Before Creation: Nothing or Something

[sealchan]

When such questions arise, I almost instantly feel uncomfortable with all the "human" assumptions embedded therein. Assumptions which, imo, are really not valid or warranted.

For starters, in this specific context, what does "prior" mean?
As we currently understand physics and the universe, asking if there was something "before" the universe, is like asking about what is "north" of the north pole.

As far as we are aware, temporal conditions are a property of the universe. While our human minds that evolved as a macroscopic objects that only have to deal with sub-sound speeds and medium gravity, would logically assume that temporal conditions apply everywhere, we know for a fact that this is wrong.

In the presence of great gravity or approaching lightspeeds, temporal conditions take extremely counter intuitive turns. Time is literally part of the very fabric of the universe. While for the life of my I couldn't comprehend what it means to NOT have such temporal conditions in place, everything we know seems to point to exactly that: if you remove the universe, you also remove time just like you remove space.

Next: is "nothing" what is left when we remove the universe? I have no clue. What does "nothing" even mean in that context? Same problem. Everything that we would call "something" at this point is either existent IN the universe, or are integral parts of the universe. So all "something"s will be gone if we remove the universe.

Now, he universe came about somehow. I guess. What is the "universe incubator"? Is there such a thing? Is that "something"? What is "nothing"? Does it even make sense to ask the question?

These things make my head spin. For good reason.

In the words of Krauss: Our brains evolved to avoid being eaten by dangerous predators... not to understand quantum mechanics. Same principle applies here. Whatever kickstarted the universe, it's bound to be something that we won't be able to wrap our minds around. More then that, if we have valid ideas, chances are rather enormous that we won't have appropriate spoken language to communicate it. Likely we'll only be able to express it mathematically. And the math would be sound while at the same time the end model won't make (common) sense to anybody.


For that reason alone, I feel like every "deductive argument" we find in apologetics etc, like kalaam and what not, is doomed to failure even before it starts. Because it attempts to use mere spoken words to draw conclusions about things that no amount of words could accurately describe.

Even just saying "the universe was created" makes no logical sense in physics. Because "created" and "was" both are temporal in nature. Our very language falls short of addressing this problem.
So if we are ever going to solve this riddle - it most definatly won't be through semantic shenanigans.

My interest in this OP, which I intended but got lost (I blame only myself), was to explore whether the Universe is an open or closed system. This is different than discussing, as in recent posts, whether the Universe has an open topological expansion trajectory or not.

What I mean is whether the Universe is self-contained or whether it is an emergent layer of activity out of another layer just like atoms and their activity are emergent from sub-atomic particles.

I assume that particles, waves and their force fields are all components that in interaction form the space-time-matter-energy that we call the universe. Our Universe. It seems to me likely, if not easy to prove, that certain of our laws of quantum mechanics participate in a reality independent of our Universe. Otherwise we have difficulties with bootstrapping into self-created existence each and every law of physics when we go back in time to the BB.

So my belief is that it is more elegant to assume that outside of the Universe there is something and that something may be seen in certain aspects of our own Universe although we do not have the perspective from which to "prove" this. However, we do have the repeated experience of the complex, adaptive systems-layers in our own Universe to suggest that it is in a deep way like an ever-opening flower with petals of emergent phenomenon ever emerging out from a "lower" layer. Our own human consciousness and the transformations of the physical world that this consciousness is effecting is one example.

And perhaps most importantly each layer of emergent phenomenon not only arises from the lower layer but feeds back into it. So the two layers are not closed from each other but open and in dynamic interaction. Why not, then, the foundations of our Universe?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I did it again ! Got my response in the quote. Sorry

You can edit posts, you know

 

[sealchan]

Before-after, inside-outside...these are metaphors based on our bodily experience of the Universe and we are trying to apply them to the Universe as a whole. This may be inadequate but it is also necessary. This, to me, expresses one of the boundaries of human understanding...inescapable, inadequate.

 

[shmogie]

And as i said, it is unknown, you admit yourself that it is unknown, yet you make statements of knowledge.

The rebounding universe was seen as old stuff 30 or 40 years ago because there was no maths and no evidence to back it up. Modern hypothesis do have maths and observations to back them up.

Wrong. Polymath was discussing modern understanding, not history

Well done

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you like to argue and find bogus points to use to attack an individual.

I will try by being simplistic for you, to respond to your criticism.

When discussing a hypothesis, from within the hypothesis, it says what it says. That is no claim of absolute knowledge, it is a claim of what the hypothesis says will happen.

I am sorry, but your implication that I am outdated in modern cosmological thought is dead wrong. Whee I pointed out Polymath as being wrong I was dead right according to modern cosmology. If you think he was right, you are dead wrong too.

I asked you before those 28 proposals you said existed, could you please share them ?

I am not going to be sucked in to one of your arguments based upon your throwing stuff at a wall hoping it will stick.

