'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009

The title says it all. I know religious folks here will not click below and just run for the hills, but for those who want to hear a phenomenal talk about our universe and existence click away. This is easily the best talk I've seen all year and if the general population could understand this the world would be a better place. I have yet to see our existence laid so bare for all to see. Lawrence Krauss is my new hero

www.youtube.com...

I enjoyed the video very much. Star and flag for ya. I don't know what to add yet as I'm still absorbing the information. What do you think, reasonable?

The universe is flat, it's accelerating ever faster and in a billion years observers would only be able to see the known galaxy.

~PontiacWarrior

He all but answered the meaning of existence for me. Questions I have always had lingering but not enough brainpower to pin down. He laid it all out in such an easy to understand way it like having the blinds opened and finally the light streaming in. I found it to be somewhat of a long awaited epiphany for me.

You mean the meaning that there is no meaning? At least I think that's what it meant, know what I mean?

Yeah, I've known for a while there is no meaning but this clearly explains why. I also love the comment about humans thinking they are so special.. but the universe is a big ancient place full of special things constantly happening.. Puts it all into perspective. Now if I truly believe there is no meaning why don't I just off myself? Well.. I am here and interested in this universe so will explore it as long as I can.

Made me think a lot about... nothing. LOL

Let me just say, i think this could be a very polarizing theory. One could say, this proves there must be a god/creator, others will say, it proves there isn't.

And i have thought about it from both points of view.

My own opinion: they will both be right because both ideas cancel out each other (and that would fit in perfectly with the very universe as he sees it).

Which is why, i think, this takes us nowhere but in a really interesting and well thought out way.

so S+F i guess lol

EDIT: sorry, just wanted to add, don't get me wrong, i think he is probably right. I just think there is more to the universe then just the observable and mathematical. And like you said, how religious people will run, well they shouldn't we should all pay attention to what every side has to say and come to our own conclusions. That's all we can really do.


[edit on 23-10-2009 by elcapitano75]

[edit on 23-10-2009 by elcapitano75]

I must admit I had a slight thinking shift immediately after viewing this even though the material isn't new to me. Most important was the recap on infinities and what they imply. Then IT happened. I actually had a short fleeting glimpse, sort of an overview of exactly how consciousness is possible and how it works.

Infinities and all-possibleness are at the root of it, which are the langage of mind-- yes, it's a certain kind of language. I wish I could say alot about it but it's too soon as yet and so fleeting. I do know I'll get it back there and be able to examine it all more closely.

Ok, so I got a dang mystical experience from something so athiest in nature. How odd is that? Not too odd by LK's own admission. It had to happen an infinite number of times even though there was no chance of it.

reply to post by elcapitano75


It's a creator. It speaks yet it is silent. It is all-pervasive and encompassing. It's not the notion he's stuck on (like most people) and he's actually closer than he (or those aware enough in the field I would say) realizes but is blinded by what seems to be bigotry. The same is true for the opposition.

To get the "creator" and how it ties together into mind/consciouness requires an strange intuitive grasp of infinities. There's actually no B.S., mysticism or superstition. It is soluable and proveable. I don't think we're ready however to actually realize it en masse, not in such a fundamental way. Awareness will increase. Evidence will be accumulated or at least point in the proper direction. However to "go there" in our minds at all times and "be there" at all points would be massively destructive. We'd cease to function regardless of our views.

That's my take on what ever the heck I was shown by whatever shift took place for me. I feel like swearing alot! But T&C!

i have never seen someone answer a question without answering a question quite as well as he does.

"nothing is a really a boiling bubbling brew of virtual particles coming in an out of existence on a time scale so short you barely see it"

"empty space is 90% of the mass"

QM= .30+.1 (closed)

"whats so beautiful about a universe with energy zero? only a flat universe can be created from nothing."

"quantum fluctuations can create a universe"

in other words what he is saying is "nothing", in the absolute sense, doesnt exist.

that our universe, with its own laws (quantum mechanics included) can spawn other universes spontaneously.

"if you have nothing in quantum mechanics you have to have something"

except if physics is an environmental science, then how can you assert that quantum mechanics exists outside our universe.

in other words, in between all his digs on religion, he doesnt even address the fundamental question.

HOW DOES SOMETHING COME FROM NOTHING?

humility is characteristic of science. humility - the recognition that we dont understand everything

but you know for sure, 100 % that god doesnt exist.

sure... humble.

reply to post by miriam0566
Explanation: St*r for you!

Its even more amazing than that miriam0566! It totally supports my scientific arguments for both Creation and Intelligent Design!

Its basis is that a true unbounded absence [pre big bang or

reply to post by OmegaLogos


What is even more amazing than that is how the more complex science and knowledge becomes and the less the majority of the masses are able to understand the theories themselves they start to imagine that the theories are stating something the people have been saying all this time.

The observer effect has nothing to do with a conscious observer and never has, this is a misconception utilized by people either looking to make a quick buck off the ignorant or people trying to push an agenda onto the ignorant. The only way you can validate what I am saying is to take the time to learn what the scientists themselves have to say on the matter rather than relying on pseudo-scientific new age religious mysticism garbage that muddies the facts in their favor. Failure to learn something for yourself and only accept whatever sounds right to you is probably the biggest disservice you can commit to yourself.

reply to post by sirnex


What you are saying is part true and part arrongance. This is a good and "necessary" thing for you and well, pretty much everyone no matter what side of the divide they stand on.

I understand the increasing difficulty in comprehension as science explores outside our everyday intuitive realm, when pure abstaction is ever more necessary in order to grasp what it says.

The problem is when one obtains a short taste of truth that then begets an entire religion to fill in all the spaces so that every other question might be answered without further inquiry. The anthorpomorphic notions are childish elaborations. This is good, it provides us with a landscape.

