"That's not nothing"

[Freedom of thought]

You'll often hear apologists and religious people claim "that's not nothing", like it even matters. Most of the time atheists are not trying to show the universe came come from 'nothing', but that it can come into existence where a universe was not before. Does that mean there was nothing preceding it? No. I think they are just getting these ideas from their own religion (creation ex nihilo). Put people like Hawking do claim the universe came from nothing, but I don't think he's talking about the same thing. Sure, if there is no space and no time the laws of physics can form universes easily. But then again, nothing can be redefined by physics, like various other things have been redefined by physics in the past, and 'metaphysics' literally means after physics. So its perfectly fine to say the universe can come from nothing if we have an updated definition.

I'm fairly certain I once heard William Lane Craig say "something cannot come from nothing, because nothing has no properties, its a logical contradiction". Wait, you're assuming nothing should obey those laws of logic? That's not nothing! Nothing has no laws of logic!

[Violet]

Nothing being something... I don't understand what you are asking.

Logic is circular. Up to you whether you accept its application to nothing.

[Marsellus Wallace]

But in order for nothing to be something it has to obey the laws of logic, otherwise it wouldn't have made a universe where you exist in it .

Look at all the balanced things in the universe, think of the atom structure for example, it points to the nothing or balance.
The Atom: proton = +1 , electron = -1 , neutron = 0 . Add them all together you get 0 , which is the nothing in terms of logic..

So maybe the universe is just another value of zero(nothing) : (+1 -1 + 0) = 0

PS : I'm not sure of anything I just said, I just used logic to reach my own conclusions .

[Violet]

But in order for nothing to be something it has to obey the laws of logic, otherwise it wouldn't have made a universe where you exist in it .

Does it? I would rather have thought that nothing being something was necessary within logic. Not necessarily necessary without, and even then: perhaps it is false and true and otherwise. Why not?

PS : I'm not sure of anything I just said, I just used logic to reach my own conclusions .

It's okay: we can't make sense of what you're doing either.

[Marsellus Wallace]

Does it? I would rather have thought that nothing being something was necessary within logic. Not necessarily necessary without, and even then: perhaps it is false and true and otherwise. Why not?

Do you mean that the created universe creates its own logic with it ?

[Violet]

Do you mean that the created universe creates its own logic with it ?

Of course it does. To demonstrate: make your own logic. You being a part of the universe, it is logically mandated that the universe has created its own logic.

That isn't to say that the universe's creation was itself logical, green, or spaghetti... nor also that it follows its own logics what fall like raindrops into the irreverent ocean.

[MindForgedManacle]

You'll often hear apologists and religious people claim "that's not nothing", like it even matters. Most of the time atheists are not trying to show the universe came come from 'nothing', but that it can come into existence where a universe was not before. Does that mean there was nothing preceding it? No. I think they are just getting these ideas from their own religion (creation ex nihilo). But people like Hawking do claim the universe came from nothing, but I don't think he's talking about the same thing. Sure, if there is no space and no time the laws of physics can form universes easily. But then again, nothing can be redefined by physics, like various other things have been redefined by physics in the past, and 'metaphysics' literally means after physics. So its perfectly fine to say the universe can come from nothing if we have an updated definition.

I'm fairly certain I once heard William Lane Craig say "something cannot come from nothing, because nothing has no properties, its a logical contradiction". Wait, you're assuming nothing should obey those laws of logic? That's not nothing! Nothing has no laws of logic!

You're missing some crucial points. If physics is going to redefine nothing to actually be something, then it's an obvious equivocation fallacy to say that physics shows that the universe came from "nothing" when an apologist asks why anything exists. The apologist is obviously using "nothing" in a way the physicist isn't. This is why people like Krauss are totally full of shit on this topic.

You're misunderstanding Craig. He's saying it's a logical contradiction to say something can come from nothing (at least without a cause) because "nothing" has no properties, which means it has no potentiality for creation.

But in order for nothing to be something it has to obey the laws of logic, otherwise it wouldn't have made a universe where you exist in it.


Look at all the balanced things in the universe, think of the atom structure for example, it points to the nothing or balance.
The Atom: proton = +1 , electron = -1 , neutron = 0 . Add them all together you get 0 , which is the nothing in terms of logic..

So maybe the universe is just another value of zero(nothing) : (+1 -1 + 0) = 0

PS : I'm not sure of anything I just said, I just used logic to reach my own conclusions .

That we say things possess "positive" and "negative" properties is not a real thing, in the sense that we could just as easily say that protons possess a negative electrical charge, while electrons possess a positive charge.

[Marsellus Wallace]

That we say things possess "positive" and "negative" properties is not a real thing, in the sense that we could just as easily say that protons possess a negative electrical charge, while electrons possess a positive charge.

I know that Positive and negative are hypothetical principles taken in physics . But they are based on true facts; electron and proton are two opposite forces and neutron is a neutral force .

[vorlon13]

Something interesting about empty universes is that with nothing for time to impinge upon, time doesn't exist. Then, what ever 'quantum fluctuation' that might result in something like what we call 'home' which might be expected to spontaneously form randomly only after uncountable eons of eternity, actually will occur instantaneously.

Empty universes aren't stable, or eternal. They 'decay' immediately into universes that aren't empty. It is therefore wrong to consider our chock a block full of goodies universe to be weird, unlikely or unexpected.

[max-greece]

You're missing some crucial points. If physics is going to redefine nothing to actually be something, then it's an obvious equivocation fallacy to say that physics shows that the universe came from "nothing" when an apologist asks why anything exists. The apologist is obviously using "nothing" in a way the physicist isn't. This is why people like Krauss are totally full of shit on this topic.

You're misunderstanding Craig. He's saying it's a logical contradiction to say something can come from nothing (at least without a cause) because "nothing" has no properties, which means it has no potentiality for creation.

Interesting take.

For me its entirely the opposite. Its WCL that's full of it. Whilst he says you can't get something from nothing he claims God made the universe from nothing which is the ex-nihilo creation with an efficient cause (AKA Magic).

One of the biggest problems of QM is that our logic fails. This doesn't mean QM is wrong merely that our logic is more dependent on conditions than might have been obvious. In a scenario where time itself may not exist our brains can't make sense of it.

This logic failure is not only true of QM. Give me the logic of time going more slowly with speed. How does time know how fast I am going?

That defining nothing is proving a lot more difficult that we had imagined is hardly the fault of the physicists. Not all that long ago everyone would have agreed that nothing meant no thing. Are fields things? Is energy a thing? Are fundamental rules a thing? A vacuum used to be nothing and that contains much of the above and then some.

What it appears that the physicists are really saying is that true nothing (whatever that is) cannot exist. That it therefore appears to be "unstable." That particles and sub-particles are continuously popping in and out of existence.

The last part, if true, immediately gives you something from nothing.