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Pure nothingness has no potential for creation. The laws of physics don't invent themselves, so it would seem that true "nothing" never existed. I'm not talki

Pure nothingness has no potential for creation. The laws of physics don't invent themselves, so it would seem that true "nothing" never existed. I'm not talking about the quantum soup of the vacuum of space, because that is something. If we take Hawking's idea that the universe smoothed out to a zero point where there was no time and nothing else, how does that point because laws of physics, gravity, etc? What properties of a zero point (that had no properties) cause it to create an inflationary universe? Everything breaks down at that point, because trying to use mathematics or physics to explain something that existed before mathematics and physics doesn't work.

newsoul2019 7y ago
Is there a theory that the beginning and the ending of the universe are directly connected to each other? And that time doesn't so much start over and return to the starting point on a circle, so to speak?
- heimdall 7y ago
  The Big Bounce! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bounce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bounce To me it's more satisfying than the idea of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe
  - selestify 7y ago
    I once heard of the hypothesis that once the last proton decays, the universe will once more be completely uniform in every way. With nothing to distinguish any part of the universe from any other part, space becomes meaningless and the universe has once more entered a state of nothingness much like how it was "before" the Big Bang. So, in a sense, the heat death is not so different from the big bounce. Unfortunately I did not bother to bookmark what I had read, and can no longer find a name or anything referring to it on the internet.
    - marton78 7y ago
      You and your parent should definitely read Asimov's short story "The last question", if you haven't yet. Just Google for it.
      - mehrdadn 7y ago
        "You and your parent" definitely confused me for a second!
    - aoner 7y ago
      There is a great mini documentary made that tries to answer this question https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA
- philipov 7y ago
  Roger Penrose believes in a model he calls Conformal Cyclic Cosmology. He doesn't believe in Cosmic Inflation, and instead proposes that the accelerating expansion of our present universe forms the inflationary period of the next universe. He gets around the second law of thermodynamics by saying that the difference between the two universes is a redefinition of entropy. The mapping between the two different definitions of entropy makes our maximal entropy state look like a minimal entropy state in the new universe.
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Koshkin 7y ago
> Pure nothingness has no potential for creation In mathematics, at least, this is not true. For example, a set consisting of the empty set is not empty.
- bobthechef 7y ago
  You're confusing formalism with metaphysics. Emptiness isn't nothingness. Emptiness presupposes something that is empty of something expected to fill it, the absence of something not the total absence of anything. Absolute nothingness isn't empty because there's nothing that can be empty. Nothingness is not a something, but people here seem to be reifying the notion.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    Because you can't get rid of the potential to reify.
- brankoB 7y ago
  "Pure nothingness" would be the empty set, not a set with something in it.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    Yes, that's their point. Pure nothingness, the empty set, has the potential to create the set containing the empty set, and then the set containing that, sets containing combinations, etc etc.
    - brankoB 7y ago
      How does the empty set "create" the set containing the empty set?
      - Dylan16807 7y ago
        By being the contents that make that set exist.
tmountain 7y ago
This reminded me of a pretty good (and robust) debate with some of the world's leading physicists regarding the existence of and quantification of nothing. 2013 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: The Existence of Nothing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OLz6uUuMp8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OLz6uUuMp8
nxpnsv 7y ago
There was no "before" as time itself was created with the universe.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  How was time created, time means changing state, without time there is no change. So in order for a change to happen in the existence of time you'd need a further time dimension; then you're just shifting the problem up the stack. Creation of time requires a meta-universe of some sort. Though perhaps there's some other way to conceive time not existing further back than a given point that works around creation being something that's done within a temporal dimension.
  - nxpnsv 7y ago
    It is no different from the question how any other dimension suddenly existed. Time and space are connected.
  - contravariant 7y ago
    Although in that case, barring any meta-universe to provide a defintion of time beyond time, time must simply be. Or not be, but I think we can rule that one out.
- wavefunction 7y ago
  I have wondered in the past if "time" has varied over the existence of the Universe, like if the first 100,000,000 years relative to our own reckoning was actually more like 100 billion years as time is elastic and changed over some other higher-dimensional axis. Just a musing by a speculator
mabbo 7y ago
The problem in your argument is the word 'become'. To 'become', something has to not be so and then later be so- with 'later' implying time on both sides. Hawking's argument is that there is no time on the other side. My interpretation is that the energy of the universe exists in time and space, evolving across the dimension of time. But it has an edge called 'the beginning'. That's the shape of the beast- a defined edge that we cannot reason outside of. Edit: At least, I presume your 'because' was meant to be 'become'.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > My interpretation is that the energy of the universe exists in time and space, evolving across the dimension of time. But it has an edge called 'the beginning'. Actually, Hawking's proposal was that there is no "edge". In his proposal, the 4-D spacetime of the universe has no boundary, just as the 2-D surface of the Earth has no boundary. What we call the "beginning" of the universe is more like the South Pole of the Earth: we pick it out of all the other points because of a particular property we're interested in, but it's not an "edge" any more than any other point is. (Note that this analogy, which Hawking used, is referred to in the article.)
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
    Is the hypothesis still that the limit as time goes to zero still exists as a part of our universe? In your analogy, is the south pole still a point contained on earth or is it just a point you can get arbitrarily close to?
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > the limit as time goes to zero There is no "time" at the "South Pole" point of the universe, or sufficiently close to it. The spacetime geometry in Hawking's model is purely spacelike in that region, not split up into "space" and "time" parts the way it is now. (As I understand the model, the boundary of the "spacelike" region" is at the beginning of inflation.) > is the south pole still a point contained on earth or is it just a point you can get arbitrarily close to? It's still contained.
naringas 7y ago
> Pure nothingness has no potential for creation. I disagree, pure nothingness has the largest potential for creation because by virtue of not being there (nor anywhere) it doesn't prevent anything at all from creating itself. if this sounds strange is because the concept of nothingness is strange. rather than asking why is there nothing rather than something, I marvel at how we can conceptualize 'nothingness' in such a way that we can even think of these kinds of questions
- bobthechef 7y ago
  You're misunderstanding potential. Potential cannot exist of its own accord. It is secondary to something already actual and only then can it be actualized. If in the beginning there was truly nothing, and I mean also the absence of any cause that could make things exist, then there is not only nothing to actualize anything since only actual things can actualize, but not even the potential to be actualized. So no, absolute nothing can not produce nothing and can never yield anything not even in principle.
  - philipov 7y ago
    You're speaking in tautologies. If you define "Nothingness" as "That which is unable to produce anything" and use that to conclude that it is not possible for there to be nothing at the start of the universe, you are begging the question. Your axioms trivially contain your conclusion, but why should we accept those axioms?
    - tuesdayrain 7y ago
      As a layman when it comes to physics, I've always had the impression that the nature of existence must be tautological. If the logic doesn't form a circle, then any attempt to explain the cause and effect sequence that resulted in our universe can always be met with a "well why did the first step occur"?
      - philipov 7y ago
        Logic is a human invention. The universe doesn't owe you the ability to explain the entire chain of cause and effect. Not being able to prove your axioms is what differentiates science from religion.
pdonis 7y ago
> What properties of a zero point (that had no properties) cause it to create an inflationary universe? In Hawking's proposed model, there is no "creation". The 4-D spacetime of the universe just is; it's a 4-dimensional geometric object with no boundary. See my response to mabbo downthread.
ttsda 7y ago
>Everything breaks down at that point, because trying to use mathematics or physics to explain something that existed before mathematics and physics doesn't work. What is the meaning of this paragraph? Mathematics are not dependent on the existence of any particular universe
deleted 7y ago
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newsoul2019 7y ago

