Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

[Fweethawt]

Some physicists think they can explain why the universe first formed. If they are right, our entire cosmos may have sprung out of nothing at all - From Article

 

This is a good read. Gives you that 'Really? Holy shit!' kind of feeling.

 

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141106-why-does-anything-exist-at-all?ocid=fbert

[disillusioned]

That's an interesting article. Similar to Lawrence Krauss' lecture A Universe from Nothing. I think this is an interesting explanation. But philosophers sometimes contend that the quantum vacuum is not "nothing". This sort of explanation of the origin of the universe essentially boils down to a type of cosmological argument, with "quantum vacuum" taking the place of "first cause/God". This is still a step forward, though, because we actually know that the quantum vacuum exists. And, unlike the universe, it may actually be eternal.

[bornagainathiest]

And I'd like to point out something about the quantum vacuum deliberately usually omitted by Christian apologists like William Lane Craig.

 

His Kalam Cosmological Argument...

 

1. That which begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe had a cause.

 

(Insert God here.)

 

...is based only on the classical (Einsteinian) use of cause-and-effect.

 

However, there's a problem. 

 

As the BBC article clearly says.

 

"Relativity is very different from quantum mechanics, and so far nobody has been able to combine the two seamlessly."

 

Therefore, to be a seamless line of argument for the existence of God, Craig's KCA must necessarily combine relativity and quantum mechanics... seamlessly.  Since nobody has been able to perform this combination, Craig's line of argument cannot be seamless.  At the very best, it must be approximate.  Which leaves us with two interesting questions.

 

Can an approximate argument ever be a valid one?

 

Has Craig ever qualified his KCA with the necessary proviso that it's just an approximation and not a finished and fully valid argument?

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[wellnamed]

The KCA (and related cosmological or ontological arguments) is not a strong argument but I agree that in terms of what the original metaphysical question "why is there something rather than nothing?" is trying to get at, i.e the problem of Being and Nothingness, the quantum vacuum with its associated probabilities of the spontaneous generation of particles isn't really the "nothing" it has in mind, although its existence points out that the ontology assumed by the usual formulation of the question might be insufficient?

 

What is interesting to me is that I think the question itself may be (philosophically) meaningless. By which I mean that it's not clear that we even know what we're asking, or that there is a meaningful possibility of an answer. Essentially, in order for a question to be meaningful, we have to already have some idea of the space of responses which would count as meaningful answers. A meaningful question conditions and limits the scope of the possible answers. But "non-existence" is not necessarily even coherent as a concept within some dialectical argument.

 

Beyond that, I think when we ask "why?" the question presupposes that there is some context broader than the phenomena in question which will give meaning to the phenomena by placing it in that larger context. If I ask "why did you go to the store?" the question assumes some larger context involving your motivations and human life in which the answer "I was out of milk" will make sense as an answer. But whatever the "ultimate" context is, and "the universe" may certainly be it, it's then impossible to meaningfully ask "why?" about it, because we have no idea of any larger context in which an answer would fit. This is basically the observation that renders the ontological argument as an explanation less than useful. First you ask "why does the universe exist?" and answer that "God created it", with God providing a larger context. But then you ask "why does God exist?" and there can be no meaningful answer given the definition of God as ultimate, because there could be no more fundamental ground in which to situate an answer. From a naturalistic standpoint, if the universe itself is ultimate, then in the same way its existence would seem to just be a matter of brute fact, and the tendency to ask these kinds of questions a kind of over-extrapolation of the principle of sufficient reason.

