# A paradox in human thought regarding the universe



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I was thinking about this today. It's kind of a paradox in human thought, or maybe it's just a paradox in my thought. 

We as humans find it difficult to imagine the absence of absolutely everything

We also find it difficult to imagine something having always existed. 

So where does that put the universe in those thoughts....I'm kinda tripping out about the universe right now by the way.


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## Krunchyman (Feb 29, 2012)

It demonstrates the finiteness of our brains and the finite but unbound universe.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Krunchyman said:


> It demonstrates the finiteness of our brains and the finite but unbound universe.


Do you think the universe is finite?


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

I will derail this thread with my Wittgensteinian philosophy if and only if the OP gives me permission first. But believe me, I have the answers. All you need is to ask, and you shall be shown the answers.

Please ask me to show you the answers.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

Dodecaplex said:


> I will derail this thread with my Wittgensteinian philosophy if and only if the OP gives me permission first. But believe me, I have the answers. All you need is to ask, and you shall be shown the answers.
> 
> Please ask me to show you the answers.


You're adorable.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

Meaghan said:


> You're adorable.


Thank you. I guess this qualifies as permission.

Now, give me a few minutes and I'll be back with the answers.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

The universe is accommodating all thoughts about it, even provincial north European Teutonic 'Wittgensteinian' thoughts, as well as all other theorems: expanding, endless, contracting, saddle shaped, an abstract object sitting upon the back of a tortoise which is sitting upon the back of a tortoise which is sitting upon the back of a tortoise which is

Perhaps this is as much a perfect embodiment of 'how it all works' as some think Bach's music is:
Stravinsky ~ Concerto per due pianos soli


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

This is a bit deep for me, I suppose I think about it sometimes too, but to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in_ Casablanca_, we humans and our planet earth don't amount to a hill of beans in this (crazy?) universe...


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Sid James said:


> This is a bit deep for me, I suppose I think about it sometimes too, but to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in_ Casablanca_, we humans and our planet earth don't amount to a hill of beans in this (crazy?) universe...


Somewhere else mankind is being compared to a speck of dust. So a hill of beans at least is 1000% bigger...  With regard to the 'universe' I like the teachings of the Good Book "_Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them_" Those who want to imagine the 'universe' and simultanously see themselves shrink to hills of beans or specks of dust: didn't you become a bended slave of the 'universe' at a certain stage?


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## beethovenian (May 2, 2011)

Before i sidetrack. 
IMO, void and infinity are mere concepts in our mind and cannot be applied in the material universe. So i do believe the universe, no matter how vast, is still finite. Spinoza's Ethics or Leibniz Metaphysics should help.


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## beethovenian (May 2, 2011)

Sidetracking time!

To all you poor folks getting headache trying to comprehend the vast and sublime universe, maybe THIS will help.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Why is there something rather than nothing?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> Why is there something rather than nothing?


Something is more stable, I hear.



TxllxT said:


> Somewhere else mankind is being compared to a speck of dust. So a hill of beans at least is 1000% bigger...  With regard to the 'universe' I like the teachings of the Good Book "_Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them_" Those who want to imagine the 'universe' and simultanously see themselves shrink to hills of beans or specks of dust: didn't you become a bended slave of the 'universe' at a certain stage?


I personally prefer being dwarfed by the universe to being ruled by a tyrant legitimized by a deity's priests.

Which is not to say that some deity doesn't exist, but if "slavery" is the issue, these are the stakes.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

violadude said:


> I was thinking about this today. It's kind of a paradox in human thought, or maybe it's just a paradox in my thought.
> 
> We as humans find it difficult to imagine the absence of absolutely everything
> 
> ...


What fascinates me is that evolution is a pretty good explanation for why we find some things incomprehensible. We can't imagine the beginning of the universe; we can't intuit the laws of quantum theory or relativity, but we have a pretty good sense of where a rock will go if we throw it; we intuitively feel the difference between 1 and 100 but can't feel the difference between 10^38 and 10^40 or between 10^-59 and 10^-57; we can do logic better if we imagine people cheating than if we imagine something impersonal like blocks of various colors. Evolution makes sense of this.

