Paul Davies - Why There is ‘Something’ Rather than ‘Nothing’?
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
- We know that there is not Nothing. There is Something. It is not the case that there is no world, nothing at all, a blank. It is the case that there is a world. Nothing did not obtain. But why? Why hasn’t Nothing obtained? Is this ‘ultimate question’ a legitimate question? What can science contribute? What can philosophy?
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Paul Davies is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist.
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Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
This question haunts me everyday. And I've been doing this since I was a child. What's funny is im almost 40 and never in my life has anyone brought up this question to me. People just assume existence is normal. Being a human being is normal. And the point of life is to make as much money as you can buy as much stuff as possible. This should be the most important question on earth.
I wish we were friends! Lol I try to ask people around me how absolutely mind boggling it is that we are the ultimate thing. the universe is literally IT we are part of that thing and we have the ability to die within it.
It's very lonely and painful to be intelligent
This is a frightening concept to most, including me. 99.999 percent (rough estimate lol) of people do not want to think about this question even if they understand what you are asking.
@@allocke9446 all I want to do is think about that stuff lol. It can disconnect you from reality in ways though
@@FRElHEIT lol I suppose that's true
Let's have a full list of all of Robert's obsessions
God, Consciousness, The Mind, Theology, Philosophy, Ontology, Quantum Physics, Simulation Theory, Reality, Infinity, Cosmology, Aliens, Something, Nothing
@@genandnic does Robert ever post a discussion like this where the topic they're discussing is not one of Robert's "obsessions"?
I shouldn't be criticizing though. It's good for people to be thinking deeply about these important fundamental subjects
....just an inquiring mind. He's curious. That's good and makes for interesting content.
That was the most succinct explanation of the delayed slit experiment and it’s implications I’ve heard so far
Paul Davies did as good a job riding the rocket as anyone I've seen on this program. And that, my friends, brings me closer to truth.
Every time I think about this conundrum, it makes my brain bubble, because, in my mind, there should be nothing, and, in my opinion, the theory that you can have something spontaneously erupt out of nothing, means that it can't really be nothing, otherwise, nothing would come of it. So, in other words, a nothing that can produce something, is not truly nothing.
Sometimes, while sitting in my room, I'll look around and have this really profound sensation that this should not exist, and yet it does, so what the hell is going on? The implications are mind-bending and overwhelming.
I don't believe that anyone has ever located any nothing. So there's no way to know whether something can come from it. I have never heard of a theory that says something can come from nothing. Where did you hear it?
@@russellmillar7132 wrote: "Where did you hear it?"
Google is your friend.
Nothing, cannot be infinite. Consequently, it has a boundary. And every boundary is likewise bounded. So... the universe did erupt out of nothing. I'm writing a book - 'Read this First - on the origin of space, time, particles, people and minds'. We'll see what people think.
@@stephenanastasi748 How was it determined that "Nothing, cannot be infinite"?
Yea johndzwon, you so accurately described how the question (why something rather than nothing) nagged and perplexed me for years. Usually when waking up in the morning and coming back into consciousness, that strange sense of what the hell is going on? Exactly. It haunted and nagged me relentlessly. I was finally able to mostly resolve it by coming to terms with the apparent fact that nothingness is a fiction that resides in the imagination only. The question postulate nothingness as something that could've possibly existed, but the somethingness of reality completely and permanently negates that possibility. So the question itself is flawed because one of the 2 options is a literal/physical impossibility. Absolute nothingness has never and could never have existed. Like asking why do birds have wings instead of jet engines, lol. One of those options is an impossibility and so the question makes no sense. Why is nothingness an impossibility? Who knows, logic/observation just tells us that it is. Like why is it impossible for birds to have jet engines instead of wings? Because nature doesn't work that way and it doesn't have the capacity to create that sort of thing. Likewise, the nature of reality is existence, and for that reason nothingness cannot and could not ever have existed. It's not a full answer to the question of course, but for me it helped to re-frame the question to take most of the bewildering nagging edge off it, lol. Why does a flower bloom? Why does a tiger hunt? Why does reality exist? Because that is its nature. Why is that its nature? That's the real question, I believe.