If we disagree we disagree. No snide innuendo.

 

[shmogie]

You can edit posts, you know

Yeah I know. I still don know how to post links, computereeze can be tough on us who are geezers.

 

[gnostic]

By spiritual reality I was reaching for a term that would be accepted by both believers and non-believers. If I recall correctly, the great scholar of the world's religions, Huston Smith, once wrote that the one thing in common with all religions was the notion of another reality in which one must invest one's self. This could include the Kingdom of Heaven, God's Will, any sense of a realm of gods or spiritual powers beyond the mundane.

I don’t see the natural world being mundane.

Nature and its reality are something that can be beautiful or ugly, safe and dangerous, but always awe-inspiring.

The spiritual reality is based on be belief, faith and illusion, at its extreme end, delusion.

So really, “spiritual” have very little to do with “reality”.

Associating the word “spiritual” with “reality”, looks more like oxymoron.

 

[ChristineM]

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you like to argue and find bogus points to use to attack an individual.

I will try by being simplistic for you, to respond to your criticism.

When discussing a hypothesis, from within the hypothesis, it says what it says. That is no claim of absolute knowledge, it is a claim of what the hypothesis says will happen.

I am sorry, but your implication that I am outdated in modern cosmological thought is dead wrong. Whee I pointed out Polymath as being wrong I was dead right according to modern cosmology. If you think he was right, you are dead wrong too.

I asked you before those 28 proposals you said existed, could you please share them ?

I am not going to be sucked in to one of your arguments based upon your throwing stuff at a wall hoping it will stick.

If we disagree we disagree. No snide innuendo.

Of course you cant be wrong Poly only studies this stuff for fun and i have worked with some of the most eminent cosmologists to visualise their work so whatever your delusions tell you.

I am not listing them all, google is a fine tool but here are a few

Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing

The birth of the universe in a new G-Theory approach

Birth of the Universe from the Multiversei

Origin of the universe: A hint from Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity


And a very happy birthday to you.

 

[sealchan]

I don’t see the natural world being mundane.

Nature and its reality are something that can be beautiful or ugly, safe and dangerous, but always awe-inspiring.

The spiritual reality is based on be belief, faith and illusion, at its extreme end, delusion.

So really, “spiritual” have very little to do with “reality”.

Associating the word “spiritual” with “reality”, looks more like oxymoron.

Perhaps my inclusion of spiritual matters was also a distraction in this thread. I personally see everything as rooted in the physical but I do find it necessary to discuss such things as social, psychological and even spiritual as a sort of layer of physical activity which only indirectly references physical laws.

I also see "spiritual" as pertaining to the perceptions of human intuition as opposed to the practical perceptions of the senses. The human brain abstracts our world into perceptions which are not directly tied to sensory reality. Perhaps one really low level example of this is human color perception. Color is not so much a property of the electromagnetic radiation as it is the creation of perceived qualities by virtue of how the brain parses the electromagnetic radiation. I see in this a dichotomy for how sensation and intuition are complimentary pairs of neurally based perception.

 

[shmogie]

Of course you cant be wrong Poly only studies this stuff for fun and i have worked with some of the most eminent cosmologists to visualise their work so whatever your delusions tell you.

I am not listing them all, google is a fine tool but here are a few

Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing

The birth of the universe in a new G-Theory approach

Birth of the Universe from the Multiversei

Origin of the universe: A hint from Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity


And a very happy birthday to you.

Thank you !

 

[sealchan]

Of course you cant be wrong Poly only studies this stuff for fun and i have worked with some of the most eminent cosmologists to visualise their work so whatever your delusions tell you.

I am not listing them all, google is a fine tool but here are a few

Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing

The birth of the universe in a new G-Theory approach

Birth of the Universe from the Multiversei

Origin of the universe: A hint from Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity


And a very happy birthday to you.

I was looking at the first abstract:

Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing

Dongshan He, Dongfeng Gao, Qing-yu Cai
(Submitted on 4 Apr 2014)
An interesting idea is that the universe could be spontaneously created from nothing, but no rigorous proof has been given. In this paper, we present such a proof based on the analytic solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation (WDWE). Explicit solutions of the WDWE for the special operator ordering factor p=-2 (or 4) show that, once a small true vacuum bubble is created by quantum fluctuations of the metastable false vacuum, it can expand exponentially no matter whether the bubble is closed, flat or open. The exponential expansion will end when the bubble becomes large and thus the early universe appears. With the de Broglie-Bohm quantum trajectory theory, we show explicitly that it is the quantum potential that plays the role of the cosmological constant and provides the power for the exponential expansion of the true vacuum bubble. So it is clear that the birth of the early universe completely depends on the quantum nature of the theory.

To me this seems to suggest that quantum laws exist independently of the process of Universe formation. This would suggest some kind of quantum something that exists independently of the Universe. I know that David Bohm was a fan of examining the Universe as arising out of an "implicate order" which gives us a way of thinking of the Universe as expressed in explicate order but imbedded in a "greater" implicate order which the Universe is a part of.

