# Something from Nothing



## Heck Tate

I don't know if this is science or philosophy, but the idea of something from nothing has been on my mind a lot recently.  I've been told countless times that it is physically impossible for something to come from nothing because of the law of conservation of energy, but there's a couple things I don't understand about the whole thing.
First, wouldn't the very first something have to come from nothing by default?  If it came from something else, then it wasn't really the very first something.
Second, isn't it a generally held belief that the Universe will one day end?  If so, isn't its energy lost since it no longer has a field in which to exist?
Sorry if my question is naive, I tried looking this up before posting, but the only answers I got were religious ones or things along the lines of "Because it can't, that's why."


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## J Riff

Laws of science are tough. Something can come from nothing, just not at the pawn shop.


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## RJM Corbet

Heck Tate said:


> I don't know if this is science or philosophy, but the idea of something from nothing has been on my mind a lot recently. I've been told countless times that it is physically impossible for something to come from nothing because of the law of conservation of energy, but there's a couple things I don't understand about the whole thing.
> First, wouldn't the very first something have to come from nothing by default? If it came from something else, then it wasn't really the very first something.
> Second, isn't it a generally held belief that the Universe will one day end? If so, isn't its energy lost since it no longer has a field in which to exist?
> Sorry if my question is naive, I tried looking this up before posting, but the only answers I got were religious ones or things along the lines of "Because it can't, that's why."


Like the Big Bang?


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## cornelius

Well I think there could be a repeating motion. As to where it starts and ends, I don't think we'll get an answer on that any time soon. It's all about speculation. And perception. I like to think of it as a broken vase that you're trying to put back together. The pieces are scattered all across the (huge) floor, but you can't very well see them unless you discover a way to find them. Big pieces may seem logic, but imagine if you find that, half way of puting the vase together, you got the pattern all wrong? And even if you see a pattern in the scattered pieces, it doesn't mean you'll know exactly how the vase came to break.


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## Moonbat

It is an interesting one, because logically something must have come from nothing, actually everything must have come from nothing.

As far as I understand it, before the big bang there was nothing (unless of course ot was the big crunch and we have had a repeating bang and crunch scenario, but even then there had to be a first bang (and or) crunch?) then everything came into existence and since then the conservation of energy has held so that nothing is really created or destroyed it just changes form.
But....
This does have its flaws, the only thing we can say for certain about the moments before the big bang is that our laws of physics break down and we can't work out (using maths and physics) what happened.

Maybe it is a problem with our way of thinking, that there must be a prime mover/first cause to erverything that happened, but the issue of things happening prior to the (this) universe existing kind of negates all our presumptions and so maybe it has always been and time (as we see it with cause and effect) is just an illusion that arises out of our specific 4 dimensional space/time.


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## Nik

*Bang the Branes together...*

As I understand it, a likely hypothesis has our 3+1D universe created from the collision between two branes in a higher-order universe.

Of course, this only moves the issue back one step...

After which, it is turtles all the way down...


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## J Riff

Galactic Rant *157-B 
Yes, where DID all this matter junk come from anyway? 
It doesn't matter, matter doesn't. It's the bang, the big one, that gets everyone excited. Scientists suspect there's been a bunch of really big, big bangs, and even other bigger bangs, mayhap even billions of bangs.
At the centre of the Milky Way may as well be a big bang. It wants to blow up, you know it does, it just needs a few billion years to think about it.
Everything is blowing up everywhere you look in space, or swooping about huge gravity centres - all of which are going to blow up!- or worse, simply go fzzzt. Not even a big bang for you, earthlings... eternal darkness starts now. The End.


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## Vertigo

This is actually quite an interesting one with a number of answers (I'm sure Chris will chip in shortly with somewhat more correct/informed physics than mine. However lets see...

First the "end" of the universe. There will not actually be a loss of energy as the universe dies it will simply all be distributed evenly throughout the universe and therefore not much use! It will finally reach a state of maximum entropy (go google) which effectively means total stagnation. Unless we have our current physics/measurements wrong and it does eventually start contracting and then we have the possibility of a cyclic big bang. However that is looking very unlikely at the moment.

As for something from nothing. I won't try and explain how this works but quantum mechanics (and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in particular) predicts it will and they have now actually managed to measure it happening. Essentially if you take a perfect vacuum - ie. your "nothing" - then within that vacuum, matter is constanly being spontaneously created and destroyed again within tiny fractions of a second. Basically the way the physicists describe it, two particles get created spontaneously - one matter and one antimatter - by "borrowing" energy from the vacuum (their word not mine!). Then a tiny fraction of a second later the two particles combine and annihilate each other, giving off energy that repays their "debt" to the vacuum and ensure energy is correctly conserved.

Interestingly they are now speculating that this or something very similar is actually what happened in the big bang. It seems that once every billion or so you end up with the matter but not the antimatter and that one billionth part of the big bang is what actually makes up all the matter in the universe (the rest of it all dissappeared again by annihiliating each other).

So there you are modern physics actually predicts that you can get something for nothing (briefly) and this has also been proven experimentally.

There was a very interesting programme on this topic just a few days ago in the UK (second of two parts), presented by Prof. Jim Al-khalili (who is brilliant at tackling really tough topics). The subject of the programme was "nothing" though I can't remember the actual programme title.


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## Heck Tate

Wow very interesting (and confusing) stuff, Vertigo.  The entire concept of "borrowed" energy is so weird.  I'll definitely have to do some reading on this stuff when I have the time.  Thanks.


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## mosaix

Vertigo said:


> As for something from nothing. I won't try and explain how this works but quantum mechanics (and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in particular) predicts it will and they have now actually managed to measure it happening. Essentially if you take a perfect vacuum - ie. your "nothing" - then within that vacuum, matter is constanly being spontaneously created and destroyed again within tiny fractions of a second. Basically the way the physicists describe it, two particles get created spontaneously - one matter and one antimatter - by "borrowing" energy from the vacuum (their word not mine!). Then a tiny fraction of a second later the two particles combine and annihilate each other, giving off energy that repays their "debt" to the vacuum and ensure energy is correctly conserved.



Was it Hawking that surmised that every now and then each of the two particles would be created either side of a black hole event-horizon? Therefore, one would get dragged into the black hole and the other wouldn't and so no annihilation would take place.


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## Vertigo

I'm really not too sure - however that wouldn't work for the big bang as (I suppose) you have to have a bunch of matter first before you can have a black hole. I am only basing it on what Prof Jim said in the program but he didn't go into any greater depth as to how come every billionth or so particle didn't end up getting annihilated. However I do have a bit of a problem with it as it would seem that our universe as an almighty big debt to the vacuum which could be a problem if it gets called in someday! But then I may well (probably am) taking his borrowing analogy a little too far!


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## Interference

Heck Tate said:


> I don't know if this is science or philosophy, but the idea of something from nothing has been on my mind a lot recently.  I've been told countless times that it is physically impossible for something to come from nothing because of the law of conservation of energy, but there's a couple things I don't understand about the whole thing.
> First, wouldn't the very first something have to come from nothing by default?  If it came from something else, then it wasn't really the very first something.
> Second, isn't it a generally held belief that the Universe will one day end?  If so, isn't its energy lost since it no longer has a field in which to exist?
> Sorry if my question is naive, I tried looking this up before posting, but the only answers I got were religious ones or things along the lines of "Because it can't, that's why."