[disillusioned]

^^^^This guy gets it^^^^

[JCW]

I actually think this is a very good question and, at least for me, makes it seem reasonable to accept the existence of some kind of fundamental or necessary reality. That is, there exists something that exists simply because it cannot not exist and from which all that does exist can be explained. We can try to postulate what might or might not exist as a part of this fundamental reality and consider the consequences of it containing certain characteristics, for instance maybe it is a god or some kind of multiverse. It seems reasonable to me to assume that within it is contained some kind of basest for the laws of logic. To recognize my reasoning here we have to first recognize one of the dilemmas faced concerning logic. We utilize logic to evaluate the reasonableness of any concept, yet what can we use to evaluate the validity of logic itself. It would seem that we can not escape having to make certain basal assumptions in order to make any sense of the world around us. Yet the fact that we cannot even attempt to consider an existence without some kind of logic is reason enough for me to think it is likely that logic exists for the simple fact that it cannot not exist, or in other words is a part of the fundamental reality I was speaking of. Now I will point out that I do not mean to say that some of the particular laws of logic such as the law of causality are necessarily fundamental and at this point we could have an interesting conversation concerning what exactly logic is. Logic may be the wrong term to use here, but what I am saying is that any existence must abide by some kind of framework. That is, even if we may not be able to make sense out of it, there is sense to be made of it. I could go on about this; however, I will leave it at this: though I do believe the existence of some kind of fundamental reality is likely, I do not see any reason to presume that it possesses any kind of personhood to attribute it the title God.   

[disillusioned]

JCW, I used to think very similarly to what you wrote above. It is no longer my opinion, however, that logic requires a basis beyond the human mind. I have come to think that logic is best described as "that thing we do when we're trying to make sense". It can be used to help us make sense of the physical universe or to help us make sense of our own ideas. The first application gives rise to science, and the second to mathematics and philosophy. In both cases, however, I think that logic remains an entirely human endeavour. There are no rules of logic that are set in stone. Different rules and axioms will allow us to prove different things. We get to decide what rules and axioms we want to use, depending on what we are trying to accomplish. Hence, I don't think that the notion of "absolute truth" really makes much sense. A statement may be true in a particular system, but it will not be true in every possible system.

 

I'm always happy to discuss the nature of logic in more depth. If you're interested, perhaps we could start another thread to pursue this.

[Margee]

I don't claim to know a lot about the big bang or what 'energies' produced the start of the universe..... but this documentary of the evolution of the earth helped me to understand things so much better. For anyone who hasn't watched it..it's worth it. You  will clearly see that 'Gawd' did NOT make the earth in 7 days!!

[pantheory]

Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

 

This question became commonly known when Stephen Hawking brought it to the attention of readers in his book A Short History of Time, at the end of the book. To a novice this would seem to be a good and logical question, but maybe somewhat of a naive question. Some philosophers believe there is a logical fallacy in such a question concerning why.  In a finite universe, like most versions of the Big Bang model, a Big Bang event started the universe. There could have been nothing before that if such an event was the finite beginning of the universe,  the beginning of everything.  On the other hand if there was something before a Big Bang event that caused it, then what was the cause of that entity... . and so on. If you do not come down to a single event causing the entire Big Bang and/ or the universe at a single point in time, then you are talking about an infinite universe in time. An infinite universe model has no beginning so it could not have had a cause by definition.  If it did have a cause it would violate the meaning of the word "infinite."  The multiverse concept, for instance, is an infinite universe model in time, and maybe space and an infinite number of universes. There would have been a cause for our universe, and a cause for that cause, and so on. Just like the god-did-it universe, god had no beginning so he is also part of an infinite model. So it would be logically impossible for the universe to have had a first cause other than itself, no matter what its beginning was or how it was constructed since there are no other possibilities.

 

When Hawking and others talk about the Zero Point Field, they are talking about a vacuum as being nothing. Some theorists believe there is more energy in the Zero Point (a vacuum which they call nothing) than there is in all the other energy and mass in the entire universe. This may be the farthest thing away from nothing that one can conceive of. As others have pointed out in this thread, nothing means the complete absence of everything, all matter and energy. Such a condition has not been created by man and may not exist at all. In ancient Greece they had a saying that "from nothing, nothing comes." from the Latin the saying was (Latin: nihil fit ex nihilo), Nothing comes out of nothing.

 

Based upon logic and experimentation "nothingness" may not be a possible state of reality.  If so it would uphold sayings both modern and ancient, that something cannot come from nothing, meaning in this case that the universe could not have come from nothing.

[disillusioned]

For clarity: the question "why is there something rather than nothing?" long predates Hawking's A Brief History of Time. It's one of the classic questions of philosophy.