Paul Davies one of my favorites
I once had a general anaesthetic. I woke with the bizarre feeling that it was as if I'd died. No sensations, no memories, no thoughts, no pain... it was the most peculiar feeling, because during that period 'I' was literally 'nothing' and yet life was going on all round me, everywhere all over the world, it was just me that was absent from it. I think of that often, and that must be what it's like when we die.
Same experience when we sleep. Apart from an occasional dream we are awake in the next instant having no memory of the last 8 hours. We have no concept of time. Does sleep simulate death? Did Closer to Truth try to answer that question? If not he can add another episode.
Occasionally I can get the same feeling waking up. You're a blank slate, no memories, and if you manage to pay close attention, then you can consciously observe what feels like a flood of memories of who you are and what your past is being progressively programmed into your brain like a boot up sequence for that day. Fun stuff :)
@rockwell marsh your raise some interesting questions about sleep, and I agree with you. Did you know that death is likened to a deep sleep? That is to awake again when he ( GOD) calls, and you will answer.
Well, either there is nothing after death, or we are eternal spirits who are having fun in this temporary physical reality. I like to think its the latter. And if not? Well, if there is nothing and I am dead, I won't be disappointed, because I am DEAD!! It's not that I am dead and think "darn, I fooled myself, there is nothing, what a bummer", because if I could think that, I would not be dead. But I hope of course that we are indeed eternal spirits and that the physical reality is merely a play ground that prevents us from going crazy, with nothing to do but being aware that we are. And in that scenario, death is merely an awakening, in which we remember our true eternal self and can relive all the adventures we (collectively) experienced. And when we get bored up our spiritual butts, we can be born again, as whatever. And while alive we forget our true nature, because remembering would spoil the fun. It's either that, nor nothing at all. At least that is my hope :)
@@m.k.wallner3145 I like that! ☺️
This is actually the mother of all questions.
You can go further. For example, why is there the *possibility* of something or nothing existing ?
Don't give you on your own history Braj...
The answer is: साहचर्यम्
Full explanation:
किं न स्मरसि यदेकत्र नो विद्यापरिग्रहाय नानादिगन्तवासिनां साहचर्यमासींत् Māl.1; Ku.3.21; R.16.87; Ve.1.2; Śi.15.24.
Why something?
Because...
Nothing has ever been proven to exist.
The notion of "Nothing" is utterly absurd...
@@typedef_ you don't know that the "possibility" exists. it might be that only one of them is "possible", and the other option is impossible
since we exist, we happen to know which of the two happens to be the option that is true, and - if it's the only one possible - then - it couldn't have been otherwise, in any meaningful sense. i.e. - the thought that there could have been "nothing" is simply not true --- nothing could not be the state of things, "something" is the only state possible.
@@typedef_ I even solved your question in the comment section. There is a deeper question than that.
I am grateful for Paul Davis's books written for the layman.
I read "Other Worlds" nearly 40 years ago and it it had a profound impact on the way I saw things.
His books are great BTW. His work was my first deep immersion in particle physics and cosmology.
I still own the first book I ever read by Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint.
I read most of his books. They are really good.
I was twenty in 1997 and I remember reading everything he had published up to that year by around that year. I too loved it. Hope I get back into reading, it's taken an unwanted break from "life"
Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake.” ~ Karl R. Popper
And Popper knows this exactly how? He is a nihilist mind-destroyer.
But he wasn’t completely certain of that, was he?
we chase material luxury, but it's nothing compared to the cosmic luxury we have
You damn right
I'm on binge watching of all the videos related to this particular question of Robert Kuhn "Why there is something rather than nothing" and Paul Davies's version is the most fascinating one among all the Physicist to whom he has enquired this question. The problem is we are imagining Nothingness always in term of absence of something. We can't have other way around. IMO Absolute Nothingness is impossible to imagine or comprehend until we are stuck in the duality of something and nothing.
The answer is surprisingly simple: because there is something. If there is something then nothing can't be and that's the whole reason why nothing is merely an abstract concept, like zero. Zero doesn't exist, we made it up, same thing for negative numbers, they mean absolutely nothing in reality, we just made them up. There's not a single natural example where negative numbers can be applied.