Everything is transformed.  Energy emerged out of something that preceded it, but we don't know what that is yet.  Or else, energy in this universe came from inter-phasing between dimensions.  Or in some universes, the flow of Time is reversed and it is the end of that universe that started this one.  Or Time is static and we move through it therefor we may be our own creators.

See?

Simples.


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## Mouse

It hurts my brain if I think about it too much, so I don't. But can I just say that every time I see this thread title I burst into song!

*_something grew out of nothing at aaaaalllll, the way things sometimes dooooooo* ~ The Boy Least Likely To._


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## Vertigo

It is a great thread title isn't it 

And yes my head always starts to explode and I studied relativity and quantum mechanics at uni. I never did get to a state where I could truly say I understood it, I could do the maths, but understand it? No.

The one that always gets me is what casued the big bang? and then what first caused the thing that caused that and so on... it never ends! Bottom line I think we may be able to do the maths and even prove it, but our minds (or at least most of us) simply aren't wired to undertand it!


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## woodsman

Surely (I have no idea) borrowing energy implies there is energy available to borrow and begs the question - from what? Where did it come from. 

At somepoint we have to accept some sort of eternity principle exists? At least it seems a little easier to do this than keep looking for a start.


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## Ursa major

You just know that when someone (some thing?) works out that it was all a big con, based on poor regulation of the laws of the universe, we'll end up having to pay towards bailing it out....


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## Interference

Who drew up the legislation for the Universe, anyway, and how did it get past the first vote?

(Floating voters?)


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## Heck Tate

woodsman said:


> Surely (I have no idea) borrowing energy implies there is energy available to borrow and begs the question - from what? Where did it come from.
> 
> At somepoint we have to accept some sort of eternity principle exists? At least it seems a little easier to do this than keep looking for a start.



The reason I asked in the first place was that it seemed to me that there were basically only 2 solutions to the entire universe creation thing.  1) On some level it always was and always will be 2) At some point there was absolute nothingness from which everything came into being.  We really have no idea what came before the Big Bang, and every time I ask a question like this I get a response along the lines of "Everyone knows you can't get something from nothing."  I was just wondering if there was some reason we generally reject the idea, since the alternative seems to be equally, if not more, mind-blowing


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## Vertigo

woodsman said:


> Surely (I have no idea) borrowing energy implies there is energy available to borrow and begs the question - from what? Where did it come from.
> 
> At somepoint we have to accept some sort of eternity principle exists? At least it seems a little easier to do this than keep looking for a start.


 
Ah, I think that's the whole point, though don't quote me! Because stuff like time and the differences between matter and energy all gets a bit fuzzy at the quantum level. Something along the lines of: it's not really borrowed because, see, it's already been given back, in fact it's just as possible that it was given back before it was borrowed. So everything kind of balances out! AAAaaarghhh...


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## Interference

The general perception of "Universe" really is far too small.

The Universe is everything that exists.  Yeah, of course, says you, we all know that.

Well, that's right.  We all know that, but we don't all know what "everything" entails.

Everything is all that you can perceive and all that you can't perceive that has a function in the totality of everything.  This includes imaginations, consciousness, rocks, atoms, dimensions, emotions, survival imperatives, non-existence, timelessness, imagined time, abstract realities, astral possibilities and everything beyond imagination.

"Everything" is really big.

So how did it all come to exist?

Understand Time and how we experience it while we can't explore it.  We can explore the other three dimensions easily.  Time just carries us along with it.

Wrong.  Time isn't moving, we are.  Perception creates Time.  Take perception away and you have timelessness.

Wrong.  Time is still an artifact of Everything and it includes all moments of act and experience as well as perception.  But it is only the next dimension up.  Beyond it are more dimensions, all of which are essential to our existence and in all of which we have a portion of our existence.

Now are you getting an idea of how big "Everything", and so "The Universe", is?

We can't figure out how the Universe began - what was before the Big Bang - because we are only using 4-dimensional observations.  And guess what - Our observations are creating a portion of the results of our calculations relating to the observed things.  Suddenly the Universe got a little bigger still.

The Universe came into existence because there was an equal probability that it wouldn't.  Our collapsed probability function is this Universe.  Be sure, there are others.

Not quite two cents, I'm saving something for the rebuttal


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## Vertigo

No rebuttal from me Int; I pretty much agree with all of that. Particularly the end; so much comes down to probabilty at these scales. ie both the scale of the universe and that of qauntum mechanics.


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## Interference

Oh, so _that's_ how you wanna play it! *grrrrr*


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## mosaix

We can only consider whether or not 'we can get something from nothing' using the laws of the Universe that we live in. Extrapolating what we know about the here and now to what went before is futile.


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## RJM Corbet

*Re: Bang the Branes together...*



Nik said:


> As I understand it, a likely hypothesis has our 3+1D universe created from the collision between two branes in a higher-order universe.
> 
> Of course, this only moves the issue back one step...
> 
> After which, it is turtles all the way down...


 
Brane Theory seems to come back to the _I Ching_ -- the primordial yin/yang? Mathematics in ten dimensions, project initiated by Stephen Hawkins in conjunction with Neil Turok. I'm just showing off here, because Neil Turok's father, Ben Turok, was my next door neighbour in Muizenberg, in Cape Town. So, in the end, there are infinite universes, but there's no way we can perceive or contact them


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## Heck Tate

*Re: Bang the Branes together...*



RJM Corbet said:


> Brane Theory seems to come back to the _I Ching_ -- the primordial yin/yang? Mathematics in ten dimensions, project initiated by Stephen Hawkins in conjunction with Neil Turok. I'm just showing off here, because Neil Turok's father, Ben Turok, was my next door neighbour in Muizenberg, in Cape Town. So, in the end, there are infinite universes, but there's no way we can perceive or contact them



That's why some of the extra dimensions/multiple universes theories have always seemed like a cop-out to me.  If there really is absolutely no way to detect or perceive something, then for all intensive purposes it doesn't exist.  I'm open to the possibility of these other realities or dimensions of this reality existing, but I think that it's a bit silly to assert that these things are out there but that the only way we can verify them is through some obscure mathematics.  Basically , I think that there is no scientific way to reasonably conclude that something exists without there being some sort of link between the observer and their subject.  In terms of the beginning of our universe, I'd have to agree with Mosaix that we can't know for certain what happened to create our own, but what's to stop the the study of (alleged) other universes as they are created and destroyed?


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## Interference

There are ways


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## HareBrain

Vertigo said:


> There was a very interesting programme on this topic just a few days ago in the UK (second of two parts), presented by Prof. Jim Al-khalili (who is brilliant at tackling really tough topics). The subject of the programme was "nothing" though I can't remember the actual programme title.


 
Everything and Nothing, appropriately enough. (Links to iPlayer)


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## Interference

TOR allows viewers outside the UK to see it - shh ... don't tell anyone


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## TheEndIsNigh

So in the spirit of gentle rebuttal 

And then again....



