Problems with Ex Nihilo Creation

[The Sage of Main Street]

The concept of something coming from nothing is impossible for our thought processes to digest. That may merely be a limit of our thought processes.

God Is Impossible, Just Like Most Superheroes

Who sets up these limits on us? Nothing was created; all of it always was. The forms of it have changed, that's all.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Did our Universe have a Beginning? | Closer to Truth

Again we are talking about ENERGY, not the universe. Linking to videos you don't understand does not prove energy can be created or destroyed. Clearly in Vilenkin's universe both positive energy and negative energy BOTH exist in equal amounts at all times.

What is Nothing?

Is there any place in the Universe where there's truly nothing? Consider the gaps between stars and galaxies? Or the gaps between atoms? What are the properties of nothing?

I want you to take a second and think about nothing. Close your eyes. Picture it in your mind. Focus. Fooooocus. On nothing….It's pretty hard, isn't it? Especially when I keep nattering at you.

Instead, let's just consider the vast spaces between stars and galaxies, or the gaps between atoms and other microscopic particles. When we talk about nothing in the vast reaches between of space, it's not actually, technically nothing. Got that? It's not nothing. There's… something there.

Even in the gulfs of intergalactic space, there are hundreds or thousands of particles in every cubic meter. But even if you could rent MegaMaid from a Dark Helmet surplus store, and vacuum up those particles, there would still be wavelengths of radiation, stretching across vast distances of space.

There's the inevitable reach of gravity stretching across the entire Universe. There's the weak magnetic field from a distant quasar. It's infinitesimally weak, but it's not nothing. It's still something.

Philosophers, and some physicists, argue that *that* nothing isn't the same as "real" nothing. Different physicists see different things as nothing, from nothing is classical vacuum, to the idea of nothing as undifferentiated potential.

Even if you could remove all the particles, shield against all electric and magnetic fields, your box would still contain gravity, because gravity can never be shielded or cancelled out. Gravity doesn't go away, and it's always attractive, so you can't do anything to block it. In Newton's physics that's because it is a force, but in general relativity space and time *are* gravity.

So, imagine if you could remove all particles, energy, gravity… everything from a system. You'd be left with a true vacuum. Even at its lowest energy level, there are fluctuations in the quantum vacuum of the Universe. There are quantum particles popping into and out of existence throughout the Universe. There's nothing, then pop, something, and then the particles collide and you're left with nothing again. And so, even if you could remove everything from the Universe, you'd still be left with these quantum fluctuations embedded in spacetime.

There are physicists like Lawrence Krauss that argue the "universe from nothing", really meaning "the universe from a potentiality". Which comes down to if you add all the mass and energy in the universe, all the gravitational curvature, everything… it looks like it all sums up to zero. So it is possible that the universe really did come from nothing. And if that's the case, then "nothing" is everything we see around us, and "everything" is nothing.

Science Was Taken Over by Authoritarian Irrationalists

1. Space is a substance.
2. Gravity doesn't exist in this universe; only its effects do. It's similar to what causes "indeterminacy," making it actually determined by unrecognized outside factors.

 

[ding]

Did our Universe have a Beginning? | Closer to Truth

Again we are talking about ENERGY, not the universe. Linking to videos you don't understand does not prove energy can be created or destroyed. Clearly in Vilenkin's universe both positive energy and negative energy BOTH exist in equal amounts at all times.

What is Nothing?

Is there any place in the Universe where there's truly nothing? Consider the gaps between stars and galaxies? Or the gaps between atoms? What are the properties of nothing?

I want you to take a second and think about nothing. Close your eyes. Picture it in your mind. Focus. Fooooocus. On nothing….It's pretty hard, isn't it? Especially when I keep nattering at you.

Instead, let's just consider the vast spaces between stars and galaxies, or the gaps between atoms and other microscopic particles. When we talk about nothing in the vast reaches between of space, it's not actually, technically nothing. Got that? It's not nothing. There's… something there.

Even in the gulfs of intergalactic space, there are hundreds or thousands of particles in every cubic meter. But even if you could rent MegaMaid from a Dark Helmet surplus store, and vacuum up those particles, there would still be wavelengths of radiation, stretching across vast distances of space.

There's the inevitable reach of gravity stretching across the entire Universe. There's the weak magnetic field from a distant quasar. It's infinitesimally weak, but it's not nothing. It's still something.

Philosophers, and some physicists, argue that *that* nothing isn't the same as "real" nothing. Different physicists see different things as nothing, from nothing is classical vacuum, to the idea of nothing as undifferentiated potential.

