robheus

You have to clearly understand that the meaning of the word nothing does not allow it to be used in a sense that it could be even the infinitessimal small something you refer to. Nothing is just nothing not the contrary of itself. Without there being something (whatever it is, whatever way it can be determined) neither there is nothing, because something and nothing are just like the two coins of the same medal. One can not be defined without the other. (likewise in physics, you can not define matter without space and vice versa).

If you can not see the difference between the big bang theory and genesis story, there is no point in discussing anything. A singularity is a theoretical point in a scientific theory. Newton's theory of gravity also had a singularity, if you bring two point masses at zero distance, the force becomes infinite. Clearly that is not the case.

Not only does such a reality not exist it is not even possible to exist. You can not have total absence of some stuff, if there ain't no stuff in the first place. A universe without light isn't dark, since dark is absence of light, and if there is no light, neither there is absence of light.

Same question here. And btw. I just happened to e-mail lawrence kraus about this particular issue. Hope he responds.

This is actually quite painfull to read. Do you actually equate yourself with God or something? Sorry, but all this what you write is utterly nonsensical to me. You have to tell me, if you assume that some "I-ness" or "consciousness" is behind all this, how can you even contemplate that without also making the logical inference that for any "I" to exist, also the "not-I" must exist, in other words for something to have "I-ness" you need to be able to distinguish between "I" and "not-I", otherwise none of that applies. You sort of fail to demonstrate that.

Well you understand dialectics or you don't. All these kind of questions have to do with the limitations of formal logic. Take for example the aristotelean logic, with the law of identity (A=A). You might at first think that that is a basic proposition of any logic for that to be true. But then look at the world and come up with any A for which that can be true. What it says is that A=A at any time. Now most of the things (if not all) that exist in the world are changing. Which means is that if we inspect an A at two different instances of time, we can already notice that some things have changed. The only "things" for which the law of identity hold true are abstract things (like mathematics). 4 is always 4, no matter what time it is, or what the weather is. So, the point is that for any real object in the world, the aristotelan logic fails, although not always as obvious. If aristotelean logic would exactly describe the world, it could only describe a perfectly static world, in which no change occurs. In many cases though, this goes unnoticed. We have no problem for example in identifying objects in the two opposite categories like living and dead. Rocks, comets, water droplets are dead and bacteria, lions and people are living. But the dividing line between life and death is not simple. When does a person exactly die? Any medicists can tell you it is not trivial. Is a virus a living organism? Where is for example the dividing line between "I" and "not-I"? Is my body part of "I"? Where does the food you eat and the air you breath become part of you as a living organism? As soon as you inhaled the air or swallowed the food? All these examples show that drawing a line between A and not-A is not so simple as often thought. Quantum mechanics is another example where aristotelean logic simply breaks down.

Yep. Quantum fluctuations "happen" in space time, so this means space time is to be assumed always for any physical event to take place.

Which cosmologist did you ask? It is a common fact in cosmology that to explain quite a number of things the big bang theory is unable to explain, inflation cosmology comes to the help. For instance the flatness problem, the horizon problem, the homogeneity of the universe and the monopole problem and fine tuning problem are all solved at the basis of inflationary cosmology. Inflation is the period before the normal big bang jumps in (bario genesis etc.) and is in fact a theory on it's own, assuming inflation basically means that the process (in most models) never ends once started. Edit: The singularity is not part of our past, because simply said the theory of GR breaks down there, and measurements smaller then the planck length/time are physically meaningless. To argue otherwise is the same as saying that if you clap your hands, based on Newtonian gravity, a singularity would happen because two mass points would be at zero distance away causing the force of gravity to become infinite. Which as we know does not happen, because masses are not realy zero dimensional points and second there is also the electrmagnetic force which causes to masses that are near each other to become repulsed because of the repulsive force of the electron shells. Likewise, a realististic model of the universe has not only to consider gravity, but also quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics shows that the singularity does not exist, and hence the singularity was not in our past. What DID happen near the fictional singularity is not entirely clear, but the least to say is that our model of this period based on GR alone does not explain it correct enough.

