Something out of nothing

[Chester]

@volchok

@Moreno

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”.

What do you think of the idea that I’ve put forward (above), that nothing is chaos, it exists purely as potential?

[volchok]

news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/ne … 672233.stm

Hawking answers some questions.

[James_S_Saint]

“Nothing” and “Chaos” are mutually exclusive. Saying that the party turned to chaos and meaning that it turned to nothing, would be a bit deceiving.

But it is true that what we call “vacuum” is actually EM random turbulence or noise that is merely too low to detect. When it happens to get high enough to detect, then we give it a name and thus it is no longer “vacuum”.

[Chester]

@James S Saint

“Nothing” and “Chaos” are mutually exclusive. Saying that the party turned to chaos and meaning that it turned to nothing, would be a bit deceiving.

But it is true that what we call “vacuum” is actually EM random turbulence or noise that is merely too low to detect. When it happens to get high enough to detect, then we give it a name and thus it is no longer “vacuum”.

An absolute lack of order is nothing because there is nothing particular . So chaos becomes an explanation of nothingness… nothingness exists as pure potential.

[ZenKitty]

@volchok

BBC News - Today - Hawking on the future of mankind

Hawking answers some questions.

I guess you’re dealing with this portion of the link you gave:

The origin of the universe can be explained by the laws of physics, without any need for miracles or Divine intervention.These laws predict that the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing in a rapidly expanding state.This is called inflation because it is like the way prices in the shops go up at an ever increasing rate.Time is defined only with the universe, so it makes no sense to talk about time before the universe began, it would be like asking for a point south of the South Pole.

But how the hell do the laws of physics explain anything? Just think about it. Laws are outside of space-time. They apply to all particulars that fall under their categories, in all places and times. Particulars are in space-time, if we accept what he’s saying, but laws of physics (generals) are outside of space-time. For example, imagine we have the law of physics known as “All men are mortal”. This means that this was true before there were any human beings, or any mortals. That’s what Hawking is saying. Before there was a universe, there were laws for that universe. This is the whole issue of Universal v. Particulars.

But where were these laws? They definitely weren’t existing in the universe, if we accept what Hawking was saying. Hawkings is just a dualist, holding that there is something outside of space-time, which are the laws of physics. And it looks like he’s saying that this stuff outside of space-time created the universe, which was out of nothing. But now that just makes it look like the laws of physics are nothing. So Hawking is just as much as full of bull as Hawking. He isn’t even going by experience to come up with this idea.

And I get so tired of the “south of south pole”. Does anyone realize that “south” is based on a convention? So he’s basically saying that the Beginning is a convention that we’ve created, and this convention doesn’t allow for there to be something existing, or time, existing before it. That’s all it says.

[Only_Humean]

@ZenKitty

And I get so tired of the “south of south pole”. Does anyone realize that “south” is based on a convention? So he’s basically saying that the Beginning is a convention that we’ve created, and this convention doesn’t allow for there to be something existing, or time, existing before it. That’s all it says.

South is a dimensional convention. Is “before” not the same? I don’t see how “what happened before the Big Bang?” is not a useless question.

As for philosophy and science, I don’t think that the highest qualifications in one are any guarantee of basic competence in the other. I wouldn’t ask Zizek to prescribe me painkillers, why should I trust Hawking’s metaphysical Realism when it comes to laws of nature?

[ZenKitty]

@Only_Humean

South is a dimensional convention. Is “before” not the same? I don’t see how “what happened before the Big Bang?” is not a useless question.

As for philosophy and science, I don’t think that the highest qualifications in one are any guarantee of basic competence in the other. I wouldn’t ask Zizek to prescribe me painkillers, why should I trust Hawking’s metaphysical Realism when it comes to laws of nature?

I think I did point out that “South” is a dimensional convention, and I was hinting at the analogy that “before” is a convention as well. And I’m not sure if Hawking’s is a Metaphysical Realist. He could be, but the idea he presented as “Model-Dependent Realism”, that he seem to be a scientific anti-realist. And he has also described himself as a postivist. He only cares about the measurements, or more specifically, if the measurements match with the prediction of the theory.

[Only_Humean]

@ZenKitty

@Only_Humean

South is a dimensional convention. Is “before” not the same? I don’t see how “what happened before the Big Bang?” is not a useless question.

As for philosophy and science, I don’t think that the highest qualifications in one are any guarantee of basic competence in the other. I wouldn’t ask Zizek to prescribe me painkillers, why should I trust Hawking’s metaphysical Realism when it comes to laws of nature?

I think I did point out that “South” is a dimensional convention, and I was hinting at the analogy that “before” is a convention as well.

Then I misunderstood - I thought your tiredness with “south of south pole” was due to it being somehow wrong, not obvious.

