What is Nothing vs Absolutely Nothing?

[Erck]

If space and time are 'contained' inside of something else, what contains the 'container'?

The container is the container.

The question is... "what is the container?"

What is it that has no "outside?"

If space/time is the container... given enough time and space, one will always encounter more universe... never reaching the container.

Not to mention not being able to answer the question of whether it's always existed or was created from a condition that didn't include space/time.

Working with "space/time or universe" to find the container is most likely fruitless.

Endless circles leading nowhere.

 

[connect]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,14493,1266057,00.html

Bing bang theory is out the window.

 

[Erck]

It wasn't much of a theory to begin with.

It couldn't find the beginning, much less before the beginning.

 

[selfAdjoint]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,14493,1266057,00.html

Big bang theory is out the window.

A black hole is not the big bang. Hawking's talk had NOTHING to do with the big bang. For that matter it didn't have too much to do with black holes.

 

[Erck]

I would suggest a black hole and the big bang are the same.

They both surmise that something and nothing can interchange. One goes from something to nothing... one goes from nothing to something.

Niether seems to be that case.

Or am I misunderstanding it?

 

[selfAdjoint]

I would suggest a black hole and the big bang are the same.

They both surmise that something and nothing can interchange. One goes from something to nothing... one goes from nothing to something.

Niether seems to be that case.

Or am I misunderstanding it?

I think you are misunderstanding. These categories are not specific enough to distinguish things that are really different.

The black hole does not go from something to nothing, it's just one-way. What goes in can't get out again.

In the black hole, spacetime geometry is pretty fixed, in the big bang, spacetime is expanding rapidly. The physics is completely different. And I repeat that Hawking's talk was specificllly about interacting with black holes, not anything at all to do with the big bang.

 

[Erck]

The black hole does not go from something to nothing, it's just one-way. What goes in can't get out again. And I repeat that Hawking's talk was specificllly about interacting with black holes, not anything at all to do with the big bang.

I realize his talk had nothing to do with the big bang.

I also realize that it's not commonly thought of that the big bang and black holes are the same thing... but I think they are representations of each other. The big bang being the macro and the black hole being the micro.

Doesn't Hawking's old theory state that what goes in disappears (albeit into another universe, theoretically), and isn't just trapped?

The power of a black hole to suck up stuff and make it disappear is very akin to the idea of a black nothingness being able to make stuff appear.

The new idea that black holes leak stuff back into the universe is like saying that somhow something leaks from nothing and the universe begins.

The new black hole theory has some strong merit... but it's dealing with a pre-existing relative state... the big bang theory doesn't have an ounce of merit since it's trying to deal with an absolute state which is quite different.

 

[n0n]

I think the big bang is a metifor for nothing befor this matters. not because of nothing or time, but because if any previsous other universe existed it wouldn't effect this universe. see what I think happened is: a complete unversal expansion, meaning the big bang occurred and is beyond extendable limits for life, and say one atom just going in some direction, at some speed. and say their were another univere were the same is occured, and a single atom million trillion light centuries (cool made up a new thing? maybe don't know) apart from any other atom from its universe, travleing at some speed acording to its universe. and they collide, now our universe has its own idea of what speed is, and so does the other universe, which is to say 20 mph here could mean 100 * C thier. if it weren't then maybe they would just bounce off each other.

if this occures then a huge big bang would occur to disperse the energy of the collision. and a black hole is just what a black hole is, a gravity death trap created by a colapsing something, star or whatever.

isnt that the way the atomic bomb works thou? like doesn't it cause space time to bend at the moment of the 2 element impact, cause one has got to be going near c., oh well nvm, way too tired to think anymore night.

 

[Chronos]

'a priori' assumptions cannot be proven within the theory that assumes them [a Godel thing]. It is simpler to apply the quantum model to the universe as a whole. Which is to say the universe arose from quantum fluctuations in the 'nothingness' that preceeded it. This particular universe resulted from a fluctuation that had just the right properties to evolve into the structures we now observe. This reality is, therefore, the sum of all possible histories.

 

[Erck]

Which is to say the universe arose from quantum fluctuations in the 'nothingness' that preceeded it.

Can't have a fluctuation or anything else in nothingness.

This particular universe resulted from a fluctuation that had just the right properties to evolve into the structures we now observe. This reality is, therefore, the sum of all possible histories.

Explaining this universe using other universes doesn't get us down to the bottom of it.

There are essentially, only two choices.

Explain how something came from nothing without using any other thing in the explanation.

Explain how something has always existed without using another thing as it's source.