This to say that nothing is just an abstract concept like many others, they only exist in the conceptual form, they have no reality besides the concept itself.
I read your comment a few times and it’s quite a mind bending. So if I’m understanding you correctly…existence or something has always been?
@@tonymclaughlin4053 Well, yes. How can something be created from nothing? That would be magic. If you believe in magic that's one approach but hardly true because to prove something as exotic as magic it would probably be harder than to prove God exists.
Something emerging from nothing is far more unrealistic and exotic than something emerging from some kind of supreme consciousness.
@@tonymclaughlin4053 If you take the mathematical and more logical approach: if you have zero (which equals to nothing) and you add one more zero, you still have nothing. The only way for zero to disappear is by adding something, but if there's something, zero doesn't exist, it's only there as an abstract concept, same for negative numbers. I would even say imaginary numbers but I do not know enough about complex numbers and their implications to have an opinion on it, yet.
@@prisvizbay6913 No, I went in the Santa Claus school.
Wild stuff, I said the *exact* same thing and so did another commentor on here. Uncanny, love it.
It's quite hard to envisage 'nothing'. Laypeople like myself tend to think of 'nothing' as an empty. timeless void, but of course that wouldn't exist if there was nothing at all that existed. I've thought about this for some time, and my view is that 'nothing' precludes its own existence simply because the concept of existence itself wouldn't exist.
Bloody hell, that sounds like something you'd hear on a bad episode of Doctor Who.
Well, if we assume our universe is all there is, and you run the "movie" of the universe backwards, you will arrive at a time when nothing existed. That would be than your absolute nothingness, which we perceive as space. But if there is no matter in space, space for all purposes does not exist, it only exists "potentially" and is "potentially" infinite. Same with the past and the future: our past is only potentially infinite, since regardless how many years we count backwards, we will never arrive at the lowest possible number, because there is none. Same with the infinite future: Think a ahead as far as you want, you can always add more and more years to it. You will never reach an end. Same with space. There is also talk that space and time are the same. Possible, since space only starts to matter once matter appeared, and that is also true for time.
It's not possible to imagine "nothing" because the act of imagining it is actually thinking of it as something that you decide to call "nothing". Hence true nothing is abstract and cannot be thought of consciously.
My #1 question in life.
The ultimate question, the one from which all other questions have their source . . .
The #2; the #1 question is "does she loves me?" 😊
A cause actualizes a particular outcome. If there is no cause, no particular outcome or possibility is actualized over any other. Therefore, in the beginning, all possibilities exist on equal footing in superposition because there is no individual cause to cause reality to be a certain way. Perhaps God as the “uncaused cause” is this superposition? This is the best answer I found so far.
@@pabloquesadamartinez5405 The answer for 1st question is yes. Now something rather than nothing becomes your first question lol
@@pabloquesadamartinez5405 Followed by, 'who farted?' and 'who let the dogs out?'
"something" and "working" are two very different things. And if there is no "intelligent push" is not only already strange that there is something but that is almost impossible that there is something that works on a complex level. Was really an option that a no complex reality was possible ? 2 electrons bumping into each other for eternity ? a cloud of hydrogen standing there forever ? Was that an option ? I think this is a good proof of a somewhat intelligent design...
awareness is that intelligent design which is not something you do it,s all ready their ocean of awareness the more aware you are more intelligent you are since awareness is not a thing there is no limit to it.
@@Braun09tv An infinite universe is more less likely than a universe that had a beginning. Because everything that we know in science has a Cause and Effect. Law of Thermodynamics, Law of Cause and Effect, law of karma , etc .
An infinite universe doesn't compute .
A fixed state universe has already been disproven by the Big Bang theory.
If that is proof of intelligent design, the who designed the designer?
@@m.k.wallner3145 a system can start just with a 0 (nothingness) or a 1.., since we know that there is no nothingness i deem more probable the starting with a 1 (god or an absolute consciousness) that something in the middle (some quantum fields and some material or whatever) that have no explanation to be there in that form.
Because if there was nothing we wouldn't be here to discuss it.
