Universe from Nothing.

If we were discussing how a magical being waved his fingers and blinked the universe into existence, would it still belong in the cosmology forum? If you want to speculate about how existence came to exist without a direct tie-in to well-established scientific principles, why should anyone consider such conjecture to be more scientific than the magical being hypothesis?

Science considers anything which can't be substantiated by experiment to be pure speculation. If your proposals offered some potential to predict and correlate experimental data, then the discussion would have some scientific merit. On the other hand, if you can't say why you're right and all proposed alternatives are wrong other than through personal intuition, the debate has as much scientific value as a debate about whether red is prettier than blue.

A subject such as String Theory is also highly speculative, but at least it offers us a unified framework which mathematically reduces to established scientific principles in the energy regimes where such principles are known to apply, and a great deal of effort continues to be spent trying to develop the theory into something which can make definitive predictions about our universe. Vague verbal speculations about pre-existing zero-point vacuums and their alleged behaviour just don't cut it, we need something quantitatively concrete which at some level ties into what we already know while also circumventing some of the shortcomings in existing theories. Example: Can you take your speculation and use it to mathematically derive a spacetime metric matching the characteristics of the known universe?

I don't mean it as an insult that this topic should be moved to Philosophy, but you can't talk about the origins of the universe as if they were well understood and manipulable on the same level as electricity.

 

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It is true that these kind of discussions are unscientific and can quickly go from reasonable and responsible speculation to the magical. There is noting wrong with a thread like this being moved to where ever the forum moderator thinks it will best fit.

The OP seems to be an invitation to discuss something from nothing. That topic is legitimate cosmology if it trends toward how the scientific method can be applied to advance or refute specific proposals of how something could come from nothing which is what I think the OP intended. However, the discussion never really approached the topic with any merit.

Re. cosmology, there are questions about the beginning and there are several possible explanations. Mentioning them seems appropriate for this forum and discussions that address specific proposals for application of the scientific method to sort them out seems appropriate, but the quality of most of those types of discussions ceases to be scientific quickly.

The main explanations for the origin of the universe include that it came from nothing, that it has always existed, or God did it. The only one of those three main explanations that seems to lend itself to the scientific method is that it came from nothing and the only way to apply the scientific method to that explanation is for ideas of how it could occur to be advanced and discussed. This thread fails to do that. If it is annoying to you that it sits here and goes nowhere then take action to move it. No one will care as far as I know.

 

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What constitutes "reasonable and responsible" speculation? Is it not reasonable to expect that such speculation should have a basis in testable reality?

I agree there has been little or no science applied so far in this discussion. I honestly feel the substance in most of these arguments resembles a debate about Klingons vs. the Borg.

I don't even think that's a fair starting point, because in this context the terms "nothing", "always" and "God" are all vaguely defined, so IMO they don't even really constitute explanations.

I contend that none of the above "explanations" lend themselves to the scientific method, it's all pure metaphysical philosophy. Testability is integral to the scientific method, and I'd like to know what test could be conducted that would favour "something from nothing" over other attempted explanations.

I wouldn't go that far, I see ideas being proposed and discussed, they just don't have any evidential support or predictive power to accompany them and hence don't contain any scientific merit.

It's merely a proposal on my part, just like I would think a discussion about chimpanzee digestion is better-suited for the Biology section rather than Math & Physics. The mods can do whatever they like, but I think the general audience is better served by having this particular discussion categorized as philosophy rather than science. Don't take it personally, but if you're going to state how you think things came to be without giving concrete reality-based reasons on why alternative opinions should be disregarded, then it ain't science.

 

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Have it your way.

 

Any reasonable comments or discussion on my conjecture/hypothesis (below) . . . other than "BS" or "don't quit your day-job"? Thanks wlminex

Yes . . . the universe IS expanding . . . but NOT necessarily from a Big Bang (BB) episode. Expansion is a Steady-State (ugh!) phenomenon. The rate of expansion is directly proportional to the rate of cosmic background radiation production. CBR is not a "left-over" from a BB, but rather a continuous product from the virtual state condition (which I call Subquantal Reality, or SQR) transition to our observable matter condition (which I call Material Reality, or MR). As SQR (the land of virtual particles, quarks, and pre-quarks) transcends to MR (the land of our "hard", observable, detectible stuff), an energy threshold is crossed (kind of like water going over a waterfall). The only way back across this energy threshold is via blackholes (or, carry the water back above the waterfall in buckets). The difference in SQR energy levels (>>>> high!) and MR energy levels (<< lower than SQR) is represented by CBR. CBR is not isotropic (proven!), thus expansion is happening at slightly variable rates within the space-time matrix. Now the tough part to visualize . . . . SQR permeates (omnipresent) MR, so expansion is happening 'everywhere' . . . at the same time. I envision SQR to be superluminal, undetectable and unobservable (except by inference from CBR), and MR to be limited by C. Crossing the C threshold (energy drop or anisotropies in SQR) generates the CBR + MR. I won't even hint at the theological implications of this hypothesis. Send me an email and request a more complete discussion of this hypothesis.
(Original reply to a question on SCiforum regarding the expanding universe)

 

I think BS sums it up very neatly.

