Nothingness

[bennyboy]

The question is whether it exists only as a concept, or as an object locatable in time and place (or some other framework).

Considering that every 'thing' is only a concept as long as something is defining it... is not the first most important question instead: does everything only exist as I observe, or do I not observe all the ways in which all things might exist? [. . .]
All you can be sure of... is that in *your* existence: you are seeing the universe from your perspective.

You don't know me yet, but you're largely preaching to the choir. Anything beyond solipsism requires increasing levels of assumption. The question is: am I willing to make those assumptions?

When it comes to things like mind/matter duality or whether there can be a Deity, I'm more likely to default to the subjective rather than to filter things through a physical monist model. However, if you're talking about the universe as it's usually defined, you're ALREADY implicitly accepting certain assumptions: in particular, about the existence of an objective physical universe. I wouldn't, for example, talk about an "idealistic universe," because that's not how the word universe is used. Nor would I attempt to tell someone else that I'm a solipsist, or worse, that they are a solipsist; attempting to communicate with others while relying only on the pure knowledge of direct experience is really a refusal to communicate.

Nothing is definitely something... how could it be otherwise?

This paradox comes from the wordplay. Obviously, it is something, because we are talking about it. I'd suggest that to say "the universe comes from nothing" points to idealism or Deism, since while a CONCEPT of nothingness might allow for new ideas to fold, an absolute nothingness couldn't even have the potential for non-nothingness, and we wouldn't be here.

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to claim idealism or Deism. I'm only saying that "something from nothing" is an idea that physicalists must avoid like the plague.

[little_monkey]

I'm only saying that "something from nothing" is an idea that physicalists must avoid like the plague.

That's a cute one. Consider this:

(1) Scientists are proposing that the universe popped out of the vacuum, with evidence that this not only possible but very probable based on what has been observed so far with what the vacuum can do ( Hawking radiation, Casimir force, Higgs boson).

(2) Deists/theists have to invoke a God, (whose nature is problematic) who has created this something out of nothing by using pure magic.

Which is more credible?

Joe

[bennyboy]

I'm only saying that "something from nothing" is an idea that physicalists must avoid like the plague.

That's a cute one. Consider this:

(1) Scientists are proposing that the universe popped out of the vacuum, with evidence that this not only possible but very probable based on what has been observed so far with what the vacuum can do ( Hawking radiation, Casimir force, Higgs boson).

(2) Deists/theists have to invoke a God, (whose nature is problematic) who has created this something out of nothing by using pure magic.

Which is more credible?

Joe

With all due respect, in neither case is something coming out of nothing. A vacuum is still something, as at the least it has some relationship to time and to the existence of the particles that come from it. I don't accept the word "nothing" as a substitute for "particle-spawning space."

As for credibility: I think either view equally abuses the meaning of the word "nothing." I'm fully willing to believe that matter can spontaneously arise out of empty space. But I'm not willing to call this process getting something from nothing.

[FifthElement]

I always thought that "pure" nothingness is just a reference point, just like absolute 0 temperature is, never existed and never achievable, it exist only in our vocabulary and it's purely mathematical construct ...

If that implies that I believe that Universe always existed, then so be it

[little_monkey]

That's a cute one. Consider this:

(1) Scientists are proposing that the universe popped out of the vacuum, with evidence that this not only possible but very probable based on what has been observed so far with what the vacuum can do ( Hawking radiation, Casimir force, Higgs boson).

(2) Deists/theists have to invoke a God, (whose nature is problematic) who has created this something out of nothing by using pure magic.

Which is more credible?

Joe

With all due respect, in neither case is something coming out of nothing. A vacuum is still something, as at the least it has some relationship to time and to the existence of the particles that come from it. I don't accept the word "nothing" as a substitute for "particle-spawning space."

As for credibility: I think either view equally abuses the meaning of the word "nothing." I'm fully willing to believe that matter can spontaneously arise out of empty space. But I'm not willing to call this process getting something from nothing.

You do realize that I have posted why this "nothing" is nothing from a physics POV, in another forum (atheistforum.com), I believe I also did it here in this forum. In case you've forgotten, here's a repost:

One of the fundamental concept in QM is the vacuum state. Without it, the whole structure of QM falls apart. How is it define? Simple, extract everything you can think from a quantum state: all electrons, all quarks, all photons, all gravitons, all Higgs boson, etc. and what you have is the vacuum state.

Now you have nothing.

However, this vacuum has a lot of unsuspected properties.

(1)When you calculate it, say for free scalar fields, it gives you infinite energy. You can hide it under the rug, which is ok in flat space, but in curved space, you can't ignore it.

(2)You can shift the vacuum to a direction in order to break some symmetry - the Higgs Mechanism that gave us the Higg boson last year is built on that notion.

(3) Near a black hole, a pair of particle/antiparticles can pop out of the vacuum, one of them gets trapped by the black hole, the other can travel anywhere to infinity (Hawking radiation).

(4) you can even measure the force this vacuum will exert between two parallel plates if you squeeze these two together (Casimir effect).

Yet, you're supposed to have nothing!

Now, can we have a universe popping out of this vacuum? In light of what we know about the vacuum, we can't rule it out. It's definitely a working hypothesis.

Joe