I thought I would share this video with you guys. I realize it is probably not in the right section but I am limited to posting in the nursery.

It proposes an interesting theory of how the universe may have come from nothing (total energy=0, all matter, including us, is equated to energy using Einsteins energy mass equivalence, and this is balanced with the negative energy of gravity) At least that is my interpretation given my limited self-taught understanding of physics.

The video also does a good job of discrediting a lot of the "fine tuned universe" theological arguments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

Lawrence Krauss gave a very nice talk! Of course, he talks alot about the "what" and has little to nothing to say about the "why".

Here are some quotes and notes I took during the talk. My comments/questions in blue:



…particles popping into and out of existence… – why?

Gravity has negative energy, exactly balanced by positive energy, yielding a net energy of zero (only if universe is flat)

…only such a universe can begin from nothing…

…the laws of physics allow a universe to begin from nothing – you don’t need a deity…

…nothing and quantum fluctuations can produce a universe…

…the universe is flat, it has zero total energy, and it could have begun from nothing…

…why is there something rather than nothing? The answer is there had to be. If you have nothing in quantum mechanics, you’ll always get something. – so where did the quantum mechanical laws come from?

Thanks for taking the time to reply gilbran.

Those are interesting questions your raise. I will not pretend to have the knowledge to answer them, but I do appreciate the feedback and perhaps someone with a greater foundation in physics can help us laymen out with some of the points raised.

Cheers

Guage invariance.

All the known laws of physics can be deduced from such principles. I won't be able to explain it properly but some books do:

http://www.colorado.edu/...hy/vstenger/nothing.html

Thanks for the vid, I enjoyed it.

This misses the point. You answer the question “where do the laws of physics come from?” with the term “gauge invariance”. So now I can ask “what is the origin of gauge invariance?” In some sense, the laws of physics must exist, or gauge invariance must exist, prior to the creation of something out of nothing.

Lawrence Krauss seems quite satisfied with the idea that something – our physical universe – can come out of nothing. All you need is quantum fluctuations! But quantum fluctuations and other quantum mechanical phenomena are properties of the universe, aren’t they? If they are not, then we have “something” prior to the creation of the universe. If they are, then they aren’t able to act until the universe is created and we have a “chicken and the egg” type problem. (You can’t have a universe until you have quantum fluctuations, and you can’t have quantum fluctuations until you have a universe.)

I liked his talk very much, but there were a few condescending comments he made about philosophers. Yet philosophers will show that his arguments are fundamentally illogical. Even a quote of his from the talk – “nothing and quantum fluctuations can produce a universe” – suggests that he thinks of quantum fluctuations as “something” necessary prior to the creation of a universe.

I'm with gibran. Very well said.

Gibran you have to read about it to understand what I mean when I say that. I can't explain it well enough I'm not a physicist.

Basically all the laws of physics depend on 3 things. This is part of Noethers theorem published in 1918. I am just going to quote from wikilink because I can't explain this stuff its a bit complicated:

http://en.wikipedia.org/...r%27s_theorem#Examples_2



The point is that any model physicists would use to describe something that doesn't depend on the observers point of view in space time by default contains these conservation principles which all of the most important laws of physics are derived from. This shows that the laws of physics don't really "come from" anywhere. They are natural.

“Nothing” has no mathematics. “Nothing” has no laws. “Nothing” has no symmetry. “Nothing” has no conservation principles.

Lawrence Krauss contradicts himself: He says “the laws of physics allow a universe to begin from nothing”. “Nothing” has no laws of physics. The laws of physics are “something”. So he’s really saying that “something” allows a universe to begin from “nothing”. That’s a logical contradiction.

Later he says “nothing and quantum fluctuations can produce a universe”. Nothing by itself is “nothing”. But quantum fluctuations are “something”. So here he’s really saying that “nothing plus something can produce a universe”, which contradicts his prior statements that a universe can begin from nothing.

This isn’t a mathematical or physics-based argument, but rather a philosophical one. The laws of physics are “something”. Quantum fluctuations are “something”. We can’t say that we need “something” to create a universe out of “nothing”. It is a logical contradiction.


edit:

There’s an interesting documentary from BBC Horizon called ”What Is Reality?”. It was also discussed in this thread.

The part most relevant to this thread is Part 6, which suggests that our universe is actually a “mathematical structure”. Very interesting.

Even "nothing" is something.
I think science still has a ways to go with this "universe from nothing" concept.

Agreed.

Something and nothing are symbiotic polarities of one another. Likewise, it is so with emptiness and fullness. A conceptual constructs, as well as universal principles, they cannot create each other, as one is interdependent on the other. Such is the nature of duality. Or should I say that duality is the pair of synchronized lenses we humanoids view the totality of natural law? Between the dual hemispheres of our brains, we interpret reality from a symbiotic synthesis of brainwave activities. How then is it that when we speak of the initial causative forces of manifestation, while in total speculation, present the idea that a mysterious unknown precipitated somethingness out of nothingness?

