"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). 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.

And does that nothingness have that property of logic like non contradiction? Then its not nothing... And Krauss is pretty full of shit on this topic, because he's defining nothing as something, but in his defense he did go further to say that without a quantum vacuum (pretty much nothing) due to the effects of gravity a quantum vacuum can form, but this isn't nothing, because you still had the laws working there. Krauss went even further than that though, he said the laws themselves could be formed by random.

[Whateverist]

The cosmological brat enjoys getting a reaction and messing with peoples heads. I still find much of interest in what he has to say. I just add a healthy dose of salt.

[Freedom of thought]

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.

In defense of Craig and most theists, they don't really believe that the universe came from nothing, but that it came from god, which to them isn't nothing. I think god created the universe too, and god is nothing! It is false though, to claim that something CANNOT EVER come from nothing, but to then say god created the universe from nothing.

[max-greece]

Just had what is either a eureka moment or a moment of madness (bet on the latter).

The definition of nothing is irrelevant. Its a red herring.

When we say something came from nothing - sub-particles and particles appearing in space, for example, space is not the nothing we are referring to. We are referring to the nothing from which these particles came. In other words the contents of the space into which these particles and sub-particles appeared has increased by that amount. Nothing that was previously in the space (or anywhere else that we know of) has been used up or converted in the creation of said particles and sub-particles.

In reality its just another way of saying that they have spontaneously appeared without cause.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

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 .

This is the point at which an ion shows up and kicks logic right square in the balls.

Boru

[StuW]

As far as I'm aware, physicists don't and never have said the universe comes from "nothing", they simply state it came from a singularity and beyond that they don't know.

[Freedom of thought]

As far as I'm aware, physicists don't and never have said the universe comes from "nothing", they simply state it came from a singularity and beyond that they don't know.

Actually quite a few physicists have claimed that, especially Hawking.

[StuW]

As far as I'm aware, physicists don't and never have said the universe comes from "nothing", they simply state it came from a singularity and beyond that they don't know.

Actually quite a few physicists have claimed that, especially Hawking.

Can you provide sources as I'd be interested to read up on them.

[Freedom of thought]

Actually quite a few physicists have claimed that, especially Hawking.

Can you provide sources as I'd be interested to read up on them.

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing"-Stephen Hawking

[pocaracas]

Oh, the nothingness of empty space... it will never be the same!