 

A Cosmological Conjecture/Hypothesis - An alternative to the BB hypothesis
by wlminex

Yes . . . the universe IS expanding . . . but NOT necessarily from a Big Bang (BB) episode. Expansion is a Steady-State (ugh!!), continuous phenomenon. The rate of expansion is directly proportional to the rate of cosmic background radiation production. CBR is not a "left-over" from a BB, but rather a continuous product from the virtual state condition (which I call Subquantal Reality, or SQR) transition to our observable matter condition (which I call Material Reality, or MR). As SQR (the land of virtual particles, quarks, and pre-quarks) transcends to MR (the land of our "hard", observable, detectible stuff), an energy threshold is crossed (kind of like water going over a waterfall). The only way back across this energy threshold is via blackholes (or, carry the water back above the waterfall in buckets). The difference in SQR energy levels (and therefore frequencies ~ >>>> high!) and MR energy levels (<< lower than SQR) is represented by CBR. CBR is not isotropic (COBE proven!), thus expansion is happening at slightly variable rates within the space-time matrix. Now the tough part to visualize . . . . SQR permeates (is omnipresent) MR, so expansion is happening 'everywhere' . . . at the same time . . . all the time. I envision SQR to be likely-superluminal, undetectable (v.v. v. high frequencies don’t interact with MR) and unobservable (except by inference from CBR), and MR to be limited by c (velocity of light) . Crossing the c threshold (energy drop or anisotropies in SQR) generates the CBR + MR + perhaps gravitons?). I won't even hint at the theological implications of this hypothesis. Send me an email and request a more complete discussion of this hypothesis.

Reasonable comments welcome!

(Original reply to a question on SciForum regarding the expanding universe)

 

wlminex follow-up:

and . . . . . NO, I'm NOT a physicist . . or a mathematician. . . just a lowly geologist with a sense of curiosity and inquisitiveness - plus . . . great observational skills! One of you math guys should be able to determine the SQR--> MR + CBR equation-of-state and apply simple free-energy calculations . . . at least to a first approximation. Thanks for your help/comments!

 

How about you stop spamming this.

 

Empty dimension is definitely not nothing it is physical even if immaterial and has relativity what has relativity and is physical is not absolute nothing.

 

Spam sandwiches taste better than "word salad"

AlexG;

Might I refer you to Lawrence Krauss (universe from nothing) and Helmut Satz (QGP research) regarding my "spam"? "Get-out-of-your-HTT-box" regards/wlminex

 

That depends on what "noithing" you mean
If you mean, the nothing that is litterly nothing, no energy at all, none from any kind, no matter..completly nothing, the nothing may be something not very usualy to imagine, since we are living in "something", that exist, (depends on the meaning of existence too), while the nothing is, well, nothing at all, none, well, i don't know how t explain it more than that exactly, i mean, the "nothing" thing, but i think you got the point, the nothing is, nothing, completly nothing, none, absolute exact 0

so, no energy at all, none, how can all the energy come from, none, from nothing, while the space don't even exist, well, none exist

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Pleas explain and define, the "empty" or "the nothing" that you mean.

 

Shadow 1:

"Things" (physical) are detectable stuff. So 'no-thing' means, if it's there, we can't detect it using current observational tools. In my interpretation of their hypotheses: Krauss's use of the term 'nothing' is discussed within this context. Whatever is 'there' (Krauss's nothing), whether it be dark matter, dark energy, cosmological constant (ref. Einstein), or other, is 'nothing' that we can currently detect, but is the potental source for "things". Satz, on the otherhand, believes his Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), while not directly observable (detectable), may be so detected by indirect means.

Be reminded: This is just my interpretation of their work. I refer you back to my post #47 - this thread

I'm not certain what Big Chiller means by the term "empty dimension"


wlminex

 

The only worthwhile post so far was that of "c-c". The problems clarified by that post have to be addressed before anything substantial begins with this topic.

I'd add that locomotion (movement from place to place) would be impossible, were there not nothing interspersed throughout the something of the universe. In that case, nothing becomes part of the universe whose origin needs explaining; or else nothing is a persisting residue of the nihilum (as in "ex nihilo") out of which the everything came to be.

 

A great way to interpret the universes birth is to actually attempt to creation of a simulation (or emulation).

The main problem with a simulation using current technology however is that it is all built upon the fundamentals that our observations have produced evidence of constants that are unshifting or unwavering.

To produce a proper simulation, those foundations have to be built themselves from scratch, rather than just inherited from a universe in which we imply Entropy created.

So at what point do with interject the first marker that we can say "This is where it began", the reality is that it's actually far more complex.

You see for an "emulation" to be housed in side a computer network, it would have to be understood that if this emulation itself was indeed the same if not an absolute duplicate of the reality it which it is housed, then it's existance as an emulated state would in fact be the "beginning". However the universe would apparently exist Trillions of years prior to the technological level of a lifeform that too exists within it.

