The following is not a question: Can something come from nothing?

[Alex K]

My point: why isn't there such a force?

Because it's against the laws of physics.

For my purposes here I don't count emergent laws which only hold statistically for many particles among the fundamental laws of physics.

Point taken about the distraction, I'm thinking about how to streamline the whole thing

[Ben Davis]

If there is no God, how can something come from nothing, so atheism is wrong.

Abrahamic theists often don't realise they've got this the wrong way round! The argument actually conflicts with the idea that their God used magic to poof the universe in to existence out of nothing. If something can't come from nothing then God couldn't have created the universe with his magical powers. No-one with at least a high-school-level scientific understanding of the early universe claims that something can come from nothing.

It is a useful question because it opens the door to current findings regarding the definition of 'nothing' however it's no argument against atheism.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Ex nihlio is a later doctrine. You won't find it in the Bible.

[John V]

If something can't come from nothing then God couldn't have created the universe with his magical powers.

I think it's generally understood that there's an implied "naturally" in the argument, i.e. something can't naturally come from nothing.

[ShaMan]

If while watching the film backwards, prior to seeing the cascade in reverse, a bird is seen flying backward across the creek, then it would indeed violate the laws of aerodynamic physics, would it not?

I enjoyed reading your OP - especially the part where the trees are swaying gently.

[Alex K]

If while watching the film backwards, prior to seeing the cascade in reverse, a bird is seen flying backward across the creek, then it would indeed violate the laws of aerodynamic physics, would it not?

I think it would, because of friction

I enjoyed reading your OP - especially the part where the trees are swaying gently.

still working on it though. I'm thinking about making the film...

---

The issue is not temporal but rather logical priority. In a world characterized by change what are the necessary constants and of those which is most fundamental. Your critique only works against a straw man.

Can you explain what you mean by the second sentence?

p.s.
I don't think my critique is against a straw man, it is against an argument that is brought up time and time again here. I believe you that you haven't used it.

[fr0d0]

theists often raise the question:
If there is no God, how can something come from nothing, so atheism is wrong.

I would never use it because it's an argument from an unrelated subject.

[Rampant.A.I.]

Why did the cascade so obviously violate your sense of time, while the other parts of the creek did not? The reason is entropy: the cascade is, from the physics point of view, a very irreversible process which produces lots of entropy. The creek running its course quietly produces entropy as well because of the friction the water experiences, but much less so than the cascade.

The surprising thing is this: nothing in the backwards-running movie violates the laws of physics.

Er, water falling (so to speak) up seems to violate the laws of physics to me.

Note what has happened: we use the words which have meanings in our everyday lives as well as in science, and try to apply them in a scenario so different that none of them retain any meaning. Two things spoil the question: if there is no universe full of particles doing their statistical dance, there is no notion of an arrow of time, even if we assume that time as a continuous parameter exists. However, if we let even go of this, if we feel compelled to talk about the creation of time itself, all meaning is lost, and the questions we utter merely resemble questions, but in reality only mimic them.

In appealing to a time or state or what have you in which the laws of physics as we know them don't apply, you're appealing to the supernatural, like the theist.

Two things: gravity isn't a law of physics to you?

And saying "we don't know" is not the same as an appeal to the supernatural. No theist advancing an ontological argument has ever explained why the laws of physics we observe within the existing universe would apply before the universe existed.

There's no reason to assume they would.

---

If something can't come from nothing then God couldn't have created the universe with his magical powers.

I think it's generally understood that there's an implied "naturally" in the argument, i.e. something can't naturally come from nothing.

That's an add in to support the special pleading of God not needing a cause, being eternal, preexisting the universe, none of which are supported by the argument.

[MindForgedManacle]

Your definition of entropy and the arrow of time seems circular. Water falls because there are more possible states it can be after than before, yet this is just the definition of the arrow of time itself, so you haven't really explained the arrow of time, simply shown something that occurs if you assume a specific arrow of time. (Which may be violated, e.g. fluctuation theorem and time-reversal interpretation of QM.)

The arrow of time is a result by entropy itself. The laws of physics are time-independent, which is why we can "retrodict" things with the laws of physics. What we call "past" and "future" are simply a result of a recognition of the difference between 2 states of affairs wherein one state has less entropy than another. The reason for this is because is is the case that there are more ways to be in a disordered state than an ordered state. There's no circularity there.

[max-greece]

What happens when you switch on a light?

Where do the photons come from?

Did they exist before you switched on the light?

Photons are created when an electron changes its energy state but when you switch off the light and the electron falls back the photon isn't sucked back in.

In effect - the photon is created out of nothing.

I thank you.