Could the Universe have Created Itself?

[Iron_Donkey]

Perhaps then nothing is an “empty” concept when applied to the universe? IOW, might it be that there was always something in the universe so that it did not have to be created but instead just kept changing from one form, consisting of matter and energy, to another?

A potential possibility, but by itself it leaves the question “why is there something rather than nothing” unanswered.

The idea of creation or causation is more general than “by what mechanism did it come into being.” As you say, it is a potential answer that the stuff never came into being, but was always there. I prefer to replace created/caused with “explained” in these types of arguments*, for that reason. It is perfectly possible to imagine a steady(ish) state universe, but there is still the question “why is it here”? Why is there a reality at all, physical or otherwise? What is the explanation for the fact that stuff exists?

The steady state theory - if paired with a materialistic “physical stuff is all there is” type of idea - seems simply say that the answer to “why is there stuff” is “there just is.” Which is an odd type of answer. (Well, more than odd, but I’ll hold off on derailing in that direction for the moment, unless it just happens.)

*To be clear, as a Catholic I do believe the universe was created in the sense of “it was not there and then it was made”, I just do not think this fact is completely obvious from this type of argument.

 

[Slaney]

I’m sorry if I came across too harsh, I did I don’t mean the people reading this, it’s a lose term, anyway, life is too complicated to not have been created by a supreme being ! Maybe there are people living in another planet, is it called Heaven ? well we haven’t found ways to travel as quick as them, the speed of light, the Light of the world…

 

[Estevao]

I’ll take ‘Special Pleading’ for $400, Alex.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Some modern physicists think the answer is yes.

It is an illogical question. How can what does not exist create anything? I think what they are really saying is that there was something to begin with and that it somehow managed to start a process that resulted in what we call the universe. But all the “stuff” needed to make a universe was already there in their speculation, I believe, if you check it out. It’s still a preposterous idea, but at least, not as preposterous as saying that nothing created something. The God answer, on the other hand, does not say that nothing created something, but that something [God] created something “out of nothing”. There’s a big difference.

 

[ServantPD]

For those who think the universe is too complicated to have created itself, I point out that saying “God did it” simply defers the problem. Who, or what, created God? It’s not good enough to simply assert that God is the uncaused cause or whatever, because that is just special pleading. You don’t get to just make something up to justify your belief. Well, not if you want to maintain credibility.

I voted “Yes.” The correct, but missing poll option was, “We have no way of knowing, but we have no evidence that it was created by something else.”

Well, no one said anything about the complexity of the universe here, Catholics support science as well. But I like the fact that you apparently approach the validity of philosophy with a scientific approach, or in technical terms, logical positivism. I thought the (atheist) philosopher Anthony Flew debunked that type of thought 60 years ago…

 

[oneofmany]

I can believe a Supreme Being, one who can create everything from nothing, is more believable than nothing created everything. Nothing can’t do anything, science shows us that.

I don’t know why man can’t accept that we don’t have the mind of God and we never will. Do we really have to know everything in the universe? Is it even possible to ever know it all?

 

[inocente]

Except in math world, the empty set, {} is a thing. Nothing is that which is contained within the empty set, all of those objects separated by commas between the braces.

But notice that there are no objects there at all. No laws. No potential. No matter. Nothing that can do anything.

Here is a test: If it can do something, then it is not nothing. If there was ever nothing, then there would always be nothing, because if there is nothing then there is, by that test, no thing that can do anything.

And it’s worse than that. Because you might step back and say “yes, so nothing can’t do anything, but if you put braces around it and get the set which contains nothing, you now have a thing, and maybe that thing could do something.” But the problem is that if there was truly nothing, then there’d be no braces to put around it either. If you truly have nothing, you don’t have the empty set either, because that is a thing. There would be no empty set, not even the concept of emptiness (for that is a thing which describes other things), there would only be .

The idea that something can come from nothing is fundamentally flawed. It says “there is nothing. Now, assume it does…” But it can’t. Because it isn’t there. Nothingness is completely stable (change is a thing).

This seems to suggest that pure total nothingness is inherently contradictory (given, that is, that the idea of putting braces around things makes sense), that there must at least be existence, a possible thingness even if there are no things to possess the property. And so starts the journey to God.

Just as “nothing” represents the concept in English and “nada” in Spanish, “{}” and “0” represent it in math, and the paper I linked shows that even some preschoolers already understand what is meant.

So while there are semantic difficulties, it isn’t rocket science or brain surgery, we don’t need to keep explaining the concept.

Using set notation avoids ambiguity. The sequence for a universe out of nothing is then going from the empty set to the set of everything: { } → { universe }

This makes it clear that there’s a big problem with a universe literally ex nihilo, since with no rhyme nor reason billions of galaxies pop into existence just by going from the left hand side to the right.

Those preschoolers who understand the concept of nothing might also raise an eyebrow to your answer { God } → { God, universe }. Your added term means it’s not longer out of nothing, nor does it say where all the billions of galaxies were over on the left hand side, or why on the right hand side your added term is unchanged.

