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

[Chas]

A photon has zero rest mass, so it's a force carrier - it's just energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%...le_duality

That really has little to do with it. We are not talking about wave/particle duality, but about mass. Photons have zero rest mass.

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Can something come from nothing? Yes. The fact we are here proves that.

Well, only if there ever was 'nothing'.

[tor]

Can something come from nothing? Yes. The fact we are here proves that.

[Rampant.A.I.]

It's not really clear what "nothing" would be, as it isn't a state we're able to witness any more than we are able to witness what existed prior to the formation of the universe.

[KUSA]

Can something come from nothing? Yes. The fact we are here proves that.

You face palming me? Well a double face palm to you pal.

[MindForgedManacle]

Can something come from nothing? I dunno, I only have experiences of things coming from other things. But that's just my limited experience, which alone is not a very good basis for making grand metaphysical claims. "Ex nihilo nihil fit" ("out of nothing, nothing comes") is superficially, at least, simple and obvious. We don't see this happening, but that says nothing about if it can happen.

But really, this question has many issues with it beyond just that. The question really comes down to this: Is the Principle of Sufficient Reason an ontological truth? In other words, must everything have a reason or cause for its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause? I would tend to say no, because that seems to be question-begging. After all, is there a reason or cause for why everything must have a reason or cause? If not, the principle is self-refuting, among other things, because it's just a brute fact. There's seems to be no contradiction in saying "X happened/is the case without a cause or reason", as brute facts exist in all worldviews. And contra-William Lane Craig, this does not then make it inexplicable why things don't constantly come into existence ex nihilo, because this is just another example of asserting the PSR in a question-begging manner. If you're going to say that the reason things aren't constantly popping into existence is because things have reasons or caises for their existence, then you're begging the vety question at hand because you're saying the reason for that is the PSR. In other words, you're saying "The reason things don't pop into existence from nothing is because of the PSR!"


Dammit, I ranted.

[bennyboy]

A complete lack of anything, i.e. true nothingness, is still a state of existence. Do states of existence count as "something?"

[max-greece]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%...le_duality

That really has little to do with it. We are not talking about wave/particle duality, but about mass. Photons have zero rest mass.

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Christ Chas.

Lets just take a step back.

I cited the emission of a photon from a light bulb as creation of something from nothing.

You say the photon is merely the form of energy resulting from the change in energy state of the electron.

I'm saying the photon isn't just energy.

Your saying if it doesn't have rest mass then it isn't matter (which doesn't mean its just energy).

That's just to get us up to speed. I never claimed (obviously) that a photon has mass. I don't think its relevant.

Actually - of course - we can't even talk about a photon being at rest - its a photon - it travels at the speed of light - it kinda has to - it can't accelerate or deccelerate.

Now I don't think we can simply ignore the duality issue as you are saying. Part of that duality, for example, is the simple fact that light has momentum. Energy doesn't.

I'd argue, therefore, that the energy released from the electron as it changes state is carried off by the photon but that the photon has indeed just been created out of nothing.

That its massless merely tells us that it doesn't interact with the Higgs field. I don't think THAT's relevant. Actually, if it ever did the universe would be really fucked.

Finally - in all honesty my original photon from nothing post when you switch on a light was flippant - but the more I think about it.....

[Whateverist]

I suppose the reason this gets invoked so often is that so many people's naive intuition seems to be that nothing preceded anything. Personally I find that entirely unintuitive, as I do the notion that time and space had an absolute beginning. In a frothy multi-verse, 'absolute' beginnings dissolve into a circulating batch of what has always been .. in some form or another. And within any particular big bangy event, major categories of stuff can appear to come from nothing. But those of us who believe in the multi-verse can exchange knowing winks.

[pocaracas]

Define "nothing"... and then we can carry on with a meaningful discussion.
It seems that, nowadays, "nothing" carries different meanings to different people and in different contexts.

Nothing can be "empty space", which, according to some fancy QM'ing turns out to actually have something in it, but zero mass and zero energy. This something, it seems, can bring about matter and energy.

Defining "nothing" as the total and complete absence of anything, not just mass and energy, but also any sort of QM field and space and time, then I know of no possible mechanism which may bring about anything... Of course, this definition also entails no divinity.

Also, in a more down-to-Earth fashion, an empty box has nothing in it.... however, nowadays, we all acknowledge that this form of nothing is meaningless for this sort of discussion, as there is actually something in the box, typically, air.

[archangle]

If you guys know what it is your the first.

They do not know enough about quantum mechanics to say "It is this or that". They only know it works.

Matter is/can be frozen energy. The electron moves down an energy level and releases a photon. It most certainly does not come from nothing. It comes from a change in state which is something.