Why is there something and not nothing

Something instead of nothing?

Why is there something instead of nothing? The interesting conclusion of this ultimate puzzle is that, we can be sure of, it that at least something exists. There is a Universe, we see people, and things, and light, and while we may debate what it means, how it came into being, and how it works, we can be sure that there is at least `something'.


Many physists search for the most elementary laws of physics, and believe that a law is more likely to be true, when it is simpler, more elementary. Some think that at some moment, humans will understand how the Universe and everything works, and, even more, that we find out why the Universe is necessarily as it is. (Ridiculous nonsense). I cannot believe that, indeed, I believe humans cannot ever give a satisfactory or final answer to this ultimate of all questions. Why is there something instead of nothing?
With nothing,

I mean the un-existence of everything. No people, no earth, no milky way, no universe, no laws of nature, no space, no time a total non-existence of everything. A mind-boggling, brain-, brain-numbing and brain- twisting overwhelming concept, terrifying, frightening, too awful to contemplate and impossible think about, without going insane and totally beyond understanding of any human genius. Making a mathematical model of nothing is actually easy. (Take an empty set, with no operations on it, and nothing else.)

Nevertheless, one thing we can be sure of: this nothing is not correct: we do not have “nothing”, but definite and absolutely do indeed have ‘SOMETHING’. This shows that the simplest model is not always the correct one. The universe is almost infinitely complex and to me this points to the simple logic that it is the creation by an infinite, intelligent power. Nothing is the very most basic of all concepts and if there were nothing, there would be no creator, of course.

Some people may argue that the universe was created in the Big Bang ( but whom and what pressed the button of the big bang in the first place, so to speak?) , and that positive matter and positive energy are actually negated by the simultaneous creation of negative matter and negative energy. However, this doesn't answer the other question, where do matter, energy and laws of physics then come from in the first place?

Does this question have an answer? If something exists because it either was a modification of something or else, something or somebody else created it, then what caused that to exist? It seems that our logic is unable to deal with the question; indeed, I think the question shows there is a limit to our understanding of things by the very best minds of the human race. There are simply mysteries out there that will never ever be solved by mere mortal man.

You see the universe has a strange Goldie locks condition about it, i.e., it cannot be too hot or too cold etc, etc, erc, but it has to be just absolutely correct, precise and right or life would not have come into existence and we would not be around to contemplate, debate or dialogue on this ultimate enigma. We would not exist. Life hangs on and depends on this knife- edge of harmonies conditions that have to be sustained over countless billions of years, for us to have come into existence and continue to exist. Makes one think, does it not?

Why do we have a universe? My answer is that god created the universe. However, then, one can ask, who/what created god? I believe god was not created and this ‘fact’ is beyond our understanding and must be accepted on faith. God is far and beyond our understanding, everlasting, without beginning or end, eternal and ever -existing, but was (and is, and will be) always existed.

He/she is indeed the very author of all existence. Indeed, god is so mighty, omni-all that he/she exists, forever, far above our reasoning and above the ultimate reaches of our logic. something we and all the vain puffed up scientist, philosophers, etc, will just have to accept in time, we will, at the end of the day have to, relent and acknowledge that somewhere out there is a awesome, colossal, mighty, great infinite intelligence that in comparison that we are as a microbe is to a human or perhaps horrors even much further remote, from the omni-all power we call god.

It will indeed be a most humbling experience for us to finally realize and acknowledge, that there are things and mysteries that will; remain forever, absolutely, totally beyond human comprehension understand and reside eternally in the mind of our creator god.

It is a fact the finite can simply never ever comprehend the mind of the infinite

God Exists

 

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A scientific appraisal of creationism.

The first intro of a finite universe in a written mode [as opposed a belief] is in the Hebrew bible [There was a 'Beginning' - Genesis 1/1]. Then we find that first there was the Creator ['In the beginning God']; then the universe was created [the first verb/action]. Here, there were no tools, elements, gasses, fire, energy, forces, time, space, etc. So how was the universe created, even from a scientific POV, under such conditions? The term FINITE means real and absolute finite - else it has no effective meaning, and this is the preamble whereby everything else must align with.

When we examine the first 'creation' chapter of Genesis, we find a remarkable factor: the term 'CREATE' is used only in this first chapter, and is replaced with the word 'FORMED' thereafter for the rest of the five Mosaic books. Here, Genesis is saying that the true technical term of Create refers to SOMETHING FROM NOTHING, and all other forms are SOMETHING FROM SOMETHING ELSE. IOW, Genesis is saying the universe appeared from nothingness, as in a snap and a click. From a scientific view, this has no alternative - based on a finite realm. So Genesis is correct - not by virtue of us being able to understand how this can occur, but because there is no alternatives to the Genesis premise.


