# Origin of everything? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 4, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-everything/519930 "2009-12-04T01:37:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-everything/519930/81 "2009-12-17T18:14:45Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > I’m not out to falsely discredit any other theories. What I’ve done here is make one up myself. I guess that seems kind of clever of me, though if I’m totally wrong, this will wear off quickly. > > Yes, you could say my issue is with ex-nihilo creation. > I’m viewing it as an identity problem (that is, a violation of _x_=_x_) because of its violation of conservation of energy. Maybe if I explain it again it will make sense? Or you can try again to explain why I’m wrong, I don’t mind, really. > > -If (IF!) your cause is ‘nothing’, among other things that means zero energy. > -If the effect is the universe, that means either an infinite amount of energy, or some vast amount, I’m not really sure which. > -A consequence of the conservation of energy is that energy is neither created nor destroyed in cause-effect transactions. So, let C be the cause, E be the effect. In any case where you go from C -\> E, the energy of C = the energy of E. > -In ex nihilo creation, we’re moving from 0 -\> the universe. In energy terms, 0 != 0. And the rest of the theory follows. > > Whether ex nihilo creation is the case or not is up for debate. But that seems to be the OP question, so, taking that as our ‘observation’, how do you mathematically describe it? Well, it demands the (non-erroneous) withdrawing of Identity. > > I still have to watch that video however. I still think that that’s a misuse of the term ‘identity problem’ - mathematically speaking identity is only an issue when you’re speaking of the identical thing, which doesn’t apply if you’re talking about two different times. For a practical example, your blood is arranged in different positions that it was a moment ago, which means that you do not equal your prior self, which _would_ be an identity problem if identity problems worked the way you imply. But they don’t. You’d best stick with calling this a conservation of mass/energy problem, which is a more accurate descriptor and _does_ apply to the situation. (Like it applies to your bloodstream - though presumably your blood flow conserves mass/energy anyway.) Anyway, on to the meat of your post. First I’ll note that I think the current concensus is that the universe doesn’t have infinite energy, because it’s not of infinite size, which means there’s not space in it for infinite energy to reside. So we’re talking finite energy, assuming that matters. The way I see it, there are three potential ways to explain the existence of the universe’s energy level: 1. There was an external source that supplied energy during in the creation of the space-time continuum, which then manifested inside the space-time continuum as the energy/matter we’re familiar with. 2. The law of conservation of energy does not apply to the creation of space-time continuums. 3. The universe has zero energy. If there are any that I missed, please point them out, but I think this covers all possibilities. So. The first option is the most intuitive to people, since it meets both the expectations that the universe has positive total energy and that the laws of conservation apply universally. (Or rather, extra-universally.) The problem with it, of course, is that it presumes that you’re not talking ex-nihilo creation after all, and therefore doesn’t explain where everything came from after all. At best, it shunts off the question to that of where the thing that created the universe came from. The second option seems unintiuitve, but isn’t necessarily, because what we call “energy” in this universe may not be equivalent or even meaningful from an extra-universal perspective. Take for example, if I’m writing a book. (I do like books/movies as an analogy to the space-time continuum!) In that book I can say, “And there were thirty tons of gold there.” Making the the gold appear in the story doesn’t require me to pay for or otherwise acquire thirty tons of gold - because gold in the story isn’t anything outside it. The law of conservation of precious metals doesn’t apply when creating the book - even if I have a strict rule that in the book I have to keep the total amount of precious metals within it perfectly consistent all the time. Perhaps interestingly, option 2 is also the way Christians explain the existence of their god, though they may not realize it. Presumably God gets energy for free, not needing to obey the laws of conservation, so we’re already working in this realm. A little less obviously, when they assert that God has always existed or whatever, they assert that the energy that goes into him simply exists, without cause or explanation - similarly having popped into existence without regard to the conservation of energy. (This goes double when you realize that an infinite negative timeline is impossible and thus the god can’t _actually_ have existed for infinitely long, meaning that at some point his existence -and energy- simply began, ex-nihilo.) The third option is of course the one previously pointed out, which I’ve been told is currently being floated as possible explanation by the scientific community. Personally I don’t know many details about it (I’ve said I’m shamefully ignorant, and haven’t even got around to watching the video), but I am able to comment that it’s a pretty elegent-sounding solution for the ex-nihilo question. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-everything/519930/82 "2009-12-18T04:52:31Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > 1. The universe has zero energy. Granting that none of the answers make sense… that doesn’t make sense! Is the universe nothing or not? Are we not conscious and witnessing _something_, no matter how inaccurate we may be? Even if the mirror image of some perfectly dark negative, how can that be absolute zero energy? Well it isn’t. It’s zero net energy. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-everything/519930/83 "2009-12-19T03:34:21Z")
Everyone is missing the big picture. It’s turtles all the way down. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-everything/519930/84 "2009-12-19T03:55:34Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Perhaps interestingly, option 2 is also the way Christians explain the existence of their god, though they may not realize it. Presumably God gets energy for free, not needing to obey the laws of conservation, so we’re already working in this realm. A little less obviously, when they assert that God has always existed or whatever, they assert that the energy that goes into him simply exists, without cause or explanation - similarly having popped into existence without regard to the conservation of energy. (This goes double when you realize that an infinite negative timeline is impossible and thus the god can’t _actually_ have existed for infinitely long, meaning that at some point his existence -and energy- simply began, ex-nihilo.) Yah well if I’m not mistaken the Christian doctrine is that God always existed. So I suppose the energy is for free. That’s the position; say it is impossible if you like, but don’t file it under ex nihilo creation. Egads! The Christian doctrine is ex nihilo in another sense however. The Hindus (at least some of them) criticize the Christians for their belief that God created the universe out of nothing. Obviously to these Hindus, The Absolute would create the universe out of itself, and not out of _nothing_, egads! “Nothing’s” existence is avoided by the eternal presence of this Absolute. In common with God. The Hindu method avoids ex-nihilo completely, …though through non-duality. So, the cases you’re omitting are that everything always existed- there isn’t an origin. And, the universe doesn’t exist (unless this is a special case of ‘the universe has zero energy’) ---
**Author:** ![KellyCriterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b3f665/32.png) [@KellyCriterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyCriterion)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-everything/519930/85 "2009-12-19T06:03:27Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > But the physical definition of nothing is a lot more subtle than you probably think. I’d guess that it would be an absence of particles of any type - even photons. Your definition is close, but not quite there. Nothing is not just the absence of particles, it’s an absence of any thing. > [@](#): > > Thus, nothing cannot exist in our universe. You might get away with defining a small region and time, through which no particles move - but then you have quantum foam, so you don’t quite have nothing even there. Let’s assume the pre-cursor to the big bang was “quantum foam”. Is this foam subject to time? If yes, it destroys your theory that there was no _time_ before the big bang. If no, then the foam exists in an unchanging, timeless state. Do you have faith that _nothing_ caused the foam to get knocked out of its unchanging state? How much faith, exactly? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-everything/519930.md?page=4)