Interference said:


> The general perception of "Universe" really is far too small.
> 
> Agreed: However that doesn't seem to stop 'scientists' thinking they know it all and by knowing spouting all kinds of 'facts' about the speed of light. anti matter and black holes.
> 
> The Universe is everything that exists. Yeah, of course, says you, we all know that.
> 
> It's a definition to work with although shouldn't it include everything that has existed, will exist and could exist.
> 
> Well, that's right. We all know that, but we don't all know what "everything" entails.
> 
> Agreed
> 
> Everything is all that you can perceive and all that you can't perceive that has a function in the totality of everything. This includes imaginations, consciousness, rocks, atoms, dimensions, emotions, survival imperatives, non-existence, timelessness, imagined time, abstract realities, astral possibilities and everything beyond imagination.
> 
> A bit OTT but I'll work with it.
> 
> "Everything" is really big.
> 
> Or possibly very small. - In the eye of the beholder etc.
> 
> So how did it all come to exist?
> 
> Understand Time and how we experience it while we can't explore it. We can explore the other three dimensions easily. Time just carries us along with it.
> 
> No. We exist in time, this time in fact or so we believe, but if the universe is everything we can conceive of, then I could conceive of a timeless one.
> 
> Wrong. Time isn't moving, we are. Perception creates Time. Take perception away and you have timelessness.
> 
> Disagree. Time is whatever it is (and we sure don't know what that is) Isn't the general perception of time is an ability for a change to take place and be observable even if there is no observer actually available. The tree falls in the desert even when the sand has been blown away. The fact nothing was there to observe it doesn't mean that there was no time as we understand it.
> 
> Wrong. Time is still an artifact of Everything and it includes all moments of act and experience as well as perception. But it is only the next dimension up. Beyond it are more dimensions, all of which are essential to our existence and in all of which we have a portion of our existence.
> 
> Disagree: time could be the top dimension (we can't know) It may of course also be the first dimension without which none of the others can exist. Either way we can't say for sure where in the pecking order of dimensions time comes. Only that we are able to observe changes and we attribute the differences happening being due to a change in the time dimension.
> 
> Now are you getting an idea of how big "Everything", and so "The Universe", is?
> 
> No.
> 
> We can't figure out how the Universe began - what was before the Big Bang - because we are only using 4- (of the observable by us, dimensions) dimensional observations. And guess what - Our observations are creating a portion of the results of our calculations relating to the observed things. Suddenly the Universe got a little bigger still.
> 
> No it didn't. It was always that big.
> 
> The Universe came into existence because there was an equal probability that it wouldn't. Our collapsed probability function is this Universe. Be sure, there are others.
> 
> The probabilities were not necessarily equal (dice theory etc.) and for all we know this fleeting moment of existence may just flip back out of existence at any moment as we we meet our other dimensioned anti selves.
> 
> This could all, in fact, be one of the many failures with only a short time left
> 
> Not quite two cents, I'm saving something for the rebuttal


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## Interference

TheEndIsNigh said:


> shouldn't it include everything that has existed, will exist and could exist


For me, those things also exist.  That they are separated from this Now is not important for the purposes of my "argument".


Yep.  Everything you say is also true.

But it ain't true "instead" 

I believe that Time is a factor of perception.  In it's un-observed state it is a dimension of spacetime (possibly - if not likely to be - more than one).  In weak anthropic terms, it exists in the way we perceive it because we are only capable of perceiving it that way.  But science and speculators and mystics and priests all agree (in their own ways) that the imagination can allow us to explore what would otherwise be beyond our fields of experience.  So we can actually (just) imagine a Universe without Time (as we perceive it) and a Universe with many, as yet, unexplored chambers.

About ten years (a little more) ago, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of how big the Universe was.  About three or four years ago I realised I was wrong.  At that moment, for me, the Universe expanded.  It was pretty cool   I'm sorry I couldn't put that across in words.  On the other hand, I am envious of your already having that image of the hugeness of it all, so perhaps I couldn't have had that effect on you, anyway, however eruditely I might have expressed it .....

And finally, you are absolutely right.  Probabilities are as variable as everything else in Reality.  As I suspect I may have said somewhere else, this Cosmos is governed by these laws.  That, by those.

We know nothing and as we learn more we are sometimes shocked to discover how much more we have yet to learn.  But we get there, somehow, learning as much as we can as we go and finishing with as much as we are capable of garnering in the process.

Jung said something along the lines of "we are born knowing everything and live our lives trying to remember it all" - I like that 

And finally, finally, Yeah, I'm OTT at times.  I'm a writer.  Not a good one.  Live with it


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## woodsman

I can't imagine a place without time - what would it be like? Surely everything is happening at once?


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## Interference

Yep.  It would be like a flash-frame of everything one has ever seen, heard, touched, felt, tasted, imagined, believed, said, thought or been hurt by - and more.  It might even include every experience of your ancestors and heirs, from the first amoeba to the last gasping life-form this planet supports.  Maybe beyond that in each direction of Time.  Very confusing for a consciousness like ours.  We need Time to unravel it all.  And we need tea to enjoy it.


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## woodsman

I'm not sure there's enough tea... 


Whilst I have no physics background whatsoever, I don't really buy that that can happen.


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## Interference

Isn't nice though that you just imagined it?


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## woodsman

I don't, not really. I just keep thinking that if everything is everything then everything's nothing. 

It is hurting my wooden counter weight up top though...


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## Interference

woodsman said:


> ...if everything is everything then everything's nothing...



Yup.

Except for oil prices, that's exactly right.

feel free to scream


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## TheEndIsNigh

Interference said:


> For me, those things also exist. That they are separated from this Now is not important for the purposes of my "argument".
> 
> 
> Yep. Everything you say is also true.
> 
> But it ain't true "instead"
> 
> I believe that Time is a factor of perception. In it's un-observed state it is a dimension of spacetime (possibly - if not likely to be - more than one). In weak anthropic terms, it exists in the way we perceive it because we are only capable of perceiving it that way. But science and speculators and mystics and priests all agree (in their own ways) that the imagination can allow us to explore what would otherwise be beyond our fields of experience. So we can actually (just) imagine a Universe without Time (as we perceive it) and a Universe with many, as yet, unexplored chambers.
> 
> About ten years (a little more) ago, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of how big the Universe was. About three or four years ago I realised I was wrong. At that moment, for me, the Universe expanded. It was pretty cool  I'm sorry I couldn't put that across in words. On the other hand, I am envious of your already having that image of the hugeness of it all, so perhaps I couldn't have had that effect on you, anyway, however eruditely I might have expressed it .....
> 
> And finally, you are absolutely right. Probabilities are as variable as everything else in Reality. As I suspect I may have said somewhere else, this Cosmos is governed by these laws. That, by those.
> 
> We know nothing and as we learn more we are sometimes shocked to discover how much more we have yet to learn. But we get there, somehow, learning as much as we can as we go and finishing with as much as we are capable of garnering in the process.
> 
> Jung said something along the lines of "we are born knowing everything and live our lives trying to remember it all" - I like that
> 
> And finally, finally, Yeah, I'm OTT at times. I'm a writer. Not a good one. Live with it


 

No probs with the OTT part - After all what can top a universe of idea/things/cups of tea. 

I'm a multi verse person myself. Just because we can't see past the edge of our's doesn't mean they aren't out there.

