A Universe From Nothing

[Syntho-sis]

I thought this was interesting. From 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle' by Robert Pirsig (1974, pp.38-39.) Cited in the Book 'Why people believe weird things' by Micheal Shermer..

 

Pirsig's Paradox:

 

"So you don't believe in ghosts or science?"

 

"No, I do believe in ghosts."

 

"What?"

 

"The laws of physics and logic, the number system, the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real For example, it seems completely natural to assume that gravitation and the law of gravity existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity."

 

"Of Course."

 

"So, before the beginning of the Earth, before people, etc., the law of gravity existed. Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy, and not existing in anyone's mind."

 

"Right."

 

"Then what has a thing to do to be nonexistent? It has just passed every test of nonexistence there is. You cannot think of a single attribute of nonexistence that the law of gravity didn't have, or a single scientific attribute of existence it did have. I predict that if you think about it long enough, you will go round and round until you realize that the law of gravity did not exist before Isaac Newton. The the law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's minds. It is a ghost!"

 

Just substitute 'law of gravity' with w/e your concept of space-time is...

Edited October 30, 2009 by Syntho-sis

[Airbrush]

Could dark matter be "ghost gravity" of an overlapping higher dimension? It could never be detected other than its' gravitational effects.

 

Thanks for the cern link moth. Interesting stuff.

[Airbrush]

And thanks to iNow for the following cool Einstein quote about space-time needs matter as a pre-condition:

 

"People before me believed that if all the matter in the universe were removed, only space and time would exist. My theory proves that space and time would disappear along with matter."

 

Interesting that he called it "space and time" and not "space-time". When did he start calling it "space-time"?

 

How about using the word "space" for the condition preceeding matter. Space-time is post-matter. So space is timeless, but space-time begins with a Big Bang.

[moth]

i think page 20 of the vaas paper (the arxive link) in martin's thread http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=45412 is talking about the mini-verse krauss mentioned

i haven't had time to figure out how to download the paper (it's not free) by borde but here's a link http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v59/i4/e043513

it sounds like they first have to discover how to create, then collide monopoles so the idea is pretty out there.

in krauss' talk he mentions 70-80% of the mass of a proton is from interactions between the quarks. does anybody know if this is related to moving color charges?

 

thanks,

moth

[Sorcerer]

I thought this was interesting. From 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle' by Robert Pirsig (1974, pp.38-39.) Cited in the Book 'Why people believe weird things' by Micheal Shermer..

 

Pirsig's Paradox:

 

"So you don't believe in ghosts or science?"

 

"No, I do believe in ghosts."

 

"What?"

 

"The laws of physics and logic, the number system, the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real For example, it seems completely natural to assume that gravitation and the law of gravity existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity."

 

"Of Course."

 

"So, before the beginning of the Earth, before people, etc., the law of gravity existed. Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy, and not existing in anyone's mind."

 

"Right."

 

"Then what has a thing to do to be nonexistent? It has just passed every test of nonexistence there is. You cannot think of a single attribute of nonexistence that the law of gravity didn't have, or a single scientific attribute of existence it did have. I predict that if you think about it long enough, you will go round and round until you realize that the law of gravity did not exist before Isaac Newton. The the law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's minds. It is a ghost!"

 

Just substitute 'law of gravity' with w/e your concept of space-time is...

 

I'm guessing this is a rhetort to my: "Really all Krauss can say if his theory is correct, is that a universe can come into existence from a space which contains the conditions for it to do so, this is NOT the same as coming into existence from nothing."

 

I see where the paradox lies, but it only brought me back to my thinking that something always existed, it seems to be the only way to solve the paradox and it also nicely removes a first cause, removing the best argument (I've heard so far) for a diety. However it still doesn't exclude the possibility of one althogether.

 

You see, if everything has a net energy of 0, and can just come into being because it was bound to. Then nothing has a property (That of spontaneous existence). If nothing has a property it doesn't fit my definition of nothing - therefore even before 'nothing' split into what we observe - it existed.

[Syntho-sis]

And thanks to iNow for the following cool Einstein quote about space-time needs matter as a pre-condition:

 

"People before me believed that if all the matter in the universe were removed, only space and time would exist. My theory proves that space and time would disappear along with matter."

 

Interesting that he called it "space and time" and not "space-time". When did he start calling it "space-time"?

 

How about using the word "space" for the condition preceeding matter. Space-time is post-matter. So space is timeless, but space-time begins with a Big Bang.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime

 

This is what I meant...

[Sorcerer]

Why do people need an Einstein quote.... isn't that obvious?

 

edit: "before me..." is a bit over zealous.