And I’m not sure if Hawking’s is a Metaphysical Realist. He could be, but the idea he presented as “Model-Dependent Realism”, that he seem to be a scientific anti-realist.

True. Which makes his claim that “the origin of the universe can be explained by the laws of physics” a little optimistic, to say the least.

[Typist]

Empirical discoveries continue to tell us that the Universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not, and ‘something’ and ‘nothing’ are physical concepts and therefore are properly the domain of science, not theology or philosophy. (Indeed, religion and philosophy have added nothing to our understanding of these ideas in millennia.)

First, theology and philosophy address our relationship with something and nothing. This is pretty important work.

As example, let’s say that after reading this post you call me on the phone to tell me I’m a total moron. Science can describe the volume, sound frequency, duration etc of your statement. Ok, perhaps that might be useful somehow. But what most likely interests us both of us more is our relationship with your statement.

Second, it’s just a reality of human life that all of us tend to think reality is all about us. For the poet, everything around them is fuel for poetry. For the artist, reality is a big creative art project. For the spiritual, reality is god’s work etc. For the mechanically minded person, such as scientists, reality is a collection of gears, pulleys, forces etc.

If we were wearing pink tinted glasses, everything we looked at would appear pink. And so we might adamantly declare, “Reality is pink!” But the truth is, reality is pink for US.

[volchok]

@Typist

First, theology and philosophy address our relationship with something and nothing. This is pretty important work.

Theology is bad philosophy. Nothing else.
You can argue that science doesn’t have all the answers. I disagree, but you can argue it if you want. Many do.
But don’t argue that theology is valuable or necessary or useful. Because that is an indefensible argument.

[Typist]

@volchok

But don’t argue that theology is valuable or necessary or useful. Because that is an indefensible argument.

I would be happy to make that argument, and I assure you it’s a very easy argument to defend. But I’m not sure I should do so in this thread. If you’d like to start another thread, and would like me to participate, PM me and I’d be pleased to join you there.

[lizbethrose]

When LeMaitre defined the singularity, was he defining the creation of something out of nothing or was he defining the explosion of super-heated energy and matter, which, as it cooled, formed into the universe: the continuing, expanding universe?

[James_S_Saint]

Originally, the “singularity” was postulated from the mass and charge equations that implied an infinite progression of attraction, yielding an infinite mass within an infinitely small point. Right at that moment they should have realized that they had something amiss. Much later, they gradually accepted that the “singularity” now means, “a very small highly dense object”.

[lizbethrose]

Iow, he wasn’t defining 'something out of nothing. ’ Thanks, James, that’s all I wanted to be clear on.

[the_sad_clown]

Now, as Richard Feynman emphasized, we have no idea if this process will continue, if we will peel back the layers of reality like an onion, whether the process will never end, or whether we will truly come up with a fundamental theory that allows us to extrapolate our understanding to all scales. As he pointed out, it doesn’t really matter, because what we scientists want to do is learn about how the universe works, and at each stage we learn something new. We may hope the universe has some fundamental explanation, but as I keep emphasizing, the universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not, and our job is to be brave enough to keep trying to understand it better, and to accept the reality that nature imposes upon us.

This got me to wondering if what science was discovering wasn’t the way the universe is, but rather different ways of perceiving the universe and that the questions science was asking weren’t just framing how the inquiry could be pursued, but what was found when they were pursued as well. This might explain the unending onion phenomena because the discoveries were just as much a part of the question as they were of the what that was being questioned and so be an unending process, at least as long as new questions could be thought up. It’s sort of like Schrödinger’s cat extending to everything and not just QM.

[Only_Humean]

@the sad clown

This got me to wondering if what science was discovering wasn’t the way the universe is, but rather different ways of perceiving the universe and that the questions science was asking weren’t just framing how the inquiry could be pursued, but what was found when they were pursued as well. This might explain the unending onion phenomena because the discoveries were just as much a part of the question as they were of the what that was being questioned and so be an unending process, at least as long as new questions could be thought up. It’s sort of like Schrödinger’s cat extending to everything and not just QM.

Niels Bohr said that physics is not about what nature is, but about what we can say about nature.

The evidence you gather within a certain paradigm is context-dependent on the paradigm; you can see it in a completely different light - that is, as being a different sort of evidence altogether - when the paradigm changes. I’m not sure how Schrödinger’s cat comes into it, though?

[the_sad_clown]

@Only_Humean

I’m not sure how Schrödinger’s cat comes into it, though?

Yeah, bad example, the Bohr quote is a lot better, thanks.

[Mowk]

Perhaps a mind is mistaken when it’s perceptions ‘look’ but sees nothing.

Something from nothing seems to contradict the law of the conservation of matter-energy or perhaps taxes the thinking the universe can be modeled as an isolated system.

Doubt if I’ve ever experienced an example of nothing.