In a recent book called A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, cosmologist Larry Krauss describes how our universe could have arisen naturally from a pre-existing structureless void he calls "nothing." He bases his argument on quantum physics, along with now well-established results from elementary particle physics and cosmology. In an afterword, atheist Richard Dawkins exults, "Even the last remaining trump card of the theologian, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' shrivels up before your eyes as you read these pages."
Philosopher David Albert will have none of it. In a in the New York Times (David Albert, New York Times Book Reviews, March 25, 2012), he asks, "Where, for starters, are the laws of quantum mechanics themselves supposed to have come from?" Krauss admits he does not know, but suggests they may arise randomly, in which case some universe like ours would have arisen without a prescribed cause. In my 2006 book The Comprehensible Cosmos, I attempt to show that the laws of physics arise naturally from the symmetries of the void.
In any case, Albert asserts that it doesn't matter what the laws of physics are. They "have no bearing whatsoever on questions of where the elementary stuff came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular elementary stuff it does, as opposed to something else, or to nothing at all."
Krauss says that the reason there is something rather than nothing is that the quantum vacuum state is unstable. His theological and philosophical critics claim that what he discusses is not really "nothing." Krauss dismisses this criticism and says that the "nothing" of his critics is some "vague and ill-defined" and "intellectually bankrupt" notion of "nonbeing." Albert insists, "Krauss is dead wrong and his religious and philosophical critics are absolutely right."
In fact, Krauss's book is a good introduction to the latest in cosmology suitable for a layperson. If you, as Albert, do not find Krauss's philosophical or theological views congenial, you should read the book anyway because these views are typical among theoretical particle physicists and cosmologists. If you want to dispute them, you should at least know where they stand.
Clearly, no academic consensus exists on how to define "nothing." It may be impossible. To define "nothing" you have to give it some defining property, but, then, if it has a property it is not nothing!
Krauss shows that our universe could have arisen naturally without violating any known laws of physics. While this has been well known for a quarter century (see A Brief History of Time and Not By Design), Krauss brings the arguments up-to-date.
The "nothing" that Krauss mainly talks about throughout the book is, in fact, precisely definable. It should perhaps be better termed as a "void," which is what you get when you apply quantum theory to space-time itself. It's about as nothing as nothing can be. This void can be described mathematically. It has an explicit wave function. This void is the quantum gravity equivalent of the quantum vacuum in quantum field theory.
Krauss also describes how cosmology now strongly suggests that a "multiverse" exists in which our universe is just one member. So, the real issue is not where our particular universe came from but where the multiverse came from. This question has an easy answer: the multiverse is eternal. So, since it always was, it didn't have to come from anything.
Albert is not satisfied that Krauss has answered the fundamental question: Why there is something rather than nothing, that is, being rather than nonbeing? Again, there is a simple retort: Why should nothing, no matter how defined, be the default state of existence rather than something? And, to bring religion into the picture, one could ask: Why is there God rather than nothing? Once theologians assert that there is a God (as opposed to nothing), they can't turn around and ask a cosmologist why there is a universe (as opposed to nothing). They claim God is a necessary entity. But then, why can't a godless multiverse be a necessary entity?
Now, one might still ask why there is something rather than nothing, where nothing means nonbeing including the absence of God. Here at least we can provide a suggestion based on our knowledge of the quantum void. As Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek put it in a Scientific American article back in 1980 (Frank Wilczek, "The Cosmic Asymmetry Between Matter and Antimatter," Scientific American 243, no. 6 (1980): 82-90), which Krauss quotes, "Nothing is unstable."
The issues Albert raises are legitimate, but they can be addressed within existing physics and philosophical knowledge.
It makes less sense that God existed, in the beginning, than a cup of coffee existed in the beginning. God would be much more complex than a cup of coffee. It makes more sense to believe in the cup of coffee theory than in the God theory.
"In the beginning" makes no sense either. Something always existed.
By the way ,is a chinese answer ,I’m certainly in the ‘the chinese room’
Where was this `NOTHING` located ?
Was creation and annihilation , creation and annihilation, going on all the time in that `NOTHING` while it was `NOTHING` ?
Was this `NOTHING` always having the potential to create `SOMETHING`?
Are these questions answerable by quantum physics without involving consciousness?
A necessary multiverse implies the fulfilling of some purpose which implies God.
