See also: Copernicus, you are not going to believe who is using your name. Or how.
Comments
kairosfocus: what’s in THE empty set.
Great example. Like the invention of zero, the empty set once defied people's common notions. They're abstractions! Similarly, the abstraction of the classical vacuum is a volume devoid of energy or matter, while the abstraction of the quantum nothingness is also devoid of space and time.
The last is a half-baked idea, but then again, sometimes half-baked ideas might become fully baked. No way to know at this point.Zachriel
January 8, 2015
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MT:
You seem to think ‘Nothing’ and ‘Empty Space’ [--> a quantum vacuum, actually . . . ] are quantum mechanically different. Care to elaborate?
Nothing, properly denotes non-being, as in, to get an idea, what's in THE empty set. Or you can try Ari's what rocks dream of.
Space is not nothing.
To speak of it as if it were, is a fundamental confusion of categories.
And, out there, there is an astonishing video exchange on that when Dawkins publicly blundered in a discussion with Rowan Williams.
This is one take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v34QjYPuiEA
This is not mere hair-splitting.
Non-being has no causal powers and if there ever was an utter nothing, that is precisely what would forever obtain.
That is, we see here a fundamental issue: that there is a fundamental necessary being at the causal root of our world, in light of the modes of being/non-being, impossible (think: square circles), possible, contingent [and its subset, actual], necessary.
Thence, the focal issue is, what can we come to know about that root of being?
KFkairosfocus
January 8, 2015
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Me_Think: Feser is a Philosopher. Apparently every philosopher hates Krauss (because he hates them!) :-) , so it’s not surprising that they demean Krauss.
So, deep down Feser fully agrees with Krauss that 'nothing' equals 'almost nothing', but blinded by his hatred for Krauss (because Krauss hates Feser) he refuses to admit this?
Well, pardon me, but that explanation doesn't make any sense to me.Box
January 8, 2015
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mike1962: We can’t imagine either kind.
Sorry for your luck. They have maths for that.Zachriel
January 8, 2015
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mike1962 @ 302
The title of his book is not A Universe from Empty Space. It’s A Universe from Nothing.
Yes, of-course, but both terms are synonymous in the book. You seem to think 'Nothing' and 'Empty Space' are quantum mechanically different. Care to elaborate?Me_Think
January 7, 2015
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Me_Think: If you are arguing about Empty Space, don’t you need to know what Empty space is?
The title of his book is not A Universe from Empty Space. It's A Universe from Nothing.mike1962
January 7, 2015
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300
mike1962 @ 300
That’s entirely beside our point.
If you are arguing about Empty Space, don't you need to know what Empty space is?, and how it is a 'maelstrom of particles popping into and out of existence' ?Me_Think
January 7, 2015
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Me_Think: Have you either read the book or seen the YouTube lectures ? Do you still not understand the simple Feynman diagram for Positron-Electron pair?
That's entirely beside our point.mike1962
January 7, 2015
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mike1962 @ 297
Thou art amazing. O Zachriel. We can’t imagine either kind.
To us they are merely abstract mathematical concepts.
Canst thou draw us a picture of what thou seest in thine imagination?
Even a blank piece of paper is not nothing.
So that’s no good.
Have you either read the book or seen the YouTube lectures ? Do you still not understand the simple Feynman diagram for Positron-Electron pair?Me_Think
January 7, 2015
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JimFit @ 291
Yes ok, please read again.
I have read it earlier too. I have no idea how you manage to equate simple chemo-reception and pressure differential taxis as consciousness ! You don't need elaborate mazes. Just put the slime mold plasmodium in a chamber, surround the chamber with various concentration of attractants like glucose, galactose, phosphates, pyrophosphates, ATP, c-AMP, and the other part of agar base by various forms of repellents like inorganic salts, sucrose, fructose. You will see the plasmodium moving towards the attractants. It first encircles all attractants then the 'arm' were higher concentration of the attractant was found swells into a tube.Swelling causes a pressure differential, cytoplasm flows to that end. Since the body mass is limited, the other arms of plasmodium withdraws from less concentrated attractants.