It's not a perfect or precise explanation (I'm not sure we should be able to do math so well), but it is interesting.

It gets _really_ interesting when we start investigating what we can subjectively know about our own minds, contrasted to what science shows us!


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

violadude said:


> Do you think the universe is finite?


I think most physicists will tell you that universe is finite, but it has no outer boundary and no centre. The way we perceive space and time in our everyday lives is highly misleading. It doesn't work at the cosmic level. (It doesn't even work particularly well at the everyday level, now that our methods of communication are fast enough for us to see that they're constrained by the speed of light).


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

brianwalker said:


> Why is there something rather than nothing?


This is why: If there were nothing, rather than something, there would be nobody to ask that question.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

violadude said:


> I was thinking about this today. It's kind of a paradox in human thought, or maybe it's just a paradox in my thought.
> 
> We as humans find it difficult to imagine *the absence of absolutely everything*
> 
> ...


well, according to classical General Relativity (the cosmological singularity theorems of Hawking) that was indeed the case in our universe!!. The universe started in singular state, a singularity in spacetime, where _neither_ space or *time* (and of course matter) are well defined (at least theoretically) at all!!


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

Fsharpmajor said:


> This is why: If there were nothing, rather than something, there would be nobody to ask that question.


I thought it has been for some time generally agreed that that's a pretty unsatisfactory answer.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

So if the universe is finite does it end? Is there like a universe wall that you hit at some point? What is outside the universe?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

violadude said:


> So if the universe is finite does it end? Is there like a universe wall that you hit at some point? What is outside the universe?


according to the standard model of cosmology (the robertson-walker metric), the universe can be "open" or "closed". In an open universe, space never "ends", you can start to walk in one direction and there will always be "new space" for you to keep walking in that direction. If the universe is closed, space ends, but it hasn't boundary! (there is no wall you hit), if you start walking in one direction, you will end arriving at the same point of your departure but from the back side!! . This will be the case in the 3-sphere universe.









According to General Relativity, those two are the only kind of forms that our universe can have.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

jalex said:


> I thought it has been for some time generally agreed that that's a pretty unsatisfactory answer.


I'm not claiming that if there were just something, rather than nothing, there would be necessarily be any life-forms like us to ponder that question--for example, in a universe whose physical properties are such that life couldn't exist. Is that what you mean?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

violadude said:


> So if the universe is finite does it end? Is there like a universe wall that you hit at some point? What is outside the universe?


Although the universe is not the same shape, consider an analogy with the earth - the earth is finite, but it doesn't end; you circle back on yourself if you keep walking forever, though you'll have the sense that you walk in a straight line in one direction without end. Our limitation is that our size prohibits us from recognising the shape of the earth as we traverse it. That's why people used to think the earth was flat, because our subjective experience suggests it's a two dimensional plane.

On the question of something rather than nothing, I recently bought (but have not read yet) physicist Lawrence Krauss's book _A Universe From Nothing_, which would be of interest to people looking for an answer. I have seem him talk about it, and my initial perception of the question is that it is essentially nonsensical to talk about "nothing". Nothingness is a human concept, developed as the abstract thought of an absence of something, but, out in the universe, there is no equivalent of that idea because there are events going on even in a vacuum. It's just another misleading limitation of our mammalian brains.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Although the universe is not the same shape, consider an analogy with the earth - the earth is finite, but it doesn't end; you circle back on yourself if you keep walking forever, though you'll have the sense that you walk in a straight line in one direction without end. Our limitation is that our size prohibits us from recognising the shape of the earth as we traverse it. That's why people used to think the earth was flat, because our subjective experience suggests it's a two dimensional plane.
> 
> On the question of something rather than nothing, I recently bought (but have not read yet) physicist Lawrence Krauss's book _A Universe From Nothing_, which would be of interest to people looking for an answer. I have seem him talk about it, and my initial perception of the question is that it is essentially nonsensical to talk about "nothing". Nothingness is a human concept, developed as the abstract thought of an absence of something, but, out in the universe, there is no equivalent of that idea because there are events going on even in a vacuum. It's just another misleading limitation of our mammalian brains.


