What was God doing?

[seer]

But I just gave you my reasoning for that. We both know that I can't prove it any more than you can prove the opposite. But you have no reason to believe that energy isn't infinite and past eternal.

How do I, or anyone, prove a negative? That there isn't some form of pre-existing energy? You on the hand are making a positive claim, it is on you to demonstrate that.

[JimL]

How do I, or anyone, prove a negative? That there isn't some form of pre-existing energy? You on the hand are making a positive claim, it is on you to demonstrate that.

We don't prove it, any more than we prove god did it, accept that in the former case we can at least extrapolate from our observations of nature, infer the unknown from what is known, as to how things work, i.e that nothing comes from nothing.

[seer]

We don't prove it, any more than we prove god did it, accept that in the former case we can at least extrapolate from our observations of nature, infer the unknown from what is known, as to how things work, i.e that nothing comes from nothing.

Then you have physicists, as we have seen, getting very close to suggesting something from nothing.

[JimL]

Then you have physicists, as we have seen, getting very close to suggesting something from nothing.

And as most of us understand by now, by nothing they do not mean to say absolutely nothing. Unless there is something that does the tunneling, and something to be tunneled through, then it makes no sense to define a tunneling process.

[Tassman]

The fact is Tass, there is no good evidence for matter and energy being past eternal. Even the multiverse inflation theory does not get us to an eternal past. So even your multiverse most likely had a beginning.

You keep posting the same tired old Vilenkin link as if it were holy writ. Cutting edge science is always a work in progress and Vilenkin himself has proposed a hypothesis which allows for universes coming from a pre-existing source of energy.

But we know that anything which contradicts your presupposition of creation ex nihilo will be rejected out of hand whatever the evidence, such is the dishonesty of religion and its proponents.

[seer]

You keep posting the same tired old Vilenkin link as if it were holy writ. Cutting edge science is always a work in progress and Vilenkin himself has proposed a hypothesis which allows for universes coming from a pre-existing source of energy.

I did not quote Vilenkin Tass, I quoted Guth. And no Vilenkin's newer hypothesis has the universe coming from "literally nothing" - his words not mine. The only thing that is needed are the non-physical laws physics. He does not say pre-existing energy. So you are misquoting him again.

[shunyadragon]

I did not quote Vilenkin Tass, I quoted Guth. And no Vilenkin's newer hypothesis has the universe coming from "literally nothing" - his words not mine. The only thing that is needed are the non-physical laws physics. He does not say pre-existing energy. So you are misquoting him again.

Your the one selectively misquoting both Vilenkin and Guth over the millennia. You citation of both is incomplete considering their view of "literally nothing." To be honest you need to deal with their work as a whole, and consider the other scientists, and their models and hypothesis considering the origins of our physical existence.

[JimL]

I did not quote Vilenkin Tass, I quoted Guth. And no Vilenkin's newer hypothesis has the universe coming from "literally nothing" - his words not mine. The only thing that is needed are the non-physical laws physics. He does not say pre-existing energy. So you are misquoting him again.

Physical laws aren't existing things seer, physical laws don't do stuff, they are descriptive of physical processes, they aren't the process itself. Vilenkin's hypothesis has the universe coming about as the result of a physical process which requires a pre-existing substance the nature of which those laws are descriptive of.

[seer]

Physical laws aren't existing things seer, physical laws don't do stuff, they are descriptive of physical processes, they aren't the process itself. Vilenkin's hypothesis has the universe coming about as the result of a physical process which requires a pre-existing substance the nature of which those laws are descriptive of.

That is exactly what Vilenkin did not say, do we really have to go over this again? The only pre-existing requirement was the laws of physics.

[robrecht]

Physical laws aren't existing things seer, physical laws don't do stuff, they are descriptive of physical processes, they aren't the process itself. Vilenkin's hypothesis has the universe coming about as the result of a physical process which requires a pre-existing substance the nature of which those laws are descriptive of.

Problem is, we really cannot describe this pre-existing substance, at least not yet, and even the word 'pre-existence' implies a presumption of temporality that both Vilenkin and Hawking consider problematic and unanswerable in terms of what existed before the universe. We may be making theoretical progress using mathematical modes such as Euclidean time as a fourth spatial dimension or even one of 10 or 11 dimensions in string theory and relying on the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics, but that too seems to practically presuppose the conclusion of a multiverse. I'm not saying it's not true, and I have zero opposition to whatever idea of a multiverse might ultimately be proven to exist or nonetheless continue to exist unproven, but we are talking about a realm that is nothing like our own human and finite perception of time.

I like the quote by Wolfgang Pauli: "The best that most of us can hope to achieve in physics is simply to misunderstand at a deeper level." This is also true in theology, by the way.

[seer]

Problem is, we really cannot describe this pre-existing substance, at least not yet, and even the word 'pre-existence' implies a presumption of temporality that both Vilenkin and Hawking consider problematic and unanswerable in terms of what existed before the universe.

The other thing that Vilenkin says his theory from nothing solves is the problem of infinite regression, which he does see as a real problem.