As for scientific inquiry, there seems to be an MO to explain away or ignore things that at this point lie squarely within the realm of subjective, most notably God and the hard problem of consciousness. The staunch materialism is childish denial. This is good, it keeps inquiry focused.

reply to post by EnlightenUp


Personally, I don't think scientific inquiry has anything to do with materialism by itself as if materialism is the end all of reality. Rather, scientific inquiry demands that one shows proof for what one claims before that claim can be excepted as being valid. In this, I see nothing wrong. When confronted with thousands of Gods and afterlives and no evidence for any, should we blindly just accept them as truths because out of those thousands of Gods we have people all claiming personal experience without tangible evidence? I would rather call the blind acceptance without reason as more arrogant than the demand of proof and validation before acceptance can occur. You may call materialism as childish denial, but at least we have more evidence for the acceptance of this childish denial whereas in the case for your God or anyone's God, we have no evidence.

reply to post by sirnex


I agree in part. There is evidence but it is unknown that it is in fact evidence and cannot yet be shown to be evidence. There is no proof and no answer as this time. As I see it, it's just how it should be.

Yeah, I hate to go there. You've probably heard something like that often enough to make you taste your lunch again. Unlike what you may often uncounter I won't try to push any dogma down your throat nor, more severely, send the inquisitors.

I don't know exactly what I experienced yesterday. It was a profound understanding of something, then as fast as it came, it left. I got to see where the inner and outer fuse and more or less how it does it. It was beautiful. As of now it's beyond me.

However, I have nothing to sell. I will not start a new religion. I will share my thoughts about the residue to the best of my ability and not insist anyone believe it.

I would say rational investigation does have the advantage in actually bringing the subjective and mysterious into the light for all to see. Baby steps.

reply to post by EnlightenUp


The problem is, there isn't actually any evidence. Personal experience is not evidence of. and I can't personally experience what you personally experienced the other day, which is why you would have such a tough time proving that experience as a valid experience of anything beyond known reality. While personal experiences may be evidence for the person who experienced them, when we get into the spiritual aspects of reality no amount of personal experience is in agreement with the next personal experience. Sometimes even within the same religious or cultural belief systems we may not find one-hundred percent agreement through personal experience.

I would advise anyone who has personal experience in anything that makes them question reality, check it out first. Search the internet and see if these experiences can or has been explained by science, because maybe... Just maybe these thing's are something indicative of something else and not what we really think. To top that off, I have had some experiences of my own, but all of them can be rationalized and explained as pretty mundane coincidences and nothing more, if you try and find a reason for how they occur. I'm skeptical of everything and I question everything and that includes science itself. The one thing I won't do as I consider it a disservice to the human intellect, is accept something just because I think it feels right.

reply to post by sirnex


I agree. There is no evidence. One person's experience is not evidence for the larger body. You'll have no argument from me.

It isn't a coincidence of any sort. It isn't the sort of thing you can chalk up to a temporal lobe seizure or the like to explain it away. I am difficult to impress. I question everything.

It's more along the lines of "getting it" where the operation of a machine is finally understood and you know you know how it works, except this "machine" is slightly different to the everyday idea and the thought was utterly, for lack of a better term, "foreign" in nature-- a direct knowing of something currently at best a distant abstraction. It was simply a glimpse of something yet to come for us.

All questions for me are not answered. I do not claim to know all the answers. That would just be insane for me to say that especially when the understanding itself was so fleeting.

So, what good is it? For me, it says that yes, we can understand this. Perhaps not now but when we're ready. Nothing is ultimately out of reach. For everyone else, it means just keep on keeping on, your doing a swell job! Let us just not hit the reset button on ourselves.

I didn't check the video and I realized the title was not:
"A Universe For Nothing"
Kind of meaning we are stuck on Earth and sounds anti space people.
Which sounds realistic to me.
Ed: OK I checked out a bit and it doesn't matter what universe we have.
What matter is what you do in it.
These guys have no clue as usual.
Did they find out what causes gravity yet, see what I mean.
They are working from nothing.



[edit on 10/24/2009 by TeslaandLyne]

Originally posted by TeslaandLyne
I didn't check the video and I realized the title was not:
"A Universe For Nothing"
Kind of meaning we are stuck on Earth and sounds anti space people.
Which sounds realistic to me.
Ed: OK I checked out a bit and it doesn't matter what universe we have.
What matter is what you do in it.
These guys have no clue as usual.
Did they find out what causes gravity yet, see what I mean.
They are working from nothing.



[edit on 10/24/2009 by TeslaandLyne]

Might want to watch the whole thing instead of a 'bit' before passing judgment.

reply to post by EnlightenUp


I don't buy it as a 'something you just get or begin to understand thing' either. That implies to me that the only way to start 'getting it' is through personal experience alone. Thinking you have garnered a greater understanding through personal experience isn't proof enough for me. There have been many times I thought I 'got it' and was able to reconcile mysticism with science because I thought I finally 'got it', but when I looked deeper into what I thought I had in front of me, I turned out to prove myself wrong. As much as anyone, including myself, would like to see a middle Earth type of universe, despite even my best efforts of trying to reconcile the two I have never found a way to accomplish that. Science and mystical spiritualism are just to alien concepts that don't go together at all and I doubt ever will.

reply to post by sirnex


There is no getting anything without a personal experience of understanding. The true genius knows how to bring back those great moments of insight and formulate them into a testable hypothesis, placing another section into the great bridge across the divide.

As for there being no mesh between science and spiritualALITY, I will completely disagree and leave it at that as I think enough has already been said about it, even by the geniuses themselves.