Single big bangs one at a time just don't cut it for me. If it can happen once then why not often and in many places/spaces. I like the eternal firework display type of creation myself. So this universe (for unvierse read local expansion) expands contracts or whatever, but hey, over there there's a pretty orange one to look at.

However, your thoughts did trigger an idea in this observer.

What if it's not space that's curved (assuming it may be), but time. We can add it to that ever growing pile - Oh and for Christ's sake, we haven't got time to look up - just keep shoveling.


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## Interference

I agree about the multiple Big Bangs idea.  What happens once _must_ happen often, surely?  But that, to me, is still the Universe, otherwise there needs to be a new word for what we're talking about these days.  Perhaps "Multiverse" is a good place-holder till the right word comes along 

_Universe_ is meant to mean _Every Possible Thing_, I think.  And this is what I originally meant about the concept expanding to accommodate new conceptualisations.  Even my hyperbole wasn't really too much of a stretch, imho.  There are people whose experiences appear to support the possibility that their minds can take them into yet more "aspects of everything", notably the twenty-odd astral levels and other meditative revelations/discoveries.  Even if that is only imagination working overtime (and plenty of it), it still indicates something truly intriguing about the non-dimensionality of consciousness.  So where does consciousness reside if not in time or space?  Is there, like in Dr Strange (I think), an Imagination Dimension?

I love questions like those 

Especially as they can sometimes inadvertently bring us back on topic.  I can't be the first person ever to postulate that our Big Bang origin could be the consequence of a different Cosmos's Little Squeak origin meeting the shock wave of yet a third Expanding Cheese-Cake Universe.

And you know what?  In a _truly_ infinite Universe, why shouldn't one (or more) "local expansion" have been originated by what we might have to end up calling _a God_?

As I think I recall Dawkins saying, the Universe would appear no different to us whether it was created by a supernatural intelligence or merely emerged - or something like that.


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## RJM Corbet

woodsman said:


> I can't imagine a place without time - what would it be like? Surely everything is happening at once?


 
I've been wanting to explain this, so please let me try now? The dimension of 'nature' in which we live, and which contains all we can perceive, including the stars, exists only by virtue of time. All we perceive, we perceive because it exists in 'time'. So 'nature' is like a room, with walls of 'time' contained within a greater house which we call 'spirit'? The dimension of 'spirit' surrounds and contains and permeates the dimension of nature/time. 'Spiritual' beings are not visible to our natural senses of sight, hearing, and so forth, unless they choose to make themselves visible to us. So while we're all busy looking for 'life' in the universe, it surrounds us all the time. 
What walls the house of spirit?
'Love', of course.
What is 'love'?
The desire of all beings to be One with the All, of course -- to enter 'heaven'.
Natural love is an expression of spiritual 'love'. Lovers seek union, and paradise, for a short while.
So love is really the glue that holds everything together, the instinct that, at some level, all things are one, and the closer we get to the 'One', the happier we are, whether through religion, drugs, meditation, writing nonsense like this -- whatever.
Perhaps there is a greater estate that contains the house of spirit/love, that we cannot imagine or conceive?
Maybe?


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## skeptical

There was an article describing something like this theme in _New Scientist_ a while back.

They suggested that the basic equation describing creation is 1-1=0

We are all familiar with the idea of matter and anti matter.   There are more 'way out' ideas floating around, such as negative energy, and a raft of similar.   The theory here is that everything in existence has its negative counterpart, and when brought together creates non existence.  

eg.  a photon contacting a negative photon leads to both cancelling each other out.   If the universe, or possibly the multiverse, is made up of equal amounts of positive and negative materials, the net result is nothing.

So we have existence only because these things are kept separate.   Overall, the universe/multiverse does not exist, because it all cancels itself out.


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## RJM Corbet

An antiproton is a proton moving backward in time. I know you said photon, but presumably the same applies


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## J-WO

_Nothing will come of nothing_.

                      -King Lear Act I, Scene I

I know this doesn't add to the discussion. I just wanted to look all cultured and stuff.


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## Vertigo

J - you always look cultured and stuff! So I'm sure you must be.

Re antiprotons or any antimatter for that matter (sorry); they do not and cannot move back in time. Nothing that science has yet discovered moves back in time. In fact if there is anything that does, it is highly unlikely that we would even be able to preceive it. It would only be "visible" to us for the smallest quantum measure of time whilst our "shared" present "crossed". I'm not sure what the smallest unit of time is but it is a mathematically generated value based, I think, upon the smallest interval of time in which any change can be observed and is very, very small.

Antimatter has been created and it obeys all the normal laws of space and time.


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## Ursa major

While I agree with your post in general, Vertigo, I don't think that something "travelling" back in time cannot be observed. For instance, if it happens, by chance, to be motionless in the three spatial dimensions with respect to us, we should be able to see it.

I know this may be unlikely, as the the causes of its motion in those three dimensions are in our future, and we Earth-bound creatures are where we are due to causes (gravity, etc.) in our past, and thus in future of the "something" travelling backwards.

(By the way, even on first viewing, I never bought the idea in the film**, _The Time Machine_, that the inventor disappeared. He was there all the time, but apparently motionless (in relation to the Earth, which was rather convenient in my opinion) and so should have been very visible to everyone.


** - I haven't read the book, so I don't know if it shares this aspect of the film.


----------



## RJM Corbet

'The vines of France and milk of Burgundy'. Look, the guy could write. I'm no mathematician (ain't that the truth!) but I believe that, in mathematics, time can be reversed as easilly as it can go forward. It has to be explained to me very slowly and very simply. But I think I will stand my ground on this one. There are 'Feynman Diagrams', which I don't understand, but they show particles moving backwards, forwards in time, on probability paths, kind of thing? On the time travel: there's that Ray Bradbury story where tourists go back in time, but they have to keep to a special path, because if someone crushes a leaf, it will change the whole future, so, if you mess up, there will be no 'you' to go back to. Time is warped by gravity, swallowed by black holes ...


----------



## Vertigo

I think you might be right there Ursa although only after we have "passed" each other in time and we would then each be seeing each other's past selves. Arrrgh!

Actually I have always had an even bigger problem with time machines like that because they would have to be seriously smart, not just about time but space as well. In The Time Machine the machine dosen't move in space except when the Morlocks move the machine physcially and that gets accounted for by the machine landing up _outside_ his house when he goes back. However here's my problem; in the intervening time the Earth has moved around the sun, the sun has moved around the galaxy and the galaxy itself has moved relative to the rest of the universe. A time machine would have to account for all of that as well (at least to be useful!).

RJM you are absolutely right about the time paradoxes, which in fact have always provided the strongest arguments about the impossibility of travelling _back_ in time. You could not help but distort the future simply by breathing the air and converting some Oxygen ro Carbon Dioxide. It might seem like a minor thing but with chaos theory and the butterfly effect over the years that tiny tiny change would result in a slightly different universe.


----------



## skeptical

Interesting that this thread has morphed into time travel.  Whatthehell!

Vertigo
If the modern concept that time and space are one is correct, then the movement through the galaxy is not an issue.  If you move in time, and space/time is one, then you must move accordingly in space at the same time.

The best 'rationalisation' around time travel I have come across is the idea that, if you move back in time, you end up in a new universe.   If you then 'return' to the present, it is not your original present.  That way all paradoxes are ironed out.

