How can something come from nothing?

Excellent, JL!

You're supposed to beam with self-satisfaction JLN when Apisa marks his own exam paper by proxy.

I know it's a mystery and will forever remain one. I can't imagine a mystery that isn't wrapped in another mystery. {i]Ad infinitum[/i].

Just a second, you are all talking about that Big Bang as if you know for sure it has happened at all. WHAT IF it is not the Big Bang that is explaining the red shift in the light spectrum, but it is some blue shift resulting from the shrinking of the elementary particles, as some physical theories claim recently.
BTW the Big Bang is our least problem. We don't know a lot of other things in-between. Take for example the favourite mantra of the physicists that 'Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen & Nitrogen can be found everywhere in the Universe'.
I am not at a level to assess whether this is a serious scientific statement or some casual scientific talk thrown up into the air for amusement of the population, but let's assume it is a serious statement. In this case 'at the edge of the Universe', where the Big Bang is operating right now It should be able not only to create 3D space out of the 0D 'gravitational continuum', but also all that Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen & Nitrogen (that are supposed to be found everywhere) ... out of the no-matter particles ... or whatever the theory might claim there.
It would be curious to see how Carbon for example will be made out of the no-matter particles ... not to say that the making of the very matter particles (17 elementary particles) out of the no-matter particles (1 type) is not entirely to be missed.

Of course he can't be certain, science (or anything for that matter) doesn't deal in certainties. That said, it's theory best we've got at the moment. If the future evidence supports an alternative hypothesis, then he's free to change his beliefs accordingly.

On OP's 'How can something come from nothing?', we need to first decipher what is meant by 'nothing'. Lack of context leads to confusion:

A jam tart is greater than nothing.
Nothing is greater than eternal happiness.
Therefore, a jam tart is greater than eternal happiness.

So in order to progress this discussion, OP must first give a coherent account of what nothing he's actually talking about.

I don't know. Perhaps here it means 'something that is nonexistent' ... for it hardly means 'the highest value possible'.
In the case of the Big Bang Nothing (in terms of Space & Time) is 'space that is nonexistent and has no time ... yet'. For math convenience it may be designated as 0D space.
Just don't ask me if something does not have Time, what does 'before that' is supposed to mean.

It's not possible for me to conceive of something without time. Being and time are two sides of a single....

Steven Hawking seems to be backpedaling on a few things...re-thinking some notions that had their day in the sun.

If the UNIVERSE is actually a multiverse...it certainly is possible that time and space (our time and space) did not just come into existence with the Big Bang. Maybe it didn't start with "a special kind of" nothing. Of course, that will just push the ultimate question back one notch.

Amazing how complicated REALITY can be...even just in contemplation of it.

You say that reality is complicated EVEN just in contemplation of it. I like to entertain the notion that reality is inherently simple (this is the feeling one has in medication) but its contemplation is what is complicated.
As I recall, the psychologist-philosopher William James once referred to someone's (maybe his) morning experience upon leaving his house to go to work as a simple gestalt of aromas, temperature, moisture, colors, etc. etc , but that later it was extremely difficult to reproduce/describe (or grasp?) its complexity in terms of words.

Contemplation of REALITY is complex, JL.

If you (or James) want to think that REALITY is less than complex...that is your right...and who knows, you may be right.

My personal guess is that it is far from "inherently simple."

By Def.: 'Time is a dimension and measure in which events can be ordered from the past through the present into the future, and also the measure of duration of events and the intervals between them'.
The time could be objective and existing outside of the thing ... for the sake of the para space or the parallel space, or whatever there it might be.
Thus for example the time for our solar system has not existed before its date of birth - 4.6 Bya, but this does not mean that Time has not existed at all. The theorists of the Big Bang claim that the Universe existed before that 4.6 Bya (for it is at the age of 13.8 BN), notwithstanding they don't know what has been right here before that.
So far there are reasonable arguments (no matter whether physical evidences or logical inferences or plausible theoretical assumptions) that there has been something existing outside of the Universe, the Time should have existed as well.

Frank, I'm suggesting that experience- -the concrete immediate experience of life-is simple or non-problematical until we attempt to analyze it. Then it becomes an abstract mediate complex problem by definition.
Thank you for forcing me to refine my initial position.

This is not the reality, sooner it is our understanding of the reality. It is a representation, a map. In the same way in which the road map (no matter whether digital or a paper printout) is not the road, in the very same way our perception and understanding of the world is not the world - it is a representation of the world ... for personal use only.

And I agree with that part completely.


My comment was directed toward REALITY...not experience of life. I am not sure that "experience of life" is REALITY.

REALITY...and "human ability to understand and describe REALITY" has always been a bugaboo in our conversations.



Just wanted to be sure we are on the same page, JL. I'm a lot closer to your way of thinking than you sometimes suppose. I just wanted to be sure we were not mistaking the "subject" re: REALITY and experiencing what we call reality.

Did you actually mean the word "medication" in that earlier post? Or was that what I suppose it to have been, "meditation?"

Wouldn't it be necessary to have mental capacities needing to be cared for in order to avoid analyzing experience.

Any attempt by a normal person to deliberately avoid analyzing experience not only couldn't work but implies that experience has been analyzed in order to think of trying it.

Anybody who need Apisa to refine his thinking has a long road before him.

I at one time pondered Einstein’s theory of relativity and whether it might prove the existence of God. My least favorite subject in school was physics and so I didn’t ponder it too hard. Back then the theory of relativity was such a new concept even my teachers didn’t really quite understand it to be able to explain to us how it worked. The theory was presented to me as an explanation for everything in the universe.
E=mc2
“In E = mc2 Einstein concluded that mass (m) and kinetic energy (E) are equal, since the speed of light (c2) is constant. In other words, mass can be changed into energy, and energy can be changed into mass. The former process is demonstrated by the production of nuclear energy—particles are smashed and their energy is captured. The latter process, the conversion of energy into mass, is demonstrated by the process of particle acceleration, in which low-mass particles zipping through a device collide to form larger particles.” http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2010/09/e-mc2-the-unforgettable-equation-of-einsteins-miracle-year-picture-essay-of-the-day/
Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. An equal sign works both ways. So all mass in the universe then could be reduced to energy? Everything came from energy? So what exactly was this source of energy, this big E? God? We know there’s some pretty powerful energy out there. Take the smallest particle in the universe, an atom, split it and BOOM. Now imagine all of the atoms that there are in the world. That’s a pretty powerful lot of energy.
When I finally looked up Einstein’s theory I saw that it didn’t appear to be intended as an explanation for everything and that it had even been disproven on one occasion. So, okay. (Yawn, physics is not all that exciting to me.) maybe everything doesn’t come from some big source of energy, but then again maybe it does. Something for me to ponder.
Rom 11:36 “For of him and through him and to him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”

I'm inclined to think that C squared is just a symbol for a very large number which looked easy to understand when written on a blackboard.

The smallest particles in the Universe are not the atoms, but rather the photons, gravitons and gluons ... that are massless. Anyway.


Nobody would have hardly ever heard about Einstein if it was not the TV in the USA that made him a TV star - the first public relation agent of science. This has nothing to do with the theory of relativity. BTW his Nobel price is not for the relativity theory.

In a sense all things are no-things and all no-things have the form of some-things. This is of no help I know. But I feel obliged to reject the OP's absolutist distinction between positive things and negative nothings.

Nothing can exist without time.

I agree. Perhaps we can say (if only poeticcally) that time is the very life of Reality, and that it is built into all so-called things.