random thoughts on nothingness

Right, and what we "know" about Evolution is just "theory"...

Scientific theory is not what you seem to be expressing here...
 
uscitizen said:
Time is the measurement of change. If no changes happen there is no time.
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Not so. Grind is absolutely correct: time is an intrinsic property of space itself. It isn't just figuratively another dimension, it is literally another dimension. Objects translate through time in the same way that they can be translated in any other dimension. What makes time odd is that, under most circumstances, you can only translate through it in one direction.
 
Gaffer said:
How do you know it was ten seconds?

Time did not exist until man invented it.
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First, its obvious to any reasonable person reading klatuus post, that he was riffing about the ten seconds. Exact Scientific precision was not the point of his post. No need to go out of your way to challege him.

Time did not exist until man invented it.

Yes is did. , Unless I'm mistaken, my college physics class taught me that space-time IS a physical reality of the universe. One-dimensional time is a reality, just as much as gravity is. All man did was invent UNITS to measure time.
 
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klaatu said:
The concept of nothingness just blows my mind .. something from nothing. Scientists are convinced that the Universe is flat and not curved as suggested by AE, and is in continual expansion.. it started with the Big Bang.. from blackness..=nothingness and expanded from there and continues to expand. I guess one has to be perfectly in tuned with the Scientific mind to comprehend the logic with this explanation of the origins of the Universe, one that Scientists have made official.
If blackness equals nothingness ... there had to be something that generated a spark... and if so...where did it come from? I guess it is the same question people have about God... if he/it exists where did he/it come from...? Where is the starting point? In Gods case people will argue that he was and always will be.. the Alpha and Omega. In the Big Bang Case... it is blackness=nothingness erupting into something.

it is truly mind blowing ....
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Scientists -- cosmologists and other physicists, specifically -- are indeed concerned with what came before the Big Bang. The trouble is that only one theoretical framework now extant -- M theory -- even allows one to talk about it with any precision at all. And M theory is highly conjectural, at best: we have no testable predictions from it yet. By it's very nature, the laws of physics from which the Standard Model procede can't be assumed to hold for any "time" (sic) before the singularity.

You assume, though, that there must be an alpha. Most scientists don't. There's no reason to assume that the chain of causality has an endpoint. That notion is counterintuitive, to say the least, but it's nevertheless quite true.

Look at it this way. Either something arose spontaneously from nothing at some point -- that is, there was, at some alpha moment, an effect proceding from no cause at all -- or else something -- whether a non-living multiverse or a living Being of some kind -- has always existed, without beginning at all. One or the other. It can't be escaped.

Personally, I just can't accept the notion of something arising spontaneously out of nothing. I can stretch my mind around a lot of things, but not that. Therefore, however, I'm left with the conclusion that something has to have existed without a beginning . . . and possibly without end, though that's not implicit in the first statement.

Speaking personally again, I find the notion of an actual being -- an all powerful God, in most people's imaginations -- living without beginning or end to be too much of a stretch as well. I'm much more comfortable -- or less uncomfortable, more correctly -- with the idea of a non-living multiverse without boundaries.
 
OrnotBitwise said:
Not so. Grind is absolutely correct: time is an intrinsic property of space itself. It isn't just figuratively another dimension, it is literally another dimension. Objects translate through time in the same way that they can be translated in any other dimension. What makes time odd is that, under most circumstances, you can only translate through it in one direction.
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Time is an intrinsic property of our known space.
 
We have motion in our universe so obviously we can't test my theory here. But I believe it to be valid. Nostrildoggus told me about it.
Grind also backs me up on it "time didn't exist before the big bang " Grind quote.
 
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LadyT said:
We used to have these existential conversations all the time in college. I've concluded that no one knows a d@mn thing.

Who's to say time didn't exist before the big bang here or anywhere? Its perfectly feasible that the space that we occupy now could have existed in another state for x number of years.
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Good point. you know there are times when I think we visit these forums to continue those discussions that we used to have in College... albeit politics, origins of the Universe, even music and the movies. Could it be we are filling a void ... much like the void our universe filled? ;)
 
OrnotBitwise said:
Scientists -- cosmologists and other physicists, specifically -- are indeed concerned with what came before the Big Bang. The trouble is that only one theoretical framework now extant -- M theory -- even allows one to talk about it with any precision at all. And M theory is highly conjectural, at best: we have no testable predictions from it yet. By it's very nature, the laws of physics from which the Standard Model procede can't be assumed to hold for any "time" (sic) before the singularity.

