What is that "something" that is happening all at once? In my naive understanding of cosmological theories is they seem to end in probabilities (e.g., eternal inflation) that emerge from a kind of (oxymoronic) "chaotic static", but what does that mean for this to "happen all at once"? That statement seems to imply there's no degree of freedom through which something can occur (at least casually).
I suppose the question comes to, what is time? I imagine "time" to be a degree of freedom through which something can change. I understand some see time to be related to entropy, and that it's an emergent property of this thermodynamic property but this seems too limiting. It would seem entropy is more-so an explanation for the arrow of time, but not time itself.
If time is defined as the dimension through which something can change then should time not be fundamental to any cosmological theories that extends beyond the Big Bang?
> What is that "something" that is happening all at once?
Not "something". Everything. Like "What is possible to happen? Everything is possible". If you can't divide that possibility by time period, everything possible will happen with probability of 1. How improbable is that universe will happen during 1 trillion years? Very improbable. But if you can't tell in how many years universe will happen, it just will exist.
> but what does that mean for this to "happen all at once"
If you don't have time to make difference between two things happening one after another, they will happen both at the same exact "time".
> If time is defined as the dimension through which something can change then should time not be fundamental to any cosmological theories that extends beyond the Big Bang?
The problem is, time depends on local state of space. More energy/matter in a chunk of space means time is slower relative to other chunks of space. So when you try to go into past with mass in chunk of space increasing into infinity, that time notion breaks.
A series of causal events requires network reccurance for time to be calculable. If it's not calculable it can't be said to exist in any mathematical sense. So, a series of non-reccurent causal events at the fundamental level processes causally without the existence of time.
The same is true of "space" for the same reason. A causal network without reccurence (a tree) has no way to compare objects since there are no horizontal relations and it cannot "look" at backwards relations.
A non-reccurent causal tree has multiple instances of "here" and "now." But without anything to compare a given here/now to the concepts are internally meaningless.
I suppose the question comes to, what is time? I imagine "time" to be a degree of freedom through which something can change. I understand some see time to be related to entropy, and that it's an emergent property of this thermodynamic property but this seems too limiting. It would seem entropy is more-so an explanation for the arrow of time, but not time itself.
If time is defined as the dimension through which something can change then should time not be fundamental to any cosmological theories that extends beyond the Big Bang?