If the universe came from nothing

[castlegates]

So when you say :
"Assuming that the universe came from nothing as an absolute fact, for the sake of discussion."

there is no problem with that, because that means that your definition of "nothing" is :
- I pick a time t=o as the beginning of time
- whatever is in the universe before t=0 I define as "nothing"

Actually there would be no beginning for time, as time would be the nothing that the universe would be composed of, as such, "nothing" in the complete sense" is undefinable in reality. I.E It's full definition is "non-existence", and we happen to be here as a testament to existence, therefore the universe would be an incomplete ongoing definition of nothing, by which existence is secure forever. In other words - We can continue to exist as long as "nothing" remains undefined "in reality". This is like saying that I exist, because I don't exist, but the implicatoin must be carried, if the universe came from nothing as an absolute fact.

 

[lllll]

Assuming that the universe came from nothing as an absolute fact, for the sake of discussion.

If the universe came from nothing. Doesn't this mean that the universe cannot be a physical entity? Are we not forced to assume that the universe is conceptual in nature? That the fundamentals of existence are no more than discrete conceptual geometrics of nothing?

Precisely! Though there was no apparition of existence/uni-verse only our evolution of intelligence as a systematized species, or "awakening", and the existence/uni-verse is only an ever ofness (sempiternal interchangable and ever changing energy). All concepts are of absence, immeasurable prsence, eternity, "nothingness", and methematically the concept known as zero or undefined (though even such is conceptually defined).

I'm sorry, I must go, my dog escaped and needs a bath.

Good thoughts!

 

[sd01g]

Perhaps we should just conclude that it does not matter (unless God personnally told you it matters) where the universe came from, and, anyway, we will never actually know. It is fun to speculate, but in reality, it is not only unkown but unknowable-- but it is guessable.

 

[DaveC426913]

There seems to be a lot of claims that the universe must have come from nothing. There are alternate hypotheses, such as (shoot, what's the term for it - "pulsating" universe?) This does not make use of any nothingness to describe "what was before".

 

[DaveC426913]

Perhaps we should just conclude that it does not matter where the universe came from...

This will never be an acceptable answer as long as humans draw breath.

 

[baywax]

Where did nothing come from? We made it up. Its is impossible to prove that nothing "exists" because, by its own definition, it does not exist.

Nothing is a cognitive construct that provides contrast to "something". Perhaps there is a middle ground somewhere between something and nothing that we are missing.

 

[baywax]

JonF said: pplying the word "from" to "nothing" in the sense you are using them is a category error.

This is in error because "from" implies coordinates and distance which simply do not apply to "nothing".

One could say "'something' takes place because 'nothing' provides the potential for something to exist".

 

[lllll]

This topic is my specialty so I will do my best to clear up all misunderstandings.

Some thing is measurable, is it not? "No thing" is immeasurable, is it not? Thus it cannot be classified as a thing. The "uni-verse" is an immeasurable presence, also known as an absence, a.k.a nothing. Some thing is a measurable presence, is it not?

From the immeasurable "uni-verse" that we are of, we measure things. So from the nothingness we create the thingness through labeling, measuring and attempting to predict and understand etc., ergo we create the one's and the wholes, hence one whole a.k.a. "uni-verse".

Where we are is immeasurable because of absence. The "universe" is not a bubble, it can never stop and it can never begin... the stars in the sky and the galaxies abound in the abyss of space are immeasurable, there is no border at which it stops and there is no hand which created its beginningness, it always has been and always will be.

There is no shape to what you have been mistakingly referring to as the "uni-verse". Energy/existence is unlimited and formless. Absence can not be outside of it acting as a force to stop it, thus create the notion of it expanding, for absence can not have a hole of absence/presence in it (the hole would be the universe. A hole of presence expanding into absence is what most models currently suggest), absence is an immeasurable presence, is it not? And a hole in absence would be another absence within absence: an impossibility: absence is the presence, and it be immeasurable as an eternal expanse.

Absence can not exist to separate its self, that which is the immeasurable presence, that which we are of and that which we are eternally connected to and never disconnected from, only in our awareness or lack thereof can we seem to ever be disconnected from some thing and to ever disconnect from some thing (the some thing here seems to be the lost concept of "nothing") is to disconnect from the immeasurable presence.

If nothing is nothing... then can it ever separate any thing? No. How can an immeasurable presence separate an immeasurable presence? It can't. We are with us, as whatever we may ever be and ever have been, for eternity as the interchangable states of conscious energetical existence.

If clarification is required then lucid perseverence is on stand-by.

I have a life just like every one else... and I make mistakes just like every one else... and tonight while I was writing this it was difficult to concentrate while taking care of my child. So I apologize for any short-comings. I'd rather play than work, I wish we could learn to mix the two.

Edit: The immeasurable is an infinite amount of what we refer to as measurables, and the measurables are never really one whole... for they are ever connected.

Therefore the immeasurable is both measurable and immeasurable. This is reflected every where, starting at us being mortal consciousnesses of an immortal consciousness that together we are.

 

[sd01g]

This will never be an acceptable answer as long as humans draw breath.

This is why we keep on guessing. Do you think we will ever know for sure the origin of the universe? If we state that 'nothing' is what is there when 'something' is not there, does this help explain the original origin, if any, of the universe?

 

[baywax]

This is why we keep on guessing. Do you think we will ever know for sure the origin of the universe?

