radiation adds no entropy and indeed remains constant. (4) The claim that an infinite universe relies on imaginary time As I made no use of imaginary time in the above explanation of a cyclic universe, I think this point has already been addressed. I will address the last two criteria, which are one in the same, in the next argument, as my message is now too long!