If there is a barrier of say light but higher concentrate of attractant, the concentration has to be more than the repellent property of the attractant to help plasmodium taxis (movement). It is no different than putting a piece of paper in a vessel of water and adding a small piece of soap near the paper. the paper will move away as the surface tension of place were soap was added decreases. Does it mean paper has consciousness or does it mean, it is simple physical change in surface tension ?
Does the ball makes decisions? Because slime molds make.
That is the question I am asking ! There are various paths the ball could have followed, but it follows the path of least difference in kinetic and potential energy, so is it making a decision ?
In any case, even if we do accept this reductionistic move, all that follows is that God did not create the universe at a time. We can still say that God’s creating the universe was coincident with the singularity (that is, they occur together at the boundary of spacetime), and by creating the singularity God created the universe.
You could say that is a philosophical argument, yes.
I know that your belief that you are a random cosmic mistake that nothingness spewed is unshakable, it is proven that atheists suffer more from manic depression because they are masochists and think of their lives as purposeless (when they are not), i just said it to understand what God is.
Are your atheist friends maniacs ?Me_Think
January 7, 2015
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Zachriel: Sure
Thou art amazing. O Zachriel. We can't imagine either kind.
To us they are merely abstract mathematical concepts.
Canst thou draw us a picture of what thou seest in thine imagination?
Even a blank piece of paper is not nothing.
So that's no good.mike1962
January 7, 2015
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mike1962: We cannot imagine that. Can you?
Sure. It's much easier to imagine a classical vacuum than a quantum vacuum.
mike1962: Hell if we know.
There are quantum fluctuations, including the spontaneous formation of particles.Zachriel
January 7, 2015
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Me_Think: It is a book for non-technical people interested in cosmology. I guess it is more approachable title than something like ‘Universe from Quantum fluctuation’
That title would not have been misleading.
The subject matter is close enough to the title so it is not misleading at all.
We disagree. We've seen plenty of jackass statements out there in the press about the universe popping into existence from "nothing" based on that jackassery of that title, no doubt misleading a gullible and/or misinformed public.mike1962
January 7, 2015
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Zachriel: It’s not that difficult a thought-experiment. Imagine a perfect classical vacuum.
We cannot imagine that. Can you?
Now imagine observing that vacuum from the perspective of quantum theory. What would you see?
Hell if we know.
But we doubt it would be nothing.
At any rate, we are not against thought experiments. Just against eccentric verbal jackassery. Especially on such a scale by such a person.mike1962
January 7, 2015
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1) QM events that we observe in a laboratory take place a vacuum that is there, not absolute nothing as was the case with the big bang. 2) QM events could not occur without a field present, they are not uncaused. 3) Virtual particles exist only temporarily, inversely proportional to their mass. The universe has been here for 13.7 billion years, not a fraction of a second.
Even radioactive decay is unpredictable, but it is not something coming out of nothing without a cause. Sub-atomic physics takes place in space. But the beginning of the universe was out of nothing.
Let’s take a look at two of the speculations that sound scientific, but aren’t confirmed by any research. The first is quantum mechanics (i.e. – vacuum fluctuation model). It argues that the universe is an event without a cause, because there is an unobservable hyper-universe that spawned our universe. The second is a response to the fine-tuning. It argues that there are an infinite number of unobservable universes that are not fine-tuned, and we just happen to be in the fine-tuned one.
Notice that both responses are theoretical speculations that take refuge in unobservable entities in order to escape the good experimental science that proves that there is a Creator and Designer. It’s atheism-of-the-gaps!