Further, back to Gen verse 1, we are also told that everything was created at once, including a song someone will write 5000 years from now: "IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS [GALAXIES] AND THE EARTH' - namely the entire universe was created in V1. There are legitimate and scientific reasons this is correct:

1. Nothing can exist which was not already existing. The sun cannot produce light if light was not already pre-existent.

2. Genesis is saying that everything was CREATED once - in its 'potential' form - and actualised later, in its due time. Computers existed/never existed 3000 years ago. Here, you may say, no - computers happened only in the last 100 years. But examine the next verse of Genesis, which has already anticipated this question: this says the universe was without form - then the formless was turned to form. So computers and all songs already existed, and what we did was only MAKING SOMETHING FROM SOMETHING ELSE. We did not CREATE 'SOMETHING FROM NOTHING': we used re-existing materials and pre-existing knowledge know-how. Genesis is applying a very technical term of CREATE, seperating it from FORMED.

3. The third follow-up quetion is that of 'HOW' can something be created from nothing. This is again answered by the follow-up verses. Namely, examine the appearence of Light, and two factors come into play:

1. That light was created by seperating it from another entity, namely a formless entity was seperated into two entities, darkness and light ['AND HE SEPERATED THE LIGHT FROM THE DARKNESS']. Remember at this time there was not even fire, heat or even the factor of heating - so how can light emerge by any other known means?

2. That this action was performed by a WORD/COMMAND/WILL: 'AND THE LORD *SAID* LET THERE BE LIGHT'; the term SAID refers to a word/speech. This becomes scientifically plausable by the fact there were no tools [see above], and by the factor of no other alternatives applying. As in Grammar, one must take the best and only path available, and here we find there are not even any other laternatives which we may consider.

Unless someone else has another answer, without violating the finite factor, it appears that there is no scientific alternative to Creationism.

 

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How does this square with this:

Fail.

 

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Hi IamJoseph

I agree with most of what you have posted, need a little time in order to give a sensible answer

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What is seemingly a contradiction, is not really.

The term EXISTING applies only after it has occured, and conversely cannot apply in its absence. Thus, 'nothing can exist which is not already existing' does not conflict with a finite realm, but in fact secures and affirms the premise. The very notion of the universe existing only becomes viable if it did not exist at one time: you are here - means you are not there. Or, if you say being here = being everywhere also, then the 'here' becomes the factor.

The general state of art scientific premise holds that the universe is FINITE. While some have adopted a novel manipulation of the term's reference, this in itself is a loosing stance - they must agree that an absolutely finite uni changes the entire scenario as inclined with Genesis. Ultimately, which ever way one swings, the premise of Creator-Creation is totally vested in a scientific premise of CAUSE AND EFFECT, while one finds it difficult to point to any scientific premise an anti-creation premise is based on: I know of none.

 

Nothingness is a negation that cannot be discribed period. Absence of everything???

 

"Nothing" is far more unstable than something. That's why there is something rather than nothing.

 

How So? Please enlighten me

 

The term unstable only applies to something. Our mind's wiring is limited and we cannot fathom nothingness - its like we cannot imagine a new color. This is why Genesis does not use the term nothing.

 

Great post one simply cannot describe nothingness A completely empty void is not nothing it is just three dimensional emptiness

Best description I can come up with is the complete absence of everything in existence (IS) I t is even wring to use the word IS

O o . .

 

Moved to religion

 

...we can give a plausible scientific reason based on our best current knowledge of physics that something is more natural than nothing! Of course, that requires providing a physical definition of nothing. Can I imagine a physical system that has no properties? Yes, as long as you do not insist on playing word games with me by calling the lack of properties a property.

Suppose we remove all the particles and any possible non-particulate energy from some unbounded region of space. Then we have no mass, no energy, or any other physical property. This includes space and time, if you accept that these are relational properties that depend on the presence of matter to be meaningful.

While we can never produce this physical nothing in practice, we have the theoretical tools to describe a system with no particles. The methods of quantum field theory provide the means to move mathematically from a state with n particles to a state of more or fewer particles, including zero particles. If an n-particle state can be described, then so can a state with n = 0.

Let us start with a monochromatic electromagnetic field, which is described quantum mechanically as system of n photons of equal energy E. The mathematical description of the field is equivalent to a harmonic oscillator whose quantum solution is a series of energy levels equally spaced like the rungs of a ladder by an amount E, each rung representing a field with one more photon than the field represented by the rung below. Stepping down the ladder you find that the bottom rung corresponding to a field of zero photons is not zero energy but rather E/2. This is called the zero-point energy.

This result is true for all bosons, particles that have zero or integral spin. On the other hand, fermions that have half-integral spin, such as the electron and quark, have a zero-point energy of -E/2 (negative energy is no problem in relativistic quantum mechanics; in fact, it is required by the simple mathematical fact that a square root has two possible signs).

In the current universe, bosons outnumber fermions by a factor of a billion. This has led people to conclude that the vacuum energy of the universe, identified with the zero point energy remaining after all matter is removed, is very large. A simple calculation indicates that the energy density of the vacuum is 120 orders of magnitude greater than its experimental upper limit. Clearly this estimate is wrong. This calculation must be one of the worst in scientific history! Since a non-particulate vacuum’s energy density is proportional to Einstein’s cosmological constant, this is called the cosmological constant problem.

