Why is there something, rather than nothing ?

[Jason]

But there is the absence of existence. Just outside existence is non-existence. We just covered that.

Lets see.. the universe is expanding so let's come back to that one. If you take the volume of the universe at one picosecond after the big bang, call it a, and the volume of the universe now, call it b, and subtract the volume of a from b, call it c, what is the volume of c in the most appropriate unit - light years?

[Jason]

Oh and nothing does exist. By definition.

Nothingness is the absence of existence. it's not a thing that exists. It's the absence of existence.

The above is in response to this.

[Forty Two]

But there is the absence of existence. Just outside existence is non-existence. We just covered that.

That's a nonsensical statement. The absence of existence isn't something that exists.

Lets see.. the universe is expanding so let's come back to that one. If you take the volume of the universe at one picosecond after the big bang, call it a, and the volume of the universe now, call it b, and subtract the volume of a from b, call it c, what is the volume of c in the most appropriate unit - light years?

Irrelevant. The universe expanded, but not "into" anything. It just expanded.

[Jason]

It's not irrelevant.. either you're afraid of the math, or you know you're wrong and why and don't want to follow through with me.

[Jason]

But there is the absence of existence. Just outside existence is non-existence. We just covered that.

That's a nonsensical statement. The absence of existence isn't something that exists.

Yes. It is. At the very least, it used to be. If you define the universe as all that exists, and you have.

[Forty Two]

Well, no, it isn't. Since, absence of existence isn't a thing that exists. If it's an "it", then it's not the absence of existence, it's the existence of something.

It can't be both something and nothing.

[Jason]

http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html
Have you read this this transcription of a lecture by Stephen Hawking before? It's very good, simple and clear, and introduces his ideas of imaginary time and a finite universe.

[Brian Peacock]

By definition, nothing doesn't exist. It's nothing. If it existed, it would be something. Nothing is nonexistence. Nonexistence is nothing. There can be no dimensions, qualities, or features of "nothing.

Aye, nothing (no-thing) is a description of absence. The point of Krauss' book 'A Universe From Nothing' is to outline how our current understanding of the quantum realm points to what we might traditionally think of as comprising 'nothing', e.g the cold, empty vacuum between galaxies in which all traces of matter are absent, is not actually a region of nothingness but of some very interesting somethings. A lot of the criticism for his book, apart from the usual religious objections to increasingly detailed god-banishing descriptions of the natural world, came from philosophers who were unhappy at his apparent casual use of 'nothing' in his explanations. Having read the book I don't think many of his philosophical objectors could've got further than the introduction before taking to their word processors, because he in no way undermines the philosophical concept of 'nothing', he simply uses the term as a way into explaining why it seems that the universe cannot really be said to contain any regions of nothingness. In other words, 'nothing' in the physical sense is actually a 'something' in the physical sense, and 'nothing' in the philosophical sense remains entirely secure and unaffected.

[JimC]

In general, I agree with Forty Two's position on the expanding Universe. It is expanding, but one cannot say that it is expanding into space, or in fact anything we can currently describe, of course. However, in terms of multiple universes, endlessly branching via big bangs, there may be a "meta-space" consisting of higher dimensions, undetectable by current science, into which the branching universes could be said to expand into. That, at least, seems to be the view propounded by the acolytes of one version of String Theory, the M-Brane model...

[Jason]

I'm far from an expert, but I believe Hawking has what we call 'time', he calls real-time, expanding into imaginary-time at the moment of the big bang.. the universe expands into imaginary-time with its real-time.

Or something. He doesn't answer my emails.

I suppose imaginary-time is the 5th dimension as it is transverse to real-time. But it 'exists' separate from space-time and, of course, matter/energy, which is the entirety of our universe, or all that 'exists', and thus nothing does, in fact, exist.

[JimC]

I'm far from an expert, but I believe Hawking has what we call 'time', he calls real-time, expanding into imaginary-time at the moment of the big bang.. the universe expands into imaginary-time with its real-time.

Or something. He doesn't answer my emails.

Perhaps in analogy to Complex numbers; the existing universe being the real number line, but outside it being the rest of the Argand plane of imaginary numbers...

[Jason]

I'm far from an expert, but I believe Hawking has what we call 'time', he calls real-time, expanding into imaginary-time at the moment of the big bang.. the universe expands into imaginary-time with its real-time.

Or something. He doesn't answer my emails.

Perhaps in analogy to Complex numbers; the existing universe being the real number line, but outside it being the rest of the Argand plane of imaginary numbers...

I think that's a good analogy.

[laklak]

Well, they often use a balloon as a metaphor for an expanding universe, and the 5th Dimension took us up, up and away in a beautiful balloon.

Mucho deepity, dude.

[Brian Peacock]

Well, they often use a balloon as a metaphor for an expanding universe, and the 5th Dimension took us up, up and away in a beautiful balloon.

Mucho deepity, dude.

[Forty Two]

It's not irrelevant.. either you're afraid of the math, or you know you're wrong and why and don't want to follow through with me.

We agree the universe expanded. Where we disagree is that you seem to think science posits it expanding "into" something. It doesn't. "The short answer is that this is a nonsense question, the Universe isn’t expanding into anything, it’s just expanding." http://www.universetoday.com/1455/podca ... ding-into/

"Either the Universe is infinite, going on forever, or its finite, with a limited volume. In either case, the Universe has no edge. "