A topic that has fascinated me for about 60 years (I’m 66!). The thought that lingers after watching this interview is that it seems to imply we humans may have this cosmic playground to ourselves. If observations can influence the past as well as the here and now, if another sentient life form 90bn light years away made an observation that changed the understanding of the energy levels of a particle, I know it’s reduction ad absurdo, but that might preclude the formation of nuclear fusion, then the sun would cease to exist and our heating bills would rise quite sharply! So to have two “observers” could surely create paradoxes that may have deep and unexpected consequences?
"if's" don't fly, because that would mean that my uncle would be a bicycle IF he had paddles instead of feet.
I have no idea what he just said, but bloody hell it was interesting.
Not a lot. Basically said he didn't know and hopes science can figure it out someday.
8:15 this belief is what creates the hard problem of consciousness, but a consciousness-first model such as Bernardo Kastrup’s eliminates the problem 😃
Whatever Paul Davies says opens more my eyes about the Universe and reality. He is so coherent. Mr Kuhn has to shut up at least with Paul Davies.
How could the complete lack of existence occur as a real state? What does that even mean? Look, I'm not a physicist, but a much more relevant question seems to be "Is absolute nothingness a possible state?" We know "something" can exist. But can "Nothing" exist, so to speak?
We have no idea how this current state of affairs occurs as a real state (only that it does). So why ask why the non-existent could occur? We probably won't be able to find out. However, total non-existence of the physical world seems to be a coherent concept: it can be intuited in thought, is not logically contradictory, and can be semi-formalised within modal metaphysics.
Nothing can exist do you want to know what that nothing is. It,s awareness let me ask you a simple question how do you know that you exist right now what is base of that.
@man with a username So when you are in deep sleep. When there is no thought you does not exit that what your are saying right
I love learning about all these deep philosophical topics.
It's comforting in a way - there's so much significance in life than just playing the day-to-day grind of the "rat race."
Even if I lose the race, I'll always remember that I was a part of something bigger in the grand scheme of things...
You said EXACTLY what I always think
.... only that you put it so nicely.. 🌸🌺🌸🌺🌸🌸🌺😊
The definition of philosophical topics is, ideas for which an answer cannot be verified. Thus centuries of ruminations and competing conclusions, the sum of which can be boiled down to: that’s, like, just your opinion, dude.
Dig a little bit deeper and you will understand you are more significant then you think you are...
We don’t lose my friend, we live it and realize we are here. That’s cool stuff. It is comforting like you said
@@skeptic_al This is your definition. It is not what philosophy really is.
Then you have to define clearly what that "thing" really is; and why there must be thing that is in contrast to no-"thing"? It is after all conceptualizing plays of mind in the realm of relation and relativity.
Since time does not exist in nothingness, there can only be two possibilities : nothing for never, or something forever.
I would propose that time does "potentially" exist in nothingness, but it does not matter, since it needs matter to matter (no pun intended).
interesting point.
This question is equivalent to asking if there is a meaning of life. Why we should exists over not existing and what is the reason for it.
another valid phylosofical question
It haunts me when they say there was no beginning, it's always been.
Because there can only be one or the other. When it is something, any nothing would be immediately displaced by something. When it is nothing, there is only nothing and therefore nothing to displace or be displaced.
Nothing would still be something unto itself. One of nothing. Equals one of something to make the nothing. Therefore it's impossible. The conundrum is the question. To solve it don't ask it.
The reason there is something is because there was something there to make it from the start, .
Everything exist, so nothing also exist (is a part of everything).
"Why hasn’t Nothing obtained?" ---- As logical antinomy demonstrates, truth cannot not be. Existence in and of itself, logic, to be, truth: these are transcendental synonyms.
The Laws of Physics are the rule set for this particular VR.
The Something is pure energy at the Planck Constant. The universe has a system in how it's constructed and it's apparent essence in which we create our own realities.
I read most of Davies books, but three of those I had to read them over again: About Time, How to Build A Time Machine and The Mind Of God. They were just that good.
Didn't expect to find answer here, not surprised.
