Science's "nothing" different from religion's "nothing"

You'd think that if secular scientists and religious true believers could agree on anything, it'd be the nature of nothing. After all, isn't nothing, well, nothing?

Zero. Zilch. Nada. Absence. Void. 

But, no, here too science and religion are butting heads. Scientific nothing is quite different from religious nothing.

And while I used to be more on religion's side when I thought about what nothing meant in the Big Question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?", now I strongly lean toward the headbutt (or to the faithful, butthead) of science.

Physicist/cosmologist Lawrence Krauss does a great job laying out the debate in his new book, "A Universe from Nothing." Subtitle is the aforementioned Big Question. If you don't want to read his engrossing 191 pages, Krauss talks on You Tube for about an hour on this subject.

(The video has gotten over 1,140,000 views. Good to know that a talking dog and Kate Upton aren't the only ones getting lots of hits on You Tube.)

Here's how Krauss lays out the controversy in the preface to his book.

Before going further, I want to devote a few words to the notion of "nothing" -- a topic that I will return to at some length later. For I have learned that, when discussing this question in public forums, nothing upsets the philosophers and theologians who disagree with me more than the notion that I, as a scientist, do not truly understand "nothing." (I am tempted to retort here that theologians are experts at nothing.)

"Nothing," they insist, is not any of the things I discuss. Nothing is "nonbeing," in some vague and ill-defined sense. This reminds me of my own efforts to define "intelligent design" when I first began debating with creationists, of which, it became clear, there is no clear definition, except to say what it isn't. 

"Intelligent design" is simply a unifying umbrella for opposing evolution. Similarly, some philosophers and many theologians define and redefine "nothing" as not being any of the versions of nothing that scientists currently describe.

But therein, in my opinion, lies the intellectual bankruptcy of much of theology and some of modern philosophy. For surely "nothing" is every bit as physical as "something." It then behooves us to understand precisely the physical nature of both these quantities. And without science, any definition is just words.

A century ago, had one described "nothing" as referring to purely empty space, possessing no real material entity, this might have received little argument. But the results of the past century have taught us that empty space is in fact far from the inviolate nothingness that we presupposed before we learned more about how nature works.

Now, I am told by religious critics that I cannot refer to empty space as "nothing," but rather as a "quantum vacuum," to distinguish it from the philosopher's or theologian's idealized "nothing." ... And we're told that the escape from the "real" nothing requires divinity, with "nothing" thus defined by fiat to be "that from which only God can create something."

Brilliant and cogent analysis.

Krauss has nailed the Big Question about the Big Question: When we ask, why is there something rather than nothing?, it's important to make clear what the "nothing" is we're contrasting "something" with.

For many years prior to my churchless conversion, a.k.a. enlightenment, I thought of "nothing" in the idealized way Krauss criticizes above. Meaning, my "nothing" was an abstract quasi-philosophical, quasi-theological conception that didn't relate to anything observable or experienceable.

After all, how could it? My "nothing" was the absence of "something." So much so, there wasn't even the potential for any existence in my notion of non-existence. Yet strangely (looking back), my "nothing" had some sort of presence to it. Otherwise, how could I conceive of it?

It was like I was some sort of Godlike being looking upon existence from a transcendent realm, contemplating two cosmic possibilities: one where "nothing" prevailed eternally; another where the "something" we are aware of is existent.

I'd wonder why there's something rather than nothing. It just seemed so mysterious, so awesome, so marvelous, that instead of nothing, there was something, and I'm a part of it! 

My mistake, as Lawrence Krauss points out, was in assuming that nothing and something are both realistic possibilities. Actually, there's no such thing as nothing, in the sense of nonbeing. Material existence is what there is. The opposite of reality isn't nothing, nonbeing, or nonexistence. Such is a theological or philosophical idea, an abstraction, present only in the human brain/imagination.

Religions, particularly of the Western monotheisitic variety, adore the idea of creatio ex nihilo, "creation out of nothing."

But that's all it is: an idea. There's no evidence of the absolute "nothing" so loved by the religionists who take issue with Krauss's scientific view of a quantum nothing that creates universes instead of God. The quantum nothingness of empty space is filled with energy, potential, possibility.

So the everlasting God of religion, which is nowhere to be observed, is replaced by the everlasting quantum nothing which has been proven to exist even in seemingly absolutely empty spacetime.

As Krauss says, religious true believers argue with this scientific godless understanding of the cosmos. "But the quantum vacuum isn't really nothing," they say. "It is governed by the laws of nature." Well, who says that reality has to conform with how God-crazy humans want things to be?

