Something From Nothing

[bilby]

Thermodynamics and conservation applies to a bounded system with mass entering, inside, and leaving must be in balance.

In an ifinnite universe with no beginning or end conservation as defined in thermodynamics does not apply. The system boundary is infinite.

Religion, philosophy, or religion it all comes down to the same question, can something come from nothing. If the naswer is no then the unverse must have always been, If the answer is yes then you can invent anything. Particles from nothing or a god creating a universe.

The answer IS 'Yes'. But that doesn't imply that you can invent anything. Reality is real, and conforms to its own rules and constraints.

That a rule you personally like turns out not to be universally applicable does not imply that anything goes.

The first law of thermodynamics turns out, like the second law, to be a statistical rule that applies to large areas and/or large numbers of particles or interactions.

When considering sufficiently small systems, local and temporary exceptions occur constantly.

That doesn't make the first law wrong, it just limits its scope to almost (but not quite) every situation. In much the same way that Einstein's demonstration that Newtons gravitational theory is only mostly right, but that doesn't imply that things sometimes fall upwards.

 

[skepticalbip]

True... If entropy could not decrease locally then I would really miss being able to make a nice hot cup of coffee.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Religion, philosophy, or religion it all comes down to the same question, can something come from nothing. If the naswer is no then the unverse must have always been, If the answer is yes then you can invent anything. Particles from nothing or a god creating a universe.

You can interchange the words nothing and god in those statements and get the same outcome because both words are undefined for purposes of discussion, likely because both words are example of woo.

 

[Jarhyn]

Religion, philosophy, or religion it all comes down to the same question, can something come from nothing. If the naswer is no then the unverse must have always been, If the answer is yes then you can invent anything. Particles from nothing or a god creating a universe.

You can interchange the words nothing and god in those statements and get the same outcome because both words are undefined for purposes of discussion, likely because both words are example of woo.

I would pose that entirely depends on what one considers a "god", and what one considers "nothing".

"Nothing" and "existence" are mutually exclusive, regardless. This means that as long as we exist, "nothing" is a purely imaginary thing.

 

[steve_bank]

True... If entropy could not decrease locally then I would really miss being able to make a nice hot cup of coffee.

Or ice cream.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I've taken in physics lectures where the presenter defined "nothing" as spacetime minus any particles. If this is nothing then nothing is clearly something. End of debate and confusion.

Maybe the real problem is use of the word "existence." Maybe we should ask "Why is there existence instead of non-existence?" But wouldn't that be the same as asking "Why is there 7 instead of no 7?" We can't just take words and say words equate with objective reality and then go off into debate. Or maybe we should, so people can understand and learn.

Even with that definition the question remains. Can something appear in space time without causation?

The definition does not answer the question.

Take away causation and you can justify cretionism.

Just the opposite. It was the human belief and insistence that every event needs a preceding cause and that the universe had to have had a beginning that convinced them that only a god could be the "initial cause". The idea that the universe could be eternal or that there could be uncaused events (quantum fluctuations) was, and is, foreign to them.

If someone believes that every event requires a cause then they need to invent an eternal god as the cause for uncaused events.

1) Everything needs a cause to exist
2) ...except my God.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

1) Everything needs a cause to exist
2) ...except my God.

That's the great contradiction that is bedrock for most of religion. It doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to be logical, it can be completely contradictory, it does not need to be evidenced, but I believe!

It's actually just a statement about the person.

 

[steve_bank]

1) Everything needs a cause to exist
2) ...except my God.

That's the great contradiction that is bedrock for most of religion. It doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to be logical, it can be completely contradictory, it does not need to be evidenced, but I believe!

It's actually just a statement about the person.

Enjoying scifi requires 'a willing suspension of disbelief'. So does religion.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Enjoying scifi requires 'a willing suspension of disbelief'. So does religion.

But do you think that a person who is in church praying has suspended disbelief? That's the obvious difference.

