Creatio Ex Nihilo - Forming Something out of Nothing?

[ManMachine]

Just had a good think about this idea thanks to another thread. And what confuses me is that a lot of theists will argue that "out of nothing, nothing comes" but then go on to say that God created stuff from this "nothing".

I guess what my issue with this is how is this logical if "nothing" (in the philosophical sense that most theists stick to) is not meant to have any sort material from which to form anything. Nothing supposedly means no stuff, no properties, no material, etc.

I know I've posted this thought experiment before but here goes for those who missed it.

Imagine a cube of 'nothing' 200 miles in each direction, and now imagine yourself in the middle of this cube. What you observe is 'nothing'.

If you decide you want to go travelling so you set off in a direction, any direction it doesn't matter, what you see is still nothing. Although you have moved in space you have not observed any change in the properties of 'nothing', so you have demonstrated that 'nothing' is invariant or has symmetry of translations in space.

Now you find your way back to the centre of the cube, this time you want to see what happens if you wait, so you wait 20 years. After 20 years you observe no change in the 'nothing', you have just demonstrated that 'nothing' is invariant or has symmetry of translations in time.

Meanwhile back in reality your lab assistant is about to conduct an experiment in London while you are conducting the exact same experiment in New York. You make a note of your observations and you discover that your experiment in London yields the exact same result as your experiment in New York, so you determine that the results as you observe them are invariant or have symmetry in translations in space.

You then wait a month and conduct the exact same experiment in the Bahamas because London is wet and New York too busy. The experiment yields the exact same result, you can now conclude that the results as you observe them are invariant or have symmetry in translations in time. So what, you might think, that's just a thought experiment and up to this point you'd be right, but here's where it gets interesting.

If we take the symmetry of translations in space, together with the principle of least action and apply a very special theorem called Noether's Theorem (first discovered by Emmy Noether) what we arrive at is the law of conservation of momentum. This 'interesting' observation of symmetry leads to a fundamental law of physics.

This is the also the case for other symmetries. Translational symmetry in space, together with the principle of least action when applied to Noether's Theorem gives us the conservation of momentum. We also know that the laws of physics are the same in any orientation, this symmeter of rotation in space together with the principle of least action when applied to Noethr's Theorem gives us the conservation of angular momentum.

Symmetry is clearly important on a fundamental level, in fact it is deeply powerful. We know that in Quantum Mechanics that a quantum wave is symmetric with respect to rotations in complex space (global phase change), this is called gauge symmetry. This symmetry happens to lead to the conservation of electric charge. But, the Schrödinger equation tells us that Quantum waves are not symmetrical under 'local' rotations in complex space (local phase change). However if we apply a field of force, like the electromagnetic field we can restore symmetry. This remarkably means that through the use of symmetry we have a powerful way of finding new laws of physics, e.g. another field used to restore symmetry is the nuclear 'strong' field that glues together quarks.

If we go back to the beginning of our thought experiment we remember that 'nothing' has exactly the same symmetries that are fundamental to the laws of physics in our Universe, which means either you do not need to change the laws of physics to get from 'nothing' to a Universe full of matter or that there is no difference between 'nothing' and our Universe full of matter.

We may simply be patterns in a void.

MM

For those of you who find this interesting here's a Google Tech Talk on Emmy Noether and the Fabric of Reality.