The Big Bang never happened?

[tegeus-Cromis]

0 is a point on the number line. It is a potential result for numerical calculations. A potential value for a numerical variable. All that makes it a number.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

I read A Universe from Nothing a few years ago, and found it a pretty terrible book: philosophically unsound, and not proving what it claims to prove. Here is a review of it that discusses many of its flaws: On the Origin of Everything
And a piece on it at Scientific American: Is Lawrence Krauss a Physicist, or Just a Bad Philosopher?

 

[Stephen Palmer]

But Stephen, it is exactly this attempt by especially Lawrence Krauss to manipulate the meaning of 'nothing' that I have a problem with.

"Above all, his goal is to show how the universe could have appeared from nothing, and how that means a creator is unnecessary"

Nothing does not exist. 'Nothing' is not another name for a void, or for emptiness, both of which exist.

Quantum virtual fluctuations do not originate from a state of 'nothingness' outside of spacetime/nature. They are spacetime events. Natural events. If something is there, it came from something else? So the debate has to eventually concern what that 'something else' might be?

EDIT
That does not mean it has to be 'a creator' -- but it definitely indicates the existence of a state beyond nature?

For once, it wasn't the atheist angle which interested and enthused me, it was his intellectual curiosity.
I accept that physics is not the same as philosophy. I did quantum mechanics in my physics degree, that's how I know!

 

[RJM Corbet]

For once, it wasn't the atheist angle which interested and enthused me, it was his intellectual curiosity.
I accept that physics is not the same as philosophy. I did quantum mechanics in my physics degree, that's how I know!

Fair enough. But where a scientist uses the word nothing (no thing) as the origin of everything, is he using the word differently to the common understanding?

Of course that is not a wrong thing to do, because words often do have different, or more precise, meanings in science and law than in common speech.

But what is the 'nihilo' used in the term universe ex-nihilo? Something can't be added to or taken away from nothing. Nothing is just nothing? Nothing can't give origin to nature; nothing isn't a quantum vacume -- nothing just doesn't exist?

As soon as nothing is credited with any qualities or abilities -- including the ability to act as an origin for nature -- it stops being 'nothing' and instead becomes 'something outside nature that we don't understand'?

 

[Matteo]

So Shakespeare was right?

Nothing will come of nothing.

I think he was referring to a point of cordeliality. And went on to say (if memory serves me well after 33 years) Mend your space a little lest it mar your physics.

 

[RJM Corbet]

So Shakespeare was right?

Nothing will come of nothing.

I think he was referring to a point of cordeliality. And went on to say (if memory serves me well after 33 years) Mend your space a little lest it mar your physics.

How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little, lest you may mar your fortunes.
-- King Lear

 

[mosaix]

ps. Being as this zero thing is getting circular . I will drop out. I said what I believe, and that is how I see it. Since everyone else adheres to the quantity notion rather than the placeholder concept, it is pretty pointless repeating my apparently eccentric position.
I think todays Dilbert kind of swung it for me LoL

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If you want to find Dilbert or Scott Adams, here are some leads.

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It was an interesting discussion A.P.

 

[mosaix]

Fair enough. But where a scientist uses the word nothing (no thing) as the origin of everything, is he using the word differently to the common understanding?

Of course that is not a wrong thing to do, because words often do have different, or more precise, meanings in science and law than in common speech.

But what is the 'nihilo' used in the term universe ex-nihilo? Something can't be added to or taken away from nothing. Nothing is just nothing? Nothing can't give origin to nature; nothing isn't a quantum vacume -- nothing just doesn't exist?

As soon as nothing is credited with any qualities or abilities -- including the ability to act as an origin for nature -- it stops being 'nothing' and instead becomes 'something outside nature that we don't understand'?

It’s an interesting point RJM. Some computer languages have the concept of a field having a NULL value. ie the field has never contained a value - not space, not zero, not anything.

Now, interestingly, if you compare a NULL field to a given value the result is not as, in my innocence, I expected ‘unequal’ but ‘undetermined’.

This, to say the least, can be a real pain.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I've got a book on my shelves called The Nothing That Is by Robert Kaplan. I've not yet read it, but I suspect it's very pertinent to this discussion.

 

[RJM Corbet]

field having a NULL value. ie the field has never contained a value - not space, not zero, not anything.

Interesting

But it is nevertheless a field? A NULL field, sure. But it is a field? It has the potential? A field is a field?

I can say 'John's not here' -- but that means John exists as absent? I can't say: Someone who isn't called anyone, who never existed and never will exist -- isn't here?'

Well, I can say it ... but it's meaningless?

 

[RJM Corbet]

I read A Universe from Nothing a few years ago, and found it a pretty terrible book: philosophically unsound, and not proving what it claims to prove. Here is a review of it that discusses many of its flaws: On the Origin of Everything
And a piece on it at Scientific American: Is Lawrence Krauss a Physicist, or Just a Bad Philosopher?

Thank you. Valuable observations, imo ...

There cannot be degrees or properties of what does not exist?

 

[ginny]

Much ado about nothing.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

And went on to say (if memory serves me well after 33 years) Mend your space a little lest it mar your physics.

So, basically, "Free your mind and your ass will follow."