We project our very own preceptory mechanism upon such an unfathomable energy or anti-energy, and in so doing, weave sophisticated theories and draft mathematical equations aimed to capture this dichotomy. Essentially, we are drawn to make sense of what is not in the realm of sensibility. So where are we to stand, if not ground is truly solid beneath our feet? :idea:

The greatest irony of the human thought process is that it gauges the indefinable with logically ordered, definable terminology. Where we to attempt to present a hypothesis of Indivisibility, for example, we would arrive at the conclusion that anything we can think about indivisibility is derived from our awareness of divisibility. So how can this fellow make such statements rank with oxymorons and contradictions? It's a game of circular logic and cannot yield a clearly conclusive result.

Yes, philosophy can unravel a good bit of the paradox, yet it behooves any speculative conceptions by which we might proclaim any theological absolutes or ultimate truths. For within every new discovery, is the possibility of a far greater mystery in it's wake. And on and on it goes, spiralling into the heart of infinity. Which itself is a polarity of the finite construct of our subjective reality, birthed of the organic and the instinctual characteristic of an unseen law. What insubstantial intent issues forth this symmetry? This is manifested in a state of pristine order, yet, remains forever beyond our grasp to define. Which reminds me of a few insightful quotes, which IMHO, are pertinent to this thread:







Peace, love & light

i came from an egg once

perhaps it would make more sense to talk of the vacuum than of nothingness. Perhaps there are governing principles of the vacuum that allow the emergence of matter and universes with different sets of intrinsic laws, while the principles of the vacuum remain the same? The vacuum then would be the ground upon which all all was constructed.

Something coming from absolutely nothing is hard to imagine, but maybe the things we believe are something don't experience time in the same way we do. The omni- or multi-verse is perhaps infinite and existence a pan-dimensional eternity? Asking a question such as *where did it come from* doesn't work in this sense. Existence could not have *come* from anywhere or -thing unless that also existed, at least it would be beyond our conceptualization skills to imagine this. So either the question is like one of Goedel's holes which cannot be filled without simply shifting the hole (the universe came from the vacuum - well but where did the vacuum come from?) or is meaningless, maybe because the idea of a beginning is an experience of 4 dimensional beings, but not of the omniverse itself and thus is contained in these 4 dimensions but does not apply to the rest. (?)

Just an idea... I have no physical grounds for this, it's more philosophy

Gibran I don't think you actually understand what these scientists are talking about when they mean nothing. Look up what it means when a physicist sais nothing. It might not be what you are thinking.

This is exactly why people like this are mocking philosophers and you are falling into all the same traps. Your philosophical arguments are not taking into account modern discoveries in physics. Its why Stephen Hawking in his latest book said "philosophy is dead". Hes right it is dead because philosophers haven't been keeping up with the data.

If physicists define nothing to include quantum fluctuations or other phenomena, then "nothing" becomes "something". They can still call it “nothing”, but a "nothing with properties" is a "something" in my book.

Stephen Hawking is senile.

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edit:

A few more thoughts - The potential to become something is itself “something”. “Nothing” has no potential to become something, it has no creative potential. If it did, then it would itself be something.

I was always under the impression that philosophy exists on an ideological plane, therefore, exists in spontaneity, unaffected by progressions in conceptual data (being within a timeless modality). This might be considered to be the mirrored image or anthropomorphic parallel of the vacuum Enoon refers to? An intentionally objective posture, whereby thought devours itself even as it forms, like the mythical Ouroboros, eternally consuming itself, in pace with it's emergence. The recycling of the inquisitive mind, remaining impartial, within the progression of polarities in understanding.

So this would facilitate further degrees of questioning, as to said progression of data and new sets of parameters to equate ideas about the essence of reality. Ideally, philosophy exists as a symbiosis of science and spirit, centered in an objectivity which defies finite description or the relevance to condition. An open-ended inquisitiveness, which aims towards a stance of empty neutrality ( as with the idea of Zen Buddhism's no mind).

I don't really see how it is possible to lump "philosophy" into a time frame of relative applicability to contemporary discoveries in modern physics? Sure, any philosopher can benefit from the newest insights into quantum mechanics and breakthroughs in our understanding of these interior mechanics, however, I feel Steven Hawking's sweeping oversimplification is flawed in it's reasoning. If philosophy is outdated or behind the times, it's not truly representative of the central focus of thought, which is the true nature of philosophical context. I've often thought I've seen this quality in the eyes of a child in sheer wonderment of it's own existence and it's interrelationship to the universe in which it lives. In it's spontaneous neutrality, it questions everything.

