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Sean Carroll chimes in on the idea of a Universe from Nothing, and I get a feeling that many people who browse this forum would enjoy a read through it:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/04/28/a-universe-from-nothing/
Here's a quote:
As a rule, I tend to agree rather forcefully with most things that Sean Carroll has to say, so I highly recommend a read of the whole post if this kind of topic interests you.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/04/28/a-universe-from-nothing/
Here's a quote:
This is going to be kind of long, so here’s the upshot. Very roughly, there are two different kinds of questions lurking around the issue of “Why is there something rather than nothing?” One question is, within some framework of physical laws that is flexible enough to allow for the possible existence of either “stuff” or “no stuff” (where “stuff” might include space and time itself), why does the actual manifestation of reality seem to feature all this stuff? The other is, why do we have this particular framework of physical law, or even something called “physical law” at all? Lawrence (again, roughly) addresses the first question, and David cares about the second, and both sides expend a lot of energy insisting that their question is the “right” one rather than just admitting they are different questions. Nothing about modern physics explains why we have these laws rather than some totally different laws, although physicists sometimes talk that way — a mistake they might be able to avoid if they took philosophers more seriously. Then the discussion quickly degrades into name-calling and point-missing, which is unfortunate because these are smart people who agree about 95% of the interesting issues, and the chance for productive engagement diminishes considerably with each installment.
As a rule, I tend to agree rather forcefully with most things that Sean Carroll has to say, so I highly recommend a read of the whole post if this kind of topic interests you.