 

[Manly Smite]

OK, let's try this again.

Time is only the measurement of movement thru space. Time = the length of space that one thing travels in an agreed counting system. Let's say 88 hart beats = 60 units and the speed of light = 299,792,458 m / per unit or c / t so time has no value without movement.

Lets keep in mind that if you’re the one moving (you are) thru space, you use time(t) as a measure of that movement. c = the t it takes for light to move 299,792,458 m measured from where you.

Space is a place that c travels in. We use t to measure c units of space as a way to give the mind a grasp on what it is not able to grasp on it's own.

I.E. a light year =c * sec * min * hour * day * 365.4 Time is a name that only places
one at a place in space when that space is at that place...

Just how fast are we moving any way?

 

[Prometheus]

OK, let's try this again.

Time is only the measurement of movement thru space.

This statement is true in the context of Newtonian physics. It is false in the context of the theory of relativity.

 

[Erck]

Prometheus...

How would you restate it in the context of the theory of relativity?

 

[Gil Fuller]

Two forms of nothing

There are really two forms of "nothing": 1)rational nothing-nothingness by definition and 2)empirical nothing-what could be there when one is at the limit of ones senses or sensors but detects nothing. In a rational system, something can either come from something or nothing but not both, otherwise, they would mean the same thing instead of being opposites. Because our senses and sensory devices are finite, we can never be empirically sure we have seen the smallest thing. Things can appear from "empirical nothing" but not from "rational nothing."

 

[Philocrat]

If space and time are 'contained' inside of something else, what contains the 'container'? Kind of defeats the whole notion of a 'universe' when you rely upon external entities to explain it. For the most part, that just neatly avoids the question.

Self-contained entities do not have to be contained. There is currently nothing readily available to demonstrate that our universe is in a container. Your question is equivalent to asking: God created everything and what created God? The Container-container theory as it is sometimes called always leads to what is known in philosophy as infifnite regress. The sausage inside sausage inside sausage ...ad infinituum!

On the issue of there being such thing as a 'nothing', my argument remains the some: there is none. Nothing remains what it has been, is, and will ever be: nothing. It cannot in reality relate to that which may be wholly construed as something.

 

[Philocrat]

If space and time are 'contained' inside of something else, what contains the 'container'? Kind of defeats the whole notion of a 'universe' when you rely upon external entities to explain it. For the most part, that just neatly avoids the question.

Self-contained entities do not have to be contained. There is currently nothing readily available to demonstrate that our universe is in a container. Your question is equivalent to asking: God created everything and what created God? The Container-container theory as it is sometimes called always leads to what is known in philosophy as infinite regress. The sausage inside sausage inside sausage ...ad infinituum!

On the issue of there being such thing as a 'nothing', my argument remains the some: there is none. Nothing remains what it has been, is, and will ever be: nothing. It cannot in reality relate to that which may be wholly construed as something.

 

[Erck]

Self-contained entities do not have to be contained. There is currently nothing readily available to demonstrate that our universe is in a container. Your question is equivalent to asking: God created everything and what created God?

There is also nothing readily available to demonstrate that our universe is the container.

I think the task is to define "container."

Is it impossible to logically define the container that isn't contained?

Given enough time we can theoretically reach the first or last thing in the universe and peer out over more space.. inside of what?

What comprises the "edge" of the universe?

 

[Philocrat]

There is also nothing readily available to demonstrate that our universe is the container.

I think the task is to define "container."

Is it impossible to logically define the container that isn't contained?

Given enough time we can theoretically reach the first or last thing in the universe and peer out over more space.. inside of what?

What comprises the "edge" of the universe?

Well, on the physical side side of things, you are right, there is currently no analytical tool or procedure to substantiate it. But on the supernatural side of things, you probably know that there are those who always use the 'First Mover Argument' in philosophy to equivalently attempt to substantiate it. I am skeptical as to the possibility of both.

 

[Philocrat]

There are really two forms of "nothing": 1)rational nothing-nothingness by definition and 2)empirical nothing-what could be there when one is at the limit of ones senses or sensors but detects nothing.

I agree with your observation about emperical-nothing...it's a mere signal to observational or visual limitations. I believe that there has never been any accountable relation between something and nothing at any level of contemplation. Our constant ettempt to make such connection is fictional and has no base in reality.

In a rational system, something can either come from something or nothing but not both, otherwise, they would mean the same thing instead of being opposites. Because our senses and sensory devices are finite, we can never be empirically sure we have seen the smallest thing. Things can appear from "empirical nothing" but not from "rational nothing."