But the earth has definite boundaries. A space rocket can leave it. We've put a man on the moon.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Although the universe is not the same shape, consider an analogy with the earth - the earth is finite, but it doesn't end; you circle back on yourself if you keep walking forever, though you'll have the sense that you walk in a straight line in one direction without end. Our limitation is that our size prohibits us from recognising the shape of the earth as we traverse it. That's why people used to think the earth was flat, because our subjective experience suggests it's a two dimensional plane.
> 
> On the question of something rather than nothing, I recently bought (but have not read yet) physicist Lawrence Krauss's book _A Universe From Nothing_, which would be of interest to people looking for an answer. I have seem him talk about it, and my initial perception of the question is that it is essentially nonsensical to talk about "nothing". Nothingness is a human concept, developed as the abstract thought of an absence of something, but, out in the universe, there is no equivalent of that idea because there are events going on even in a vacuum. It's just another misleading limitation of our mammalian brains.


So is the universe like a huge planet then if that is the case??

And how is it that there has always been something? Didn't that something had to have started somewhere? I'm so confused


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Although the universe is not the same shape, consider an analogy with the earth - the earth is finite, but it doesn't end; you circle back on yourself if you keep walking forever, though you'll have the sense that you walk in a straight line in one direction without end. Our limitation is that our size prohibits us from recognising the shape of the earth as we traverse it. That's why people used to think the earth was flat, because our subjective experience suggests it's a two dimensional plane.
> 
> On the question of something rather than nothing, I recently bought (but have not read yet) physicist Lawrence Krauss's book _A Universe From Nothing_, which would be of interest to people looking for an answer. I have seem him talk about it, and my initial perception of the question is that it is essentially nonsensical to talk about "nothing". Nothingness is a human concept, developed as the abstract thought of an absence of something, but, out in the universe, there is no equivalent of that idea because there are events going on even in a vacuum. It's just another misleading limitation of our mammalian brains.


well, in General Relativity you can think the concept of "nothing" as a spacetime singularity. When you reach a spacetime singularity, space and time cease to exist, since matter needs space and time to exist, matter should also cease to exist. So, you don't have time, space and matter, that's pretty close to "nothing" . Spacetime singularities are very common in the solutions of the Einstein's Field Equations of General Relativity (they predict that a spacetime singularity must form in the center of a black hole or that the universe must have begun in a singular state).


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

Fsharpmajor said:


> I'm not claiming that if there were just something, rather than nothing, there would be necessarily be any life-forms like us to ponder that question--for example, in a universe whose physical properties are such that life couldn't exist. Is that what you mean?


Nope, I _am_ referring to the weak form. I rarely hear anything good said about it. Richard Swinburne, for example, gives a refutation in his _The Existence of God_, and I just found this very similar counter-argument floating around on the internet:

"You are to be executed by a firing-squad of a hundred trained marksmen, the story goes. You hear the command to open fire, and the sound of the guns, and then silence; you are not dead, you hear silence. All of the marksmen missed! Pondering, you realise that had the marksmen not missed you would not have been able to reflect on the attempted execution, that only a failed execution would have allowed you to be here now, listening to the silence. However, you do not infer from this that the fact that the marksmen missed is unsurprising. You remain astonished that one hundred trained marksmen could all miss simultaneously.