Of course, all this is wild speculation.  In science, empiricism rules.


----------



## Vertigo

You may have a point there Skeptical, it goes beyond my meagre knowledge of physics though and does seem counter-intuitive but then so much of modern physics is pretty counter-intutitive so maybe that's a good indication it is correct. That's getting kind of like one of those if he knows I know he knows.... sort of things isn't it!

And I just love the way some of these kinds of threads can morph through different areas


----------



## Ursa major

Just because one moves through time and space, that doesn't mean that there's any sort of coordination, let alone the complex one which has to take account of the movement of planets, stars, galaxies and galactic groups.

Apart from anything else, who or what provides that coordination? And if they exist, why can't they keep drivers, for instance, from drifting out of their lane on multi-lane roads (which is no more silly than keeping some random time machine in the correct spot on a planet and possibly a lot more useful)?


----------



## woodsman

J-WO said:


> _Nothing will come of nothing_.
> 
> -King Lear Act I, Scene I
> 
> I know this doesn't add to the discussion. I just wanted to look all cultured and stuff.



I'll second Vertigo - you do indeed look a higly cultured gent  especially the hair. 


Closer to the topic - I need a coffee before I attempt to re-read this thread and make sense of it all. I tend to think that time travel - at a macro level is impossible. Sending particles back in time though - I could maybe see that happening.


----------



## Interference

Oh dear oh dear oh dear, as someone's avatar might once have said ....

Time isn't really that mysterious.  All of spacetime includes all of history, past and present.  To go from one point in time to another is as easy as from one place to another.  We just haven't figured out how to get onto that path yet.

Yes, Ursa, if time travel were as Wells described it, the traveller would appear, throughout his journey, to be moving incredibly, incredibly slowly.  If, however, time is to be treated as a dimension (direction) it would be possible to step outside of this spacetime into time and back into spacetime again.

Simple, really.


----------



## woodsman

Interference said:


> Oh dear oh dear oh dear, as someone's avatar might once have said ....



 I believe you may have taken a wrong turning sir, this is not *that* thread 



Interference said:


> Time isn't really that mysterious.  All of spacetime includes all of history, past and present.



I find that a bit oxymoronic  all history is a* little *bit mysterious no?


----------



## Interference

LOL 

I never even thought of that 




Well, I've done a huge amount of thinking about this time thingummy, and sometimes it's so difficult say anything without saying everything that I end up saying nothing.

This links in with what I was saying about the Universe, how immensely huge it is in all directions, and how time is just one more of those directions (though I suspect it may actually be three more of those directions, but if I explain why I'll need another thread).  So taking that tautologically huge vastness as read, Time becomes another direction, quite possibly away from space altogether. 

The _only_ evidence we have for time shows it moving in one direction only, from a past towards a future.  But even saying it is moving is a bit tricky.  We know we are aging, not getting younger, we know that things are decaying not repairing.  So which is actually moving: Time or Us?  (I'm still working on an answer to this one, sorry)  From our evidence for _one_ direction: Forwards; we extrapolate another: Backwards.  Which is still only one dimension, isn't it?  But how does one move in time?  All we know is that we move _with_ time in the direction it flows.  But where is our evidence for that?  In our memory.  We recall a moment past, not one from the future (except in exceptional circumstances which would require yet _another_ thread to discuss properly). So we accept, by consensus of experience, that we are moving forwards within, and with, time.

So there you have it: Time is a direction through which we have no control over our movement, have no evidence for (beyond common acceptance) and that governs the progress and ultimate fate of our existence.  No mystery there 

And every planet we can see, and every one we can't see (probably), is moving with us through this thing.  So local time becomes irrelevant, anyway (so go ahead, kill your grandfather, the folk in Alpha Centauri won't mind in the least what kind of quirky, loopy mess you get yourself into).

When Dr Who says "this time anomaly will destroy the Universe" I think he's mostly over-stating the facts - possibly to make himself feel good about being twelve years old these days  

So in saying that it isn't really all that mysterious what I mean is that, take the fiction out of it and the playful paradoxologisms and you end up with something extremely complex but really quite obvious.  Time is.  So is Left.  So is Sound.  So is the desire to drink more tea.  Not mysterious, just darned annoying, sometimes 

I'm not saying this is the whole story, you'll be pleased (I'm sure) to hear, but it is a portion of a fragment of a sliver of what works for me (so far).




Vertigo said:


> It might seem like a minor thing but with chaos theory and the butterfly effect over the years that tiny tiny change would result in a slightly different universe.



Very slightly, I think.  However massively or minimally the planet might be affected, the (ahem) interference-wave would diminish to insignificance across the Universe as a whole.


----------



## skeptical

The time direction may be related to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  "Entropy tends to a maximum".

If time were reversed, energy would tend toward lower entropy.  Disorder would move to order, which as far as we know, is breaking one of the most fundamental laws of physics.


----------



## RJM Corbet

But time doesn't exist, in an absolute sense. It walls the dimension of 'nature' that contains all we perceive. It is a sort of reference. There are beings that exists outside of and beyond the time#space dimension, who have outgrown it, so to speak? We call them gods, angels, whatever? (Heck Tate did start this thread with 'I don't know if this is science or philosophy' ...) Things are either growing or decaying, as Inter observes? There is no standstill in 'nature (by which I mean all that we can perceive with our 'natural' senses -- the whole perceiveable universe is part of 'nature'). There is no standstill in nature. If you're not moving forwards, you're sliding backwards. And we learn by bitter experience that it takes nine steps forward to make up for that one step backwards ...


----------



## Ursa major

Interference said:


> If, however, time is to be treated as a dimension (direction) it would be possible to step outside of this spacetime into time and back into spacetime again.


..because when we move through the other dimensions, we're always popping in and out or spacetime and cannot be observed other than at the starting point and the destination.... 

If time truly is a dimension like the others (give or take the unidirectional nature we seem to experienced), it has to operate like on:, i.e. to move from one point in time to another, we must pass through the intervening points. (This is one reason why I see time travel as fantasy, not SF: most time travel descriptions take on board that time is a dimension but then immediately throw away all the rules of movement along a dimension.)


----------



## chrispenycate

> If time were reversed, energy would tend toward lower entropy. Disorder would move to order, which as far as we know, is breaking one of the most fundamental laws of physics.



The trouble with the laws of thermodynamics is that they are statistical. There is no actual theoretical reason why all the hot air molecules in this room shouldn’t congregate in one corner, freezing me and at the same time setting fire to the curtains. Certainly the chances of this occurring are minute, and we’d have to resort to nested exponentials to express the odds of it not happening, but in an infinite universe lasting for eternity it would occur an infinite number of times.

I agree this isn’t likely to give us reverse time (and the fact that mathematically an equation can be written allowing bidirectional or multispeed time prove nothing ; as Heinlein mentioned in “The number of the beast” a mathematician can write an equation describing anything {remember an eternally refilling picnic basket?} but just because it was mathematically consistent didn’t mean it had any relationship with “reality”, whatever that might be) but it could give us the beginning of the universe.



> to move from one point in time to another, we must pass through the intervening points.


 If you require to move. However travelling from point  A to point Q without passing through the rest of the alphabet between can’t be rejected outright, even in spacial terms. There is some (not totally conclusive yet) evidence they are doing it in Geneva, already (no, nothing to do with CERN). No, I do not understand it yet.


