ask a question

recent responses

all topics

info

⚲

Physics
Existence

Recently there was a question that said, "you can't create something from nothing, can you?" Actually, if I understand quantum theory correctly, something indeed can exist from nothing. - nothing can spontaneously decay into a particle and its anti-particle - usually, those two particles then interact with each other, leaving nothing again afterward - occasionally one of those two resulting particles will interact with something else instead - consequently, the remaining particle of the original two particles will then continue to exist. Voila! something out of nothing, and it is grounded in physics.

There is a well-known equivocation on "nothing" here. According to quantum theory, there are two particles that go in and out of existence, and leave behind "something". You might as well argue that when I win a trick in bridge, my score came from nothing because the trick disappeared into the "book" (the pile of tricks I needed to make") afterwards. How are two particles interacting "nothing"? Besides, there is also the structure of the sea of quantum gravity, with fluctuations. Is a sea nothing? Is a fluctuation nothing? The fluctuation in the sea of quantum gravity is a most definite something. No, when in metaphysics we talk about something coming from nothing, the nothing has to be a pukka nothing - absolutely nothing at all, and not just a vacuum, for example, which has a structure and is therefore not nothing, but merely not air.
Existence
Physics

Do you really believe that the entire universe was made by a "big bang?" Doesn't it seem like there must be some type of higher being something? It just doesn't seem like all the pieces of the puzzle come together from a few dust particles...

I believe that your question is a good one, and that there is a further one that it suggests. The further question is where the dust particles might have come from. Or if we mean by "the universe" absolutely everything, including dust particles, then the universe did not come from a few dust particles or anything else, as, if it did, then the universe came from a part of itself, which is clearly impossible.