 

[sealchan]

Of course you cant be wrong Poly only studies this stuff for fun and i have worked with some of the most eminent cosmologists to visualise their work so whatever your delusions tell you.

I am not listing them all, google is a fine tool but here are a few

Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing

The birth of the universe in a new G-Theory approach

Birth of the Universe from the Multiversei

Origin of the universe: A hint from Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity


And a very happy birthday to you.

Also, how do you explain the titles of these papers when they use the words "spontaneous creation", "birth" and "origin" when these theories all need to consider the creation of time itself?

I have argued above that we must use this sort of language because our human cognition requires it. But fans of cosmology know that this language is meant to point us at the topic if improperly describe it. There is no way around it!

 

[shmogie]

Thank you !

Your cites are interesting. Some of the ideas I am familiar with.

I have discussed brane theory and itś variations.

I have read critiques of polymaths ideas, and based on those, I think the idea is wrong.

I am no authority, I have just read a lot on cosmology over the years because it interests me.

 

[ChristineM]

Also, how do you explain the titles of these papers when they use the words "spontaneous creation", "birth" and "origin" when these theories all need to consider the creation of time itself?

I have argued above that we must use this sort of language because our human cognition requires it. But fans of cosmology know that this language is meant to point us at the topic if improperly describe it. There is no way around it!

The way i see it is we simply dont know, even the laws that govern this universe were unformed at t<=0.

 

[shmogie]

I was looking at the first abstract:



To me this seems to suggest that quantum laws exist independently of the process of Universe formation. This would suggest some kind of quantum something that exists independently of the Universe. I know that David Bohm was a fan of examining the Universe as arising out of an "implicate order" which gives us a way of thinking of the Universe as expressed in explicate order but imbedded in a "greater" implicate order which the Universe is a part of.

If your extrapolation is correct, then to my mind no law of physics can be said to exist outside or independent of the known universe. Am I wrong ?

 

[ChristineM]

Your cites are interesting. Some of the ideas I am familiar with.

I have discussed brane theory and itś variations.

I have read critiques of polymaths ideas, and based on those, I think the idea is wrong.

I am no authority, I have just read a lot on cosmology over the years because it interests me.

Me too, one of my pastimes is to try to understand more, while i have been on this quest knowledge has progressed from understanding of after 10e-34 of a second after bb to 10e-43 of a second after.

I particularly favour Dr Mersini-Houghtons take because it has the advantage of explaining some of the previously unexplained phenomena observed in our universe.

But, like all the others, its a hypothesis

 

[sealchan]

The way i see it is we simply dont know, even the laws that govern this universe were unformed at t<=0.

I wouldn't argue that we know as a matter of experimental proof but our mathematical theories seem to be giving us a window on a multi-Universal perspective. So in that sense we have a physics that is entertaining a reality outside of our own personal Universe.

 

[ChristineM]

I was looking at the first abstract:



To me this seems to suggest that quantum laws exist independently of the process of Universe formation. This would suggest some kind of quantum something that exists independently of the Universe. I know that David Bohm was a fan of examining the Universe as arising out of an "implicate order" which gives us a way of thinking of the Universe as expressed in explicate order but imbedded in a "greater" implicate order which the Universe is a part of.

It is a possibility that at the quantum level, something has existed for ever. There are several multiverse theories, how these formed is the poser.

 

[sealchan]

If your extrapolation is correct, then to my mind no law of physics can be said to exist outside or independent of the known universe. Am I wrong ?

We can't know through direct experience, but our mathematical theories reach out far beyond our direct experience and seem to be telling us that there is something outside of our local Universe.

 

[ChristineM]

I wouldn't argue that we know as a matter of experimental proof but our mathematical theories seem to be giving us a window on a multi-Universal perspective. So in that sense we have a physics that is entertaining a reality outside of our own personal Universe.

I would agree that some hypothesis entertain the multiverse idea

 

[sealchan]

It is a possibility that at the quantum level, something has existed for ever. There are several multiverse theories, how these formed is the poser.

Right and through mathematical theory we are thinking about the qualities of this something. We do not have to concern ourselves over the time qualities of this something just this somethings apparent physical qualities.

that is why I think of the Planck length as a kind of "edge" of the Universe. At this scale a lot of the physical laws cannot be applied.

Now to make things even more interesting, I suspect that the Planck length is both a quality that is true beyond this Universe but also it may be partially defined by this particular Universe. As such it reflects qualities of both this local Universe and whatsoever is the ground beyond this Universe.

That is more than we can know, perhaps, through experimentation. But it is par for the course when you look at things like atoms which are both a product of sub-atomic particles and are also not fully predictable as outcomes of sub-atomic particles alone without additional environmental (and hence local universe historical) considerations.