The one that really annoys me is that we cannot conceive of "nothing" or what that might look like. Even observing the vacuum in the dead of space, zero particle interactions, we see fluctuations at random in the quantum fields which underlie the universe. Even essentially TRYING TO FIND NOTHING, we get something. We find interacting quantum fields which underlie literally everything else happening in the universe, chattering away on levels that appear to be fundamentally random, without cause but with the effect being literally everything.
Is it possible we’re just making too damn much of the double slit experiment? A simple diffraction pattern has caused us to reject everything we ever learned about what is reasonable. The cat was put forward as an illustration of how absurd the conclusions of quantum physics were, and so alternative explanations should be explored.
We know there is something. We have no idea if there can be nothing. Until we do, there is no reason to ask why
The question "why is there something rather than nothing?" is meaningless, because the question itself is "something".
I think this guy is onto something. Really.
I like the Vedantic theory that the only reality is Consciousness. Every thing else is conceived by Consciousness.
So you are conceived by consciousness?
@@robertmiller2367 obviously yes, conscious effort makes it happen or do you need the birds and the bees talk right now?
You are conceived by a sperm and egg, not solely for anything else.
@@robertmiller2367 As per the Vedantic Darshan whole universe is a lower form of reality or a dependent reality, like a dream.
Indeed, why _is_ there me?
A good, honest discussion. Too many of the physicists who debate this topic tend to pretend they understand the universe rather better than they actually do. Wheeler's ideas are especially interesting, especially his conception of a participatory universe. I also suspect that past, present and future are entangled in some hidden way.
ive asked myself this question alot and stopped because you will tourture yourself trying to find out how and why. Im lucky enough to forget about it but it pops into my mind here and there and bugs me so much
What if we apply the two slit experiment to our observations of the universe and the objects within it? Would that prove that the distant stars and galaxies did exist or did not exist in the distant past, depending upon whether we are observing them today or not observing them today?
Would listening to this episode change its content (recorded in the past)?
I wonder if that would depend on who observed the content first?
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Hebrews 11:3
You're quoting a book that has a talking snake and a talking donkey in it to tackle scientific questions? Good grief...
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of our being. In reality, there actually is no thing, and it is that no thing that appears to be something. Humans realized this thousands of years ago, and it still eludes most people.
If there was nothing
We would have nothing to complain about
It's very simple actually. Nothing is, by definition, not a thing. It never was and never will be. The only thing left is something. Nothing is a fake concept. It's not a real thought, not a real idea. It's just another one of the MANY notions that human language lets us seemingly talk about but upon closer inspection turns out to be nonsense. It's in exactly the same vein as sentences like "What happened before time began?" Yes, it's a sentence that can be made using everyday words that everyone understands but the thought itself is pure nonsense. It's a fake question, it isn't asking anything and there isn't an answer. It's just a flaw of language that we are able to create a sentence using it. "when is green?" "who is train?" "why is there something instead of nothing?"
Wow I was saying the same thing pretty much lol, nice, uncanny even. That the question itself is flawed because nothingness is a fiction that exists in the imagination only. Of course saying that doesn't solve the riddle of existence or anything but it does explain how the question is nonsense. 5 stars for you my friend, namaste.
Anything that can happen, given enough time, will happen, so here we are. The question is: was there ever a "time" when there was actually nothing? Maybe there can't be a single instant of meaningful time in which there is nothing. Something is inevitable.
What does it mean "to exist", anyway? One thing seems clear: every existing thing is logically possible (consistent), in other words the thing is what it is and is not what it is not. But is there any difference between logical possibility and existence? If not, then everything that is logically possible necessarily exists, by definition.
Your comment reads like word soup that purposely tries to sound more clever than it needs to in order to get your point across.
@@TheSpeedOfC Actually I tried to make it as simple as possible.
@@glidingforward oooooooh ahhhhhhh
Why is there a language rather than evenly spaced dots?
You raise a very good point my friend. Khan's little fairy tale is very hard to believe
@@PetraKann *"Khan's little fairy tale is very hard to believe"*
... Are you laughing at his superior intellect? 😊
Consciousness is time
Everything Exists! For some reason
this makes Absolute sense to me.