Instead of using numbers from the current universe, we can visualize a vacuum with equal numbers of bosons and fermions. Such a vacuum might have existed at the very beginning of the big bang. Indeed this is exactly what is to be expected if the vacuum out of which the universe emerged was supersymmetric-that is made no distinction between bosons and fermions.

This suggests a more precise definition of nothing. Nothing is a state that is the simplest of all conceivable states. It has no mass, no energy, no space, no time, no spin, no bosons, no fermions-nothing.
​

Then why is there something rather than nothing? Because something is the more natural state of affairs and is thus more likely than nothing-more than twice as likely according to one calculation. We can infer this from the processes of nature where simple systems tend to be unstable and often spontaneously transform into more complex ones. Theoretical models such as the inflationary model of the early universe bear this out.

Consider the example of the snowflake. Our experience tells us that a snowflake is very ephemeral, melting quickly to drops of liquid water that exhibit far less structure. But that is only because we live in a relatively high temperature environment, where collisions with molecules in thermal motion reduce the fragile arrangement of crystals to a simpler liquid. Energy is required to destroy the structure of a snowflake.

But consider an environment where the ambient temperature is well below the melting point of ice, as it is in most of the universe far from the highly localized effects of stellar heating. In such an environment, any water vapor would readily crystallize into complex structures. Snowflakes would be eternal, or at least will remain intact until cosmic rays tear them apart.

What this example illustrates is that many simple systems are unstable, that is, have limited lifetimes as they undergo spontaneous phase transitions to more complex structures of lower energy. Since “nothing” is as simple as it gets, we would not expect it to be completely stable. In some models of the origin of the universe, the vacuum undergoes a spontaneous phase transition to something more complicated, like a universe containing matter. The transition nothing-to-something is a natural one, not requiring any external agent.

As Nobel Laureate physicist Frank Wilczek has put it, “The answer to the ancient question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ would then be that ‘nothing’ is unstable.”

Victor Stenger

​

 

Physicists do no such thing... science goes with theories that fit the data - and with two competing theories that are otherwise equal then they will go with the one with the "simpler" - i.e. the one with least "unknowns" or redundancies.
Laws are theories that have an overwhelming level of evidence in their support... and zero evidence to the contrary.
So by the time that a theory is considered a "Law" it is because of the evidence, nothing to do with the complexity.

The very idea of the Universe being "necessarily as it is" is the purview of Creationists - nothing to do with science.
Creationists think the Universe was created precisely to give rise to humans.
Science goes with the idea that the Universe is... and we humans happen to be part of it.

But you DO give a final answer... or is "God did it" or "Creationism" not your final answer?

All I see here are arguments from personal incredulity. You seem to find it "brain-numbing"? "Too awful to contemplate... blah blah blah"?
Well, smack me sideways - I guess that must mean it is!

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And yet you are now contemplating it... a "brain-twisting overwhelming concept" - yet you happily model it mathematically with barely a murmur? Way to shoot down your own claims!

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Eh? Simplest model not being the correct one?
Are you trying to argue that people claim that "nothingness" is a model for the Universe?
If you're trying to do something else then your above statements / claims are a non sequitur.

No, it's not. Another argument from incredulity and also from ignorance.

Care to share the logic? You've failed to do it so far.

Wow... so the concept of there being "nothing" destroys your idea of "creator"... and because you see a creator behind the "almost infinitely complex" universe then there must be a creator and so there could not be "nothing"? Is this your logic?
If so then it rather rests on the assumption that there was a creator. There is no logical proof of "Creationism" here - just an assumption.

If you say so.

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Might help to actually offer something of substance to support your claim... but as you admit... it rests solely on faith - and from everything else you write, your faith seems to stem from nothing other than incredulity and ignorance.

 

Tautologies always do.

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Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=92761

But keep waffling.

 

Why are their such things as 'qualities of nothingness': ie. its instability. This isn't really an explanation. We have simply shifted the question from Why is there something rather than nothing
to
why are there instabilities rather than no instabilities?
or some other formulation.

Why are their qualities and tendencies rather than nothing?

 

Thank for your great informative post

A void without particles is just that, an empty space, nothing is the absence of everything including the voids

 

But we know from quantum physics that the state of nothing can be spontaneously broken, an un-caused event, that cannot happen in the macro world. So our logic, born out of the macro world, does not apply to the very small. It seems to be that nothing is like a delicate house of cards that can fall at any time. Even if the chance of symmetry breaking is infinitesimally small, in an infinite amount of time it is certain to occur. Don't forget, a void is also an absence of any natural law, so paradoxically, anything can happen.

 

So what we are calling the 'state of nothing' is not really nothing. It is something with qualities, potential. Why are there potential and qualities rather than nothing? And since you bring in time, why is there time?

I do understand that we do not have answers to these things, yet at least. But as a response to

Why is there something rather than nothing?

it does not work

Why was there a nothing with these potentials instead of nothing?

And a nothing with potentials and tendencies PLUS time is not nothing.

 

Because 0=1-1. Nothingness holds the potential for everything because they are basically identical.

 

Because even nothing is something. :itold: