Why is there something rather than nothing?

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by Roger, Sep 6, 2011.

  1. wlminex Banned Banned

    Messages:
    1,587
    Sciwriter . . . good point!

    . . . to maintain the scientific method 'pecking order', string theory is only a hypothesis . . . not yet a theory (testable).

    wlminex
     
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2011
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. wlminex Banned Banned

    Messages:
    1,587
    Amendments, corrections, and discussions welcome! . . . just my take . . . .

    Details of the “Scientific Method”

    1. Observation (or experience)
    2. Question observation (repeatable?)
    3. Conceptual explanation (based on prior experience)
    4. Hypothetical explanation (based on current knowledge and understanding)
    5. Hypothesis (based on known facts, creative visualization, and analogy)
    6. Experimentation (set experimental parameters to re-create observations)
    7. Experimental confirmation of observations
    8. Repeatable experimental results
    9. Postulation of a theory based on observations and
    repeatable experimental results
    10. Prediction of new observations based on postulated theory
    11. Confirmation of new observations based on prediction
    12. Go to 1 and repeat

    wlminex
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. wellwisher Banned Banned

    Messages:
    5,160
    If we compare something to nothing, something defines more degrees of freedom compared to nothing. Nothing has no freedom and something has at least one more degree of freedom. This means that something has more entropy than nothing.

    An increase within entropy will absorb energy. This is why an expansion will get cooler; energy is going into the entropy increase. Something appearing, in nothingness, will increase entropy absorbing energy, creating substance.

    Due to energy conservation, any energy gained in one place, means energy has to be lost elsewhere. One way to release the energy for the entropy of something, is for the entropy to lower in another place. This lowering of entropy elsewhere will give off energy.

    Let me put it all together. We start with nothing. We can form something, if we increase entropy since higher entropy will now have more degrees of freedom over nothing and therefore be different than nothing. This will take energy to feed the entropy, with the entropy within the new degree of freedom of something, containing this potential energy (primordial atom).

    Due to conservation of energy, energy needs to lower somewhere else by the same amont. This can occur if entropy was lowering somehere else, since a lower of entropy will give off the needed energy. One way to do this, is via a simple decelleration from C reference, into finite reference.

    The way entropy lowers is connected to time. As time speeds up as we move from C to finite reference, there are few and fewer degrees of freedom that are possible, since many freedoms will need more time and will therefore not have sufficient time within a finite reference. This loss of entropy will release energy.

    Basically all you need is a drop from C reference into the finite reference of nothingness. The expansion of time, lowers the local C-level entropy, due to certain degrees of freedom no longer having sufficient time to act. The loss of entropy will release energy. As the energy appears within nothingness there is an increase in entropy into something.

    The goal of something is to return back to C, since this will be the direction of highest possible entropy; all the time needed for infinite degrees of freedom for this something. This can occur via SR such as universal expansion toward V-->C, and GR via gravity moving toward black hole singularities (C-reference). All the force of nature move at C, allowing matter to converts to energy at C.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. wlminex Banned Banned

    Messages:
    1,587
    Wellwisher . . . . .

    . . .but, perhaps . . . "nothing" has all of the potential (unrealized) available 'degrees-of-freedom' to start with. And "Something" possesses realized degrees-of-freedom. Just a thought . . .

    wlminex
     
  8. wlminex Banned Banned

    Messages:
    1,587
    Wellwisher #43:
    Yours: "Due to energy conservation, any energy gained in one place, means energy has to be lost elsewhere. One way to release the energy for the entropy of something, is for the entropy to lower in another place. This lowering of entropy elsewhere will give off energy."

    Fits my hypothesis (read elsewhere on Sciforum) to a " T "!!

    wlminex


    "
     
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2011
  9. NietzscheHimself Banned Banned

    Messages:
    867
    Ex nihilo nihil fit!
     
  10. SciWriter Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,028
    That's the kicker, it having to be true, and we can see the results being in balance, but we don't know exactly why.

    How is existence derived from nonexistence? This is the prime paradox. No wonder everyone went off to do something else, yet, there must be a solution, for the cosmos is indeed here. The real paradox is that something and nothing are perceived to be radically and irreconcilably different. We can say this because the basic things need a source, and further things cannot be the source, so no-thing.

    There are trillions of stars out there and no one knows why. We can only comprehend the cosmos after we know the complete answer of why it exists. Incomplete answers will not do, such as stuff having been around forever.

    At least we've narrowed it down.
     
  11. SciWriter Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,028
    And 10^500 solutions, one of which is supposed to be ours.
     
  12. SciWriter Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,028
    Simplicity to Complexity


    Eternal Totality Everywhere and Always
    !
    !
    V
    Tiny stuff from nothing via quantum fluctuations
    or the tiny stuff/energy was forever around,
    forming or being quarks and electrons,
    or protons and electrons,
    always with their antiparticles
    of opposite polarity
    !
    !
    V
    (Sometimes comes a low probability event,
    such as a Big Bang reaction/inflation;
    eternity can wait long enough)
    !
    !
    V
    lots of protons and electrons spewed out,
    inflation quickly driving virtual particles apart
    to more enduring existence
    !
    !
    V
    collection into stars
    !
    !
    V
    lower atomic elements are emitted;
    supernova stars emit the rest
    of the atomic elements
    !
    !

    V
    atoms and molecules spread; clump
    !
    !
    V
    planets of solar systems
    !
    !
    V
    more molecules form and gather on planets
    !
    !
    V
    lower forms
    !
    !
    V
    cells develop
    !
    !
    V
    lower life forms
    !
    !
    V
    nervous systems and brains expand
    !
    !
    !
    (consciousness ever developing)
    !
    !
    V
    mammal life,
    among other types
    !
    !
    V
    us higher mammals
    (14 billion years later)
    !
    !
    (future)
    !
    !
    V
    higher evolved life​
     
  13. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,833
    \(10^{500}\) isn't a number you should toss around without knowing that it was one person's estimate based on nothing concrete.
     
  14. wlminex Banned Banned

    Messages:
    1,587
    Sciwriter, Post #47:
    Yours---> We can only comprehend the cosmos after we know the complete answer of why it exists.

    Perhaps the reverse is true . . ."We can know the answer of why it exists after we comprehend the cosmos". Just an out-of-the box musing . . . .

    wlminex
     
  15. Roger Registered Member

    Messages:
    11
    BennyF,

    Hi. Thanks for the confirmation that I exist! That's always good to know!
    Actually, though, I don't question my or anyone's existence; I'm just trying to figure out why things exist. While I'm always open to new evidence, arguments, for now, I'm comfortable thinking that what we've always thought of as non-existence, really isn't totally non-existent; it is an existent state for the reasons outlined in my papers. The term non-existence is really a misnomer. SciWriter has been making this same type of argument.

    But, given this, because one can never see non-existence itself (since we wouldn't be there), I can never prove this completely. I can just try to provide indirect rational evidence for it. However, for the same reason, no one can ever prove their theory for the origin of all existence. We all have equal opportunity to believe what we think is right and to try and show there are rational arguments for it.

    Anyways, thanks for the reply and for your consideration!

    Roger


    FYI, there are some consistency issues I have with the Bible, but that's another discussion for another time and another message board. This board was begun by someone who questioned his own existence, and I'm happy to tell him that yes, he exists.
     
  16. Roger Registered Member

    Messages:
    11
    I totally agree on this. What we need to do is beat the academics to the punch and come up with evidence for our theory. Our edge/boundary is really very similar to their strings/membranes. We'll keep at it


     
  17. Roger Registered Member

    Messages:
    11
    This seems like a pretty good summation of the scientific method. In step 8, I might add to publish the experimental observations to see if others can repeat them.


    QUOTE=wlminex;2811993]Amendments, corrections, and discussions welcome! . . . just my take . . . .

    Details of the “Scientific Method”

    1. Observation (or experience)
    2. Question observation (repeatable?)
    3. Conceptual explanation (based on prior experience)
    4. Hypothetical explanation (based on current knowledge and understanding)
    5. Hypothesis (based on known facts, creative visualization, and analogy)
    6. Experimentation (set experimental parameters to re-create observations)
    7. Experimental confirmation of observations
    8. Repeatable experimental results
    9. Postulation of a theory based on observations and
    repeatable experimental results
    10. Prediction of new observations based on postulated theory
    11. Confirmation of new observations based on prediction
    12. Go to 1 and repeat

    wlminex[/QUOTE]
     
  18. Roger Registered Member

    Messages:
    11
    I like Wellwisher's thinking, but I think I agree with SciWriter: How does the something appear in the nothing to begin with?