Why should nature care about what to your mind is a "formal absurdity" ?? Quantum theory for instance already proofs to us that our ordinary logic and intuition is incapable of knowing what goes on on the quantum level. What is absurd though is that you assume that the infinite can be counted, because clearly a counted infinity is an absurdity because it contains a contradiction in terminis (the infiinite is by definition uncountable). Let us suppose for a moment you have a line extending to infinity at both ends. You can now place two points anywhere on the line and measure it. No matter where you place the points the distance measured between them always yield a finit answer. Does that in anyway "proof" that the line is finite? No, of course not. Because there is no limit to where we can place the two points on the line, so we can always create a longer distance between the two points by placing them further apart, so there is no upper limit to the distance between the points. Which in other words shows that the line itself is infinite. Now you might say, but I don't believe that in nature there can be the infinite, but then, that is just your assumption. Nature can be different then we think it is. This ain't very helpfull because the slightest insight into the nature of the problem already would show you that the same problem just gets re-raised, but which then asks the question where did that God came from? Eigher you have to say that God created itself (which is absurd, because in order for there to be effective effects of a cause, the cause has to exist), or you need an infinite hierarchy of Gods or that God existed eternally. But if you admit to the last vision, we could simply turn again to the question we started with, and admit that therefore the world itself is eternal. It does not have or need an external cause. The existence of God (just some made up entity) in this whole debate can then be left out, since it can not really exist, and this of course becomes recognizable as soon you realise that the moment you assume that God exists, you have to admit also that a world (which at the minimum contains God) must exist which was not created by God. So it's impossible that God exists, for in order for God to create the world, God would have to create first itself, which is clearly impossible. An infinite, eternal, world, without begin or end, however is not, even if it looks contradicationary or absurd. Our intuition just might be wrong.

The problem is that if you extend the notion of consciousness to the realm of the physical reality, the cosmos, then at some point you must assume everything is conscioussness. But then also nothing is consciousness. Because for every quality we can detect, we always need to detect a difference. We know light exists because there are places which are dark (where there is absence of light). If everything is light, then in a sense, there is no light, because we can only detect a difference in light, not light itself.

I don't think that it has any real meaning. You can think of so many things theoretically, but somewhere it stops to have any real meaning, and just becomes a phantom of imagination.

You start out with an assumption, namely that there is "something" and not "nothing" (which are taken as seperate). But that is not the case. There is as well "something" as there is "nothing", and in case you wonder how that could be the case, just remember that any something you can think of was once a nothing and at any time later becomes nothing, so in this sense, there is both something and nothing. You got to think of "something" and "nothing" as not seperate "things" (notions) but as an unseperated unity, in which one can turn into the other, and this unity is simply becoming (or: ceasing to be).

Nonsense. Science does not say that the universe began from singularity. And a point before that is even more meaningless.

In what way would it no be an absolute limit?

For observer state observation, and I agree with it. But in no way it implies that consciousness has anything to do with it. Well the material world is consious of itself, but still this property only manifests itself in human beings or other sentenient beings. If everything were to be called consciouss, then also nothing is consciouss, since we can only detect a differentiation. If everything is light (if there is no distinction between light and dark) then there effectively is no light since there is no differentiation.

I use spacetime and vacuüm interchangebly, and you are right of course that the universe did not expand "into" pre-existing spacetime but that it is spacetime itself that expands.

How can fluctuations exist without spacetime?

Incorrect. The big bang theory talks about how the universe develops over long cosmological time frames, and is NOT a theory about how the universe 'began' (there never will or can be a theory about that, since the universe did not begin in the first place).The conventional hot big bang model is in modern cosmology preceded with an inflationary period, a short timeframe in which the universe exponentially fast grew from a very tiny patch of false vacuum and then goes over in a more moderate rate of expansion, after the heat was converted into particles.

And we could add: the "singularity" in the theory of gravity (general relativity) is not in any way different then for intance the singularity in Newton's theory of gravity (which contemplates about point masses with zero dimensions), since if we would take point masses at zero distance, also in Newton's theory the force of gravity becomes infinite. We know from experience however, this does not happen. Firstly because besides gravity there also exists other forces, like electro-magnetism, and if two atoms are about to touch each other, what really happens is that the electron shells of the atoms are repulsing each other. Besides, as we also now from experiments, point masses of zero dimensions do not exist, matter (particles, fermions) take up some space. For the universe it can be explained that the point of singularity did not exist because 1. quantum mechanical effects need to be taken into account 2. zero dimensional spacetime does not exist, since space time is extended with a minimum of planck lengt and time.

Being passing over into nothing and nothing passing over into being happens all the time, we call it becoming (or ceasing to be). Get the idea out of your mind that: 1. The big bang means: start of the universe (start of space,time and matter) because - This is not what the big bang theory says (the big bang theory only says how on long cosmological time scales the universe develops, expands) - This is not what physically can happen anywhere at any time. - Nothing (as in not-something) is only nothing, it contains no being and it is no beginning. For something to begin, you already need some form of being. - The vacuum or empty space does not equate "nothing" since even the most empty vacuum still contains energy.

It is not. A singularity is only a mathematical point with zero dimension, but physical space time can not be a point, every part of spacetime has a minimum extension, like planck length and planck time. If we would imagine that time extends to both past and future infinite, and there are infinite possibilities of arranging the universe, we would simply not know. Since the amount of possibilities might be a larger infinite then the infinity of time. But a subset of those infinite arrangements might of course re-occur.