----------



## RJM Corbet

I just imagine these great, interdimensional beings, viewing us like 3yr old kids in a nursery school, learning what we have to learn, contained by time, to protect us from outside forces we know nothing about, like little kids who wouldn't last half a day in the city before being hit by a bus or something ...


----------



## Vertigo

I think we are making a fundamental mistake in this thread with respect to our view of time. It is generally considered to be the 4th dimension (though sometimes the 5th) however to then attribute it the same sort of properties as the first three dimensions is unwise, unproven and almost certainly wrong. In other words to say that I can move back and forwards, left and right, and up and down in space does not necessarily mean I can do the same thing in time.



> The term dimension has a specific mathematical meaning: "In mathematics the dimension of a space is roughly defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify every point within it". A minimum of four coordinates are needed to specify every event in spacetime, so spacetime is a four-dimensional space. The fact one coordinate is different from the other three does not make it any less of a coordinate.
> 
> However time is fundamentally different to space as can be seen from the Minkowski metric: ds²=-c²dt²+dx²+dy²+dz². Time is still a dimension, but that minus sign definitely singles it out.


 


> Einstein published his general relativity and Minkowski subsequently formalized the idea of four dimension spactime...Einstein adopted it...And physicsts spent the next twenty years slowly discovering what general relativity really means...


 
Without worrying about the meaning of the equation I think it is clear that time (t) is treated differently to space (x, y, z).

So to extrapolate how time should behave based on space would be incorrect. Also please remember that time is _just_ a dimension. We talk about time passing but time does not move any more than 10 metres "moves" it is a measurement. You could say we move along the dimension of time just as we do other dimensions, but the dimensions themselves do not move.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Ok, if you're going to come with the equations, please explain the other factors? C is the speed of light? What is D? Thank you


----------



## Vertigo

As I stated above I don't want to get into the absolute maths, I don't pretend to understand it myself. You can google Minkowski where you will find lots of details. My point and the point of the quote is that time is treated very differently to any of the other dimensions. If you wish to go any deeper than that then you would really need to go to a physics forum.

However yes c is the speed of light but d is not anything per se. it is a differential equation where d refers to the difference in a value so dx is the difference in the x coordinate etc. Here is a quite nice brief simplified description of the equation though:

Re: What is the Minkowski metric?

All I'm trying to do here is show that time, the 4th dimension, cannot be and is not treated the same as the three spatial dimensions using one of the most fundamental triognometrric equations - Pythagorus, which gives the distance between two points in 2 dimensions as:

s^2 = x^2 + y^2

Where x^2 is x squared (I can't be bothered generating superscripts )

in 3 dimensions we have

s^2 = x^2 + y^2 + z^2

But in 4 we can't simply add time in the same way; most importantly we have to reverse the sign:

s^2 = x^2 + y^2 + z^2 - c^2t^2

My only real point being that time is different.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Thanks Vertigo. I've gotta rush this morning, but will check it out later ...


----------



## RJM Corbet

Makes my eyes go all blurry. Have to take your word for it. I'm not being sarcastic. I can't get my mind around the mathematics, but do find the conclusions ... what's the word? Enlightening? But it has to be explained to me in words. It comes down to the main issue: how do you travel faster than light?


----------



## Interference

By finding a short-cut


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## Ursa major

Or you could use a mirror to send the light somewhere else.


----------



## Interference

You could distract it.


----------



## woodsman

Interference said:


> By finding a short-cut



This seems the most plausible way. 

Otherwise you hope it gets cocky and has a nap at some point, whilst you creep past...


----------



## RJM Corbet

Like Winkle van Rip? Or else throw it a bone, while you burgle the house -- a T bone? So, actually, you have to out-think it? Thought travels faster than light?


----------



## Interference

OMG! That's the answer!

We've found the solution while scientists have been scratching their heads for over a century!

Now, let's crack "The Meaning Of Life".


----------



## J-WO

I preferred life of Brian.


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## Vertigo

42.....


----------



## Heck Tate

Hey this thread moved back into the range of my understanding!


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## Interference

Really?  It's giving me a pain in the diodes all down my left-hand side.



Vertigo said:


> 42.....



Isn't that the answer to:



Vertigo said:


> s^2 = x^2 + y^2 + z^2 - c^2t^2


?


----------



## Vertigo

Absolutely, I don't know how Einstein didn't spot it!


----------



## RJM Corbet

This computer was originally a thought. This computer is the product of millions of highly trained minds minds concentrating on a single idea, but spread out over years, each mind working in a specialist area. Thought made this computer. Thoughts _can_ be transferred. e=MC2 is a thought. These words transfer thought, not that its worth much, in this case. Thought _can_ move things. I think about typing this, thought causes my hand to move. 
Suspend a ping-pong ball in space, get a million highly trained minds, of some future generation who understand these things, to_ WILL_ it to move -- all focussed through some sort of lens, not over years, but all at the same instant -- for an instant of highly concentrated, pure _will. _Is that ball going to move a fraction of a millimeter? Or not? Hmmm?


----------



## Interference

Does any of the people involved have a ping-pong bat?


----------



## skeptical

Sorry RJ
That ball aint a gonna move.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Vertigo said:


> 42.....


42? The meaning of life? Greenland?


----------



## Vertigo

Nah... Scandanavia, with all the nice wiggly bits along the coastline.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Yah, those are the best bits ...


----------



## Metryq

*Re: Bang the Branes together...*



Heck Tate said:


> That's why some of the extra dimensions/multiple universes theories have always seemed like a cop-out to me.  If there really is absolutely no way to detect or perceive something, then for all intensive purposes it doesn't exist.



Foghorn Leghorn in *Little Boy Boo*: "I better not look. I just _might_ be in there."



> *Chrispenycate wrote:* as Heinlein mentioned in “The number of the beast” a mathematician can write an equation describing anything...but just because it was mathematically consistent didn’t mean it had any relationship with “reality”



Bingo. Math is merely a language, not a gateway to "truth" or Platonic reality. It cannot "prove" anything. If a mathematical model does not dovetail with reality, then it is the _model_ that must be changed.

*Physics Has Its Principles*


> Creation ex nihilo is forbidden in physics because it requires a miracle. Everything that exists comes from something that existed before, that has grown, or fragmented, or changed form.



And while people are tripping out on the same bong the theoretical physicists are smoking, the wild and exotic anti-matter (responsible for evil twins and particles that travel backward in time) is spawned in mundane, everyday lightning storms:

*Thunderstorms on Earth Hurl Antimatter Into Space*



> "Just a year or so ago, it wasn't at all obvious that something like this should happen," Dwyer said.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Good stuff. Let's hope Obama doesn't reduce NASA's funds ...


----------



## Metryq

RJM Corbet said:


> Good stuff. Let's hope Obama doesn't reduce NASA's funds ...



It wouldn't matter. Their primary objectives now are the useless task of landing people on an asteroid (minor planet/small Solar system body), and making Muslims feel good about themselves. Forget the science.

Anyway, private companies like *SpaceX* will be stepping in to supply NASA with vehicles after the shuttle fleet is retired.