Vacuum fluctuation:
- offered as a response to the big bang
- what can QM do: explain how particles appear in a vacuum when the vacuum is sparked
- speculation is that this same process may explain the origin of the universe
- in order to test it, our universe would have to be contained within a larger universe, with similar laws of physics
- but there is no evidence that this unobservable hyper-universe exists
Chaotic inflationary model:
- offered as a response to the fine-tuning
- speculates that inflation may cause other universes to come into being, with different constants
- no experimental verification has been offered
- no evidence of any of these other universes
So, what we have here is a clear cut case of logical arguments and evidence for theism, vs atheist faith and wish-fulfillment. All the data we have today is for theism, but all the untestable speculating is on the part of the atheists, who have faith and hope that the progress of science will overturn what we know and replace it with the what atheists hope for. (And I haven’t even talked about the origin of life and molecular machines, etc.!)
quantum mechanics is not going to save the atheist here. In QM, virtual particles come into being in a vacuum. The vacuum is sparked by a scientist. The particles exist for a period of time inversely proportional to their mass. But in the case of the big bang, there is no vacuum – there’s nothing. There is no scientist – there’s nothing. And the universe is far too massive to last 14 billion years as a virtual particle.
Secondly, atheists will say that the big bang is speculative physics that could change at any moment. But the trend is in favor of an absolute beginning out of nothing. We have had a string of solid, recent scientific discoveries that point in a definite direction, as follows:
Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and the scientific confirmation of its accuracy
the cosmic microwave background radiation
red-shifting of light from galaxies moving away from us
radioactive element abundance predictions
helium/hydrogen abundance predictions
star formation and stellar life-cycle theories
the second law of thermodynamics applied to nuclear fusion inside stars
The central point to be made here is that the quantum mechanical vacuum on which they depend for their existence is emphatically not nothing. The dynamical properties of vacuous space arise out of its interaction with matter and radiation fields, in the absence of which “this dynamism of empty space is but a formal abstraction lacking physical reality.
(See Robert Weingard, “Do Virtual Particles Exist?’ in Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association, 2 vols., ed. Peter Asquith and Thomas Nichols (East Lansing, Mich.: Philosophy of Science association 1982), I: 235-242.)
The quantum vacuum is a sea of fluctuating energy which gives rise to virtual particles. Thus, virtual particles can hardly be said to arise without a cause. So this is where they both come and go.
Some atheists apparently think that cosmological models in which the universe originates via a spontaneous fluctuation from the primordial vacuum are distinct from models in which the universe does not violate the mass-energy conservation law because the sum total of its positive and negative energy is zero. But this is just confused: these are the same models, all presupposing the existence of the quantum mechanical vacuum which spawns the universe.
Thus, these models do not subvert the causal premiss. Moreover, while these models merited scientific discussion when Davies wrote God and the New Physics back in the early 1980’s, they are today widely rejected and no longer at the center of interest
(Alexander W. Stern, “Space, Field, and Ether in Contemporary Physics,” Science 116 (1952): 493. Stern is even willing to speak of the quantum vacuum as a sort of ether.)?JimFit
January 7, 2015
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Box:
Mapou,
Can nothing be divided into parts? No, because nothing is not something that has parts. Maybe “Mapou’s nothing” can be divided, but that means that “Mapou’s nothing” is not really nothing.
Well, zero can be divided into a huge number of positive and negative parts/numbers. As long as the sum is zero, everything is cool. Maybe 'parts' is not the right word but it remains that zero is the sum of all those parts. Likewise, we can say that 'nothing' is the sum of all things.
Like I said, "everything from nothing" is the only ontology of substance that does not lead to an infinite regress. Once you accept it, you no longer have to ask ad eternam what is a given substance made of. If the answer is particles, then you have to ask what are those particles made of. It goes on forever. This is not acceptable.
Maybe you have a different explanation that gets rid of the infinite regress? If so, let's hear it. I'll wait.Mapou
January 7, 2015
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Ha, I see what got you confused. Do you think since oil is hydrophobic, it emotionally fears water ?