In this illustration, it seems that what is surprising is not that looking back at the execution you see that it failed, but that you are able to look back at the execution at all. Similarly, what is surprising about the universe is not that we observe it to be such as to allow the development and sustenance of life, but that we are able to observe it at all." 
http://www.philosophyofreligion.inf...rom-fine-tuning/the-weak-anthropic-principle/


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

What I would add to fsharp's and Poley's observations above is that the universe is thought to be the shape of an ellipse, or a kind of squashed circle. In Bill Bryson's book _A short history of nearly everything_, he talks of this. Eg. if we sent a probe into space, if it started travelling in one direction, it would eventually come back to us, after a long time of travelling in that same direction! So it's like a boomerang, when thrown comes back to you, but not travelling a curved path, it comes and goes in a straight path. The universe is like a kind of space-time continuum, but a different one to what we have here on earth. & let's not even start on things like black holes!...


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

What aboout the Multiverse? The Universe we are "in" is just one of many parallel universe happening. Go figure that one! Maybe there is another HarpsichordConcerto who loves the music of Merzbow in another universe right now.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^I think that's what black holes are kind of linked to. Eventually, our solar system may be sucked into one and on the other side another new solar system will form. Crazy stuff, I remember Bill Bryson talking about it in that book I mentioned above. Seems like anything is possible...


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

violadude said:


> So is the universe like a huge planet then if that is the case??
> 
> And how is it that there has always been something? Didn't that something had to have started somewhere? I'm so confused


No, it's not like a huge planet, that was just an example we can refer to more immediately. It's not that the universe is a sphere, but that there exist certain shapes in a multi-dimensional universe such as the one we find ourselves in that the properties described earlier can be coherent. It's just counter-intuitive because we evolved in 3 dimensions, not 11. You really can't hope to imagine it adequately with your monkey brain; you just have to accept that the maths works out!

As for our universe, yes, it started with the big bang! Now don't you go asking what it was like before the big bang, because that's just silly.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

violadude said:


> So is the universe like a huge planet then if that is the case??
> 
> And how is it that there has always been something? Didn't that something had to have started somewhere? I'm so confused


vd, I have answered all of your questions from the point of view of modern physics, you shouldn't be confused anymore


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

jalex said:


> "You are to be executed by a firing-squad of a hundred trained marksmen, the story goes. You hear the command to open fire, and the sound of the guns, and then silence; you are not dead, you hear silence. All of the marksmen missed! Pondering, you realise that had the marksmen not missed you would not have been able to reflect on the attempted execution, that only a failed execution would have allowed you to be here now, listening to the silence. However, you do not infer from this that the fact that the marksmen missed is unsurprising. You remain astonished that one hundred trained marksmen could all miss simultaneously.
> 
> In this illustration, it seems that what is surprising is not that looking back at the execution you see that it failed, but that you are able to look back at the execution at all. Similarly, what is surprising about the universe is not that we observe it to be such as to allow the development and sustenance of life, but that we are able to observe it at all."
> http://www.philosophyofreligion.inf...rom-fine-tuning/the-weak-anthropic-principle/


Unsurprisingly, I don't think this analogy holds up. The anthropic principle does not mean to claim that the fact the universe exists is unsurprising - even in the context of the principle, of course we are astonished that we exist at all. All the anthropic principle states is that we must necessarily find ourselves in a universe where the fundamental physical laws allow the appearance of life, and we must find ourselves on a planet in the goldilocks zone of a solar system, and in the temperate regions of that planet _etc._ We don't say, "isn't it amazing that we should have evolved in the plains of Africa rather than in the Arctic?!" No, because the plains of Africa are the _only_ place that life such as ours could have evolved. Given other conditions in another universe, other life will have evolved, and then we start to look much less special.

The real flaw with the analogy though is that it invokes consciousness as a mystery. The distinction made between observing the ability of the universe to sustain life and the _ability to observe at all_ is clearly meant to say that it is surprising that the universe gives rise to self-awareness and curiosity. Well, yes, consciousness is a problem to current scientific understanding, but there's no reason to believe that it cannot be described in purely empirical, physical, material terms, so the problem of consciousness is no greater problem than the existence of hydrogen. It just adds layers of complexity on the fundamental physical laws, which is explicable through means of evolution. Then, if we find ourselves asking, "well, why hydrogen?!", I return to Lawrence Krauss.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> No, it's not like a huge planet, that was just an example we can refer to more immediately. It's not that the universe is a sphere, but that there exist certain shapes in a multi-dimensional universe such as the one we find ourselves in that the properties described earlier can be coherent. It's just counter-intuitive because we evolved in 3 dimensions, not 11. You really can't hope to imagine it adequately with your monkey brain; you just have to accept that the maths works out!
> 
> As for our universe, yes, it started with the big bang! Now don't you go asking what it was like before the big bang, because that's just silly.


