Can causality be used in arguments regarding "timeless" scenarios?

[rumborak]

Sometimes skeptics will say that in physics, subatomic particles come from "nothing". Certain skeptic theories of the origin of the universe likewise state as the universe coming into existence from "nothing". These skeptical responses demonstrate a deliberate abuse of science. The theories in question have to do with the particles originating as a fluctuation of the energy contained in a vacuum. The vacuum in modern physics is not what the layman understands by "vacuum," namely, "nothing." Rather, in physics, the vacuum is sea of fluctuating energy governed by physical laws and having a physical structure. To tell laymen that on such theories something comes from nothing is a distortion of those theories.

Properly understood, "nothing" does not mean just empty space. "Nothing" is the absence of anything whatsoever, even space itself. As such, nothingness has literally no properties at all, since there isn't anything to have any properties. How silly, then, is it when popularizes such as Hawking say things like "nothingness is unstable" or "the universe came into being out of nothing"?!

Here's the rub though: Apparently Craig is fine saying "ok, space as we know can pop matter and energy out of nothing". But, when it comes to non-space, he falls back into his old ways and says "space can not pop out of nothing, it's ludicrous!". He had to concede certain territory to physicists (I am sure 200 years ago he would have as vehemently argued against particles popping into space), and so he retreated to the next unknown by physics.

And for the sake of the argument, let's suppose that something can come from nothing. Then it simply becomes inexplicable why just anything doesn't simply pop into existence! Why don't knifes and wood just pop into existence? What would make nothingness so discriminatory to only spit forth universes?

From a cosmological point of view, a Big Bang is actually easier to "produce" than a knife. The Big Bang was (seemingly) a tiny point that expanded rapidly. It had essentially no structure to it (as one can tell from the incredible uniformity of the background radiation). A knife is much more complex and thus improbable.
Why aren't universes popping in left and right? Who knows, some researchers have suggested that it takes a certain set of requisites for a universe to exhibit the rapid expansion our has seen. I don't think it's unthinkable that our universe still has the "cosmogenesis" going on all over the place, but it never grows beyond Planck length and thus never gets observed by us.

You know, I have to say though, at least Craig makes good arguments for his side that are interesting to address.

rumborak

[Scheavo]

Eh, Craig didn't come up with this argument. It's a very old argument.

Least I haven't heard the ontological proof for God's existence yet. If Craig starts to defend that, then he's truly showing his colors.

I'd also like to point out, Omega, that you're using the words nothing in a very confined way, and one which not everyone would agree with. A vacuum is "nothing" as it is "no thing," it is not a thing, there is nothing there we can really point to as assurandly existing, and things can "pop" out of it. What you're not considering is that whatever the universe is, whatever space is, does not actually fit the requirement of a "thing," in human conception and in the human language. Furthermore, it fails to deal with the reality that, where there was previously not, say, a muon, there is no a muon, and that in a few seconds, that muon will disappear again. Where did it go? Whence did it come from?

The Big Bang was (seemingly) a tiny point that expanded rapidly

I remember reading about one theory which postulated once matter go spread out enough, it basically formed a new universe. I mean, we've found no end to matter, and so there's no reason as of yet to think that there is a "smallest unit" of matter, or that space cannot be infinity divided. What some people fail to remember, is that the number of numbers between 0 and 1 is infinite, even though it's contained within a finite range.

[Sigz]

The Big Bang was (seemingly) a tiny point that expanded rapidly

I remember reading about one theory which postulated once matter go spread out enough, it basically formed a new universe. I mean, we've found no end to matter, and so there's no reason as of yet to think that there is a "smallest unit" of matter, or that space cannot be infinity divided. What some people fail to remember, is that the number of numbers between 0 and 1 is infinite, even though it's contained within a finite range.

There's a few theories like that, I was actually reading about Conformal Cyclic Cosmology a few months ago for a class. It's pretty interesting, though I'm nowhere near knowledgeable enough to fully understand it.

[Scheavo]

The Big Bang was (seemingly) a tiny point that expanded rapidly

I remember reading about one theory which postulated once matter go spread out enough, it basically formed a new universe. I mean, we've found no end to matter, and so there's no reason as of yet to think that there is a "smallest unit" of matter, or that space cannot be infinity divided. What some people fail to remember, is that the number of numbers between 0 and 1 is infinite, even though it's contained within a finite range.

There's a few theories like that, I was actually reading about Conformal Cyclic Cosmology a few months ago for a class. It's pretty interesting, though I'm nowhere near knowledgeable enough to fully understand it.