[JimL]

That is exactly what Vilenkin did not say, do we really have to go over this again? The only pre-existing requirement was the laws of physics.

Yes, but Vilenkin doesn't really explain what he means by literally nothing. "Nothing" can't be refered to as "something" out of which the universe emerges, because "nothing" is not "something" out of which anything can emerge, and neither are the physical laws things in themselves, but are things that describe that existing "something". If you want, you can describe this very universe as "nothing" because nature is a polarity which equals zero, or nothing if you will, but I don't think that you would define the physical universe using that term. What Vilenkin is actually describing as nothing is this same polarity in nature, the zero point energy, aka a vacuum, but a real vacuum is ruled out by Heisenbergs uncertainty principle, so there is no real vacuum, so Vilenkins nothing is the same nothing that describes the spacetime universe itself, a something which when divided against itself, negative/positive energy, is percieved of as nothing, i.e. of a something consisting of zero energy. In reality, there is no such thing as literally nothing, the vacuum, which in a certain sense could be conceived of as nothing, i.e. zero point energy, is seething with particles and their opposites, virtual particles, randomly popping into and out of existence.

[shunyadragon]

Problem is, we really cannot describe this pre-existing substance, at least not yet, and even the word 'pre-existence' implies a presumption of temporality that both Vilenkin and Hawking consider problematic and unanswerable in terms of what existed before the universe. We may be making theoretical progress using mathematical modes such as Euclidean time as a fourth spatial dimension or even one of 10 or 11 dimensions in string theory and relying on the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics, but that too seems to practically presuppose the conclusion of a multiverse. I'm not saying it's not true, and I have zero opposition to whatever idea of a multiverse might ultimately be proven to exist or nonetheless continue to exist unproven, but we are talking about a realm that is nothing like our own human and finite perception of time.

I like the quote by Wolfgang Pauli: "The best that most of us can hope to achieve in physics is simply to misunderstand at a deeper level." This is also true in theology, by the way.

I agree mostly, if you read closely to the language Guth, Vilenkin and others use concerning the nature of greater cosmos beyond our universe it is somewhat hypothetical, and they realize that they cannot at present describe the pre-existent scientific "nothing" that preceded our universe. The view that it is only "literally nothing" is an over statement of what the scientists propose. One agreement is that a set of Natural Laws pre-existed the expansion of our universe. Not all scientists today propose models and hypothesis for origins from this "nothing." Some propose origins that are not dependent on origins from this "nothing," for example: Universes originating from black holes, and modern forms of cyclic universes.

It must be understood that the physics and cosmology of origins is a relatively young science, and the present models and hypothesis are by and large incomplete and tentative.

There is always the warning that the present 'lack of knowledge of natural origins' cannot be concluded that 'Natural origins are not possible' for our universe, all possible universes, nor multi-verses.

[JimL]

Problem is, we really cannot describe this pre-existing substance, at least not yet, and even the word 'pre-existence' implies a presumption of temporality that both Vilenkin and Hawking consider problematic and unanswerable in terms of what existed before the universe. We may be making theoretical progress using mathematical modes such as Euclidean time as a fourth spatial dimension or even one of 10 or 11 dimensions in string theory and relying on the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics, but that too seems to practically presuppose the conclusion of a multiverse. I'm not saying it's not true, and I have zero opposition to whatever idea of a multiverse might ultimately be proven to exist or nonetheless continue to exist unproven, but we are talking about a realm that is nothing like our own human and finite perception of time.

The pre-existing substance would be the same substance as that of the forms which emerge from it. Otherwise the emergent forms would still be need said to have come from nothing.

[seer]

Yes, but Vilenkin doesn't really explain what he means by literally nothing. "Nothing" can't be refered to as "something" out of which the universe emerges, because "nothing" is not "something" out of which anything can emerge, and neither are the physical laws things in themselves, but are things that describe that existing "something". If you want, you can describe this very universe as "nothing" because nature is a polarity which equals zero, or nothing if you will, but I don't think that you would define the physical universe using that term. What Vilenkin is actually describing as nothing is this same polarity in nature, the zero point energy, aka a vacuum, but a real vacuum is ruled out by Heisenbergs uncertainty principle, so there is no real vacuum, so Vilenkins nothing is the same nothing that describes the spacetime universe itself, a something which when divided against itself, negative/positive energy, is percieved of as nothing, i.e. of a something consisting of zero energy. In reality, there is no such thing as literally nothing, the vacuum, which in a certain sense could be conceived of as nothing, i.e. zero point energy, is seething with particles and their opposites, virtual particles, randomly popping into and out of existence.

Stop Jim, that is not what he is speaking with the zero point energy, he is speaking of what is IN the UNIVERSE and why he says it can be created from nothing. The ONLY requirement is the laws of physics. The out of nothing is the nothing that Lucretius spoke of, that is why he said it would sound strange coming form a physicist. No pre-existing matter, time or space(his words not mine). And you can not have a pre-existing "something" without space or time.