Terrible point and it’s Lawrence.
Actually, it’s called logic. I guess it doesn’t work for you and Lawrenece. But wait, it’s both Lawerence and Leonard. This all follows from what he said. No wait, it all follows from what she said.
There is something slipper or confused when he describes nothing as, basically, quantum foam. This begs the question of origins of why there is place a quantum foam when there is what we call nothing.
Overall I do not think he answered the question in the inverview very well. Even references to multiverses and how other laws could have come in place do not explain why there is a potential for anything, universes or laws to come into place. Why is there a potential for this to happen rather than no potential for this to happen.
Frankly I don’t see the theologians can claim there is a God if there was nothing, but this guy has not remotely explained why a universe would arise.
Then you, somehow, know that the universe has always existed. This certainty is news to most physicists. It used to be consensus, back in the steady state day, but not for a while.
Of course he’s being slippery. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s amazing how people like Sam Harris and Lawrence Krauss come up with this stuff, and buy it hook line and sinker because it fits into what they so desperately want to believe [-o< . And what Lawrence never told anyone is that when he says “physical”, he means “mathematical”. And he takes mathematics for reality, while an experimentalist would take the sensations they get as reality. Theoretical physicists, which is what Lawrence is, constantly mistake mathematics for reality. This is called the “reification fallacy”. Always taking these abstract and hypothetical things for concrete reality. ](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/uploads/default/original/2X/7/7c349bf1053f368a5729d053e1e91215f22ce66c.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
Oh yeah, and who are you again? Your logic is completely fucked as you have demonstrated in other threads.
Btw, you should be a comedian. You’re hilarious. Or maybe not…
What bothered me especially was his saying that science is the one to talk about nothing and something, this is science’s domain - how was this determined empirically ? - then describes nothing as ‘really’ quantum foam and says there is no other nothing. Why does finding quantum foam in what we consider the closest possible region to nothing in the current universe mean there cannot be a lack of anything. What he is really countering here is a perfect vaccuum, which is not what theologian - or cosmologists - would mean by nothing. He’s just fucking with out minds here, not necessarily intentionally, he likely started with his own.
(as far as Sam Harris, he’s a reactionary asshole, who believes that one 1) torture is acceptable and 2) that people should be able to be punished for their BELIEFS, not just their actions. I read his book carefully and he is very clear on these two, though he does keep them separate. How medieval when they are combined. As far as his politics, he is an asshole. He makes Bush look like a radical progressive.)
I believe that nothing is impossible, it’s only improbable.
How probable is it that things can come out of a neutral or non-existent state?
It seems impossible to some people, or so unlikely that it is nonsense.
If the universe didn’t come from God, and didn’t come from nothing, where did it come from? Or was it eternal?
Well, at least I can make some actual arguments. You just make claims with no argument to back it up. What follows from a contradiction Volchok? What follows from A&~A? He even admitted that they’re are contradictions.
In the article he said that the first sentence of his book states why he makes all these claims. So that right there tells you that he will come up with anything that he can to support his position. But you point out the quantum foam thingie. And that is exactly the problem. Whenever they bring up this “nothing”, they end up saying it’s “Something”. But if you pay attention, science constantly says there is something, and than goes on to say that there is nothing beyond that. But later on they come up with something else, and say there’s nothing else beyond that. Basically, they’re stuck with infinite regresses. It really is a mind screw they throw themselves in. Cognitive dissonance must be insane for him.
Which is fine. I think it’s interesting that they found no vaccuums and that particles in those near vaccuums (vaccui?) are winking in and out of existence and so on. It’s that what may or may not be a local or current - taken in its broadest sense - phenomenon, means that there always has been something seems a jump to me. If you want to stick with scientific methodology as the only route to knowledge, fine. But this is a conservative system, in fact this is precisely how it is touted. To say there could not have been a prior complete lack of anything because current near vaccuums are quantum foam is not being conservative. And it certainly is not supported by empirical research.
I enjoyed this sentence.
Hahahahaha
Hell, I know 14 yrold girls that would recognize his bullshit.
Nothing is where something hasn’t formed, it is a place of utter chaos…there is nothing to point to or draw attention to (including nothing to witness it). The only thing to be said of such a “place” is that it has potential to become something when will is applied…it is the building blocks.