Watching a movie or reading a book with fantastic elements is different from reading your sacred religious writings in terms of suspending disbelief. Maybe religious behavior constitutes some kind of short circuit where the neural pathway enabling rational suspension of disbelief gets missed. Some people who read about miracles think they're reading something that actually happened.

In that metaphysical sense at least we can engage in rational discussion of the word "nothing," something that doesn't happen religiously where it's just taken as some kind of magic that doesn't need explained scientifically or is discussed scientifically.

 

[lostone]

I've taken in physics lectures where the presenter defined "nothing" as spacetime minus any particles. If this is nothing then nothing is clearly something. End of debate and confusion.

Maybe the real problem is use of the word "existence." Maybe we should ask "Why is there existence instead of non-existence?" But wouldn't that be the same as asking "Why is there 7 instead of no 7?" We can't just take words and say words equate with objective reality and then go off into debate. Or maybe we should, so people can understand and learn.

That sounds like 'nothing' cannot have the property of existence because existence is a property of things that exist. Circular. Not that I would object to that, circular or not, in this case.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I've taken in physics lectures where the presenter defined "nothing" as spacetime minus any particles. If this is nothing then nothing is clearly something. End of debate and confusion.

Maybe the real problem is use of the word "existence." Maybe we should ask "Why is there existence instead of non-existence?" But wouldn't that be the same as asking "Why is there 7 instead of no 7?" We can't just take words and say words equate with objective reality and then go off into debate. Or maybe we should, so people can understand and learn.

That sounds like 'nothing' cannot have the property of existence because existence is a property of things that exist. Circular. Not that I would object to that, circular or not, in this case.

Ultimately it is within the person to observe and understand the difference between what is objective and what is abstract. "Existence" is abstraction, yet it doesn't stop people from stating that "existence exists."

Some will maintain that ultimately the issue is causation. Okay then, new word, "causationism." Has that added any new knowledge to the discussion? In my humble opinion it has not.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

1) Everything needs a cause to exist
2) ...except my God.

That's the great contradiction that is bedrock for most of religion. It doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to be logical, it can be completely contradictory, it does not need to be evidenced, but I believe!

It's actually just a statement about the person.

Enjoying scifi requires 'a willing suspension of disbelief'. So does religion.

You are thinking of sci-fantasy. Good sci-fi only works when you can believe.

 

[SIB]

we have two choices, from something or from nothing. I lean towards something just because nothing freaks me out like nothing. But that doesn't mean a deity. In fact, deity would be my last choice. It could mean "born". I don't remember Hawkins something from nothing, but I do know quantum foam and Kruass's totaling to zero is from something.

 

[bilby]

we have two choices, from something or from nothing. I lean towards something just because nothing freaks me out like nothing. But that doesn't mean a deity. In fact, deity would be my last choice. It could mean "born". I don't remember Hawkins something from nothing, but I do know quantum foam and Kruass's totaling to zero is from something.

Yeah, the argument “Nothing, therefore God” is insane. It either claims that God doesn’t exist (ie is ‘nothing’) as the basis of his existence; Or attempts to explain everything by explaining only a subset of everything (everything, minus God), which is simply cheating.

The only possible answers to ‘how did anything come to exist’ are ‘at least some of it always existed’, or ‘sometimes stuff just starts to exist for no reason whatsoever’. Neither of these answers imply anything like a God.

It’s impossible to tell which is true, though personally I lean towards ‘at least some of it always existed’, as I dislike throwing the First Law of Thermodynamics under the bus.

Either way, it strikes me as perverse to expect any of that ‘some’ that always existed, or that spontaneously arose, to have been intelligent. Particularly as our current science can explain how our intelligence arose over many billions of years, with a mere bubble of spacetime containing some low entropy regions as its initial condition.

A small area of low entropy spacetime seems less unlikely to spontaneously occur than a being capable of designing stuff.

