Shouldn’t the universe not exist? The little speck that created the big bang should never have come into existence at all. Try to picture in your head “nothing”. Not even empty space. I can do it for a second but it’s really scary, and it won’t stay in my head long. It’s just really confusing. Everything has to be made somehow, stuff can’t just come out of nothing with nothing being done to make that stuff. So it just makes sense that nothing should have ever existed. Doesn’t it?
If the potential for a universe to be created somewhere exists every millisecond, and time as we understand it has been in place so many billions of years, then its only logical that something must have sprung up in that time.
On a related note, this is something I think about alot when i want to try to fry my brain, and I do think this thought is the best argument for the existance of some sort of god who created us. If the very existance of the universe is so illogical, then why shouldn’t it have been created by such an illogical and impossible being?
Whether it shoud or shouldna matters not 'cause it does.
The universe doesn’t exist. You were dreaming it. Now go back to sleep…
No no no, the OP is right. Nothing should exist.
I hope that settles the issue and we can all just simmer down now.
Plasma:
If you are unfamiliar with the concept of the Anthropic Principle, do some internet surfing on the subject or get a book. It’s a tough concept to grasp, but I think you will find it sheds some light on your subject.
Has anyone here read God’s Debris?
Something should exist, and we know this because…
…something does exist.
‘Nothing’ is quite contradictory to everything that makes sense.
“Nothing” is un natural.
I’m unclear as to whether you think nothing makes sense or doesn’t make sense. 
I personally think nothing makes a lot of sense, and it doesn’t scare me. But there are other concepts which do scare me which you’re probably okay with. 
A lot of something does exist. But it shouldn’t. Definately not the amazinly huge amount of something that there is. It would make more sense for only one atom to exist, or one bit of matter the size of a grain of sand. But there’s a whole lot more. Why?
One of the “Manifold” series by, aw, crap, what’s his name? Stephen Baxter, that’s it. Anyway, one of his books talks about this some.
It would make more sense for only one atom to exist, or one bit of matter the size of a grain of sand. But there’s a whole lot more. Why?
Perhaps there’s only one particle, but it has zipped back and forth through time millions and billions and zillions of times.
Prove me wrong.
Easy. Physicists have identified dozens and dozens of particles with different masses, charges, and spins. So, unless it’s a mass-changing, charge-shifting, spin-altering particle, no go.
Well, a lot of various somethings exist, but a lot that we think should exist don’t (the Missing Mass conundrum). So, everyone should be happy.
Imagine two universes. One of them is empty, there’s nothing in it*. The other contains things.
Guess which one you are in, by definition, if you’re in it to observe its contents.
:smack:
- Oh, and for extra credit, explain the difference between the empty universe you just imagined and a real, genuine empty universe with nothing in it.
Q.E.D.: Easy. Physicists have identified dozens and dozens of particles with different masses, charges, and spins. So, unless it’s a mass-changing, charge-shifting, spin-altering particle, no go.
No, that’s not necessarily a disproof. Let’s take mass. Perhaps the particle accelerates from time to time to near-light speed (along a dimension we’re not aware of) to increase its mass.
Note that I am not referring to something as big, crude and clunky as a lepton. This particle is really, really tiny.
I realize that my proposal is pretty outlandish, but I’m trying to address a question that asks if it would be more reasonable that there would be only one particle.
Ask a weird question, get a weird answer!
A quantum fluctuation in the Higgs field and presto, the Big Bang. After that it was all dark energy and quark-gluon soup spiced with CPT violations and served with a side order of neutrinos. Fourteen billion years later, some baryon-lepton complexes wonder why and how…
Actually attempts have been made to create nothingness, or even describe it mathematically. Due to the incredible weirdness of the quantum mechanical view of the universe, not only is there no nothing anywhere in the universe, it is impossible to actually have nothing at all. Even ‘pure’ vaccuum, ie no physical particles such as atoms, has subatomic particles quantum tunneling in and out of it, seemingly from ‘nowhere’.
Now THAT is weirdness. q;}
Eh, 18 posts aren’t enough, here’s mine too: Like John Mace, I think examining the Anthropic Principle would help. It’s also useful for arguments involving the existance of life in the universe, for those who are interested in that.
O.K Before I say this I want everyone to know that I have *absolutely * no experience in quantum theory but I think you may want to look into something called Membrane Theory (M-Theory). A derivative of String Theory. From what I can gather it is an attempt at a Unified Theory of the Universe. In explaining the universe they must explain the opposite, the negation, and therefore explain your “nothing”. If one of the fellow dopers can tell you more of this I think it may help to explain the “nothingness”. In fact I will post a question on M-Theory and maybe one of our esteemed colleges can shed some light on the situation.