Is there a theory that the beginning and the ending of the universe are directly connected to each other? And that time doesn't so much start over and return to the starting point on a circle, so to speak?

heimdall 7y ago
The Big Bounce! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bounce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bounce To me it's more satisfying than the idea of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe
- selestify 7y ago
  I once heard of the hypothesis that once the last proton decays, the universe will once more be completely uniform in every way. With nothing to distinguish any part of the universe from any other part, space becomes meaningless and the universe has once more entered a state of nothingness much like how it was "before" the Big Bang. So, in a sense, the heat death is not so different from the big bounce. Unfortunately I did not bother to bookmark what I had read, and can no longer find a name or anything referring to it on the internet.
  - marton78 7y ago
    You and your parent should definitely read Asimov's short story "The last question", if you haven't yet. Just Google for it.
    - mehrdadn 7y ago
      "You and your parent" definitely confused me for a second!
  - aoner 7y ago
    There is a great mini documentary made that tries to answer this question https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA
philipov 7y ago
Roger Penrose believes in a model he calls Conformal Cyclic Cosmology. He doesn't believe in Cosmic Inflation, and instead proposes that the accelerating expansion of our present universe forms the inflationary period of the next universe. He gets around the second law of thermodynamics by saying that the difference between the two universes is a redefinition of entropy. The mapping between the two different definitions of entropy makes our maximal entropy state look like a minimal entropy state in the new universe.

deleted 7y ago

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Koshkin 7y ago

> Pure nothingness has no potential for creation In mathematics, at least, this is not true. For example, a set consisting of the empty set is not empty.

bobthechef 7y ago
You're confusing formalism with metaphysics. Emptiness isn't nothingness. Emptiness presupposes something that is empty of something expected to fill it, the absence of something not the total absence of anything. Absolute nothingness isn't empty because there's nothing that can be empty. Nothingness is not a something, but people here seem to be reifying the notion.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  Because you can't get rid of the potential to reify.
brankoB 7y ago
"Pure nothingness" would be the empty set, not a set with something in it.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  Yes, that's their point. Pure nothingness, the empty set, has the potential to create the set containing the empty set, and then the set containing that, sets containing combinations, etc etc.
  - brankoB 7y ago
    How does the empty set "create" the set containing the empty set?
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      By being the contents that make that set exist.