You assume, though, that there must be an alpha. Most scientists don't. There's no reason to assume that the chain of causality has an endpoint. That notion is counterintuitive, to say the least, but it's nevertheless quite true.

Look at it this way. Either something arose spontaneously from nothing at some point -- that is, there was, at some alpha moment, an effect proceding from no cause at all -- or else something -- whether a non-living multiverse or a living Being of some kind -- has always existed, without beginning at all. One or the other. It can't be escaped.

Personally, I just can't accept the notion of something arising spontaneously out of nothing. I can stretch my mind around a lot of things, but not that. Therefore, however, I'm left with the conclusion that something has to have existed without a beginning . . . and possibly without end, though that's not implicit in the first statement.

Speaking personally again, I find the notion of an actual being -- an all powerful God, in most people's imaginations -- living without beginning or end to be too much of a stretch as well. I'm much more comfortable -- or less uncomfortable, more correctly -- with the idea of a non-living multiverse without boundaries.
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Nice post Ornot. Like you and as I attempted to express in my original post .. using the old freshman verbiage.. ie "mind blowing" ..lol.., no matter how much I try to comprehend or as you put it..stretch.. I just can't accept the notion of something arising spontaneously out of nothing. Therfore it takes me back to the idea of an Architect ...with a purpose. Perhaps it is a securty blanket, perhaps it is a measurement faith. I dont know.. but it appears when one reaches this point.. Science and God (Supreme Entity) meet. I believe Hawking has stated as much.
 
Damocles said:
Such a "void" would imply existence. You must have an absense of "something" to have a void.
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Why? A void is simply nothing, a place where nothing exists. It doesn't necessarily have to be the absence of "something"; then you'd have to define the something that is absent and run into all sorts of invalid constructs.
 
Damocles said:
Such a "void" would imply existence. You must have an absense of "something" to have a void.
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Exactly .. so if we have the absence of these types of conversations in our personal life .. visiting a forum such as this fills the void ... correct? Unless of course you are reffering to our Universe filling the void of nothingness.. :) ... Where I would agree... to acknowledge a void at pre-universe ..would acknowledge nothingness... good catch ... ;)
 
Damocles said:
No, a void implies an emptyness specifically devoid of "something"...
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I hate resorting to the dictionary for scientific definitions, because there are always considerations and information not included. In the short run, however, this was my resort, so here's what I found at Merriam Webster online:

1 a : not occupied : VACANT <a void bishopric> b : not inhabited : DESERTED
2 : containing nothing <void space>

It seems that it's just semantics, but really there's a distinct physical description involved here. As you know I'm not a physicist, so I only can propose that a void implies, simply, nothing, and not absence of something.
 
Thorn said:
I hate resorting to the dictionary for scientific definitions, because there are always considerations and information not included. In the short run, however, this was my resort, so here's what I found at Merriam Webster online:

1 a : not occupied : VACANT <a void bishopric> b : not inhabited : DESERTED
2 : containing nothing <void space>

It seems that it's just semantics, but really there's a distinct physical description involved here. As you know I'm not a physicist, so I only can propose that a void implies, simply, nothing, and not absence of something.
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The dictionary often is devoid of semantic meaning...

There is a difference between "nothing" and "emptiness".. An emptiness implies that there is something to fill it. A "void" implies an emptiness rather than just simply nothing... If you have a "hole" in your heart, or a "void" in your heart you have something that you "need" to fill it.
 
Yes, that's my problem with dictionary definitions too, at least one of them.

I can understand your thinking, but I also think we're discussing the popular semantic meaning of "void". If we were to look at this through the eyes of physicists, I'm not completely sure which of us would be correct in that metier.
 
Thorn said:
Yes, that's my problem with dictionary definitions too, at least one of them.

I can understand your thinking, but I also think we're discussing the popular semantic meaning of "void". If we were to look at this through the eyes of physicists, I'm not completely sure which of us would be correct in that metier.
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One trusts that both you worthies are aware that "semantic meaning" is repetitive and redundant.
 
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