I want to know though.

I have another question then: Does the universe even have a beginning? If it does have a beginning, the big bang, like scientists suggest, then where did the subatomic particle that contained all matter come from? Was that always in existence?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

violadude said:


> I want to know though.
> 
> I have another question then: Does the universe even have a beginning? If it does have a beginning, the big bang, like scientists suggest, then where did the subatomic particle that contained all matter come from? Was that always in existence?


Our universe had its beginning in the first moment of the big bang, which is also when time began. Arguably, then, there was no "before" because there was no time (this is where my layman knowledge is _really_ shakey, btw ). If we exist in a multiverse, though, this is not so surprising, as it may be that each universe is a bubble in a vast cosmic foam with big bangs happening all the time. It's all speculation of course, but, from what I've read, I think it's impossible to determine where the big bang came from if it indeed came from anywhere as we can only observe what is inside the system.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Our universe had its beginning in the first moment of the big bang, which is also when time began. Arguably, then, there was no "before" because there was no time (this is where my layman knowledge is _really_ shakey, btw ). If we exist in a multiverse, though, this is not so surprising, as it may be that each universe is a bubble in a vast cosmic foam with big bangs happening all the time. It's all speculation of course, but, from what I've read, I think it's impossible to determine where the big bang came from if it indeed came from anywhere as we can only observe what is inside the system.


this is correct


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Our universe had its beginning in the first moment of the big bang, which is also when time began. Arguably, then, there was no "before" because there was no time (this is where my layman knowledge is _really_ shakey, btw ). If we exist in a multiverse, though, this is not so surprising, as it may be that each universe is a bubble in a vast cosmic foam with big bangs happening all the time. It's all speculation of course, but, from what I've read, I think it's impossible to determine where the big bang came from if it indeed came from anywhere as we can only observe what is inside the system.


But if there is a mass that exists in a space, then doesn't it experience time? There had to be some kind of mass to create the big bang or else it would be something from nothing.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

violadude said:


> But if there is a mass that exists in a space, then doesn't it experience time? There had to be some kind of mass to create the big bang *or else it would be something from nothing*.


well, that's what the big bang says. the singularity is "nothing".


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

violadude said:


> I have another question then: Does the universe even have a beginning? If it does have a beginning, the big bang, like scientists suggest, then where did the subatomic particle that contained all matter come from? Was that always in existence?





violadude said:


> But if there is a mass that exists in a space, then doesn't it experience time? There had to be some kind of mass to create the big bang or else it would be something from nothing.


Remarkably cosmologists can make rather precise statements about our universe (our region of spacetime) very (very, very) shortly after the big bang. We can measure features of the present universe that inform us about conditions existing at those early times. Our understanding of the universe just after the big bang is, for me, probably the most amazing scientific work ever done. Our extremely well tested theories allow cosmologists to speculate about reality "outside" of our region of spacetime. These speculations are not tested and may never be able to be tested. *BUT* these theories are extrapolations of well understood physics. While not all physicists believe what I'll describe below, many feel there is significant merit in these theories.

Many physicists believe the most basic feature of reality is quantum mechanics. They believe that reality consists of the quantum mechanical vacuum where universes (regions of spacetime) have "popped" into existence. The quantum mechanical vacuum does not have to include space, time, or matter. Every now and then, there will be a quantum fluctuation where spacetime is created.Within that spacetime, exist certain "fields". These fields are in some sense like electromagnetic or gravitational fields. One or more fields can cause spacetime to start expanding rapidly. As spacetime expands, the fields change and particles can be created. This process can lead to universes such as ours.