Might be the one I remember reading about.

[Omega]

I'd also like to point out, Omega, that you're using the words nothing in a very confined way, and one which not everyone would agree with. A vacuum is "nothing" as it is "no thing," it is not a thing, there is nothing there we can really point to as assurandly existing, and things can "pop" out of it. What you're not considering is that whatever the universe is, whatever space is, does not actually fit the requirement of a "thing," in human conception and in the human language. Furthermore, it fails to deal with the reality that, where there was previously not, say, a muon, there is no a muon, and that in a few seconds, that muon will disappear again. Where did it go? Whence did it come from?

For the third time in this thread:

"Sometimes skeptics will say that in physics, subatomic particles come from 'nothing'. Certain skeptic theories of the origin of the universe likewise state as the universe coming into existence from 'nothing'. These skeptical responses demonstrate a deliberate abuse of science. The theories in question have to do with the particles originating as a fluctuation of the energy contained in a vacuum. The vacuum in modern physics is not what the layman understands by 'vacuum,' namely, 'nothing.' Rather, in physics, the vacuum is sea of fluctuating energy governed by physical laws and having a physical structure. To tell laymen that on such theories something comes from nothing is a distortion of those theories.

Properly understood, 'nothing' does not mean just empty space. 'Nothing' is the absence of anything whatsoever, even space itself. As such, nothingness has literally no properties at all, since there isn't anything to have any properties. How silly, then, is it when popularizes such as Hawking say things like 'nothingness is unstable' or 'the universe came into being out of nothing'?!

And for the sake of the argument, let's suppose that something can come from nothing. Then it simply becomes inexplicable why just anything doesn't simply pop into existence! Why don't knifes and wood just pop into existence? What would make nothingness so discriminatory to only spit forth universes?"



The proper philosophical (and indeed correct) understanding of "nothing" is "not anything" or "absence of space, time, energy and matter," NOT "empty space".

[Scheavo]

You Obviously have no interest in a real debate, because you're ignoring the points made, while giving no reasons for the fundamental source of disagreement, or the other persons argument. 

[hefdaddy42]

The proper philosophical (and indeed correct) understanding of "nothing" is "not anything" or "absence of space, time, energy and matter," NOT "empty space".

By that definition, there is no such thing as nothing.  Where would nothing be, if empty space doesn't count as nothing?

[rumborak]

I also don't see how the argument helps really. If the point is that nothing can come out of nothing, then that rule must also apply to God. If it doesn't but you have no binding reason other than personal preference ("I want my god to be capable of this, but not this mundane universe"), then you can easily as well add the universe to the exception list.
If you're going down that route of argument, you have to have a reason why there can be an ex nihilo god, but not an ex nihilo universe. Other than just plain preference, that is.

rumborak

[Omega]

The proper philosophical (and indeed correct) understanding of "nothing" is "not anything" or "absence of space, time, energy and matter," NOT "empty space".

By that definition, there is no such thing as nothing.  Where would nothing be, if empty space doesn't count as nothing?

You're right, hefdaddy, "nothing" cannot be found in our universe as no matter where in the universe you go, you will always be in presence of space. That is why it is silly for atheistic popularizes to say "some subatomic particles come from nothing" when the phenomena is observed in the presence of space and time, energy and matter.

We may not understand how some subatomic particles appear in vacuums, yet that doesn't lead to the conclusion that they come "from nothing." It could simply be that some subatomic particles merely exhibit a property of what we would popularly refer to as  "teleportation." The question of how some subatomic particles appear in vacuums remains an open one, however it is a patent abuse of science and terminology to refer to their existence as coming "from nothing."

[Adami]

See you can't say things like "They probably just teleported" because you got nothing in the slightest bit to back that up with. Maybe they were invisible, maybe they came from a parallel universe, maybe they are reformed matter. You can't just make up an answer that better suites your theory. You have to stick to what you see, you see things come from nowhere.

[Ħ]

Does nothing actually exist in our universe? Even empty space is subject to energy gradients, and gradients aren't "nothing".

[Adami]

Does nothing actually exist in our universe? Even empty space is subject to energy gradients, and gradients aren't "nothing".

As far as I know, no nothing does not exist in our universe. At this point it feels like these guys are just arguing semantics to avoid actual arguments.

[kári]

Just chiming in to say that virtual particles appearing in a vacuum are kind of well understood and have everything to do with Heisenberg's uncertainty relation. It's that same relation that makes it possible for say two electrons to repel each other and thus all our daily interaction with any object.