🎸❤
Laws are nothing more than building blocks... simple to complex, yet if the origins are simple, must there not be a simple string (entanglement) within and throughout? The, and our, very existence, is a miracle beyond statistical comprehension, at the moment, if one is honest with oneself, this is a MOTO event. (MOTO, Charlie Chan, Master of the Obvious)
Another wildly thought provoking episode, and a must finish and re-watch later.
That nothing is awareness which is background of everything ocean of awareness without boundaries.
The question of why things are the way the are is an invalid one, I think. It had to be some way, and this way is as good as any. It's like a programming a number generator to produce a random number between 1 and 1,000,000, then being surprised at receiving 1. It was just as likely as any other outcome. Or consider a dart thrown blindly at a board. Before it is thrown, all points are equally likely for it to land on, and the point at which it does land is not special.
It seems to me in the distant future we still won't know the answer to the fundamental questions of the origin of the Universe but we'll have a lot more and better questions that will still need to be answered.
Happy to meet again at the Agora! ☺️👽
How could Plato be correct? Haven't we learned anything at all in 2300 yrs? I find the laws as platonic entities existing in some other nonmaterial dimension an absurd idea primarily because many of the laws of physics include the variable of time. I find no comfort in the idea that just as nothing north of the north pole is meaningless so nothing before the appearance of space-time is meaningless, nevertheless that nagging insistence that there was something is hard to supress. We have an excellent theoretical framework in the BB which provides for the appearance of the 'laws' as supersymmetry is sequentially broken and the fields come into existence along with the particles and their properties- that's enough isn't it? What am I missing? Mach proposed an explanation for the curvature of the surface of a spinning bucket of water. No external mass implies no acceleration therefore 'nothing' implies no laws as well. How does motion even mean anything without space-time and mass? There could not be a law giver before space-time, mass, and energy as none of the basic laws governing motion make any sense at all without these entities. If anything at all existed before the BB it must have been another Universe as Penrose suggest in CCC.
We’re just here in the middle of the same explosion
Great way to focus on the reality that science is still a social construct
Because we can.
I agree with Mr. Davies that the laws and the universe require observers. Perhaps that's the line of reasoning that will get us closer to an answer.
So … our universe is what we see because we are it’s observer, other options of what it could be fail to materialize in the presence of an observer ~ we then as observers are playing god, creating our laws / vision for the universe merely my be players / players observers within
What if "nothing" simply cant exist, maybe "nothing" is just impossible to exist and instead all different imaginable ways of things existing actually do and we find ourself in one way existence can look which might differ alot from other ways of things existing. Perhaps existing things is bound by the rule that they must be self caused and therefore im speculating that time is a essential part of any existence to become real because it adds casuality and who knows, maybe a event in the past could be caused by a event in the future which would perhaps lead to a "reality" caused by itself.
We have a incomplete unserstanding of black holes, yes, but what if its totally wrong. Maybe what happens inside a black hole is that time starts ticking backwards towards the beginning of time (big bang) and when you have reached time zero you also reach what we call the singularity and that singularity is also the same one that caused the big bang. This is one way the universe might have caused itself trough the existence of black holes. I know that im probably 100% wrong about it but its just fun speculating about questions like this.
Nancy Cartwright has interesting things to say on the laws of physics . I'd love to have you interview her if you haven't already
My question is, Why is the friggin camera constantly moving??????
It's at the heart of science. Is it at the heart of the Universe though? Information is getting grounds in science and Paul's 'theory' makes it central again.
The Idea that the past can be altered by observers in the present is truly amazing. I wonder if religion could have something equivalent? 🤔
Hilarious they never ask who made the law? We never assume a law without a judge behind it.
Why assume there is a who ?
Equivocation fallacy. "Law" in the legal sense is unrelated to "law" in the scientific sense.
@@fluffysheap it really isn't though. They mean the exact same thing. Just as the material world has its laws human nature also has its laws. It's just that we can choose to disregard the laws of our nature at our expense of course but the material world can't do that. Just as the electron behaves in a certain way we too are supposed to behave in a certain way. It's just that the electron can't say no to that where as we can.