Reality is what it is. Nothing isn't really nothing. Deal with it, religionists.

Comments

[Willie R]

My own particular "take" on "nothing" is the way that I felt for the 13.7 billion years that I did not exist (sic!).

The peace that passeth understanding.

[Elizabeth W]

Willie R
Is it only 13.7 question mark. Here in Nicaragua nothing feels much more.

[tucson]

What I want to know is how Willie R felt BEFORE the 13.7 billion years he did not exist.

[Udaybhanu Chitrakar]

The following was my critique of Stephen Hawking's book The Grand Design. I think it would be appropriate here also.

How did the scientists come to know that an entire universe could come out of nothing? Or, how did they come to know that anything at all could come out of nothing? Were they present at that moment when the universe was being born? As that was not the case at all, therefore they did not get that idea being present at the creation event. Rather they got this idea being present here on this very earth. They have created a vacuum artificially, and then they have observed that virtual particles (electron-positron pairs) are still appearing spontaneously out of that vacuum and then disappearing again. From that observation they have first speculated, and then ultimately theorized, that an entire universe could also come out of nothing. But here their entire logic is flawed. These scientists are all born and brought up within the Christian tradition. Maybe they have downright rejected the Christian world-view, but they cannot say that they are all ignorant of that world-view. According to that world-view God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. So as per Christian belief-system, and not only as per Christian belief-system, but as per other belief-systems also, God is everywhere. So when these scientists are saying that the void is a real void, God is already dead and non-existent for them. But these scientists know very well that non-existence of God will not be finally established until and unless it is shown that the origin of the universe can also be explained without invoking God. Creation event is the ultimate event where God will have to be made redundant, and if that can be done successfully then that will prove beyond any reasonable doubt that God does not exist. So how have they accomplished that job, the job of making God redundant in case of creation event? These were the steps:
1) God is non-existent, and so, the void is a real void. Without the pre-supposition that God does not exist, it cannot be concluded that the void is a real void.
2) As virtual particles can come out of the void, so also the entire universe. Our universe has actually originated from the void due to a quantum fluctuation in it.
3) This shows that God was not necessary to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going, as because there was no creation event.
4) This further shows that God does not exist.
So here what is to be proved has been proved based on the assumption that it has already been proved. Philosophy is already dead for these scientists. Is it that logic is also dead for them?
Giving death-sentence to an already-dead God is a joke perhaps!

[Brian Hines]

Udaybhanu, a more valid critique can be addressed to those who believe in a creator God without any evidence.

The scientists know a "creative vacuum" exists. It's activity has been observed and modeled accurately mathematically. But where is the evidence for God?

If something has existed eternally (assuming that word even makes any sense when talking about the entire cosmos, why not assume that what we can observe now has been present forever? Where's the need to imagine a creator God, in addition to the creative laws of nature?

If God exists, who created God? Where do we stop with acts of creation? Somewhere. So why not make "here" the "somewhere"? It may not ever be possible that God doesn't exist, just as it may not ever be possible to prove that fairies don't exist.

Evidence, though, needs to be positive, not negative. You can't prove that I'm not God. But there's no reason for you to believe this, so you don't. Ditto with religious Gods. There's also no evidence for them, so there's no need to believe in them.

[Udaybhanu Chitrakar]

"If God exists, who created God?"

This question has already been answered in the following link:
http://scigod.com/index.php/sgj/article/view/76

Scientists like Stephen Hawking and Lawrence M. Krauss say that as total energy of the universe is zero, so our universe can create itself from nothing, whereas we the God-believers have shown that if total energy of the universe is indeed zero, then it becomes damn easy to answer the question "Who created God". So it is for the kind information of all the atheists on earth that it is a most welcome news for us God-believers that total energy of the universe has been found to be exactly zero.

For evidence of God's existence you can also go through the following links:
http://scigod.com/index.php/sgj/article/view/50
http://scigod.com/index.php/sgj/article/view/62
http://scigod.com/index.php/sgj/article/view/63

One more evidence has also been given in another article that is going to appear in the February issue of the online journal Scientific God Journal (http://scigod.com).

[Udaybhanu Chitrakar]

The February issue of the online journal Scientific God Journal has come out in which the article mentioned in my earlier post of February 23, 2012 giving one more evidence for the existence of God has appeared, and it can be read from the following link:
http://scigod.com/index.php/sgj/article/view/173