The answer { quantum fluctuation } → { universe } is also not ex nihilo since it involves some preexisting fluctuation.

 

[Paddy_Walker]

Creation out of nothing. Means just what it says. There was a creative will which created everything which did not previously exist.
Without a creative will nothing would ever exist, as nothing which previously did not exist could not create anything.
Quantum fluctuations, whatever they are, sound to me like they are part of the created universe, so they don’t really explain where the universe ultimately originated from. It just causes the universe to create the universe to create the universe to create the universe to infinity…

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Those preschoolers who understand the concept of nothing might also raise an eyebrow to your answer { God } → { God, universe }. Your added term means it’s not longer out of nothing, nor does it say where all the billions of galaxies were over on the left hand side, or why on the right hand side your added term is unchanged.

This seems to imply (though of course is does not exactly say) that God and the universe are the same sort of thing. We certainly don’t imagine God floating around and then forming the universe out of stuff. The relationship between God and the universe is closer (which is to say, not that close, but only closer) to the relationship between a dreamer and a dream than between a construction worker and a house.

Just thought I’d mention this, because {God} → {God, universe} could be construed as to imply all sorts of things that we don’t believe.

The answer { quantum fluctuation } → { universe } is also not ex nihilo since it involves some preexisting fluctuation.

Exactly. And so the universe didn’t create itself out of nothing. That is all I ever wanted to get across - if all the fluctuations in the whatever caused the stuff to show up, that doesn’t count as creating itself out of nothing, but just as changing its shape. And so leaves the question “why is there something rather than nothing” completely unanswered.

 

[zro_x]

A potential possibility, but by itself it leaves the question “why is there something rather than nothing” unanswered.

We seem to think that for whatever reason, things need an explanation for existing, whereas the absence of things does not, as if “nothingness” were the default state. If there were nothing, we could ask, “why is there nothing, rather than something?” Existence/non-existence is binary, and I don’t see any reason why would should consider one more natural or likely than the other. it may be an intuitive line of reasoning to think of nothing as being the default state, But I’d be hard pressed to come up for a rational basis for it.

 

[Paddy_Walker]

We seem to think that for whatever reason, things need an explanation for existing, whereas the absence of things does not, as if “nothingness” were the default state. If there were nothing, we could ask, “why is there nothing, rather than something?” Existence/non-existence is binary, and I don’t see any reason why would should consider one more natural or likely than the other. it may be an intuitive line of reasoning to think of nothing as being the default state, But I’d be hard pressed to come up for a rational basis for it.

The reasoning could be the scientific view that the universe will continue to expand forever and that the universe had a point of origin. And that no evidence of interference has been found indicating any previous structure in space before the big bang.

Altogether it points to a once-off event which is non-reversable. And one which does not extend backwards beyond the bb.
I don’t know how up-to-date these ideas are now though, they used to be at one stage.

 

[davidv]

We seem to think that for whatever reason, things need an explanation for existing, whereas the absence of things does not, as if “nothingness” were the default state. If there were nothing, we could ask, “why is there nothing, rather than something?” Existence/non-existence is binary, and I don’t see any reason why would should consider one more natural or likely than the other. it may be an intuitive line of reasoning to think of nothing as being the default state, But I’d be hard pressed to come up for a rational basis for it.

If there truely was a state of nothing, there would be noboby to ask why there was nothing.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Just as “nothing” represents the concept in English and “nada” in Spanish, “{}” and “0” represent it in math, and the paper I linked shows that even some preschoolers already understand what is meant.

So while there are semantic difficulties, it isn’t rocket science or brain surgery, we don’t need to keep explaining the concept.

Using set notation avoids ambiguity. The sequence for a universe out of nothing is then going from the empty set to the set of everything: { } → { universe }

This makes it clear that there’s a big problem with a universe literally ex nihilo, since with no rhyme nor reason billions of galaxies pop into existence just by going from the left hand side to the right.

Those preschoolers who understand the concept of nothing might also raise an eyebrow to your answer { God } → { God, universe }. Your added term means it’s not longer out of nothing, nor does it say where all the billions of galaxies were over on the left hand side, or why on the right hand side your added term is unchanged.

The answer { quantum fluctuation } → { universe } is also not ex nihilo since it involves some preexisting fluctuation.