Even if you could remove all the particles, shield against all electric and magnetic fields, your box would still contain gravity, because gravity can never be shielded or cancelled out. Gravity doesn't go away, and it's always attractive, so you can't do anything to block it. In Newton's physics that's because it is a force, but in general relativity space and time *are* gravity.

So, imagine if you could remove all particles, energy, gravity… everything from a system. You'd be left with a true vacuum. Even at its lowest energy level, there are fluctuations in the quantum vacuum of the Universe. There are quantum particles popping into and out of existence throughout the Universe. There's nothing, then pop, something, and then the particles collide and you're left with nothing again. And so, even if you could remove everything from the Universe, you'd still be left with these quantum fluctuations embedded in spacetime.

There are physicists like Lawrence Krauss that argue the "universe from nothing", really meaning "the universe from a potentiality". Which comes down to if you add all the mass and energy in the universe, all the gravitational curvature, everything… it looks like it all sums up to zero. So it is possible that the universe really did come from nothing. And if that's the case, then "nothing" is everything we see around us, and "everything" is nothing.

Cool story, bro. It isn't just Vilenkin. Even Lawrence Krauss believes that space and time did begin. That space and time did pop into existence through a quantum event.

 

[ding]

1. We know that space and time had a beginning.
2. We know that that beginning followed rules.
3. We know that rules are the domain of intelligence.
4. We know that matter and energy has only changed form since the beginning of space and time.
5. We know that those changes followed rules. The rules which existed before space and time.
6. We know that the universe is full of information.
7. We know that information is the domain of intelligence.
8. We know that at that beginning all space and matter existed in the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of an atom.
9. We know that at that time the universe was perfectly ordered.
10. We know that at that time the energy that make up the atoms of every single human being that ever existed or will ever exist was present in that perfectly ordered state.
11. We know that as space and time evolved that beings that know and create arose and that they arose according to the laws of nature which were in place before space and time existed.
12. We know that the universe became self aware.
13. We know that consciousness is the most complex thing created by the laws of nature.
14. We know that it is the nature of intelligence to create intelligence.

You know nothing!

Can you tell me which one I got wrong? I even numbered them to make it easier for you.

 

[ding]

Before space time began there was no motion.

In the beginning there was a curious void which held potential.... Nothing existed but no thing did.

So you cannot produce even one equation in physics that solves for time that does not have motion as a component. So that is settled.

WHAT held potential????? Surely not a void, a void is void of everything including potential or it wouldn't be a void!!!!! You obviously know this or you wouldn't have resorted to double-talk with your next pontification.
Your own video said the "Potential" was in the balance of positive and negative energy. They are both NOT nothing or no thing.

Time is a consequence of expansion if nothing exists there is no expansion, there is no time. You want an equation for nothing?

If what exists is not expanding, it still exists, it is just NOT expanding and it never is nothing.

Then it requires a cause to make it begin expanding. Not to mention that universe is probabilistically unstable and would collapse. Didn't you watch the videos?

Obviously YOU didn't.
Your own video says it only requires a fluctuation in the balance between positive and negative energy and these fluctuations happen all the time just like the formation of virtual particles.

Throughout the universe, particles and antiparticles spontaneously form and quickly annihilate each other without violating the law of energy conservation. These spontaneous births and deaths of so-called 'virtual particle' pairs are known as 'quantum fluctuations.' Indeed, laboratory experiments have proven that quantum fluctuations occur everywhere, all the time. Cosmologists have constructed a theory called inflation that accounts for the way in which a small volume of space occupied by a virtual particle pair could have ballooned to become the vast universe we see today.

And yet all of the energy and matter which exists today was created through a quantum tunneling event ~ 14 billion years ago and occupied the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of a single atom and then began to expand and cool.

 

[edthecynic]

Did our Universe have a Beginning? | Closer to Truth

Again we are talking about ENERGY, not the universe. Linking to videos you don't understand does not prove energy can be created or destroyed. Clearly in Vilenkin's universe both positive energy and negative energy BOTH exist in equal amounts at all times.

What is Nothing?

Is there any place in the Universe where there's truly nothing? Consider the gaps between stars and galaxies? Or the gaps between atoms? What are the properties of nothing?

I want you to take a second and think about nothing. Close your eyes. Picture it in your mind. Focus. Fooooocus. On nothing….It's pretty hard, isn't it? Especially when I keep nattering at you.