----------



## Interference

Perceiving something and proving to someone else that you have perceived it can be tricky.  Paranormal events are unprovable because so many of them are personal, some extremely so.  And I use "proof", in this case, in both its ancient and current senses.

I think there are many through the ages who are adamant that they have experience of other realities, but these can never be explored with science.  However, mystics and philosophers _have_ explored them, but not to the satisfaction of mundane science.

However however, science seems (at last) to be catching up - finally


----------



## RJM Corbet

Yah, that's the point -- and the problem is that when someone like Buzz Aldrin sees a 'UFO' (for want of a better word), following the Apollo on its way to the moon -- he doesn't dare report it because he knows that the lunatic fringe and a whole lot of silly new agey types, are going to grab it, fondle it up all _spiritually spiritually_, and make him look ridiculous...


----------



## Interference

Have the last twenty years of science fiction and super-hero films been a preparation for us?  Are we being readied for acceptance of the Ultra Strange?

Bring it on, I say


----------



## Ursa major

Now if you could just define what beyond strange means....


----------



## Interference

Something so strange that even the strangest strangeness you could ever suspect of being strangely strange isn't strange enough to describe the strangitude of the stranger-than-that before you.


Hope that clarifies


----------



## Ursa major

Strangely, no.... Not at bottom.


(And to top it all, and when it comes down to it: if you'd used more charm, you'd have upped your chance of success.)


----------



## Interference

Now you're jus' stringin' us along ....


----------



## Nik

Back on topic, sort-of, there was an interesting news item recently that, if I understood it, suggested that anti-matter and normal matter might be gravitationally repellent...

Given the low masses involved, this would not affect individual collisions and annihilation reactions, but would tend to push supra-galactic-scale matter and anti-matter apart...

What this does to Higgs Fields etc boggles the imagination...


----------



## Interference

Presumably the improved theory pushes the place-holder theory out of the way completely.


----------



## Ursa major

If the separation was already underway as Inflation** took over, could this explain why our universe, i.e. the observable (part of the) universe, is mostly matter? (And that its antimatter counterpart is somewhere in the unobservable (part of the) universe.)







** - This is not to be taken as meaning I accept that Inflation did occur. Inflation (with its Inflaton Field) sounds like another shoehorned explanation for something that we cannot currently explain by more plausible means.)


----------



## Luc Valentine

The question is more properly within the realm of metaphysics than physics, methinks. Generally, we think of "something" as existence and of "nothing" as nonexistence. This nonexistant state is far more than a simple vacuum, it is the preclusion of even the possibility of existence within or apart from a given existant state. 

Consider the binary pair 0 and 1. Information theorists conjecture that from these two "states" alone, a virtual (or real for that matter) infinity of existant states can be constructed. Rephrased, the question is, Where did 1 come from? But one may as well ask where did 0 come from? Each is dependent upon the other for its definition. 

Now consider this:

*monality*: the "existence" of an extant state or states. A uniform universe in which the only existent state is 1.

*duality: *the simultaneous (or extant) existence of 2 states of being.

*plurality*: the simultaneous (or extant) existence of more than 2 states of being.

In a strictly dualistic system, the universe (or existence) is like the binary system, with two states of being and "everything" is some combination of the two states. In a pluralistic system, higher levels of existence (or at least different levels) come into being without the dual foundation. For example, 0 and 1 is one state, 0 and 1prime is another state, 0 and 2 is yet another (leaving aside the question, where did 2 come from).

Now as to perception of existence. This requires either a dualistic reality or a monistic reality capable of subjecting itself to observation. Or a pluralistic existence. 

The key to "existence" within the confines of this thinking is some differentiation, even if it is the monad as differentiated considering itself as the differential. The subject considering itself as the object. Regardless, there are (at least) two separate and identifiable states. 

Now say, for the sake of argument, the "nothing" does not exist, that all is "something". It need not even be homogenous. Then the creation of nothingness causes the being/nonbeing duality to come about. I submit that to ask, "Can something come from nothing?" is the same, metaphysically speaking, as to ask, "Can nothing come from something?"

So if we can define "existence" or equate zero with infinity, we'll have our answer. But here, I veer off topic.


----------



## Interference

If nothing is the point from which this thread originated, then any post is something and thus on-topic. Q.E.D.


----------



## Metryq

If one has three and two has three, three has five and four has four, then thirteen will have eight!


----------



## Interference

I think four has twelve, but otherwise I concur.


----------



## Luc Valentine

There are at least two states or we wouldn't be having this pleasant conversation. Unless we're all part of a monad, which theory I don't dismiss.


----------



## Metryq

Int, that's a BS piece I keep tucked away when I want to confuse people. It's the number of letters in each word. Read it again. (One has three...) By adding "if/then" and "therefore" they go crazy trying to figure it out.


----------



## Interference

Ah, I got my BS mixed up with my Codology.


----------



## RJM Corbet

It's back to the same thing? What exists, in terms of space/time, is all that we recognize as 'existence'. But thought exists? Yes, I know thought can be 'measured' in a very primitive way, by identifying electrical/neurological impulses in the brain. But ...


----------



## Luc Valentine

The universe was created out of nothing. Or there is no nothing. 0 and 1 are not the only binary states. Infinity and finitude are another binary state. Any binary state can construct a universe.

This short, informative video illustrates how the universe was created from nothing:

YouTube - The Universe - Created Out Of Nothing?


----------



## Metryq

Luc Valentine said:


> The universe was created out of nothing. Or there is no nothing.



Still sounds like word games to me. The "zero point energy" or "quantum foam" is what an electrical engineer would call a "floating ground." Our science is nowhere near ready to answer the question of where the universe came from. But some people feel the need for a beginning and an end. Infinity is too frightening, and beginnings and endings give a sense of closure. But "turtles all the way down" is not science, or even satisfying philosophy.


----------



## Luc Valentine

More than mere word games, methinks. Consider: The "quantum foam", whatever it is, is infinite, and the universe came into being not from nothingness, but quite the opposite. It came from a differentiation of something finite within the infinity.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Luc Valentine said:


> More than mere word games, methinks. Consider: The "quantum foam", whatever it is, is infinite, and the universe came into being not from nothingness, but quite the opposite. It came from a differentiation of something finite within the infinity.


 
Which brings it back to the _Brane _theory? The 1/0 +/- yin/yang interraction? But darkness is not the opposite of light. It is the _lack_ of light. Darkness is finite, light gets infinitely brighter: a candle, a sun, ten million suns -- there is no top end. Cold is not the opposite, but the lack of heat: absolute zero is when everything stops moving, and hence, ceases to exist, but heat, like light, has no top end. So it becomes a case of whether _nothingness_ is the opposite, or the lack, of _somethingness?_ Cool video. Thank you


----------



## cornelius

Metryq said:


> If one has three and two has three, three has five and four has four, then thirteen will have eight!


 

and twenty will have six! While six only has three! 

Nothing should have at least seven, so if something comes from nothing then seven is where you start from, and your from is four, and you're going to nine, I think. They have 5 in common, 6 if you're willing to switch places. Well, not exactly places as we're talking about the second, and the second is the same no matter how many follow. But how exactly you go from the other one to the other three is a riddle even to me. 


I'm not crazy. My mother had me tested.


----------



## Metryq

*Who's on first?*

Bravo, Cornelius!