 

[Elixir]

sometimes stuff just starts to exist for no reason whatsoever

I like that one - spontaneous existence coming about instantly upon the (spontaneous?) appearance of an “always” within which existence could exist.

(The question could be regressed forever, but only if forever actually will have ever existed…)

 

[Jarhyn]

we have two choices, from something or from nothing. I lean towards something just because nothing freaks me out like nothing. But that doesn't mean a deity. In fact, deity would be my last choice. It could mean "born". I don't remember Hawkins something from nothing, but I do know quantum foam and Kruass's totaling to zero is from something.

Yeah, the argument “Nothing, therefore God” is insane. It either claims that God doesn’t exist (ie is ‘nothing’) as the basis of his existence; Or attempts to explain everything by explaining only a subset of everything (everything, minus God), which is simply cheating.

The only possible answers to ‘how did anything come to exist’ are ‘at least some of it always existed’, or ‘sometimes stuff just starts to exist for no reason whatsoever’. Neither of these answers imply anything like a God.

It’s impossible to tell which is true, though personally I lean towards ‘at least some of it always existed’, as I dislike throwing the First Law of Thermodynamics under the bus.

Either way, it strikes me as perverse to expect any of that ‘some’ that always existed, or that spontaneously arose, to have been intelligent. Particularly as our current science can explain how our intelligence arose over many billions of years, with a mere bubble of spacetime containing some low entropy regions as its initial condition.

A small area of low entropy spacetime seems less unlikely to spontaneously occur than a being capable of designing stuff.

And yet the greatest paradox of all is that we are creating systems with selected pockets of entropic potential (mathematically as regards the systems), and creating process that winds through this entropic decay.

We are exactly an intelligent force doing exactly this thing of creating what look, from the inside, like uncaused universes.

I would laugh at an infinite regress of assholes like us making more assholes like us making mindless processes which generate many systems of assholes like us making assholes, making mindless processes...

Also unto forever.

A little of column A, perhaps, a little of column B.

But for now, "there is only this, unless more can be shown".

 

[SIB]

we have two choices, from something or from nothing. I lean towards something just because nothing freaks me out like nothing. But that doesn't mean a deity. In fact, deity would be my last choice. It could mean "born". I don't remember Hawkins something from nothing, but I do know quantum foam and Kruass's totaling to zero is from something.

Yeah, the argument “Nothing, therefore God” is insane. It either claims that God doesn’t exist (ie is ‘nothing’) as the basis of his existence; Or attempts to explain everything by explaining only a subset of everything (everything, minus God), which is simply cheating.

The only possible answers to ‘how did anything come to exist’ are ‘at least some of it always existed’, or ‘sometimes stuff just starts to exist for no reason whatsoever’. Neither of these answers imply anything like a God.

It’s impossible to tell which is true, though personally I lean towards ‘at least some of it always existed’, as I dislike throwing the First Law of Thermodynamics under the bus.

Either way, it strikes me as perverse to expect any of that ‘some’ that always existed, or that spontaneously arose, to have been intelligent. Particularly as our current science can explain how our intelligence arose over many billions of years, with a mere bubble of spacetime containing some low entropy regions as its initial condition.

A small area of low entropy spacetime seems less unlikely to spontaneously occur than a being capable of designing stuff.

And yet the greatest paradox of all is that we are creating systems with selected pockets of entropic potential (mathematically as regards the systems), and creating process that winds through this entropic decay.

We are exactly an intelligent force doing exactly this thing of creating what look, from the inside, like uncaused universes.

I would laugh at an infinite regress of assholes like us making more assholes like us making mindless processes which generate many systems of assholes like us making assholes, making mindless processes...

Also unto forever.

A little of column A, perhaps, a little of column B.

But for now, "there is only this, unless more can be shown".

I don't think of "humans" as the end game. Rather I think of humans as an intermediate step. Much like the 4 year old version of me was in the formation of the me now.