Instead, let's just consider the vast spaces between stars and galaxies, or the gaps between atoms and other microscopic particles. When we talk about nothing in the vast reaches between of space, it's not actually, technically nothing. Got that? It's not nothing. There's… something there.

Even in the gulfs of intergalactic space, there are hundreds or thousands of particles in every cubic meter. But even if you could rent MegaMaid from a Dark Helmet surplus store, and vacuum up those particles, there would still be wavelengths of radiation, stretching across vast distances of space.

There's the inevitable reach of gravity stretching across the entire Universe. There's the weak magnetic field from a distant quasar. It's infinitesimally weak, but it's not nothing. It's still something.

Philosophers, and some physicists, argue that *that* nothing isn't the same as "real" nothing. Different physicists see different things as nothing, from nothing is classical vacuum, to the idea of nothing as undifferentiated potential.

Even if you could remove all the particles, shield against all electric and magnetic fields, your box would still contain gravity, because gravity can never be shielded or cancelled out. Gravity doesn't go away, and it's always attractive, so you can't do anything to block it. In Newton's physics that's because it is a force, but in general relativity space and time *are* gravity.

So, imagine if you could remove all particles, energy, gravity… everything from a system. You'd be left with a true vacuum. Even at its lowest energy level, there are fluctuations in the quantum vacuum of the Universe. There are quantum particles popping into and out of existence throughout the Universe. There's nothing, then pop, something, and then the particles collide and you're left with nothing again. And so, even if you could remove everything from the Universe, you'd still be left with these quantum fluctuations embedded in spacetime.

There are physicists like Lawrence Krauss that argue the "universe from nothing", really meaning "the universe from a potentiality". Which comes down to if you add all the mass and energy in the universe, all the gravitational curvature, everything… it looks like it all sums up to zero. So it is possible that the universe really did come from nothing. And if that's the case, then "nothing" is everything we see around us, and "everything" is nothing.

Cool story, bro. It isn't just Vilenkin. Even Lawrence Krauss believes that space and time did begin. That space and time did pop into existence through a quantum event.

And there you go again, trying to conflate anything and everything with ENERGY, which has no beginning or end.

 

[edthecynic]

So you cannot produce even one equation in physics that solves for time that does not have motion as a component. So that is settled.

WHAT held potential????? Surely not a void, a void is void of everything including potential or it wouldn't be a void!!!!! You obviously know this or you wouldn't have resorted to double-talk with your next pontification.
Your own video said the "Potential" was in the balance of positive and negative energy. They are both NOT nothing or no thing.

Time is a consequence of expansion if nothing exists there is no expansion, there is no time. You want an equation for nothing?

If what exists is not expanding, it still exists, it is just NOT expanding and it never is nothing.

Then it requires a cause to make it begin expanding. Not to mention that universe is probabilistically unstable and would collapse. Didn't you watch the videos?

Obviously YOU didn't.
Your own video says it only requires a fluctuation in the balance between positive and negative energy and these fluctuations happen all the time just like the formation of virtual particles.

Throughout the universe, particles and antiparticles spontaneously form and quickly annihilate each other without violating the law of energy conservation. These spontaneous births and deaths of so-called 'virtual particle' pairs are known as 'quantum fluctuations.' Indeed, laboratory experiments have proven that quantum fluctuations occur everywhere, all the time. Cosmologists have constructed a theory called inflation that accounts for the way in which a small volume of space occupied by a virtual particle pair could have ballooned to become the vast universe we see today.

And yet all of the energy and matter which exists today was created through a quantum tunneling event ~ 14 billion years ago and occupied the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of a single atom and then began to expand and cool.

Energy cannot be created.

 

[ding]

It may be splitting hairs, but to say a void held potential still seems to describe a state of the 'non being' existing (something of an oxymoron). Perhaps we could put it that 'potential' alone is as close to what could be said to 'exist'.

Yes, that is splitting hairs. Given the first cause... everything has potential.

Again, words can throw us back on words. "Everything has potential", OK, but (here it comes) where did/does potential come from?
When we cannot find the answer to a question after much time and effort, we must wonder if there is something not right about the question.

Where does potential come from? The laws of nature which existed before space and time.

When I said everything has potential given the first cause I am saying that everything which has a non-zero probability of occurring according to the laws of nature is a potentiality before space and time were created and will eventually exist given enough time and the right conditions.

 

[ding]

Time is a consequence of expansion if nothing exists there is no expansion, there is no time. You want an equation for nothing?

