RE: Is absolute 'nothing' really possible and/or coherent?
April 18, 2012 at 11:05 pm
(This post was last modified: April 18, 2012 at 11:10 pm by Reforged.)
(April 18, 2012 at 3:36 am)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: I was thinking about ex nihilo... Theist of course use this in cosmological arguments, and the more sophisticated arguments define "nothing" as having no mass, energy, or temporal qualities. They define it this way to get around the quantum mechanics examples where something comes from nothing. So "nothing" isn't just empty space. Space itself is something to theists. But is "nothing" when defined this way really possible and/or coherent? My impression of this sort of "nothing" seems impossible to imagine sort of like trying to imagine a square circle.
It is very much a hot issue debated frequently in the scientific community.
The truth is we have never experienced absolute nothing because its nigh impossible to find a space devoid of anything. No air, light, background radiation, matter, forces or fields. We can theorize or conceptualize nothing but even if we were to create this space there would be no light to see the effects.
It is essentially a moot point until we can create absolute nothing. I suppose one way to create it would be to create some kind of force bubble that pushes *everything* out. Once everything is pushed out the force that pushed everything out inside the bubble would cease but the force bubble itself would remain preventing anything else from entering. Inside this bubble would be absolute nothing but as far as I know we have nowhere near the capabilities to create such a thing. But then this would essentially be the opposite of a black hole so I suppose it must be possible.