Many (unimaginably many) universes presumably have been and will be created. Each universe will likely never interact with any other universe. This is the Multiverse that HC mentioned.

There does not have to be mass existing to create a universe. In fact what is amazing is that our universe (and presumably all such universes) contain zero total energy. This may seem absurd, but all the energy in particles is exactly balanced by the gravitational potential energy which is negative. This is not a parlor trick but rather a result of our physics theories. We believe energy is conserved so when a universe is created from the vacuum state there can be no resulting positive energy in the universe. Time only exists in regions of spacetime so it _does not exist_ in the quantum mechanical vacuum state other then in these spacetime regions.

Assuming this scenario, the biggest question is, "Has the quantum vacuum always existed?" In other words, has there always been something (i.e. the quantum vacuum state) or did it come into existence? No present physics theory can shed light on that question.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Meaghan said:


> You're adorable.


Yes he is adorable. But is he adorable to you for particular Wittegenstein reasons I cannot fathom, or is he just adorable because of his reliable fixations?


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Unsurprisingly, I don't think this analogy holds up. The anthropic principle does not mean to claim that the fact the universe exists is unsurprising - even in the context of the principle, of course we are astonished that we exist at all. All the anthropic principle states is that we must necessarily find ourselves in a universe where the fundamental physical laws allow the appearance of life, and we must find ourselves on a planet in the goldilocks zone of a solar system, and in the temperate regions of that planet _etc._ We don't say, "isn't it amazing that we should have evolved in the plains of Africa rather than in the Arctic?!" No, because the plains of Africa are the _only_ place that life such as ours could have evolved. Given other conditions in another universe, other life will have evolved, and then we start to look much less special.


Fsharp used the WAP as an explanation of why something exists rather than nothing. I suppose in itself it's a fair statement but it doesn't as far as I can see explain anything. 'Given that I exist, it is not surprising I exist in conditions amenable to life' doesn't tell me 'it is not surprising that I exist', or 'it is not surprising that conditions amenable to life exist', or indeed 'it is not surprising that anything at all exists'.

Out of curiosity, why do you say 'unsurprisingly'?



> The real flaw with the analogy though is that it invokes consciousness as a mystery. The distinction made between observing the ability of the universe to sustain life and the _ability to observe at all_ is clearly meant to say that it is surprising that the universe gives rise to self-awareness and curiosity. Well, yes, consciousness is a problem to current scientific understanding, but there's no reason to believe that it cannot be described in purely empirical, physical, material terms, so the problem of consciousness is no greater problem than the existence of hydrogen. It just adds layers of complexity on the fundamental physical laws, which is explicable through means of evolution. Then, if we find ourselves asking, "well, why hydrogen?!", I return to Lawrence Krauss.


You've lost me here a bit. I'm not seeing how the analogy hinges on invoking consciousness as a mystery.


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## Chrythes (Oct 13, 2011)

@mmslbs - why is it likely that the different universes will never interact with each other? 
And what significance does the fourth dimension has regarding to _our_ understanding of the boundaries of the universe?
I know it's sometimes regarded as time, but there's also the spatial fourth dimension?
Is it possible that our limited 3D perception of our universe holds us from seeing it all as it is? 
And how does it even work - do we exist in the fourth dimension?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

jalex said:


> Fsharp used the WAP as an explanation of why something exists rather than nothing.


Ah I missed that [will go back in the thread and look in a minute]; I wouldn't draw that particular conclusion from the anthropic principle myself.

On the question of invoking consciousness as a mystery, there have been three key 'problems' posed in this discussion:

1) The fact that something exists rather than 'nothing'.
2) The fact that life exists rather than inanimate material.
3) The fact that a kind of life exists that can ask why there is something rather than 'nothing', rather than an 'unconscious' life.

Number 3 concerns itself with the problem of consciousness, and that's what your quoted analogy was speaking about. It conceded that it's not the fact that life exists which is the biggest problem (#2), but the fact that there is life that can make observations - i.e. self-aware, conscious, curious life.