If what exists is not expanding, it still exists, it is just NOT expanding and it never is nothing.

Then it requires a cause to make it begin expanding. Not to mention that universe is probabilistically unstable and would collapse. Didn't you watch the videos?

Obviously YOU didn't.
Your own video says it only requires a fluctuation in the balance between positive and negative energy and these fluctuations happen all the time just like the formation of virtual particles.

Throughout the universe, particles and antiparticles spontaneously form and quickly annihilate each other without violating the law of energy conservation. These spontaneous births and deaths of so-called 'virtual particle' pairs are known as 'quantum fluctuations.' Indeed, laboratory experiments have proven that quantum fluctuations occur everywhere, all the time. Cosmologists have constructed a theory called inflation that accounts for the way in which a small volume of space occupied by a virtual particle pair could have ballooned to become the vast universe we see today.

And yet all of the energy and matter which exists today was created through a quantum tunneling event ~ 14 billion years ago and occupied the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of a single atom and then began to expand and cool.

Energy cannot be created.

It was ~14 billion years ago when space and time began. Even Lawrence Krauss agrees.

 

[edthecynic]

1. We know that space and time had a beginning.
2. We know that that beginning followed rules.
3. We know that rules are the domain of intelligence.
4. We know that matter and energy has only changed form since the beginning of space and time.
5. We know that those changes followed rules. The rules which existed before space and time.
6. We know that the universe is full of information.
7. We know that information is the domain of intelligence.
8. We know that at that beginning all space and matter existed in the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of an atom.
9. We know that at that time the universe was perfectly ordered.
10. We know that at that time the energy that make up the atoms of every single human being that ever existed or will ever exist was present in that perfectly ordered state.
11. We know that as space and time evolved that beings that know and create arose and that they arose according to the laws of nature which were in place before space and time existed.
12. We know that the universe became self aware.
13. We know that consciousness is the most complex thing created by the laws of nature.
14. We know that it is the nature of intelligence to create intelligence.

You know nothing!

Can you tell me which one I got wrong? I even numbered them to make it easier for you.

None of that has anything to do with creating energy, which can't be created.

 

[edthecynic]

Where does potential come from?

From energy, which cannot be created nor destroyed.

 

[ding]

The concept of something coming from nothing is impossible for our thought processes to digest. That may merely be a limit of our thought processes.

God Is Impossible, Just Like Most Superheroes

Who sets up these limits on us? Nothing was created; all of it always was. The forms of it have changed, that's all.

The SLoT says otherwise.

As time approaches infinity, the universe will approach thermal equilibrium. This we do not see.

 

[edthecynic]

If what exists is not expanding, it still exists, it is just NOT expanding and it never is nothing.

Then it requires a cause to make it begin expanding. Not to mention that universe is probabilistically unstable and would collapse. Didn't you watch the videos?

Obviously YOU didn't.
Your own video says it only requires a fluctuation in the balance between positive and negative energy and these fluctuations happen all the time just like the formation of virtual particles.

Throughout the universe, particles and antiparticles spontaneously form and quickly annihilate each other without violating the law of energy conservation. These spontaneous births and deaths of so-called 'virtual particle' pairs are known as 'quantum fluctuations.' Indeed, laboratory experiments have proven that quantum fluctuations occur everywhere, all the time. Cosmologists have constructed a theory called inflation that accounts for the way in which a small volume of space occupied by a virtual particle pair could have ballooned to become the vast universe we see today.

And yet all of the energy and matter which exists today was created through a quantum tunneling event ~ 14 billion years ago and occupied the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of a single atom and then began to expand and cool.

Energy cannot be created.

It was ~14 billion years ago when space and time began. Even Lawrence Krauss agrees.

But he doesn't say that energy began 14 billion years ago.

 

[edthecynic]

The concept of something coming from nothing is impossible for our thought processes to digest. That may merely be a limit of our thought processes.

God Is Impossible, Just Like Most Superheroes

Who sets up these limits on us? Nothing was created; all of it always was. The forms of it have changed, that's all.

The SLoT says otherwise.

As time approaches infinity, the universe will approach thermal equilibrium. This we do not see.

You know less about the SLoT than you do the first.

 

[ding]

Where does potential come from?

From energy, which cannot be created nor destroyed.

Which had a beginning

But energy is not the cause for potentiality. The rules are the cause of potentiality.

 

[ding]

The concept of something coming from nothing is impossible for our thought processes to digest. That may merely be a limit of our thought processes.

