So the universe screwed itself up by forgetting that it was nothing, and making something of itself. It’s not too surprising that it’d do that, seeing as “nothing” cannot contain a memory of its own empty state.
Nanoda:
The book I read is by Barrow and Tipler: The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. One of the most difficult books I’ve ever read. Not because it’s poorly written, but because the concept is very difficult to grasp.
Isn’t “nothing” relative? Before you were born there was nothing for you even though there was an Universe . When you are gone there will be “nothing” for you but the universe [I pursume] will go on. Can “nothing” exist if there is no one there to observe it?
I can see nothing out of the back of my head-
It isn’t very scary at all; in fact there’s nothing to it.
I can see nothing out of the back of my head-
It isn’t very scary at all; in fact there’s nothing to it.
Consider:
[list=1]
[li]Before there was this universe, there was nothing. Then how did nothing create the something of this universe? You need some other non-universe agent to create the universe then (God?).[/li][li]This universe has always existed eternally, there was no ‘before-this-universe’ where there was nothing. Of course, that leads to the question, “why is there this eternally existing universe?” Why not just nothing at all?.. the original question.[/li][li]Empty universes may be impossible to exist, if the existence of nothing can be called an existence… If there was no-thing at all, then it’s nothing, not even a universe. This fits in rather nicely into the quantum and relativistic speculation that matter/energy creates space/universe/time. IOW, the only way to have a universe with ‘space’ is to have an occupied universe. If you were to remove all matter/energy from this universe, then this universe would not exist.[/li][/list=1]
Chew on that!
Peace,
moriah, M.A.Phil
I was thinking about this a bit more…
If you go down to the tiniest level, where virutal particles cavort, there is a level even further down – at the size of the Planck Unit. At that level, space is grainy. One might ask the question, “Okay, Mr. Smarty-Pants Physicist, what’s between those grains? Nothingness, right?”
Mr. SPP might answer, “No, what’s between the grains doesn’t exist.”
Well, something that doesn’t exist is pretty close to being Nothing, isn’t it?
What do you mean by that? And how do you know it? I don’t know much about the Planck Length, except that it’s the length scale below which we expect quantum gravity to manifest itself.
Seems to me that to consider the universe unlikely, too unlikely to have existed, is approaching the whole thing from the wrong end; if it hadn’t existed, we wouldn’t be able to stand here in wonder at how unlikely it was (I’ve seen a simiilar sort of thing in evolution/creation debates; the incredulity not that life could arise, but that life could arise right here on Earth, where I live)
From what I can see, to a good first approximation, nothing does exist. What little something there is here is pretty thin, on average, even if we happen to be inside one of the lumpier parts.
Complete nothingness doesn’t make any sense, either. To say there was only nothingness in the universe, you’d be assuming something, i.e., the universe. Furthermore, if nothing existed, including the universe, there wouldn’t be anything to make sense of, and there wouldn’t be anyone to make sense of it. (tongue planted firmly in cheek.)
Everything wants to be as much as nothingness wants to be. Nothingness exists where time, space does not. Somethingness exists where time, space is. I bet they are in equal proportions in a realm we can not see or understand.
If there was truly nothing at all, then why would you expect there to be some phyical law against something coming about from nothing? If there exists a physical law prohibiting something from coming from nothing, then there is no longer NOTHING.
Wow, the last two posts were damn good. Thanks beatenman, and blackknight.