@@pk47831 there are no “laws of human nature”. If they were, we couldn’t break them . They are arbitrary and we make them up .
The “material laws” we can’t say no to . They are merely descriptions of reality
Physical laws don't require judges, and even if there was a "who" behind the physical laws then that only postpones the question to: where did that who come from and why does it have the disposition that it does. The god theories explain nothing, if that was what you were alluding to.
Forget about nothing; everything is Self!
er.....yes.....kind of . But that doesn't really help ?
By the very fact that something exists, we can deduce that "nothing" cannot be. If "nothing" could be, then it would, and it would be forever. if at any point in the past there was nothing, then there would be nothing forever. Nothing never was and never will be. Existence is not only actual but eminently necessary and unavoidable.
The laws of physics are a description of how "matter" acts/works making it meaningless to talk about the action of matter separate from matter. Matter and its' action are inseparable. The idea that matter and its' action can be separate comes from thinking that mind and brain are separate and that concepts have their own reality.
The root problem is that.modern science reduced its notion of cause to efficient causation only. But if the laws of physics are a cause, they are a formal cause, not an efficient cause.
They are asking for a grounding of the fundamental material cause, in the form of an efficient cause of the formal cause of everything. And getting perplexed when they notice they can't make sense of anything when they try to do that.
The question is for philosophy, not physics.
The anthropic principle is a decent explanation. We are conscious in the universe that allowed us to evolve.
The anthropic principle explains nothing; my oven allows a cake to be baked but for some reason there’s no cake there, no matter how often I look.
@@thomasengle1686 You clearly don't understand the anthropic principle, not even vaguely.
" Nothing has to happen somewhere . "
Unless somewhere is infinite
are we not building the piers of our own minds, board by board, with each question, answer, discovery, etc?
I think there are infinite universes with each one having different laws and then our universe must be the way it is to be able to exist . Our universe cant exist in any other form , as all other forms of laws are on other universes .
Seems like different particles are subject to different forces based on their properties (charge, mass). The "laws of physics" are just the forces, etc that happen to be applicable to the particles and space we have now and if we had a different collection of particles we would have different laws to care about, even if all the laws were valid/"in force" all the time.
Can there truly be nothing? Not even space or darkness, truly nothing. Perhaps, that's impossible.
Could listen to this erudite scholar for hours.
It's the uncertainty principle: we must have uncertainty ... which we cannot have without uncertainty itself, at minimum!
How can there be anything? But How could there be Nothing? is just as . . . unfathomable
I pondered this on a recent mushroom trip, haha. It struck me that because nothingness is ALL there is, it then contains ALL things, which also exist, paradoxically. And similar to how white is made up of all colors on the spectrum, reality is analogous to that idea.
I really appreciate the open minded physicists like Paul Davies, Lisa Randall or Lee Smolin as opposed to more dogmatic people like Lawrence Krauss or Victor Stenger. When it comes to these questions a little humility keeps you from looking foolish.
Interesting!
Surely the participatory universe might suggest that you can get different answers about the past depending on the question and how it is posed; but that just goes to understanding, it says nothing about the Truth. The past has a single truth. Something like Schrodinger's cat; philosophically it might be alive or dead, but in reality it is one or the other - there is actually only one truth. I am grateful to Professor Davies who many years ago opened my mind in a spectacular way. Such a clever man!
How about this: Why are you alive now, and not 200 years ago?
What condition stopped you from being born two hundred years ago?
Every ingredient possible for you to exist today is occurring right now, but these same ingredients were also here 200 years ago.
So why now, but not then?
@@nativeamericancowboy5028 A lizard or a plant alive 200 years ago would be indistinguishable from a descendant today. Humans however are different due to consciousness. The studies of near death and after death experiences shows that we are unique and have a purpose aligned to the circumstances of our lives and the interactions with everyone around us. For me every bit of science I learn leads me to believe in God. You and I were in contemplation at the commencement of the universe and we are alive today for a specific purpose unique to ourselves and our time. One of these interviews they discussed how scientists have been able to bring together every protein and element needed for life but not been able to create life. Some people say that God has a purpose for everyone of us and when we die we find out what we did to muck it up.