That’s funny?
It’s a totally misrepresentation of his views.
No it’s not. IN the End of Faith he takes great care in arguing that certain beliefs - his main focus being Islam - should be treated as actions. Since the beliefs lead to actions according to him. This is very clearly laid out.
At another place in the book he carefully defends torture, using the example of a pill that would not show the brutality of the torture. He uses this example to demonstrate that it is not so much the torture that we dislike - and we do not, as a society dislike the the pain and killing caused by things like bombing in war - but the way it looks, how we experience torture and what we think it does to society. He very carefully make a case for the use of torture in Western society in the same book he makes a very careful case for treating beliefs as actions.
None of this is between the lines or even remotely controversial.
The only thing I have added here is to put this two pernicious beliefs next to each other in a post. They were together in the same book of his, but not precisely adjacent in the text.
If anyone has a problem with those two ideas, especially as they could be used in conjunction, they should have a problem with Sam Harris.
I read the link. He clearly comes out in favor of torture and does not make clear for what purposes or in relation to what crimes.
He clearly states that behaviors should be treated as actions. He denies there that he is suggesting all religious people should be killed. I never asserted he said that. He does manage to take some of the responsibility for what he thinks are misinterpretations of his positions, but he doesn’t take away the foundation for them. It’s nice he is willing to make clear he would not kill all religious people. Whoopie. The way he presented his ideas and even here where there is some recanting and vague clarification, he puts forward something really quite dangerous.
He reminds me here, precisely of the people he hates. Or he is incredibly naive: his clarifications sound like code. Surface denial to his detractors, but no real retraction for those who might use his ideas in ways I at least would consider pernicious. It sounds precisely like the kinds of denials that come from politically active extremist groups when confronted with public dislike of their beliefs. They seem but don’t actually deny their positions and attack their attackers.
And you can see from the text he himself quoted, which he only began to ‘clarify’ after intense and obvious interpretations of these appeared widespread, how no one was misreading him.
This from a rationalist getting published at a major house, meaning that text was gone over carefully by a number of highly literate intelligent people with relevent expertise and over a fairly long period of time.
And note: when I read his book, I went directly to his discussion forum and pointed out the issues. People told me there was nothing in his book to support what I was saying. So I typed in whole sections - no easy task - just to show them. After that my criticism was taken seriously even there.
OK. Good, he’s come out with a vague clarification and we now know that the worst possible interpretations of his ideas are not ones he wants to see in action. That’s good. But it is unclear what beliefs he wants to consider actions - he only gives extreme examples that he thinks are hard to argue with, but does not say these are the limits he would set on their uses.
Remember, the idea that beliefs should be treated as actions does not just affect religious people, in fact it goes against the fundamental beliefs of most democratic societies. Beliefs about Torture have been generally more mixed in these societies, but he is clearly making an apologetics for torture - and in a well argued way, frankly - and never makes it clear where he would draw the line - in a book about ending faith and how we should end faith. Only a moron would be surprised people had an issue with what he was writing about.
And anyone who could imagine protesting against his or her government - protests of course containing beliefs - should be very wary of both of these positions by Harris, however much he says that he hasn’t really decided what legislation he would favor and seems to be leaving this to others.
After the exciting Bush Cheney years, which in many ways have not been modified by Obama - who just signed a bill allowed indeterminate secret incarcerations - we should be leery in the West of supposedly Western value thinkers whose ideas feed the anti-democratic, anti-free speech purposes to a T.
And ironically enough Sam Harris like everyone else falls under his own rationale. If someone decides his beliefs on torture are actions…
You have to love his idea of torture. He is probably a secret agent of China, Comrade Harris. He’s a national hero over there, and look forward to him coming up with his special pill (is it the red or blue one?). I mean, these people have 5,000 of torture experience, and nothing beats some bamboo shoots. Run out of fingers, just use their toes. Nothing better. 
I read your post and I thought it pretty incredible. I mean, that’s what you get after reading that link?
Jesus fucking christ.
Anyway, I’m not gonna waste my time defending him. I’ve done that plenty on other occasions. And we can do that another time in another place.
Let’s get back to what this thread is about; “something out of nothing”.