Also, nothing is.. well nothing. Vacuum is not nothing because the "fabric" of spacetime is still present.

[Scheavo]

That is why it is silly for atheistic popularizes to say "some subatomic particles come from nothing" when the phenomena is observed in the presence of space and time, energy and matter.

Except, you do realize, no one in this thread has made this argument? You're attacking a COMPLETE STRAWMAN, and when confronted with that fact, you're just repeating the same straw man.

Go back, and notice what I brought up in quantum mechanics. It wasn't "coming from nothing," it was how there is no discernible cause for why a uranium atom emits radiation, when it emits radiation. We have some reasons why this happens, but reasons are not causes. Since then, I have also challenged your definition of "nothing," as it seems far too specific to me, and basically ignores the tension and vaguness of the human concept, and especially the English word for the concept of nothing. We use it to to both describe objects, and specific things we experience. There's so much information and debate existing out there about the concept of "nothing," what it means, exactly what it is, that for you to simply say the "proper definition" as one thing, is ludicrous.

I have also used quantum mechanics, and perhaps the same phenomenon of radiation, to point out problems with our human conception and experience of "time." There's another possible explanation for how particles appear and disappear, according to our experiences, and it's time travel. That muon, or whatever, didn't stop existing, it just went "forwards" or "backwards" in time (relative to our experience of the "present").

I'm not sure physics professors, and people who deal with quantum mechanics daily, really pretend to "understand" quantum mechanics (my professors never did). I mean, one of the most fundamental principles is wave/particle duality, which is just a complete affront to our daily experiences, and the logic which arises from it. Time is one of those aspects of reality which is truly mysterious, especially as to why we experience it the way we do. Our best theories on time, say it is the same fundamental thing as space, which we experience quite differently.

How, then, can we justifiably use the human conception of time as an arrow, to use in a proof regarding the reason why we exist? This conception is implicit in your logic, as you require time to "have begun." But isn't saying that time begun, already implying that there was a "time before time?" WLC and you are careful enough to say that this is "before," but this is sorta a false use of quotations, as you're still heavily relying upon the human conception of before to say that there was a point of existence when time did not exist, which preceded time, and which is responsible for time being. Time is eternal, time always has been, and this is true because of the human language which has made such a statement.

Like I said in the beginning, "cause" and "effect" are completely problematic concepts, and they don't appear to adequately describe reality. The extent to which can use the general concepts, require us to basically remake the concepts into something else, which renders them useless in the given proof.

Just chiming in to say that virtual particles appearing in a vacuum are kind of well understood and have everything to do with Heisenberg's uncertainty relation. It's that same relation that makes it possible for say two electrons to repel each other and thus all our daily interaction with any object.

I'm not gonna disagree with your statement, I just want to emphasize the fact that it is the "uncertainty principle." It almost saying, we know why they do that, because we don't know why they do that. Expect the unexpected.

[rumborak]

To add another piece of the pie, one of the single most interesting developments in physics, at least to me, is that a lot of physicists are more and more not considering energy, space and mass as the key elements of reality, but information. That is, natural laws' most basic unit is information. And that tells me that there might be a very interesting paradigm shift coming in our lifetimes.

rumborak

[Orthogonal]

To add another piece of the pie, one of the single most interesting developments in physics, at least to me, is that a lot of physicists are more and more not considering energy, space and mass as the key elements of reality, but information. That is, natural laws' most basic unit is information. And that tells me that there might be a very interesting paradigm shift coming in our lifetimes.

rumborak

I'm not sure what you mean by "natural law' most basic unit is information". Information is a human concept that lives in your mind. Speaking of which, both energy and mass are concepts too and do not "exist". Only physical objects "exist" and we derive relationships about these objects which we call concepts to help us understand them better.

[rumborak]

I'm not sure what you mean by "natural law' most basic unit is information". Information is a human concept that lives in your mind. Speaking of which, both energy and mass are concepts too and do not "exist".

While the measurement of information is a human construct, information is however a genuine physical entity. Over the last few decades experiments have shown that the outcome of the experiment can differ solely based on whether a piece of information is revealed or not. Not only that, there's been experiments where the outcome was changed backwards in time.
Also, black holes are fully described by their information content. Mass, energy is irrelevant, what matters is the information that is contained inside it.

rumborak

[kári]

Kind of like this but much more complicated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

[GuineaPig]

I hate that movie.