Our universe which is “something” has always existed, with the explanation for it using math.

a reply to: Peeple

Not the most reliable resource there.

hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...

Before a time classified as a Planck time, 10-43 seconds, all of the four fundamental forces are presumed to have been unified into one force. All matter, energy, space and time are presumed to have exploded outward from the original singularity. Nothing is known of this period.

We do not know that the four fundamental forces even existed we just presume the were unified into one force. We also presume that matter, energy, space and time expanded outward in all directions from what we call the singularity which very well could have actually been nothing.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

"singularity, in physics and maths:
A point at which a function takes an infinite value, especially space-time when matter is infinetly dense, such as the center of a black hole"

You could have just googled to find out what you are actually saying...

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

If you take pretty much any model of the origin of the universe, they all fall back to a point where time, space, and matter did not exist.

Not true. There are eternal models of the Universe.

But even if it were true that does not mean there was ever NOTHING. Keep in mind that I'm talking about nothing in the absolute abstract sense, not in the sense that physicists like Lawrence Krauss use.

and all things that we know of rely on spacetime, then its quite easy to conceive of how a state of nothing could exist.

Only in so far as the meaning of the word exist requires things to exist over a period of time and take up space. There is a difference between saying nothing existed and saying that there was nothing. If there actually was nothing that's all that could ever be, this is why even believers in God must posit something more than nothing, in their case a creator God powerful and complex enough to create a Universe out of this nothing.

If there ever was an actual state of nothing the classical Monotheistic God couldn't exist, all of his attributes require space and time for them to have any meaning. Power has no meaning without time to act and things to act upon. Knowledge has no meaning without things external to oneself to know about. Love and morality require there be at least two living beings interacting. And obviously omnipresence makes no sense without space in which to be present.

I hold that there never was a state of nothing, though there may have been a state where nothing existed that state did not have the property of being absolutely nothing. Obviously there are huge limits to our language when we try to crack these mysteries but I see no reason to think that NOTHING in the philosophical absolute sense is even a possibility.

a reply to: Peeple

I am well aware of the definition of a singularity. We do not observe infinities in nature however. For example, Zeno's paradox. If there is a stationary bus and you are trying to board it from 50 feet away. At any given instance in order to reach the bus you must go half way between you and the bus. Since there are an infinite number of half way points between you and the bus, you should never reach the bus. Infinities don't exist in nature, and we aren't capable of interpreting the idea of infinite mass, energy and density, and most of the time when we see limits approaching infinities we assume that there is some new set of laws or some new way of looking at the problem that makes the apparent singularity go away. Hooke's law for the force exerted by a spring is an example of such.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Didn't we have that a few pages ago?
Approximately infinite is still huge and not nothing!

a reply to: Titen-Sxull

Not true. There are eternal models of the Universe.

Sources? Because from my research the oscillating universe and the multiverse both would have had "beginnings".

If there actually was nothing that's all that could ever be, this is why even believers in God must posit something more than nothing, in their case a creator God powerful and complex enough to create a Universe out of this nothing.

I believe you are basically recanting what I said earlier. Nothing cannot beget something. So I think we agree on that point. I think what we disagree on is the nature of reality. You see every time you start up a video game from the perspective of that virtual world the creation would be from nothing. I think I can agree that if you say there is nothing, then something logically could never be. When I say there is nothing "before" the first planck time, I mean from the perspective of this world there was no thing in a state of existence.

a reply to: Peeple

I think you missed my point. My point was that infinities don't occur in nature, whenever we hit one we assume a new set of laws are needed. here maybe this will help

Here's an example. You may be familiar with Hooke's law for the force exerted by a spring: F=kx where k is the tension of the spring and x is the distance it is stretched. Now write the equation as k=F/x. Written this way it would seem that if you compare the tension between any two points on the spring, it grows and grows the closer together the two points are. In fact, two points spaced infinitesimally apart seem to have an infinite tension! It's just a manifestation of the 1/x limit above.

But of course that's not true. If you really want to know what's happening at small distance scales you can't use the classical physics behind Hooke's law. At some point x drops below the spacing between molecules in the spring's metal. Now Hooke's law no longer applies and you have to use atomic physics to explain the spring's properties. So in the large-scale theory (Hooke's law) there was no fundamental distance scale: x could be as small as you want. But at some point this law breaks down. In the small-scale theory (quantum mechanics and atomic physics) there is a fundamental distance scale: the atomic spacing. We would say that the singularity has been 'resolved.'

www.physlink.com...

