The Big Bang as grammatical faux pas

I wrote this for alt.philosophy, but it is a chance to see how logic, formal or ordinary language, might help us out in questions about the world. No excuses offered.
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Like so many other secrets in the world, the nature of the "Big Bang" can be determined entirely by a common-sense examination of grammar.

But first lets remind ourselves of something we should all know by now: the Big Bang can't be an explosion. There was nowhere for debris to explode into.

But more importantly the term "Big Bang" looks like an oxymoron, a self-contradictory figure of speech. A single event, like the square circle, isn't a meaningful term. Single events are always presented in a possible plurality of events. A truly "solitary object" or singular event is neither presentable nor countable. Plurality manifests, singularity never manifests. The claim of science that it can find the nature of that monumental single event would seem to be more a testimony to a monumental belief in the powers of technical wizardry.

So what exactly are we all looking for in a "Big Bang"? What are we expecting to be discovered? I can't think of anything that could bring us an answer. Perhaps finding out about the Big Bang is about finding a temporal origin?

No. There was, is, no past-time events. There was no first-time events, or a this-or-that time event. "A long time ago", the "first" event, "next", "before", "after", etc. - all refer to events, not to temporal positions dotted on an unobserved time-line. The time-line and the arrow of time are convenient grammatical incomprehensibles, not even rising to the status of a fiction.

So it is not that I do or don't know "what happened in the Big Bang". I just don't know what it is the Big Bang is supposed to be a metaphor for. The metaphors at hand - "origin", "singularity", etc., simply fall apart. The Big Bang begins to look like an empty invocation, a feel-good prop wheeled out by science for Joe Public who, we all know, occasionally needs to be brought to heel and reminded of the investigative powers of science.
(c)
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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Re: Olympic Dumb Statement Competition Ended by Clear Winner
    ... Science is self correcting on that issue. ... Do you accept the big bang theory? ... is not proven and it defies known laws of physics. ... If singularity is true, then known ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Challenge to evolutionists
    ... Therefore the big bang is not scientific because it is not observable or testable. ... are requirements of science according to the definition of science ... Creationists are fond of pointing to scientists whose ideas were not immediately accepted, but turned out to be right, but that's not the point. ... conclude that the universe began in the Big Bang. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Challenge to evolutionists
    ... not science, no math and no meaningful communication. ... Yup it is an anology to your beloved Big Bang. ... Creationists are fond of pointing to scientists whose ideas were not ... conclude that the universe began in the Big Bang. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Challenge to evolutionists
    ... not science, no math and no meaningful communication. ... universe is a miracle that was poofed into existence. ... Yup it is an anology to your beloved Big Bang. ... Creationists are fond of pointing to scientists whose ideas were not ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Challenge to evolutionists
    ... Why not go away and learn what science can and can't do. ... There are numerous observations and measurements which support big bang ... Perhaps the scientists involved understand the nature of science rather ...
    (talk.origins)
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