     
  19. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    19,252
    Which doesn't bode well for your discernment. Wellwisher is crank, given to making specious and nonsensical statements.
     
  20. SciWriter Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,028
    Well, guys, we know there has to be something, or at least that it could be, for there is something, yet we don’t see any way for it to get here. Its basic forms are quite limited (by ?) and it has properties (because of ?) and it looks to have a symmetry of a balance( since?); so, we kind of have it surrounded, and have some clues, but not thoroughly explained.

    Is there some basic law (or a ‘law’ of no laws) that makes there be something? Sounds like magic otherwise and even if there is such a law. No where else to turn but to this supposed fundamental law.

    We have ideas of nothing such as ‘not there’, which seems to serve. See nothing? No, for it isn’t there and it doesn’t even have a place to be not there (empty) but in relation to stuff, such as no dough in a donut hole. Of course there is air there, but we know what we mean, and even when we look as far as we can microscopically it’s hard to find a gap of nothing, or maybe it’s too hard to look for, and we do suppose that there is field everywhere and can measure it sometimes.

    So we’re inclined to think that nothing doesn’t mean anything, yet any other source for stuff eludes us.

    Aside from gaps of nothingness we might locate among entities or that we create in a vacuum cylinder, which is still in relation to its walls, what would an absolute lack of anything be in total? Again it seems like ‘not there’ and not even a place for anything—a zilch. But maybe every situation leaks somehow, and the state of a lack of anything would be too perfect to maintain, but these are just words at this point.

    So, it is a truth that there has to be something, for some reason, and it begins as really itty bitty stuff, for some reason, and it is not inert, for some reason, and so it recombines into higher forms, although it takes billions of years to produce complexities like us. Anything else is but inference, though seemingly reasonable, such as that if it happened once it could happen again, elsewhere, or even around here (hope another big bang doesn’t happen nearby).

    Looks like we are back to this, which is at least something we can do more of:
    If only Sherlock was a real guy, he could probably tell us.
     
  21. SciWriter Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,028
    A joke of sorts…

    Huge manufacturing plant
    with a giant warehouse

    !
    !
    V

    Tiny stuff,
    etc.

    !
    !
    V
    …​
     
  22. SciWriter Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,028
    (The Cosmos Cannot Be Other Than It Is)

    The size of an atom is fixed to what it is for it to be stable.

    There is no Rutherford catastrophe of the lowest (ground-state) orbiting the nucleus in an atom losing energy by emitting a photon and then crashing everything because this process is not instant but takes an interval, and this interval of time is not long enough for what it takes to emit the photon.

    The only state where kinetic energy is less than the minimum photon release energy is the ground state by a factor of two (orbital n=1). At n=2, the two energy levels are equal. All levels but the ground state can decay into a lower energy level. This is why atoms have the size they do; their electromagnetic stability is purely a matter of scale. Physicists in Germany and Austria were recently able to use extreme ultraviolet light to calculate hydrogen’s ground-state orbital period at 1.5(10)[-16] seconds.

    Unless electrons are really fuzzy cloud things.
     
  23. SciWriter Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,028
    I found Sherlock and related this information:

    One of the consequences of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle -- that you can't know a quantum state's energy exactly for a finite duration of time -- means that when you're talking about very short time intervals, there are large uncertainties in the energy of a system. Over short enough timescales, the energies are large enough that particle-antiparticle pairs wink in-and-out of existence all the time!

    ("That's crazy talk," you say. Prove it. And they did.):
    Take two identical, uncharged, parallel metal plates, and put them close to one another. The vacuum fluctuations in between the plates cause there to be a pressure pushing the plates together. This isn't the gravitational force or an electromagnetic force, but a force due to empty space itself.

    When the Universe inflates, or expands exponentially (before the Big Bang), these quantum fluctuations also expand, and get stretched across the Universe faster than they can annihilate one another. These fluctuations show up as regions with slightly more (for positive fluctuations) or less (for negative ones) energy, which then grow into structure (like clusters, galaxies, and stars) and voids as the Universe ages. So, the quantum fluctuations are writ large across the sky.



    Sherlock responds:

    However, in the above, space is already there, so the problem is that we are conflating two conceptually different things: "Nothing at all -- no space, time, energy, or physical laws", and "a vacuum in which the laws of quantum mechanics operate".

    (He had to run off to another case before we could talk more.)
     

Share This Page