Light was used to create barriers (used to represent mountains and rivers in the map) in Tokyo experiment.
When I throw a ball, it follows a path that has the least difference between Kinetic and potential energy. Does it mean the ball is conscious and making decision of which path to follow ?
Does the ball makes decisions? Because slime molds make.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brainless-slime-molds/
Big crunch of ‘earlier’ universe leading to singularity of BigBang of our universe is a hypothesis. Do you have a better one explaining both singularity and low entropy ?
Something physical before the Singularity can't exist, to have a Universe this Universe must expand for ever.
And you still have the problem of infinite causes, you still have the problem of the beginning of the Multiverses.. You don't seem to understand that, there is always the Ultimate cause that precedes even the Multiverses, since the Universe began (time and space) the cause is by definition transcendent. You seem to think that a transcendent cause is unscientific when eternal past causes can't happen and by definition are unknown! The other scenario is something from Nothing, it is too fallacious. Something Random can't be determined or determine anything and for that reason the true state of randomness is described only in a state of nothingness and since the Universe is deterministic you can't use Nothingness as a cause, Randomness is the opposite of Determinism.
Let’s grant for the sake of argument that the singularity was a real physical state. The claim seems to be that since the initial cosmological singularity is a boundary point to spacetime rather than a point of spacetime, therefore there was no time at which God could have created the singularity.
But this conclusion follows only if we equate time with physical measures of time. This reductionistic view is clearly wrong. A sequence of mental events alone is sufficient to generate relations of earlier and later, wholly in the absence of any physical events. So if God were counting down to creation, “. . . , 3, 2, 1, Let there be light!” God would exist in time even if He were not in physical time (that is, the physical measure that stands for time in the General Theory of Relativity). So there could be a time at which God created the initial cosmological singularity, even if that moment is not in physical time. Such an appeal to metaphysics is not illicit because Hawking is making a metaphysical claim that God cannot create the universe because the singularity is not in physical time, a reductionistic move which no theist should accept.
In any case, even if we do accept this reductionistic move, all that follows is that God did not create the universe at a time. We can still say that God’s creating the universe was coincident with the singularity (that is, they occur together at the boundary of spacetime), and by creating the singularity God created the universe.
So the whole field of probability is make-believe ?
There is always a cause, the definition of chance is different when we talk about probabilities, there are a lot of unknown factors. Chance is subjective. Lets say that in a railway there is 20% chance to have an accident,it doesn't say WHY there are accidents, if we find the factors we can erase the accidents to 0%.
I have no problem with that, who am I to discourage you from seeking solace in whatever you believe in?
I know that your belief that you are a random cosmic mistake that nothingness spewed is unshakable, it is proven that atheists suffer more from manic depression because they are masochists and think of their lives as purposeless (when they are not), i just said it to understand what God is. Most of Atheists rebel to God because they think He is unreachable. Others think that natural sciences can't study God and therefor He can't be the Ultimate cause, but even if we map the whole brain we still cannot predict a decision, what we see is the end result of a decision but that doesn't make the mind of a scientist something mystical. It is like the laws and the constants of the Universe, we can study them by looking at matter, it doesn't bother us that they don't exist in a physical reality as separate entities.JimFit
January 7, 2015
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Zachriel:
Claiming such a principle can’t exist is just your inner-fuddy duddy talking.
Says the chief fuddy duddy.Mapou
January 7, 2015
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mike1962 @ 287
I’m part of his target audience and I was misled at first. At any rate, regardless of his target audience, why would anyone want to use a eccentric definition of a word? It only can cause confusion. What benefit is there?
It is a book for non-technical people interested in cosmology. I guess it is more approachable title than something like 'Universe from Quantum fluctuation', and of-course the title garnered attention for better press coverage and promotion. After all, the book was written for selling. The subject matter is close enough to the title so it is not misleading at all.Me_Think
January 7, 2015
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mike1962: At any rate, regardless of his target audience, why would anyone want to use a eccentric definition of a word?