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Okay great, we don't know which laws apply for super dense matter. Now what is your point?

a reply to: Peeple

My point is space that as we understand it came into existence at 10^-43 seconds. Matter as we understand it did as well. So what you are calling super dense matter doesn't mean anything because we don't have space for that matter to exist in.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Okay that's the least likely explanation, but if you prefer that one....
Popping particles, ey? There were others before you thinking that too.

a reply to: Peeple

Particles as we understand them also require space as we understand it currently.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Okay then nothing came from nothing? Sorry i don't think i can buy that or anyone else...
Not even you, btw remember your singularity quote? That's not nothing...

a reply to: Peeple

I think maybe you forgot or just ignored my response to that. For example, when physicist find a singularity they don't assume something actually exist with infinite values. I gave you the example in which we discovered it with Hooke's Law, "in fact, two points spaced infinitesimally apart seem to have an infinite tension! It's just a manifestation of the 1/x limit above" We didn't assume that a spring with two points spaced infinitesimally actually had infinite tension instead we decided that Hooke's law simply didn't apply to what ever was actually going on. In the same way when we reach a singularity at the origin of the universe we don't assume something actually existed with infinite space, time, and matter we just assume we are incapable of properly calculating it. The reason I say whatever it was didn't have space time or matter is because space time and matter were the effect. Something cannot cause itself. So whatever caused spacetime and matter to exist couldn't have been spacetime and matter. That is just proper logic. I already said to someone else, when I say nothing I am strictly speaking in terms we can understand. No thing that exist phyiscally in our universe today could have existed prior to the first planck time because all things we know of require the current state of spacetime to exist before it can itself exist.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

What you are forgetting is we don't know what existed. It is entirely your interpretation that space-time didn't exist before that big bang happened. Obviously sthg did or it couldn't have expanded. That's a logical assumption.

And i personally believe the theory with the black hole of an older universe to be the likeliest. Then our zero point in space time would be what you describes with your hooke's law, a point where we change perception. Switch from collapsing to expanding and nothing more. After a moment of equilibrium as in the curve of a jump, which would be the moment of the highest stored energy, but there is still approximately zero space and time, and approximately infinite mass, not nothing.

Instead of collapsing to expanding you could also say negative space-time, 0, positiv space-time....

a reply to: Peeple

What you are forgetting is we don't know what existed. It is entirely your interpretation that space-time didn't exist before that big bang happened.

I don't think so at all. I think it is a rational conclusion drawn by logic. The current state of space-time came into existence at 10-43 seconds. Whatever state you are talking about is not the same as the state it causes to come into existence. Space-time cannot beget Space-time. The effect cannot be the cause.

And i personally believe the theory with the black hole of an older universe to be the likeliest. Then our zero point in space time would be what you describes with your hooks law, a point where we change perception. Switch from collapsing to expanding and nothing more. After a moment of equilibrium as in the curve of a jump, which would be the moment of the highest stored energy, but there is still approximately zero space and time, and approximately infinite mass, not nothing.

I believe the more we learn about quantum physics the more the world begins to look like a virtual reality rather than a physical reality. If we take physical realism as our perspective the quantum world should not exist, but if we take quantum realism as our perspective then the physical world could exist, but only as a virtual reality.

fun read:
brianwhitworth.com...

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Really? Virtual reality?



I'm out of here....

a reply to: Peeple

That is extremely dismissive of you. I suppose if someone questioned evolution you would be out of here as well.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

When I say there is nothing "before" the first planck time, I mean from the perspective of this world there was no thing in a state of existence.

Then we agree

Existence itself implies being inside of time and space.

Sources? Because from my research the oscillating universe and the multiverse both would have had "beginnings".

Since the advent of inflation, several theorems have been proven suggesting that although inflation can (and generically does) continue eternally into the future, it cannot be extended eternally into the past to create a “steady-state” model with no initial time. Here we provide a construction that circumvents these theorems and allows a self-consistent, geodesically complete, and physically sensible steady-state eternally inflating universe, based on the flat slicing of de Sitter space. This construction could be used as the background spacetime for creation events that form big-bang-like regions, and hence could form the basis for a cosmology that is compatible with observations and yet which avoids an initial singularity or beginning of time.

Source

That's just one example that attempts to get around the issues you describe. Whether it is successful I don't know, I'm not a physicist.

I don't know whether the Universe had an absolute beginning. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. The only thing I claim is that nothing in the absolute sense is an impossibility, there never was a state of affairs for reality that could be described as nothing in that way.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Yes i would, because what is the point in arguing about logic with someone who has irrational beliefs?

a reply to: Peeple

You laugh it off as irrational that doesn't make it so. I would actually argue that a virtual reality is more rational than a physical reality.