These interviews are great fodder for the mind - so much to think about ... Have a great weekend!
There are certain facts of the Universe that cannot be otherwise: mathematics and logic. For example, pi = circumference\diameter must be true regardless of the laws of physics. (Right? Can't imagine when this equation wouldn't hold true.)
Can we then derive the laws of physics and existence that must necessarily be true based on the framework of mathematics?
Like Paul Davies' "bootstrap" theory suggests - perhaps consciousness (life!) is required to observe the fundamental truth of mathematics, and life requires certain laws of physics and kinds of matter & energy and no others.
The theoretical form of energy at the most fundamental beginning of nothing and the next created state out of this is the highest form that everything else is created. And all other created are given its own energy from this beginning to create and with its own creation energy to create other lower forms of creation (where we exist)? And then these lower forms of created universes evolve which in turn reciprocates this evolving process back to the next higher universal form? The universes would not all be at the same levels of evolution?
Where is everyone? Perhaps any life that has developed by a million years or more beyond our own evolution has left this 'time' dimension for reasons unknown to us at this current level of evolution. It may be all about protecting their inner state of peacefulness and intellect and have just evolved out of this ? As well as indicating some understanding of leaving any underdevelopment of nature (that includes us) to the mistakes inevitable of those by 'time' of a lesser evolution and as a law of nature that cannot be damaged by interference? Meaning when any being this advanced of their own evolution by 'time'? And for those equal or less than our own evolution it is not possible to reach any others like ourselves as of this period of time. And then it changes at some point in evolution of any being which perhaps would allow an ability to move within dimensions to more evolved realms? That was enjoyable.
Phenomenal
Perhaps the question should be "HOW is there something rather than nothing". Otherwise, consult Heidegger's essay of 1924.
Heidegger is the only thinker in modern times to seriously ask this question. It’s the crux of his Introduction to Metaphysics lecture series.
Something turns out to be a one-way lock upon mantissas that cannot be eliminated, while the distance between e and zero is greater than that between e and pi.
Why something rather than nothing?
The answer is self evident, nothing, absolutely nothing, is an unstable state of affairs, that sooner or later decays to something.
We know this is correct, otherwise no big bang and we wouldn't be here to ask the question.
We also know that ulltimately, trillions of years from now, given the accelerating rate of expansion the universe we know and love, it may well decay away to nothing at all, a state of affairs we know to be unstable.
@bradgamer I think most are missing the depth of this question, including some of the interviewees.
Absolutely wonderful, thanks again!
There IS an undeniable link between perception and the world around us. I believe consciousness is the "universal goal", and the implications are profound.
Our universe is an anthropic part of the self computing mathematical bulk of existence, and mathematical objects are necessary. Laws of physics consist of mathematically necessary symmetries and anthropic contingencies. Observer self selection means we observe anthropic and random parts of the bulk, but we don't create it.
If there is no observer then there is nothing
It seems as if there is a difference between the absolute "nothing" as a philosophical concept and a physical "nothing" which is defined as absence of space-time. This leads to the question of whether there are physical facts outside of spacetime that do not establish spacetime, but have something like potential physical regularities in them ("laws" as in "laws of nature" is an interpretation, actually observed are "regularities"). This leads to at least two possible postulates: Time-independent infinite potential existence of everything, or some kind of "primordial phenomenon" that makes the transition from "nothing" to "something" so smooth that it is virtually imperceptible.
An attempt at the latter: On the level of the physical nothing (which is just not identical with the philosophical nothing) exists as a primal phenomenon a regularity in analogy to the Heisenberg uncertainty relation. This forces the areas outside of a space-time to "flicker" permanently back and forth between nothing and something. Thereby, sets of properties are produced, the vast majority of which vanish practically in the same moment in which they are created, because they contain inconsistent regularities. At least one such set contained consistent regularities, we know this set as our universe. There may exist other sets, perhaps even infinitely many.
What dictated the amount of matter in the universe? What if there were half or double that amount? Would the laws of physics remain the same? Why all the eyewitnesses? Ask the wrong questions and you get dismissed as a crank. Robin Witting England