It's not that difficult a thought-experiment. Imagine a perfect classical vacuum. Now imagine observing that vacuum from the perspective of quantum theory. What would you see?
Imagine you are riding a beam of light. Now observe a stationary clock. What would you see?Zachriel
January 7, 2015
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me_think: Not in the mind of his target audience
I'm part of his target audience and I was misled at first.
I think the stupid part of his brain - or his publisher's - choose that title.
At any rate, regardless of his target audience, why would anyone want to use an eccentric definition of a word in a book... especially one written for the popular press? It only can cause confusion. What benefit is there?
We have deemed it... jackassery.mike1962
January 7, 2015
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Box: Irrelevant, since we all know that empty space is not nothing.
Keep in mind that the classical vacuum was once thought to be preposterous by fuddy duddies. Then, when the classical vacuum was discovered, quantum fluctuations were thought to be preposterous by still more fuddy duddies.
Just because we have found no solution to the fine-tuning problem doesn’t mean fine-tuning isn’t due to some underlying natural principle. Claiming such a principle can’t exist is just your inner-fuddy duddy talking.Zachriel
January 7, 2015
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Box @ 284
Feser is a Philosopher. Apparently every philosopher hates Krauss (because he hates them!) :-) , so it's not surprising that they demean Kruass.
You should see Kruass's YouTube videos if you want to understand what he means by Universe from Nothing. They are worth watching.Me_Think
January 7, 2015
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Me_Think #280,
Feser on Krauss' “A Universe from Nothing”, excerpt:
When people ask how something could arise from nothing, they don’t mean “How could something arise from almost nothing?” They mean “How could something arise from nothing?” That is to say, from the absence of anything whatsoever -- including the absence of space (empty or otherwise), laws of physics, or anything else. And Krauss has absolutely nothing to say about that, (...)
--
So, “nothing,” Krauss finally acknowledges, is “the absence of something.” So far so good. He’s acquired some knowledge of English over the last few months. Unfortunately, he still hasn’t taken that remedial logic course. For we are also told that nothing is a “physical quantity” which can be studied through “empirical” means. All of which entails that the absence of something is a physical quantity which can be studied through empirical means. Wrap your mind around that.
Box
January 7, 2015
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Just because we have found no solution to the fine-tuning problem doesn’t mean fine-tuning isn’t due to some underlying natural principle.
Your emotions are not science.Joe
January 7, 2015
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mike1962 @ 281,
And by doing so was misleading and caused confusion.
Which we deem “not good.”
..Not in the mind of his target audience. He has been using 'Nothing' in all his talks and seminars even before the publication of his book (see YouTube). He continues to use 'Nothing' and 'Empty space'.Me_Think
January 7, 2015
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Lawrence Krauss popularized ‘Nothing’ in his book ‘A universe from nothing’
And by doing so was misleading and caused confusion.
Which we deem "not good."mike1962
January 7, 2015
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Box @ 276
Let’s end the thought-experiment right now. “Nothingness” is the non-existence of anything. Is a “quantum vacuum” nothing?
'Empty space', 'nothing' is synonymous with vacuum space in popular press. Lawrence Krauss popularized 'Nothing' in his book 'A universe from nothing', so when talking about quantum fluctuations, 'nothing' is still widely used.Me_Think
January 7, 2015
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Zachriel,
Box: Can nothing be divided into parts?
Zachriel: If you observe empty space, it may very well divide into a particle and its anti-particle.
Irrelevant, since we all know that empty space is not nothing.Box
January 7, 2015
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Box: Can nothing be divided into parts?
If you observe empty space, it may very well divide into a particle and its anti-particle.
Box: Let’s end the thought-experiment right now.
Can little Albert really chase a beam of light? Let's end the thought-experiment right now. Or it's to bed without your supper!Zachriel