I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.


----------



## cornelius

*Re: Who's on first?*



Metryq said:


> Bravo, Cornelius!
> 
> I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.


 

Actually, I have a thought or two, but I thought I'd pick in on that perticular bit just to lighten the subject a little. 


It's a bit off-topic too, I don't have a solid scientific background, only in social siences (nuff said). Most of my "knowledge" on the matter is based on "coincidential reads", so I don't feel I'm fit enough to mix in with the proverbial big players. I do seem to recall you're taller than me.


----------



## RJM Corbet

To refresh this thread, can anyone venture an answer to these questions:
1) What is NOTHING?
2) What is SOMETHING?
Is NOTHING the opposite of, or the lack of, SOMETHING -- in the sense that cold, and darkness, are the lack of heat and light, respectively, not their opposites?
If NOTHING can only be defined as the absence of SOMETHING, then, like absolute zero, there can be no such state.
He he he ...


----------



## Ursa major

Here's an experiment in which you ought to participate:


Send me £10. In return I'll send you nothing. That should resolve matters.


(Except, of course, you'll be a bit wiser and that extra wisdom is worth, I suspect, at least £10. So the experiment would have to be repeated until there's no more added wisdom. Simples!)


----------



## RJM Corbet

Uh! Yah! True, true. To those who have, shall more be given; to those who have not, even the little they have shall be taken away. But it's still skirting the issue, in the sense of the difference between opposites -- a jug is only useful by virtue of emptiness, Lao Tsu, and so on ...


----------



## Ursa major

I blame your avatar for my thinking up of that experiment. That spock-dog looks so trusting....


----------



## RJM Corbet

Mug, jug, whatever ... but don't blame Fido for sitting on your chair and eating your porridge when you go out ... a dog is a dog, and a wolf a wolf ...


----------



## Metryq

But a door is not always a door.


----------



## chrispenycate

"Something" is anything that exists; even spacetime, having dimension and certain physical laws, can be considered something. Thus, in the gaping void between galaxies, where there might be one particle per cubic kilometre, one can not legitimately say "There's nothing there". One still does, of course, just as, searching a food cupboard, one might well say the same, meaning "there is no tin of sardines", but this is a mere verbal convenience.

True nothing isn't. It can't even be approached asymptotically, like absolute zero; the absolute best that could be done is removal of matter and energy, gravitation and electric fields; dimension would be unaffected. Perhaps what the universe is expanding into; except that the concept can't really be justified. Hands up those who visualise the expanding hypersphere of the universe moving into a sort of cold, dark vacuum? Wrong. We are not equipped to imagine true nothingness, it is a zen concept, a lack that has to not exist in order that "something" has some meaning.


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## RJM Corbet

Metryq said:


> But a door is not always a door.



My thoughts exactly. A door can be used as a table, a raft, as part of a fence, to build a tree-house ... 



chrispenycate said:


> ... We are not equipped to imagine true nothingness, it is a zen concept, a lack that has to not exist in order that "something" has some meaning.



Thank you! So what is 'zero'? It is the point where +1 meets -1? The fulcrum of the see-saw? But true opposites DO exist? Darkness is not the opposite of light; it is the absence of light? However plus IS the opposite of minus? So can a state of NO TIME exist? If time cannot be entirely absent, what was there before the big bang? That's why I like the 'Brane' thing -- the meeting of YIN/YANG. I'm not too sure where I'm trying to go with this ...


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## Interference

Ursa major said:


> Here's an experiment in which you ought to participate:
> 
> 
> Send me £10. In return I'll send you nothing. That should resolve matters.
> 
> 
> (Except, of course, you'll be a bit wiser and that extra wisdom is worth, I suspect, at least £10. So the experiment would have to be repeated until there's no more added wisdom. Simples!)



Make it £20 and you got a deal - don't undersell the value of wisdom


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## Nik

"But a door is not always a door."

True: It may be ajar...


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## Interference

Nik said:


> "But a door is not always a door."
> 
> True: It may be ajar...




... and a jar is only useful through its capacity for emptiness or fullness; and so a door ajar, or when empty, has the potential of fullness and thus 0=1 (potentially)


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## Interference

To refresh this thread, can anyone venture an answer to these questions:
1) What is NOTHING? - The potential for something
2) What is SOMETHING? - A state non-nothingness where the potential has been realised
Is NOTHING the opposite of, or the lack of, SOMETHING -- In the sense that cold, and darkness, are the lack of heat and light, respectively, not their opposites? - Each is necessary for the other to exist.  In that sense, yes.
If NOTHING can only be defined as the absence of SOMETHING, then, like absolute zero, there can be no such state.- Key words: "If" and "only".  As in, "Ah, if only 'twere so simple ...."
He he he ... - She she she (Q.E.D.)


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## Metryq

Wait a minute! You don't _need_ opposites. Take the light in the fridge, for example. It's always light in there and never gets dark. I've tried it! Every time I open the door, it's light inside. It doesn't take any branes to see that.


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## RJM Corbet

INTERFERENCE: No! No no NO! Darkness is NOT necessary for light to exist. Incidentally: please lend me 20 to give Ursa? There's nothing in my money jar. You'll have to get it back from him ...
METRYQ: That's what the door's for: to keep the light in ...


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## Interference

Let's see, that's the 20 you're asking for and the 10 Ursa first mentioned, bringing it up to thirty.  Then there's the 20 I figured is the true value, so that's a total of 50 I'll be sending you.  PayPal ok?  Or would you take a Czech?  I can have Franz Kafka morphed to you - you can keep the change.

Don't bother to thank me, it's nothing, really.  I mean, _really_ 

Now, ain't that somethin'


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## RJM Corbet

Just beam it up. Now you see why I dropped out of Economics at college?


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## Interference

And you see why Cameron was asking me to be Chancellor? 


Appreciation of light is necessary for an appreciation of dark, but perhaps that's a whole 'nother topic ....


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## Ursa major

Interference said:


> Let's see, that's the 20 you're asking for and the 10 Ursa first mentioned, bringing it up to thirty. Then there's the 20 I figured is the true value, so that's a total of 50 I'll be sending you.


 
So I will be receiving _sum_ cash then?


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## Metryq

Ursa major said:


> So I will be receiving _sum_ cash then?



Call it a checksum.


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## Interference

Such a card.


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## RJM Corbet

Interference said:


> Such a card.



Genius! Brilliant! House of cards. Pyramid scheme. Something from nothing. There's the answer -- done and dusted (but not for long) ...


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## Interference

But that means ... the Pharaohs really _were_ gods!!!


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## Metryq

Hold on—Egyptian hieroglyphs were variably written right-to-left, left-to-right, or top-to-bottom. Sounds pretty dyslexic to me. Are you sure they weren't dogs? That might not sit well with Bastet, but something she was willing to overlook for the generous availability of sand.


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## RJM Corbet

Well look -- if everyone on this thread sends me 20 bucks, then e mails this post on to ten other people, and asks them each for 20 bucks, then each of them sends it to ten others -- uh uh -- something's wrong here -- I'm not going to make much out if it. How do those pyramid schemes work again? Anyway -- they must have an ancient Egyptian curse attachment: if you send this on, you will be blessed with great things, but if you do not -- then say goodbye to your hard drive ...


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