My point is that #3, conscious life, is not a true problem as there's no reason to believe that consciousness requires anything but a material explanation. Thus we're at #2, life existing at all, which is even less of a problem because we again see that life is easily permitted by the physical laws of our universe. Thus we're down to #1, something rather than 'nothing', and the potential 'fine-tuning' argument, in which case I defer to Lawrence Krauss on the matter of a universe being perfectly capable of appearing out of nothing, and the potential existence of a multi-verse meaning that the fine-tuning argument is bogus because there are billions of potential universes in which necessary physical laws could exist and, courtesy of the anthropic principle, we must necessarily find ourselves in one of the hospitable ones.



jalex said:


> Out of curiosity, why do you say 'unsurprisingly'?


If it was not unsurprising, I take it back.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Chrythes said:


> @mmslbs - why is it likely that the different universes will never interact with each other?
> And what significance does the fourth dimension has regarding to _our_ understanding of the boundaries of the universe?
> I know it's sometimes regarded as time, but there's also the spatial fourth dimension?
> Is it possible that our limited 3D perception of our universe holds us from seeing it all as it is?
> And how does it even work - do we exist in the fourth dimension?


One of Einstein's theories (special relativity) places limits on what events can influence or interact with other events. Basically if an event occurs somewhere in spacetime, it can only influence or interact with an event elsewhere in spacetime if the second event is inside the first event's "lightcone". An event's lightcone is defined as all the points in spacetime that a beam of light could reach starting from that event. An event that occurs on the Sun cannot effect us immediately because light takes roughly 8 minutes to travel to earth. Spacetime events on the Sun can only effect spacetime events on the earth if the earth spacetime events occur more than eight minutes after the sun spacetime events.

We believe that some places in our own universe will never interact with earth because they are too far away and the universe is expanding so light could never reach us from those places. Those places are outside our lightcones forever. Events in separate universes are not in each other's lightcones. It's a bit difficult to explain why that is true, but you can think of them as even further "away" than the places in our own universe that are not in our lightcone. I hope that explanation is somewhat useful.

The 4th dimension is generally considered to be time. Spacetime consists of the 3 spacial dimensions plus the 4th time dimension. Starting early last century, some physics theories began to think about additional spacial dimensions. The recent work known as String Theory actually _requires_ 11 total dimensions (i.e. 10 spacial dimensions). 7 of these spacial dimensions are "compactified" or rolled up and so small that we do not see them.
There are potential experiments that could show us the existence of the additional dimensions although in normal life we would never see them. These extra dimensions are _not_ like the 4th dimension discussed in science fiction works where beings capable of traveling in the 4th dimension could suddenly appear to us out of nowhere.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Too late to ask Hawking I guess :angel:


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

:3 the multiverse is quite interesting.  

the greatest thing about everything and nothing is the fact that it coexists. Nothing is everything. Everything is nothing. Similtaniously. (or however that word is spelt.) 
But this is only a vague representation. But sometimes vague representations can produce an abiguous thought. this ambiuous thought can lead to the answer to everything. Which is Nothing. 

Nothing is different from no answer. Which it inevitably becomes Infinity times Infinity. 

on a side note, i shall do some things here... like eat and such then fall asleep because... i would have a more indepth answer if i was rested... (don't wait for me to come back here and have some all knowing thing come... because it already has. just six years later...


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

:3 the multiverse is quite interesting.  

the greatest thing about everything and nothing is the fact that it coexists. Nothing is everything. Everything is nothing. Similtaniously. (or however that word is spelt.) 
But this is only a vague representation. But sometimes vague representations can produce an abiguous thought. this ambiuous thought can lead to the answer to everything. Which is Nothing. 

Nothing is different from no answer. Which it inevitably becomes Infinity times Infinity. 

on a side note, i shall do some things here... like eat and such then fall asleep because... i would have a more indepth answer if i was rested... (don't wait for me to come back here and have some all knowing thing come... because it already has. just six years later...


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