Even a rational system, if it is to make any sense at all, has a base in reality. My own examination informs me that even in a rational stage there is no room for nothing. Something always comes from this thing or from every other thing and not from nothing. This controversy has caused headache in may areas of philosophy and I beg you understanding to steer clear of it. You might say to me; such logic sucks! yes, it does. But that's the way the cookies crumbles!

 

[Erck]

I believe that there has never been any accountable relation between something and nothing at any level of contemplation.

I wonder if sufficient contemplation could arrive at an accountable relationship between something and nothing... and if that "idea" would be so compelling that it would be taken as "fact?"

 

[Philocrat]

I wonder if sufficient contemplation could arrive at an accountable relationship between something and nothing... and if that "idea" would be so compelling that it would be taken as "fact?"

Perhaps...and it's debatable whether only under sufficient contemplation could one draw such an amazing 'conclusion', of which you are quite right may be mistaken for a fact. Well, if you like take it as an ordinary suspicion. I am merely expressing my own personal doubt as to whether nothing can give rise to something, let alone any conceivable thing construed as something able to take the form of 'nothing'.

 

[Erck]

I'm actually not questioning your doubt as to whether nothing can give rise to something... nor am I assuming that a very fundamental idea can only be "mistaken" for fact.

I'm actually wondering if at the root of existence... idea and fact are the same thing?

Plato "seems" to suggest it when he said... "and idea is an archetype of which a corresponding being in phenomenal reality is an imperfect replica."

 

[Prometheus]

II'm actually wondering if at the root of existence... idea and fact are the same thing?

Plato "seems" to suggest it when he said... "and idea is an archetype of which a corresponding being in phenomenal reality is an imperfect replica."

Plato thought that geometry is perfect. The reason that it doesn't correlate well with the real world is due to imperfections in the real world, not with his perfect model of geometry.

Do you agree?

 

[Erck]

My feeling is that they are both imperfect... the geometry and the real world.

True perfection only happens once.

That's the nature of perfection in it's truest sense... at the fundamental level we are talking about.

Anything inside the universe including geometry, and probably the universe as a whole, is not the singular perfection I'm referring to.

 

[north]

nothing is the absence of personal,group,country of things but that others have.

absolute nothing is the absence of space,time and dimension,therefore with absolutely no possibility of bringing forth any something, seen or unseen.

 

[bettysfetish]

Well, I've been just reading these threads for awhile and doing a lot of reading; everything from Thales- about 600 b.c. to Newton, Einstein, Greene, Reese and Hawking. And all those in between.
This "nothing" thing is simply not going to be solved in our time. If this "must" be included in the T.O.E. then that theory may simply not solidify. Whatever state exsisted before the "Planck Time" will never (i use that term loosely) be determined. We are forced to accept that this "unknown state" must have exsisted. Even through the application of well known quantum theories like those of Heisenberg we're forced to accept that the conditions must have been right sooner or later for energy to quantum tunnel into exsistance.
It just happened. Now it's up to entropy to take it's course; and in the termoil we exsist, "For there can be order in the chaos." This temporary order is held in check by gravity, and "that" being the result of mass will eventually dissipate as well. Then all will be calm in the universe.
L8R
--------"After all is said and done, Gravity Rules."------------

 

[pallidin]

There is no such thing as "nothing" within any framework of reality. As such, it is a concept which can not exist.
After all, if nothing were something it could not be nothing.
Thus, "nothing" is not only the absence of substance, but also the absence of reality.

 

[wisp]

... and, more specifically, what is the difference between nothing and absolutely nothing?

Nothing: This is an absence of what our senses and measuring instruments detect. For example, we may think of empty space as void, when it could contain solid ether. But we fail to detect it and so think empty space has nothing in it.

Absolute nothing: This is the ultimate in emptiness. Even if our senses and measuring instruments we set to detect everything that existed. In this case there is nothing there. Absolute nothing is void of everything: force, gravity, photons, ether, etc.

So "nothing" and "absolute nothing" are not the same thing.

wisp

"particles of nothingness"

 

[Antonio Lao]

What is "nothing?"

It is something which cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be touched, cannot be tasted, cannot be smelled, cannot be thought of and hence cannot be discussed.

Nothing is the complete opposite of the whole purpose of science. Science is the search for truth and truth is always something although truth can more often hide behind the concept of nothing if the truth is relative, but if the truth is absolute then it is the biggest thing in the universe and it is as clear as the purest crystal found in nature.

 

[mapper]

you can't nor will we ever define nothing or no-thing cause once that happens it becomes something...