(November 28, 2019 at 8:20 pm)Otangelo Wrote:(November 23, 2019 at 3:44 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: My own intuition is that absolute nothingness is a self-contradictory state of affairs and therefore could never have really existed. Literally, lacking time, absolute nothingness could not even 'last' an instant. I think the quantum foam Krauss describes may be as little of something as it's possible for there to have ever been.
Virtual particles require a quantum vacuum. So you have to ask what caused that quantum vacuum into being, since it could not be eternal.
Hello!
Uhm... no.
That's not quite what the example is giving/doing.
The theological position would seem to be 'Something can not come from nothing.'
The, dare I say, "Naturalist" is offering an example of a particle suddenly being where no particle had been before. Such is the nature of Hawking Radiation.
As far as I know the actuallity of 'Nothing' as now put forth by theologians seems only to be a thought experiment as the very thing that's being proposed would not even seem coherant and/or possible.
'Nothing' would seem to be no more than a concept. Just as Escher's "Endless stair" and other visual treats are amazing. None can actually be a reailty in the physical world as we know it.
The other saying is "A cause can not be 'non-caused'." As in there must be a causal chain reaching back as far as the mind can see. The refuation of this with a 'practical' and 'natural' example is nuclear decay. The completely random splitting of one unstable elemental atom dwon into its daughter atoms.
The best we can ascertain is that, over the life of the original unstable atom 'Half' will decay.
We cannot (Litterally) know which of the atoms will decay. Nor, I think, exactly the 'when' of those atoms decaying BUT after a given amount of time half WILL have converted into daughter atoms.
Again, both examples above are just the best a 'Natural' view can give of things that contradict or invalidate the two sayings.
Cheers.
Not at work.