For within the philosophical context, somethingness and nothingness are constants, forming a cohesive dynamic. Shouldn't modern physics modify it's use of words like NOTHING ans it's common associations? If the meanings have been significantly modified through new breakthroughs in our comprehension of this force, then should not the terminology reflect this modification? If the implication goes outside the classical sense of the juxtaposition, the duality of somethingness & nothingness, new labels of description would be in order? Insubstantial void and substantial manifestation, are ideological constants, so what term might we use for this new view into the Void and what qualification in it's description?

Furthermore, I submit that Dr. Hawking's projected bias of the concept of philosophical subjectivity is outdated, for it propagates a division in these two mind sets. Wouldn't it be wise to work on conjoining the disciplines, rather than setting up polarities or alternate camps of belief? That being said, any challenge to our collective understanding of reality is healthy for the whole of us.

The quintessential issue in this scenario, is that how we perceive the phenomena or perhaps anti-phenomena of nothingness, which by the very nature of said nothingness, lies outside our scope of comprehension. As I said earlier, new discoveries open windows into territories once unknown, this in no way excludes the additional cluster of unknowns discovered in conjunction with any breakthrough findings.

I would speculate that the mysterious force which hypothetically initiates the manifestation of existence, will forever regenerate a self-sustaining insubstantiality, thus remaining largely unknown to an unfathomable degree, eternally. In this light, I submit that we will never catch this philosophical tiger by the tail, nor will Ouroboros cease to perpetuate the cyclical loop of devouring it's own tail. From my windowsill, any mysterious causative force, behind the play of the ideological constants of duality, would be nothing short of an indication as to the very existence of the Divine... or what we collectively have referred to as God. :idea:

If a few thousand years of philosophers haven't yet come up with the words to resolve this issue, then I will toss my hat in the ring with the mystics.

For somebody to say there is "nothing" certainly sounds like a contradiction since awareness or consciousness needs to be used to compare it to a "something" state, and decide between the two. That's alot going on just to come up with "nothing"!

So I am drawn to the idea that pure consciousness is that which is behind the something/nothing duality. In my experience, meditating - with or without an entheogenic boost - with an "empty mind", or to say it better, without a "mind" at all, gives glimpses of this state. And eventually, more than glimpses.

It always amuses me how scientists stirve so hard using the most incredible (?or un-credible) mental gymnastics to seek to prove an absence of a Divine creating force.Ultimately I feel that reliance on science to explain these matters is as much dependant on 'faith' as is a belief in a Divine originator.

i don't agree with alot of mainstream science, meaning the main views shared, but even though people can give countless explanations that still don't make sence to me, i have found that some very respected scientists actually do speculate in the same way i do about some things. Basically what i'm saying is just because the answer is popular dosen't mean it is correct. Many points that would prove it false can simply be ignored, funny how that goes on in science.

I have even had respected scientists agree with me on the point that a scientific theory is not a fact but a theory and can be wrong, while many people will claim to the death that the theory is as good as a fact and one of the same. As i have said before, the observation is the only fact of the matter, the theory is the "attempt" to explain whats going on behind what you observe.

The deffinition of nothing is empty, if there is something, it can't be nothing. Particles poping in and out of existence can't come from nowhere and surely can't borrow energy from the time line, there is just simply other things we can't observe yet.

I read some interesting things on singularities earlier, a singularity can be viewed alot different than most will, it dosen't mean its 0.00 in size, its simply the tightest matter can be squeezed. I remember talking about black holes and others trying to convince me that a black hole cannot grow in size, while i have read the exacft oppisite from many sources, as it gains mass, the logical thing(and observed) to say is it gains in size.

And the point that sub-atomic particles have gravity was also brought up, even massless particles, if not, a black hole couldn't effect a photon, there is a thing called attraction, you cannot magnetically attract a non magnetic material, as gravity cannot effect something that dosen't also possess gravity.

The birth of existence is impossible to understand, but it is linked with time i think, i also don't believe that time is only for this bubble of space, if you have a bubble of space which sparks time & space, what the hell is the bubble in, by deffinition of space(not scientific term) space is what space is in.

Here’s another point that is purely scientific – believe it or not, but scientists aren’t at all in agreement concerning the origins of the universe. There are some scientists who posit the existence of a higher-dimensional space containing “membranes” (Brane cosmology), and when one membrane comes into contact with another, a new universe is created. This implies that there may be many, perhaps infinitely many, universes.

It is believed by some scientists that this “Brane space” has always existed. This theory preserves the atheistic creation story, but avoids having to make the ridiculous claim that something can come out of nothing.