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Well we can talk about our good friend Lavoisier and can simply say that mass cannot be created or destroyed and if that is the case then who created mass from the get go? Along the same lines a big bang cannot simply happen on its own. It is said that Einstein proved Lavoisier wrong with his famous E=mc^2 however matter and energy are different forms of the same thing so in nuclear reactions matter is simply being converted into a different form.
When we say "can nothing exist", are we talking from the beginning of the time to the end? If suddenly the world ended tomorrow and everything seized to exist, does that mean nothing ever existed in the first place? Who would prove it otherwise? Would some future civilization magically be erected and find pieces of our civilization? OK my head hurts I'm done lol.
Man, an IQ test says I am a pretty smart guy, but I can't visualize this they way you do.
I am really not that smart, (IQ 125-132-ish) I just somehow have a knack for visualizing abstract or impossible concepts, especially cosmological and physical concepts for some reason. I am no physicist though, so I can't really get into the "meat" of any theories or hypotheses unfortunately.
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If it is flat, infinite, and without edge or boundary, how can it "expand"? it already goes forever - by definition "forever" and "everything" are everything. If everything can get bigger, than it really isn't everything, is it?
It's difficult to explain, especially for a layperson like myself. Space goes on forever, but the expansion is also an intrinsic property of the universe itself. I try not to imagine the the whole universe expanding, watching it from some external viewpoint, but rather imagine that at every single location in the universe, I would see distant objects receding (space between myself and the objects growing larger) with more distant objects receding more quickly, and this apparent movement would be the same no matter where I was, even if I traveled to some arbitrarily far away point. (Which is another way to imagine an infinite universe; one can have points that are an arbitrarily far apart).
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Plus, if we subscribe to the Big Bang Theory (scientific concept, not TV show), then the Universe should be expanding like a balloon from a central point (the origin of the Big Bang) in three dimensions (I'll excluding the fourth dimension -the time dilation created by our rapid celestial motion away from the centre of the Big Bang.)
All of the matter in the observable universe was concentrated into a single point before the big bang, but the universe was already infinite at that time, which means it has no center, and if it is expanding as well, the expansion will have no center point of origin. As I said above, no matter where you are in the universe, distant objects are hurtling away from you, which means that the expansion happened (is happening) everywhere; there is no single preferred point of view in the universe that everything is expanding away from.
Last edited by Lunar Delta; 05-28-2013 at 12:21 PM..
We live in a dualistic world, everything has a counterpart, good-evil, right-left, up-down, so when one speak of nothing is this in opposed to something? Because once we give "nothing" value then we have created something, and the purest concept of nothing disappears.
If one takes away all atoms, sub atomic particles all you are left with is an empty void, however, even by observing this condition you are giving it value, and therefore making it something.
Nothing, per its semantic definition, can not exist. Anything that exists IS. No matter how small it is.
If the physical universe did not exist, it does not mean NOTHING will take over. What you will have is SPACE.
True space, as universal eternal container, is unknown to science and is not researched as such.
Science always investigates at least something that is IN space, but not the space itself.
As a result, entire scientific results are askew, as how can one judge universe, without taking into consideration properties of what universe is in? As it sure does change perception of the universe, doesn't it?
E.G. take a stick and place it into pond. What looked like a straight piece of wood suddenly looks broken, right? It's refraction, caused by optical properties difference between two media - air and water.
Yet, we look outside in space and say - that is this, and this is that in there. Without taking into any consideration of the properties of SPACE, that universe is in.
Sorry for hijacking. Was too tempting.
Quick addendum.
Say, Big Bang was there. And there was that infinitesimally small point, that entire universe came out of (no matter how lunatic this idea is).
But for that point to be, it already has to be IN something, right? Which is Space. Hence, space was BEFORE the Big Bang, contained it.
Last edited by TheViking85; 05-30-2013 at 09:31 PM..
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Originally Posted by LoveWisdom
My view: it's impossible for something to happen out of nothing.
"Nothing" would mean no space, no energy, no particles of any kind. Nothing. Really nothing.
I think that people take something like "empty space filled with particles which are not visible to our naked eye" and call it "nothing". So if earth came from this something, then it was NOT out of nothing.
I think it's a logical impossibility. I don't think many scientists believe that the Universe arose out of absolutely nothing: the matter couldn't just materialise out of thin air. There's always been speculation whether the Universe is eternal, whether there are previous or multiple universes, and whether time has a beginning and the end. Hinduism has a cyclical view of the Universe, but I think they do believe in an absolute beginning. In the monotheistic tradition some say that before everything God existed: he created time, he created space, energy/matter and everything that exists today. But before the Universe HE was, so he was something and thus not nothing. Whether he occupied physical space, we don't know. It's like it's impossible to imagine timelessness...scientists tell us that time can slow down, speed up and even stop but it's literally impossible for us to imagine EXPERIENCING timelessness because or thoughts occur throughout time and cannot imagine what we don't have a model of reference for. The closest we can imagine is a gap in time, or freezing motion as representing time stopping, but time stopping is not a lack of time itself, for the time that stops is still there. We cannot imagine 'spacelessness' either, because everything we know happens in space. I too used to wonder what lay beyond the Universe...I thought it was logical that the Universe simply went on forever and may have been eternal, I actually thought the idea it had a beginning and an end was counter-intuitive.
The word 'Nothing", like 'weeds", is a relative term.
We tend to focus on specific persons, places or things and conclude nothing exists in between these 'destinations'.
'Nothing' is always assigned to a targeted random inatimate object or thought or is used as a substitute for missing information.
Nothing cannot exist without a partner and in other cases is a temporary place holder until further information repalces that which appeared to not exist.
This is all hurting my head. I started reading this thread because I have always had similar questions, but as it progressed, my eyes were beginning to cross. I agree with some here that " nothing" is just that until it is recognized as such, then, it becomes " something". But in that, there is a paradox. Nothing can't truly be nothing unless it isn't identified, or recognized as such. But, then, how would we know there is nothing, if we don't identify it? Oh boy, there goes that pain in my head again. I say we will never know the secrets of the universe until someone learns how to harness the power of dilithium crystals and we achieve warp drive. Maybe one day an Iowa farm boy will discover what we are seeking.
Nothing does exist. I'm talking scientifically/physically. Right now most of the universe consists of nothing; matter makes up only a tiny part of it.
The Big Bang is misunderstood. It does not describe the creation of the universe, but the creation of matter in the universe. The universe existed before the Big Bang. It was just more completely nothingness than afterward.
Now if you're talking spiritually/philosophically, we can not disprove the existence of God. Only without him would there truly be nothing. And I'm not arrogant enough to speak on this matter.
Quantum theory is a theory of mathematical probabilities. If quantum mechanics is responsible for all existence, then we, and everything, were part of an infinite array of possibilities in a probability matrix in which possible probability waves collapse. there could be, and probably are, an infinite number of probability waves which have collapsed and continue to collapse yielding multiple existences,mutil-verses, bubble universes, etc. do we really exist in a continuum of space-time, or does each probability wave collapse include all that we think we are part of, past, present, and future, all in one instant. time may not exist at all. it really gives one a headache thinking about this. It does to me..
Sealover, you touched on a subject that is near and dear to my heart, TIME, what is time, if time didn't not exist until the the expansion of the universe, did we interject this "time equation" because it made our math work? And if so, could our math be faulty? We try and come up with different math to explain things we don't understand, if we don't understand them we create more math to make it work.
Time is nothing more than a tool we use to mark change, change from day to day, month to month and eon to eon. So, like in your post, "time may not exist at all".
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