Just suppose the universe did not begin in the first place. To contemplate about this, let us first state that the universe is all there is in all time and all space. What can we infer from that? First I would think that the universe could not have an edge or boundary, there is no moment in time or place in space where the universe is not, and so there isn't a boundary between them. This would imply in my opinion also the universe did not begin, because it would have to have started from nothing, but nothing is no begin and nothing contains no being. Nothing is only noting. (That some part of the universe, like for instance the part we can observe now, could have started from an infinitsimal small patch in a quantum fluctuation, is something radically different, because it already presupposses that there exists space and time and quantum fluctuations happening in space and time, which is not nothing).

That is an interpretation of quantum mechanics (the Copenhagen interpretation) not every physicists agrees upon.

Yes, I know, but what yoy talk about is physical matter, which physics defines as fermionic stuff (for which the Pauili exclusion principle holds). I do not talk about physical matter but matter in the philosophical sense which is the substance of everything. So, wether matter exists in the form of fermions, bosons, fields, or whatever, that is a physical category, for philosophy they are just the same substance. I think you make a mistake here because you equate "empty space" or the vacuum as being nothing. I think that is not the case. Physics just shows and tells us, the vacuum is never devoid of matter/energy. Second you should get rid of the notion "begin of the universe" since it can not possibly mean anything. For something to begin it is already understood that time exists, and so physics tells us, also space exists and matter. In the big bang though, the important thing is that before the big bang, all the fermionic stuff did not yet exist. There was just a lot of energy. If you stretch the meaning of "something" from "nothing" then you could say that "something" (the fermions) were made from "nothing" the high energy in the vacuum. But you got to understand, it is not.

This is just sophistry. You already start out with the idea about "something-ness" and "nothing-ness" (which I will call 'being' and 'nothing') which supposes they are only seperate from each other. With seperate I mean that they would have so-to-speak seperate existence, each on their own. But since you would have no trouble in contemplating also coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be, it is already understood that being passes over into nothing and vice versa, and by which it should be understood that being and nothing are unseperated, since they are just each others opposite. The notions being and nothing (just as abstract notions, that is without any determination) are each seperately only nothing and in fact the same (that is: the same lack of determination). They only exist as each others opposite in the union of being and nothing which is becoming. In other words: So, since the notion of nothing is based on something (ie. nothing means the lack or absence of something) if you were to contemplate about the inexistence of any something, then neither would there be any nothing. Or, another example. Darkness is just absence of light. But suppose that there would not be photons, no electro-magnetic fields, would then such a world be dark? No, of course not. If there is no light, then neither there can be absence of light. And similarly, if the universe would have light penetrating everywhere, without shadows/darkness, we would not be able to detect it. PS. The universe does not have a Goldi lock condition. This is only true for there to be planets in a habitable zone. There are plenty of planets that are not in the habitable zone. PS.2 The universe was not "created" in the Big bang, and that is not what the big bang theory claims to say. If you mean that for any something to exist, it must have a cause of it's existence, then why would your made-up entity God be immune to that same logic? You can not use a certain kind of logic and neglect it at the same time, as you please, so either you use it throughout and uniformly in the strictest sense, or don't use it, but you are not permitted to use it just as it seems fit. If you then say, well but I choose the made-up entity God to be eternal, so God would not need to have a cause, then it would be clear immediately you would not have to infer it´s existence in the first place, since we could just say then that the world itself is eternal, and hence needs no (external) cause. And in any case, it is rather illogical to say that the made-up entity God does not need a cause, and a self-creating God also defeats logic. In any way the statement that there would have need to be a God to create the world is false, since the mere existence of any something (even if just God and nothing else) means a world already exists, and which therefore can not have been created by God. But perhaps another way of explaining this is that indeed, all material and physical phenomena need to have a cause, but that would just implies that some substance exists which itself is neither createble nor destructable, but which existence gives rise to all the known (and perhaps also yet unknown) forms of matter and physical phenomena. Since there is just this one undivided substance, it also means that all forms of matter can be transformed into each other. We call that matter. The existence of matter implies space and time exist, since matter is in motion always. It is not just physical matter (ie. particles or fermions) but all forms of matter known to physics (like fields, etc.). Matter forms the substance which creates objective reality, and it exists outside and independend of our consciousness. Consciousness is just a secondary feature of matter, based on a highly organized material form in living beings (ie. our brains). Matter, as defined here, is an abstact category. We don't 'see' or 'observe' matter, we only recognize it's various interactions and existence forms. Outside of matter there is nothing. All causes for phenomena in the world are based on the existence of matter. Matter itself though is causeless, infinite and eternal.