Going by the definition of "universe" ie: "totality" we might safely say that the universe is the origin of the universe.

lllll, nothing is your specialty? You make "much adieu about a nothing" (Shakespeare)!

http://shakespeare.about.com/library/blmuch_3_1.htm

The philosophy of Nothing:

http://zork.cs.uvic.ca/quotes/nothing.html

 

[sd01g]

Going by the definition of "universe" ie: "totality" we might safely say that the universe is the origin of the universe.

If there was a time when the universe consisted of 'nothing', then the 'nothing universe' was the origin of the original universe. The question would still remain--how did the 'nothing universe' become the 'something universe'?

 

[baywax]

If there was a time when the universe consisted of 'nothing', then the 'nothing universe' was the origin of the original universe. The question would still remain--how did the 'nothing universe' become the 'something universe'?

"Totality" encompasses all states including non-states. So with this concept, the universe will never have been created nor destroyed (as in energy cannot be created or destroyed) but has always been and will always be. According to physics this would be the case.

 

[Mike2]

"Totality" encompasses all states including non-states. So with this concept, the universe will never have been created nor destroyed (as in energy cannot be created or destroyed) but has always been and will always be. According to physics this would be the case.

Or perhaps a singularity is equivalent to nothing. With absolutely everything consisting of nothing but a single spacetime point, there is no dynamics. For that matter there is no discription of anything since it would all be the same spacetime point. But if a single point of spacetime can come from nothing, then this means that spacetime has the property of expansion - more space with more time.

 

[baywax]

Or perhaps a singularity is equivalent to nothing. With absolutely everything consisting of nothing but a single spacetime point, there is no dynamics. For that matter there is no discription of anything since it would all be the same spacetime point. But if a single point of spacetime can come from nothing, then this means that spacetime has the property of expansion - more space with more time.

Conceptually I'd agree that nothing could be a singularity. Non-existence maintains its non-characteristics regardless of the existence other states.

However I'd say your statement implying that "everything consists of nothing but a single spacetime point" rules out too many of the other characteristics of "everything". Furthermore I'll risk saying that "space/time" is demonstratively relative and therefore unreliable as a benchmark.

 

[Mike2]

Conceptually I'd agree that nothing could be a singularity. Non-existence maintains its non-characteristics regardless of the existence other states.

However I'd say your statement implying that "everything consists of nothing but a single spacetime point" rules out too many of the other characteristics of "everything". Furthermore I'll risk saying that "space/time" is demonstratively relative and therefore unreliable as a benchmark.

Actually, everythings else may be nothing more than just properties of spacetime. They are thinking that particles come about symmetries of spacetime, and gravity is a warping of spacetime. so maybe the way in which spacetime expands from a singularity is sufficient to create the rest of reality.

 

[sd01g]

Hello, baywax: Putting all sophistry aside, do you believe the Universe came from nothing, or do believe it has it always existed/consisted of something? I believe the Universe has always existed/consisted as something and has never existed/nonexisted as nothing. Thanks.

 

[baywax]

Actually, everythings else may be nothing more than just properties of spacetime. They are thinking that particles come about symmetries of spacetime, and gravity is a warping of spacetime. so maybe the way in which spacetime expands from a singularity is sufficient to create the rest of reality.

I can see this being a probability. I also just realized that

"nothing" can neither be created nor destroyed.

I'm not sure if this is sophistry but it literally parallels the great axiom, "energy can neither be created nor destroyed".

So, in a literal sense, "nothing" and "everything" (as everything is energy) are somehow synergistically related.

 

[DaveC426913]

"nothing" can neither be created nor destroyed.

So, if I have a box with nothing in it*, and I place a box of plumber's putty in it, have I not destroyed the nothing?

I'm not sure that "well, there's air or vacuum in it" counts as a refutation.

 

[baywax]

So, if I have a box with nothing in it*, and I place a box of plumber's putty in it, have I not destroyed the nothing?

I'm not sure that "well, there's air or vacuum in it" counts as a refutation.

Good point. Haven't you simply displaced nothing?... the nothing is not confined by the box, since it has no dimension or, as a materialist might put it... nothing = 0 dimension(s)

 

[baywax]

But I see what you're saying. We define "nothing" as literally "no thing". So, when "something is introduced to a state of "nothing" does that destroy that state?

So, if I have a box with nothing in it*, and I place a box of plumber's putty in it, have I not destroyed the nothing?

No. Try applying this to the opposite action not adding to but subtracting energy. When you use up your battery in your electric car have you destoryed the energy... no... you've transformed the energy of the battery into work. The work transforms again into motion, heat, and so on. So, I think the operative work here is "transform".

 

[Hillary88]

I think we can do better. We can simply realize that the question makes no sense, stop asking it and move on to questions that do make sense.

No, he's right...the only "conclusion" is an answer which cannot be contradicted by further questioning...

 

[JoeDawg]

So, if I have a box with nothing in it*, and I place a box of plumber's putty in it, have I not destroyed the nothing?

You just moved nothing out of the empty box and put in where the box of putty used to be.

 

[Hillary88]

No, you're taking an empty box and putting a box of putty inside it..you haven't destroyedd the nothing...It's still there as much as the putty is.

 

[chaotik_lord]

So you're saying that the universe can't come from nothing? That the universe had no beginning?

If so - then the universe has always been. Not for x number of years, but for an infinity of years. Yet here we are as time passes, which implies an incomplete infinity, which brings us back to ... the universe had a beginning and that it came from nothing.

All infinities are not equal, however, and such can be proven mathematically. I am uncertain as to where that leaves the argument, but it seems vaguely pertinent.

 

[Math Is Hard]

This is a very old thread, and the person you are replying to is no longer with us.