Nothing is nowhere.(shuffles back to bong)
If Larry Kraus postulates that there was a pre-existing "something" that he can describe, that's not "nothing." If it's a "quantum void" that comes with features, it's not "nothing".
Kraus's physics may still be correct, but I see why critics are not persuaded.
If Kraus can't explain where the "quantum void" comes from, then we're exactly where we started.
But Larry Kraus is cheating here. He's talking about a "nothing" that is very clearly SOMETHING.
Kraus is talking about a "nothing" that has features and characteristics and rules. That's not "nothing." That's SOMETHING.
Kraus is simply playing a semantic game.
Science isn't a belief system, it doesn't deal with the spiritual, nor does it require that we believe in it. Science is the pursuit of the knowledge and the application of such through observation of the natural and reasoning in-order-to advance our understanding. Biblical leaders (who feel that science threatens their authority) would love to frame it as a belief/faith system, equating science with liberal atheism bent on destroying all religion (which it isn't), so that they can unify as many religious people as possible in their quest to destroy science and by that regain their power over the people.
If we hold to that view of science, then the religious leaders have three things working for their cause; 1) their consistancy in their beliefs when compared to the constant evolution of scientific theory (the latter being more healthy and natural). 2) the majority of people believe in one religion or another, they simply have to find a way to avoid using genesis ch1 and use the term God as some type
By the way, you responded to a post about scientific research and thought about the nature of the universe, and the arguments religion tries to bring up against it. The debate you presumably were referring to is not atheist vs. theist, it's scientific vs. theistic explanations of existence. It just so happens that science keeps building up evidence that the universe does not require an external being to exist.
Existence always exists, simply different in different forms, but only regresses back to an eternal primary *non-conscious* state form which all other forms of existence are possible, so if a god like being it is probably a *product* of the universe just as we are, and if god like intelligence does exist in non-material form, there's probably more than one, probably cares about us as we care about ants, or even less so.
personally, I am just going to become Akira and figure all this out for you and return when I know more, I'll decide then whether I need any worshipping, depends how I'm feeling that day.
As you say, a different form, a different state or to me - a phase (null) in the space/time flow.
Most certainly follow the numbers.
Matter plus anti-matter equals nothing.
Simple and (probably) accurate. Feel free to check my math:
1 + (-1) = 0.
Remember, Matter plus Anti-matter doesn't equal "nothing" or "non-existence"
Matter plus Anti-matter = Energy. E=mc^2 (Energy is not "nothing")
something = existence
nothingness = non-existence OF existence.
Why is there something (existence), rather than nothing (non-existence of existence)?
The non-existence *of* existence itself is not a possible state. The only possibility IS existence and existence in greater complexity, matter, light, physics, life.
So before the Big Bang, there was simply a great void yet that void was primary state of existence, there was no time or space (an area you can be mobile in), there was only an eternal base level state of existence from which all possible outcomes derive, and there is no previous state to regress to.
Why does anything exist at all? because existence IS the only possible state, and there can be no possibility of non-existence of existence itself.
God is a convenient answer, but proposing that God is the answer doesn't actually answer anything, it actually opens up even more questions, and when people wanted answers to all the questions that popped up when God was introduced, they needed to create Religion to answer those questions, and when those questions couldn't get answered, the best answer was the gallows for those people who questioned.
Maybe Dawkins doesn't know his arcana well enough. Trump cards? What trump cards?
(1) if it was so easy to attach attributes to god as you are trying to make it be, then it would be positively impossible to make any sense whatsoever out of sacred texts. What you are doing is simply expressing a certain reading that you've gotten used to, probably because it enables you to insist on the validity of your arguments. But sacred texts aren't written with semantics and dictionaries in the back of the mind of the author.
(2) If everybody had to agree with what I echoed about En Sof, then churches and mosques and synagogues would probably be rather empty.
btw how about the various bumps and shapes and discontinuities of that wave function. Don't they express properties of probabilities of future evolution paths of the universe? And how are those NOT interpretable as wants and desires?
There's just no way you could deny that talk about that wave function is one way of doing what has been called 'reading the mind of god' in other times. We no longer call it thus, but so what?
Of course the mystical speculations are speculations only. But who has made contact between the physics that goes into that quantum void before the big bang and our everyday world? It's the same problem, in a different guise. It's just as risky now than it was in the middle ages to speculate about absolute origins.