Creation of anything progresses from *before* it exists to after. How does that work for creating time itself?

Cosmologists suggest that the dimension of time is transformed via quantum fluctuations in the so-called "signature of spacetime", into a space-like coordinate so that instead of 3-space and 1-time dimension, space-time becomes a 4-dimensional space devoid of any time-like features. Fascinating topic though.

Time and space are pretty heady stuff but when you add gravity and mass, things get strange beyond comprehension. RScott

It depends on your view of time. If time flows like a river, with one moment connected to another, then you are right, there is a problem. However if time is effervescent or electric with each moment being an energy burst without any connection to any other moment, then there doesn't seem to be a problem. Of course, time is what it is rather than what we want it to be or think that it should be. Classic Newton would probably go with time flowing from one moment to the next. But Quantum Theory certainly supports the effervescent view. Kuma

ive been rolling around the internet a lot and most arguments i have heard before and often they are parroted back mindlessly i love fresh stuff i havent heard before <3 i guess you are correct or right or awesome to a certain degree.

Once again common sense has been lost to those who have been educated beyond their intelligence. Time is a measuring stick invented by man to help him explain that which he does not understand.

Very well said. The creationist will argue that God exists "outside of space-time", which in reality means God does not exist. Nothing that is unreal exists.

Its times like these that I wish we could all do away with words and think in pure abstracts. We cant really deal with outside of the universe anyway, as our systems of logic evolved to relate to the universe as it is now and are obsolete when dealing with it in another form. Urgh head hurts. I gotta read more books.

This is all highly speculative, but constant with what I know of physics: It has been suggested that in the near future we might be able to create a micro-universe smaller than an atom. It is unknown whether and to what extent we might be able to interact with such a micro universe. A super civilisation might conceivably be able to produce a larger universe - such as the one we inhabit. If the manufactured universe were structured in the way that Stephen Hawking and many others believe our universe is structured, that universe would have a direction of time and there would be a point in that universe that was the 'earliest time' in that universe, like the big bang in our universe. Within that universe the words 'before' and 'after' would describe directions within that universe. We would be completely outside the space-time of that universe, so it would not be accurate for any inhabitants of that universe to say that we came 'before' them. But from our point of view, we certainly could say that there was a time before that universe was made by us.

There was indeed a "time" before time. Time is an integral part of the space/time continuum. Before energy was introduced to the system that we call the universe there was no space, time, energy or matter as we understand it. There may well have been something, but we have no way of knowing. Time is an extension of and an inevitable consequence of there being something rather then nothing under the rules of physics. As an atheist, I'm more comfortable saying that space/time was introduced rather then created but even if there is some sort of cosmic divinity this still holds true. EDIT: Semantically, you are correct. Progression was not an intended implication in my answer. There could well have been a 'something' before our universe, it just wasn't our 'something'. I think of the beginning of our universe as that moment, typically referred to as the big bang, when energy was introduced into the system along with the physical rules that energy follows. One of the rules that is part and parcel of our current understanding of physics is cause and effect, a.k.a. time. There could well have been a 'something' before our current universe that followed a wildly different set of physical rules. We just don't and probably never will know. I refuse to make an appeal to some "Prime Mover" or Deus Ex Machina argument because there is no evidence but I do think that there was something before our something. This assumption is not based on any sort of verifiable fact.