For me, I like listing the available options to see what may, or may not, match what we see. "bubbles of awareness" forming in our universe makes some sense. Like seeding, some bubbles will "reproduce" another universe and some bubbles won't.

I think the word "alive" fits better than "not alive". But its not a deity.

 

[lostone]

Isn't math itself based on the idea of infinite regress? We make a few definitions, based on something like Peano's Axioms, and the game is afoot. Myself, I look to something like panpsychism to work our way out of this puzzle.

Assholes all the way down.? Good of a guess as any.

we have two choices, from something or from nothing. I lean towards something just because nothing freaks me out like nothing. But that doesn't mean a deity. In fact, deity would be my last choice. It could mean "born". I don't remember Hawkins something from nothing, but I do know quantum foam and Kruass's totaling to zero is from something.

Yeah, the argument “Nothing, therefore God” is insane. It either claims that God doesn’t exist (ie is ‘nothing’) as the basis of his existence; Or attempts to explain everything by explaining only a subset of everything (everything, minus God), which is simply cheating.

The only possible answers to ‘how did anything come to exist’ are ‘at least some of it always existed’, or ‘sometimes stuff just starts to exist for no reason whatsoever’. Neither of these answers imply anything like a God.

It’s impossible to tell which is true, though personally I lean towards ‘at least some of it always existed’, as I dislike throwing the First Law of Thermodynamics under the bus.

Either way, it strikes me as perverse to expect any of that ‘some’ that always existed, or that spontaneously arose, to have been intelligent. Particularly as our current science can explain how our intelligence arose over many billions of years, with a mere bubble of spacetime containing some low entropy regions as its initial condition.

A small area of low entropy spacetime seems less unlikely to spontaneously occur than a being capable of designing stuff.

And yet the greatest paradox of all is that we are creating systems with selected pockets of entropic potential (mathematically as regards the systems), and creating process that winds through this entropic decay.

We are exactly an intelligent force doing exactly this thing of creating what look, from the inside, like uncaused universes.

I would laugh at an infinite regress of assholes like us making more assholes like us making mindless processes which generate many systems of assholes like us making assholes, making mindless processes...

Also unto forever.

A little of column A, perhaps, a little of column B.

But for now, "there is only this, unless more can be shown".

I don't think of "humans" as the end game. Rather I think of humans as an intermediate step. Much like the 4 year old version of me was in the formation of the me now.

For me, I like listing the available options to see what may, or may not, match what we see. "bubbles of awareness" forming in our universe makes some sense. Like seeding, some bubbles will "reproduce" another universe and some bubbles won't.

I think the word "alive" fits better than "not alive". But its not a deity.

I view us as accidental by-products of this universe.

 

[SIB]

Isn't math itself based on the idea of infinite regress? We make a few definitions, based on something like Peano's Axioms, and the game is afoot. Myself, I look to something like panpsychism to work our way out of this puzzle.

Assholes all the way down.? Good of a guess as any.

we have two choices, from something or from nothing. I lean towards something just because nothing freaks me out like nothing. But that doesn't mean a deity. In fact, deity would be my last choice. It could mean "born". I don't remember Hawkins something from nothing, but I do know quantum foam and Kruass's totaling to zero is from something.

Yeah, the argument “Nothing, therefore God” is insane. It either claims that God doesn’t exist (ie is ‘nothing’) as the basis of his existence; Or attempts to explain everything by explaining only a subset of everything (everything, minus God), which is simply cheating.

The only possible answers to ‘how did anything come to exist’ are ‘at least some of it always existed’, or ‘sometimes stuff just starts to exist for no reason whatsoever’. Neither of these answers imply anything like a God.

It’s impossible to tell which is true, though personally I lean towards ‘at least some of it always existed’, as I dislike throwing the First Law of Thermodynamics under the bus.

Either way, it strikes me as perverse to expect any of that ‘some’ that always existed, or that spontaneously arose, to have been intelligent. Particularly as our current science can explain how our intelligence arose over many billions of years, with a mere bubble of spacetime containing some low entropy regions as its initial condition.