tmountain 7y ago

This reminded me of a pretty good (and robust) debate with some of the world's leading physicists regarding the existence of and quantification of nothing. 2013 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: The Existence of Nothing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OLz6uUuMp8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OLz6uUuMp8

nxpnsv 7y ago

There was no "before" as time itself was created with the universe.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
How was time created, time means changing state, without time there is no change. So in order for a change to happen in the existence of time you'd need a further time dimension; then you're just shifting the problem up the stack. Creation of time requires a meta-universe of some sort. Though perhaps there's some other way to conceive time not existing further back than a given point that works around creation being something that's done within a temporal dimension.
- nxpnsv 7y ago
  It is no different from the question how any other dimension suddenly existed. Time and space are connected.
- contravariant 7y ago
  Although in that case, barring any meta-universe to provide a defintion of time beyond time, time must simply be. Or not be, but I think we can rule that one out.
wavefunction 7y ago
I have wondered in the past if "time" has varied over the existence of the Universe, like if the first 100,000,000 years relative to our own reckoning was actually more like 100 billion years as time is elastic and changed over some other higher-dimensional axis. Just a musing by a speculator

mabbo 7y ago

The problem in your argument is the word 'become'. To 'become', something has to not be so and then later be so- with 'later' implying time on both sides. Hawking's argument is that there is no time on the other side. My interpretation is that the energy of the universe exists in time and space, evolving across the dimension of time. But it has an edge called 'the beginning'. That's the shape of the beast- a defined edge that we cannot reason outside of. Edit: At least, I presume your 'because' was meant to be 'become'.

pdonis 7y ago
> My interpretation is that the energy of the universe exists in time and space, evolving across the dimension of time. But it has an edge called 'the beginning'. Actually, Hawking's proposal was that there is no "edge". In his proposal, the 4-D spacetime of the universe has no boundary, just as the 2-D surface of the Earth has no boundary. What we call the "beginning" of the universe is more like the South Pole of the Earth: we pick it out of all the other points because of a particular property we're interested in, but it's not an "edge" any more than any other point is. (Note that this analogy, which Hawking used, is referred to in the article.)
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
  Is the hypothesis still that the limit as time goes to zero still exists as a part of our universe? In your analogy, is the south pole still a point contained on earth or is it just a point you can get arbitrarily close to?
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > the limit as time goes to zero There is no "time" at the "South Pole" point of the universe, or sufficiently close to it. The spacetime geometry in Hawking's model is purely spacelike in that region, not split up into "space" and "time" parts the way it is now. (As I understand the model, the boundary of the "spacelike" region" is at the beginning of inflation.) > is the south pole still a point contained on earth or is it just a point you can get arbitrarily close to? It's still contained.

naringas 7y ago

> Pure nothingness has no potential for creation. I disagree, pure nothingness has the largest potential for creation because by virtue of not being there (nor anywhere) it doesn't prevent anything at all from creating itself. if this sounds strange is because the concept of nothingness is strange. rather than asking why is there nothing rather than something, I marvel at how we can conceptualize 'nothingness' in such a way that we can even think of these kinds of questions

bobthechef 7y ago
You're misunderstanding potential. Potential cannot exist of its own accord. It is secondary to something already actual and only then can it be actualized. If in the beginning there was truly nothing, and I mean also the absence of any cause that could make things exist, then there is not only nothing to actualize anything since only actual things can actualize, but not even the potential to be actualized. So no, absolute nothing can not produce nothing and can never yield anything not even in principle.
- philipov 7y ago
  You're speaking in tautologies. If you define "Nothingness" as "That which is unable to produce anything" and use that to conclude that it is not possible for there to be nothing at the start of the universe, you are begging the question. Your axioms trivially contain your conclusion, but why should we accept those axioms?
  - tuesdayrain 7y ago
    As a layman when it comes to physics, I've always had the impression that the nature of existence must be tautological. If the logic doesn't form a circle, then any attempt to explain the cause and effect sequence that resulted in our universe can always be met with a "well why did the first step occur"?
    - philipov 7y ago
      Logic is a human invention. The universe doesn't owe you the ability to explain the entire chain of cause and effect. Not being able to prove your axioms is what differentiates science from religion.

pdonis 7y ago

> What properties of a zero point (that had no properties) cause it to create an inflationary universe? In Hawking's proposed model, there is no "creation". The 4-D spacetime of the universe just is; it's a 4-dimensional geometric object with no boundary. See my response to mabbo downthread.

ttsda 7y ago

>Everything breaks down at that point, because trying to use mathematics or physics to explain something that existed before mathematics and physics doesn't work. What is the meaning of this paragraph? Mathematics are not dependent on the existence of any particular universe

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]