Something from Nothing

[Metryq]

Re: Bang the Branes together...

That's why some of the extra dimensions/multiple universes theories have always seemed like a cop-out to me. If there really is absolutely no way to detect or perceive something, then for all intensive purposes it doesn't exist.

Foghorn Leghorn in Little Boy Boo: "I better not look. I just might be in there."

Chrispenycate wrote: as Heinlein mentioned in “The number of the beast” a mathematician can write an equation describing anything...but just because it was mathematically consistent didn’t mean it had any relationship with “reality”

Bingo. Math is merely a language, not a gateway to "truth" or Platonic reality. It cannot "prove" anything. If a mathematical model does not dovetail with reality, then it is the model that must be changed.

Physics Has Its Principles

Creation ex nihilo is forbidden in physics because it requires a miracle. Everything that exists comes from something that existed before, that has grown, or fragmented, or changed form.

And while people are tripping out on the same bong the theoretical physicists are smoking, the wild and exotic anti-matter (responsible for evil twins and particles that travel backward in time) is spawned in mundane, everyday lightning storms:

Thunderstorms on Earth Hurl Antimatter Into Space

"Just a year or so ago, it wasn't at all obvious that something like this should happen," Dwyer said.

 

[RJM Corbet]

Good stuff. Let's hope Obama doesn't reduce NASA's funds ...

 

[Metryq]

Good stuff. Let's hope Obama doesn't reduce NASA's funds ...

It wouldn't matter. Their primary objectives now are the useless task of landing people on an asteroid (minor planet/small Solar system body), and making Muslims feel good about themselves. Forget the science.

Anyway, private companies like SpaceX will be stepping in to supply NASA with vehicles after the shuttle fleet is retired.

 

[Interference]

Perceiving something and proving to someone else that you have perceived it can be tricky. Paranormal events are unprovable because so many of them are personal, some extremely so. And I use "proof", in this case, in both its ancient and current senses.

I think there are many through the ages who are adamant that they have experience of other realities, but these can never be explored with science. However, mystics and philosophers have explored them, but not to the satisfaction of mundane science.

However however, science seems (at last) to be catching up - finally

 

[RJM Corbet]

Yah, that's the point -- and the problem is that when someone like Buzz Aldrin sees a 'UFO' (for want of a better word), following the Apollo on its way to the moon -- he doesn't dare report it because he knows that the lunatic fringe and a whole lot of silly new agey types, are going to grab it, fondle it up all spiritually spiritually, and make him look ridiculous...

 

[Interference]

Have the last twenty years of science fiction and super-hero films been a preparation for us? Are we being readied for acceptance of the Ultra Strange?

Bring it on, I say

 

[Ursa major]

Now if you could just define what beyond strange means....

 

[Interference]

Something so strange that even the strangest strangeness you could ever suspect of being strangely strange isn't strange enough to describe the strangitude of the stranger-than-that before you.


Hope that clarifies

 

[Ursa major]

Strangely, no.... Not at bottom.


(And to top it all, and when it comes down to it: if you'd used more charm, you'd have upped your chance of success.)

 

[Interference]

Now you're jus' stringin' us along ....

 

[Nik]

Back on topic, sort-of, there was an interesting news item recently that, if I understood it, suggested that anti-matter and normal matter might be gravitationally repellent...

Given the low masses involved, this would not affect individual collisions and annihilation reactions, but would tend to push supra-galactic-scale matter and anti-matter apart...

What this does to Higgs Fields etc boggles the imagination...

 

[Interference]

Presumably the improved theory pushes the place-holder theory out of the way completely.

 

[Ursa major]

If the separation was already underway as Inflation** took over, could this explain why our universe, i.e. the observable (part of the) universe, is mostly matter? (And that its antimatter counterpart is somewhere in the unobservable (part of the) universe.)







** - This is not to be taken as meaning I accept that Inflation did occur. Inflation (with its Inflaton Field) sounds like another shoehorned explanation for something that we cannot currently explain by more plausible means.)

 

[Luc Valentine]

The question is more properly within the realm of metaphysics than physics, methinks. Generally, we think of "something" as existence and of "nothing" as nonexistence. This nonexistant state is far more than a simple vacuum, it is the preclusion of even the possibility of existence within or apart from a given existant state.

Consider the binary pair 0 and 1. Information theorists conjecture that from these two "states" alone, a virtual (or real for that matter) infinity of existant states can be constructed. Rephrased, the question is, Where did 1 come from? But one may as well ask where did 0 come from? Each is dependent upon the other for its definition.

Now consider this:

monality: the "existence" of an extant state or states. A uniform universe in which the only existent state is 1.

duality: the simultaneous (or extant) existence of 2 states of being.

plurality: the simultaneous (or extant) existence of more than 2 states of being.

In a strictly dualistic system, the universe (or existence) is like the binary system, with two states of being and "everything" is some combination of the two states. In a pluralistic system, higher levels of existence (or at least different levels) come into being without the dual foundation. For example, 0 and 1 is one state, 0 and 1prime is another state, 0 and 2 is yet another (leaving aside the question, where did 2 come from).

Now as to perception of existence. This requires either a dualistic reality or a monistic reality capable of subjecting itself to observation. Or a pluralistic existence.

The key to "existence" within the confines of this thinking is some differentiation, even if it is the monad as differentiated considering itself as the differential. The subject considering itself as the object. Regardless, there are (at least) two separate and identifiable states.

Now say, for the sake of argument, the "nothing" does not exist, that all is "something". It need not even be homogenous. Then the creation of nothingness causes the being/nonbeing duality to come about. I submit that to ask, "Can something come from nothing?" is the same, metaphysically speaking, as to ask, "Can nothing come from something?"

So if we can define "existence" or equate zero with infinity, we'll have our answer. But here, I veer off topic.

 

[Interference]

If nothing is the point from which this thread originated, then any post is something and thus on-topic. Q.E.D.

 

[Metryq]

If one has three and two has three, three has five and four has four, then thirteen will have eight!

 

[Interference]

I think four has twelve, but otherwise I concur.

 

[Luc Valentine]

There are at least two states or we wouldn't be having this pleasant conversation. Unless we're all part of a monad, which theory I don't dismiss.

 

[Metryq]

Int, that's a BS piece I keep tucked away when I want to confuse people. It's the number of letters in each word. Read it again. (One has three...) By adding "if/then" and "therefore" they go crazy trying to figure it out.

 

[Interference]

Ah, I got my BS mixed up with my Codology.