A small area of low entropy spacetime seems less unlikely to spontaneously occur than a being capable of designing stuff.

And yet the greatest paradox of all is that we are creating systems with selected pockets of entropic potential (mathematically as regards the systems), and creating process that winds through this entropic decay.

We are exactly an intelligent force doing exactly this thing of creating what look, from the inside, like uncaused universes.

I would laugh at an infinite regress of assholes like us making more assholes like us making mindless processes which generate many systems of assholes like us making assholes, making mindless processes...

Also unto forever.

A little of column A, perhaps, a little of column B.

But for now, "there is only this, unless more can be shown".

I don't think of "humans" as the end game. Rather I think of humans as an intermediate step. Much like the 4 year old version of me was in the formation of the me now.

For me, I like listing the available options to see what may, or may not, match what we see. "bubbles of awareness" forming in our universe makes some sense. Like seeding, some bubbles will "reproduce" another universe and some bubbles won't.

I think the word "alive" fits better than "not alive". But its not a deity.

I view us as accidental by-products of this universe.

I think of us as inevitable by products.

 

[Jarhyn]

Isn't math itself based on the idea of infinite regress? We make a few definitions, based on something like Peano's Axioms, and the game is afoot. Myself, I look to something like panpsychism to work our way out of this puzzle.

Assholes all the way down.? Good of a guess as any.

we have two choices, from something or from nothing. I lean towards something just because nothing freaks me out like nothing. But that doesn't mean a deity. In fact, deity would be my last choice. It could mean "born". I don't remember Hawkins something from nothing, but I do know quantum foam and Kruass's totaling to zero is from something.

Yeah, the argument “Nothing, therefore God” is insane. It either claims that God doesn’t exist (ie is ‘nothing’) as the basis of his existence; Or attempts to explain everything by explaining only a subset of everything (everything, minus God), which is simply cheating.

The only possible answers to ‘how did anything come to exist’ are ‘at least some of it always existed’, or ‘sometimes stuff just starts to exist for no reason whatsoever’. Neither of these answers imply anything like a God.

It’s impossible to tell which is true, though personally I lean towards ‘at least some of it always existed’, as I dislike throwing the First Law of Thermodynamics under the bus.

Either way, it strikes me as perverse to expect any of that ‘some’ that always existed, or that spontaneously arose, to have been intelligent. Particularly as our current science can explain how our intelligence arose over many billions of years, with a mere bubble of spacetime containing some low entropy regions as its initial condition.

A small area of low entropy spacetime seems less unlikely to spontaneously occur than a being capable of designing stuff.

And yet the greatest paradox of all is that we are creating systems with selected pockets of entropic potential (mathematically as regards the systems), and creating process that winds through this entropic decay.

We are exactly an intelligent force doing exactly this thing of creating what look, from the inside, like uncaused universes.

I would laugh at an infinite regress of assholes like us making more assholes like us making mindless processes which generate many systems of assholes like us making assholes, making mindless processes...

Also unto forever.

A little of column A, perhaps, a little of column B.

But for now, "there is only this, unless more can be shown".

I don't think of "humans" as the end game. Rather I think of humans as an intermediate step. Much like the 4 year old version of me was in the formation of the me now.

For me, I like listing the available options to see what may, or may not, match what we see. "bubbles of awareness" forming in our universe makes some sense. Like seeding, some bubbles will "reproduce" another universe and some bubbles won't.

I think the word "alive" fits better than "not alive". But its not a deity.

I view us as accidental by-products of this universe.

I think of us as inevitable by products.

More... By-products are inevitable and we happen to be the ones this universe spawned inevitably.

Whatever it had spawned, the anthropogenic principle would still apply.

if we were Lovecraftian pillars of eyes and tentacles such as those found in "The Mountains of Madness", we would say just the same.