God Is Impossible, Just Like Most Superheroes

Who sets up these limits on us? Nothing was created; all of it always was. The forms of it have changed, that's all.

The SLoT says otherwise.

As time approaches infinity, the universe will approach thermal equilibrium. This we do not see.

You know less about the SLoT than you do the first.

For every mass to energy transfer and for every energy to mass transfer there is a loss of usable energy to the system. Do this enough times and you end up with thermal equilibrium.

 

[edthecynic]

The concept of something coming from nothing is impossible for our thought processes to digest. That may merely be a limit of our thought processes.

God Is Impossible, Just Like Most Superheroes

Who sets up these limits on us? Nothing was created; all of it always was. The forms of it have changed, that's all.

The SLoT says otherwise.

As time approaches infinity, the universe will approach thermal equilibrium. This we do not see.

Like you say, we went over this before, thermal equilibrium can only be reached when all motion stops, which contradicts the TLoT.

 

[ding]

Then it requires a cause to make it begin expanding. Not to mention that universe is probabilistically unstable and would collapse. Didn't you watch the videos?

Obviously YOU didn't.
Your own video says it only requires a fluctuation in the balance between positive and negative energy and these fluctuations happen all the time just like the formation of virtual particles.

Throughout the universe, particles and antiparticles spontaneously form and quickly annihilate each other without violating the law of energy conservation. These spontaneous births and deaths of so-called 'virtual particle' pairs are known as 'quantum fluctuations.' Indeed, laboratory experiments have proven that quantum fluctuations occur everywhere, all the time. Cosmologists have constructed a theory called inflation that accounts for the way in which a small volume of space occupied by a virtual particle pair could have ballooned to become the vast universe we see today.

And yet all of the energy and matter which exists today was created through a quantum tunneling event ~ 14 billion years ago and occupied the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of a single atom and then began to expand and cool.

Energy cannot be created.

It was ~14 billion years ago when space and time began. Even Lawrence Krauss agrees.

But he doesn't say that energy began 14 billion years ago.

Here is what he and everyone else who believes in inflation says:

It is possible for matter to have a beginning. In a closed universe the gravitational energy which is always negative exactly compensates the positive energy of matter. So the energy of a closed universe is always zero. So nothing prevents this universe from being spontaneously created. Because the net energy is always zero. The positive energy of matter is balanced by the negative energy of the gravity of that matter which is the space time curvature of that matter. There is no conservation law that prevents the formation of such a universe. In quantum mechanics if something is not forbidden by conservation laws, then it necessarily happens with some non-zero probability. So a closed universe can spontaneously appear - through the laws of quantum mechanics - out of nothing. And in fact there is an elegant mathematical description which describes this process and shows that a tiny closed universe having very high energy can spontaneously pop into existence and immediately start to expand and cool. In this description, the same laws that describe the evolution of the universe also describe the appearance of the universe which means that the laws were in place before the universe itself.

 

[ding]

The concept of something coming from nothing is impossible for our thought processes to digest. That may merely be a limit of our thought processes.

God Is Impossible, Just Like Most Superheroes

Who sets up these limits on us? Nothing was created; all of it always was. The forms of it have changed, that's all.

The SLoT says otherwise.

As time approaches infinity, the universe will approach thermal equilibrium. This we do not see.

Like you say, we went over this before, thermal equilibrium can only be reached when all motion stops, which contradicts the TLoT.

Has nothing to do with motion. It has everything to do with loss of heat. THERMAL equilibrium. We don't see that.

 

[ding]

1. We know that space and time had a beginning.
2. We know that that beginning followed rules.
3. We know that rules are the domain of intelligence.
4. We know that matter and energy has only changed form since the beginning of space and time.
5. We know that those changes followed rules. The rules which existed before space and time.
6. We know that the universe is full of information.
7. We know that information is the domain of intelligence.
8. We know that at that beginning all space and matter existed in the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of an atom.
9. We know that at that time the universe was perfectly ordered.
10. We know that at that time the energy that make up the atoms of every single human being that ever existed or will ever exist was present in that perfectly ordered state.
11. We know that as space and time evolved that beings that know and create arose and that they arose according to the laws of nature which were in place before space and time existed.
12. We know that the universe became self aware.
13. We know that consciousness is the most complex thing created by the laws of nature.
14. We know that it is the nature of intelligence to create intelligence.

You know nothing!

Can you tell me which one I got wrong? I even numbered them to make it easier for you.

None of that has anything to do with creating energy, which can't be created.

Inflation theory says it can.