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Why is there something rather than nothing?


Vexen

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The evidence for the BB tells us that the universe evolved from a hotter, denser state at t=10-43 seconds to what we see today, 13.83 billion years later. Science/cosmology explains the formation of matter, the elements, stars, planets, galaxies etc with reasonable competency. 

Before that, at this time we can only make an educated hypothesis. This is one that I believe holds promise. https://www.astrosociety.org/publication/a-universe-from-nothing/

 

Why is there something rather then nothing? That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

What really needs to be defined, is what is nothing imo.

Edited by beecee
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13 hours ago, Vexen said:

I read somewhere that nothing is unstable.

I don’t see how “nothing” can be unstable, there wouldn’t be anything to be unstable. 

And I am not going to listen to an entire (stupid sounding) audiobook to see if it makes any sense.

Why is there something? Because there is. Because if there weren’t, we wouldn’t be here to ask the question. This is not a question science can answer. It is one for philosophy or religion (but they can only answer by making something up).

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Air is not nothing.  You can't see it, but it is a gas.  Space is not nothing.  Just because you cannot see, detect, or define empty space, doesn't mean it is nothing.  The something we can see, came out of something we cannot see.

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17 minutes ago, Thorham said:

Because it seems nonsense that something can come from absolute nothingness.

not sure anyone really claims it did... depends on how you define 'nothing' as mentioned above.

 

21 hours ago, Airbrush said:

Just because you cannot see, detect, or define empty space, doesn't mean it is nothing.  The something we can see, came out of something we cannot see.

 

On ‎3‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 8:13 PM, beecee said:

The evidence for the BB tells us that the universe evolved from a hotter, denser state at t=10-43 seconds to what we see today, 13.83 billion years later. Science/cosmology explains the formation of matter, the elements, stars, planets, galaxies etc with reasonable competency. 

Before that, at this time we can only make an educated hypothesis. This is one that I believe holds promise. https://www.astrosociety.org/publication/a-universe-from-nothing/

 

Why is there something rather then nothing? That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

What really needs to be defined, is what is nothing imo.

 

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6 hours ago, Thorham said:

Because it seems nonsense that something can come from absolute nothingness.

Define nothing.

The only scientific answer is that the quantum foam [possibly the closest to nothingness that is ever able to exist] has existed for an infinite amount of time.

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When I attempt to contemplate "nothing" I get trapped in an endless spiral of confusion and chaos. I infer from this that I am not intelligent enough to understand "nothing". I don't know if any human is intelligent enough for that, but if they are I am reasonably sure I not even intelligent enough to understand any simplified explanation they would be inclinded to give. Consequently I have found it a sensible policy to focus on what appears to be real. That seems to be sufficient to be going on with.

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On 3/21/2019 at 1:46 AM, Intrigued said:

When I attempt to contemplate "nothing" I get trapped in an endless spiral of confusion and chaos. I infer from this that I am not intelligent enough to understand "nothing". I don't know if any human is intelligent enough for that, but if they are I am reasonably sure I not even intelligent enough to understand any simplified explanation they would be inclinded to give. Consequently I have found it a sensible policy to focus on what appears to be real. That seems to be sufficient to be going on with.

"Nothing" never existed, nor will it ever exist.

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On 3/21/2019 at 3:46 AM, Intrigued said:

I infer from this that I am not intelligent enough to understand "nothing". I don't know if any human is intelligent enough for that...

Don't mean to brag, but I have no problem at all understanding "nothing".

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1 hour ago, Airbrush said:

"Nothing" never existed, nor will it ever exist.

That is a confident assertion, but can you justify it without resorting to metaphysics or some other branch of philosophy?  However, don't waste time trying to answer that question: the subtext of my post was "Let's not waste time considering nothing, let's just think about something."

54 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Don't mean to brag, but I have no problem at all understanding "nothing".

There you go! Sometimes all it takes is putting the word nothing in a sentence and I am immediately lost.

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On 3/23/2019 at 2:25 PM, Intrigued said:

That is a confident assertion [that "nothing" never existed], but can you justify it without resorting to metaphysics or some other branch of philosophy?  However, don't waste time trying to answer that question: the subtext of my post was "Let's not waste time considering nothing, let's just think about something."

It's just hard to imagine how, when, or where, absolutely nothing ever existed.  If a big bang came out of it, then that potential for a big bang is not nothing.

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34 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

It's just hard to imagine how, when, or where, absolutely nothing ever existed.  If a big bang came out of it, then that potential for a big bang is not nothing.

Perhaps as I have suggested previously, we need to define what nothing is. Perhaps the quantum foam, from whence the BB evolved, [is as close to nothing as most of us perceive nothing] as we can get...

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5 minutes ago, beecee said:

Perhaps as I have suggested previously, we need to define what nothing is. Perhaps the quantum foam, from whence the BB evolved, [is as close to nothing as most of us perceive nothing] as we can get...

That makes no sense to me. You are essentially saying 'nothing equals something (foam)'. 

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9 minutes ago, zapatos said:

That makes no sense to me. You are essentially saying 'nothing equals something (foam)'. 

Any entity less than  a quantum has no effect on anything; it may as well be nothing. A quantum is the minimum energy required to have an effect on stuff.

Edited by StringJunky
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34 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Any entity less than  a quantum has no effect on anything; it may as well be nothing. A quantum is the minimum energy required to have an effect on stuff.

So the quantum foam has an effect on stuff? Doesn't that imply it is not 'nothing', but only the closest thing to nothing that we might be able to achieve in nature?

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3 hours ago, zapatos said:

So the quantum foam has an effect on stuff? Doesn't that imply it is not 'nothing', but only the closest thing to nothing that we might be able to achieve in nature?

I forgot to to add that most of the virtual particles add up to  'nothing' most of the time but sometimes two collide/interact and make a quantum. They may annihilate eventually, I'm not sure. The foam is nothing in the sense that much of the time it has no effect on the quantum world and then only intermittently. I think that's what scientists in this subject  mean by nothing.

I think this is one of those cases where a word means something a bit different to what we are used to.

Edited by StringJunky
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