It's the notion of Recursion, that itself raises questions about the nature of our physics. After all if the emulated embodiment within a network, is comprised of a finite range of molecules which are themselves proportionally emulated with in the network itself, it would be possible to change the emulated form to alter the "reality" in which their emulator exists.

Recursion could explain the nature of gravity, attraction, as well as mass, as this "tunneling" between realities would allow scalar shifts at ever decreasing depths of magnitude.

The notion of a Recursive emulation is by no means complete, as what also has to be taken into consideration is that to build a whole universe will take a whole universes amount of energy and potentially resources. So this requires trying to understand where such energy and resources could be found and the answer to that is through Multiworlds theory.

If rather than building a giant emulator at great cost and requiring a great amount of resources is swapped for building a small emulator that can have as many (or as little) resources thrown at it, but utilize the potential of infinite worlds. It can be transposed that a whole universe could be emulated in it's entirety by a composition of different universes.

A long winded view of the model is thus:

In conclusion it's possible to synthesis the Birth of the Universe, if not indulge on planning it's future creation. (Some might ask "why repeat making what already exists?" and the answer is simply "if we do not recreate the event, we will never understand the universe to the level that we would have when we created it prior".)

(Obviously I am in desperate need of some help writing this up properly)

 

This is in line with my idea that there is literally nothing to make anything of:

The following is by Amanda Gefter

…

…nothingness is the highest entropy state around - you can shuffle it around all you want and it still looks like nothing.

Given this law, it is hard to see how nothing could ever be turned into something, let alone something as big as a universe. But entropy is only part of the story. The other consideration is symmetry - a quality that appears to exert profound influence on the physical universe wherever it crops up. Nothingness is very symmetrical indeed. "There's no telling one part from another, so it has total symmetry," says physicist Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

And as physicists have learned over the past few decades, symmetries are made to be broken. Wilczek's own speciality is quantum chromodynamics, the theory that describes how quarks behave deep within atomic nuclei. It tells us that nothingness is a precarious state of affairs. "You can form a state that has no quarks and antiquarks in it, and it's totally unstable," says Wilczek. "It spontaneously starts producing quark-antiquark pairs." The perfect symmetry of nothingness is broken. That leads to an unexpected conclusion, says Victor Stenger, a physicist at the University of Colorado in Boulder: despite entropy, "something is the more natural state than nothing".

"According to quantum theory, there is no state of 'emptiness'," agrees Frank Close of the University of Oxford. Emptiness would have precisely zero energy, far too exacting a requirement for the uncertain quantum world. Instead, a vacuum is actually filled with a roiling broth of particles that pop in and out of existence.

 

…

Might something similar account for the origin of the universe itself? Quite plausibly, says Wilczek. "There is no barrier between nothing and a rich universe full of matter," he says. Perhaps the big bang was just nothingness doing what comes naturally.

This, of course, raises the question of what came before the big bang, and how long it lasted. Unfortunately at this point basic ideas begin to fail us; the concept "before" becomes meaningless. In the words of Stephen Hawking, it's like asking what is north of the north pole.

Even so, there is an even more mind-blowing consequence of the idea that something can come from nothing: perhaps nothingness itself cannot exist.
Here's why. Quantum uncertainty allows a trade-off between time and energy, so something that lasts a long time must have little energy. To explain how our universe has lasted for the billions of years that it has taken galaxies to form, solar systems to coalesce and life to evolve into bipeds who ask how something came from nothing, its total energy must be extraordinarily low.

That fits with the generally accepted view of the universe's early moments, which sees space-time undergoing a brief burst of expansion immediately after the big bang. This heady period, known as inflation, flooded the universe with energy. But according to Einstein's general theory of relativity, more space-time also means more gravity. Gravity's attractive pull represents negative energy that can cancel out inflation's positive energy - essentially constructing a cosmos for nothing. "I like to say that the universe is the ultimate free lunch," says Alan Guth, a cosmologist at MIT who came up with the inflation theory 30 years ago.

 

…

Physicists used to worry that creating something from nothing would violate all sorts of physical laws such as the conservation of energy. But if there is zero overall energy to conserve, the problem evaporates - and a universe that simply popped out of nothing becomes not just plausible, but probable. "Maybe a better way of saying it is that something is nothing," says Guth.

None of this really gets us off the hook, however. Our understanding of creation relies on the validity of the laws of physics, particularly quantum uncertainty. But that implies that the laws of physics were somehow encoded into the fabric of our universe before it existed. How can physical laws exist outside of space and time and without a cause of their own? Or, to put it another way, why is there something rather than nothing?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128221.100-existence-why-is-there-a-universe.html?page=1

 

As a student of Philosophy (and not modern natural science per se), it seems to me that particle physics and cosmology are rather egregious in this regard -- stepping outside the limitations of data and tending to improvise a bit too effusively in speculative theories that sound like Neo-Platonic mysticism. I just hope they're not getting big grants to Wax Mystic in the guise of Science.