But it is out of nothing! God is not the material from which the universe is made. That’s some Eastern religion, not Christian truth. The problem you are facing is that you are using finite mathematics to try to describe an action of the Infinite God. Can’t do it! God created the universe “out of nothing.” Pure and simple. Believe it, or be other than a Christian. We are entirely other than God, not made out of some part of God, not some kind of emanation of God, but entirely different from and other than God. Before creation there was no matter, no energy, just the Spirit of God, the Infinite God, the Incomprehensible God. It is impossible to describe. Imagine-- at some time in infinity [there is no time in infinity] God created the universe. There was nothing before but God who is spirit, no body, meaning no matter, no energy-- absolute nothingness in terms of the finite world, because He exists outside the limitations of the finite world. God cannot be reduced to something finite, period. Peace.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

We seem to think that for whatever reason, things need an explanation for existing, whereas the absence of things does not, as if “nothingness” were the default state. If there were nothing, we could ask, “why is there nothing, rather than something?” Existence/non-existence is binary, and I don’t see any reason why would should consider one more natural or likely than the other. it may be an intuitive line of reasoning to think of nothing as being the default state, But I’d be hard pressed to come up for a rational basis for it.

Except, if there were nothing we wouldn’t be able to ask why because we wouldn’t be there to do so. In a state of void there would be no questions to ask, because questions are things. Nothingness is inherently stable in that way - no unanswered questions at all.

But really, I’m not relying on some sort of “default state is nothing” position, but rather relying on the position that things generally make sense, and questions generally have answers. It’s an assumption, I’ll grant you, but not one that I think is unreasonable.

From this position, if there were nothing, and if we could somehow ask why there is nothing rather than something, and if questions had answers (and again, since all of these positions are things, none of them would make sense, but setting that aside) then we would essentially be saying that in the same way in God is existence and the first principal of everything since there is stuff, that nonexistence would be in some way the first principal if there weren’t stuff.

And again, that doesn’t actually work, because it’s full of contradictions from the very start. Non-existence can’t be a first principal, because if it were, things like principals wouldn’t make sense. This is why dualism (an eternal good - existence, God - vs an eternal evil anti-God) and maltheism (an eternal evil/eternal force in opposition to existence only), are false, and the worst villain that can actually exist is a created demon rebelling against what is, not an eternal is-not.

Which is a bit of a tangent, but that’s what you get for causing a me to think about something.

 

[JamesCaruso]

If there truely was a state of nothing, there would be noboby to ask why there was nothing.

Sure there would. He would not ask, because he already knows, but he is there. You are using nothing in the finite sense of the word. Spirit is not finite.

Consider this-- God is everywhere. Create a laboratory beaker which is a perfect vacuum. Science will find nothing there, yet we know that God is there for by faith we know that he is everywhere. He is not susceptible to scientific detection because he is spirit. Yet he is a real, intelligent being.

 

[zro_x]

The reasoning could be the scientific view that the universe will continue to expand forever and that the universe had a point of origin. And that no evidence of interference has been found indicating any previous structure in space before the big bang.

Altogether it points to a once-off event which is non-reversable. And one which does not extend backwards beyond the bb.
I don’t know how up-to-date these ideas are now though, they used to be at one stage.

One model of the universe is that it has expanded and contracted multiple times in the past (but not to a single point), each time growing larger and larger, until it reached the point where gravity could no longer force a contraction of the universe. (the stage we are in). There is currently no evidence for this view, but I think scientists are working on a device that can detect gravity waves, which might give us a glimpse through the cosmic microwave background radiation into whatever stage came before this one, if there is a prior stage.

Supposing that that there is no prior stage, and “stuff” really came into existence with the big bang, then we must ask whether something can begin to exist without a cause, a question that I think remains open.

But to return to the main point, I’m not really concerned here with the idea of the big bang. I’m trying to criticize the idea that, even if time does go back infinitely, existence needs a reason for being an actual state, whereas nonexistence does not.

 

[zro_x]

If there truely was a state of nothing, there would be noboby to ask why there was nothing.

Except, if there were nothing we wouldn’t be able to ask why because we wouldn’t be there to do so. In a state of void there would be no questions to ask, because questions are things. Nothingness is inherently stable in that way - no unanswered questions at all.

obviously, this is true, but it bypasses the point I was trying to make, which is that such a question in such a state would be every bit as valid as “why is there something rather than nothing?” the question couldn’t actually exist, but it would be valid. If that makes any kind of sense.

 

[zro_x]

But really, I’m not relying on some sort of “default state is nothing” position, but rather relying on the position that things generally make sense, and questions generally have answers. It’s an assumption, I’ll grant you, but not one that I think is unreasonable.

From this position, if there were nothing, and if we could somehow ask why there is nothing rather than something, and if questions had answers (and again, since all of these positions are things, none of them would make sense, but setting that aside) then we would essentially be saying that in the same way in God is existence and the first principal of everything since there is stuff, that nonexistence would be in some way the first principal if there weren’t stuff.

And again, that doesn’t actually work, because it’s full of contradictions from the very start. Non-existence can’t be a first principal, because if it were, things like principals wouldn’t make sense. This is why dualism (an eternal good - existence, God - vs an eternal evil anti-God) and maltheism (an eternal evil/eternal force in opposition to existence only), are false, and the worst villain that can actually exist is a created demon rebelling against what is, not an eternal is-not.

Which is a bit of a tangent, but that’s what you get for causing a me to think about something.

You seem to be making the argument that true nothingness is logically impossible. If that is the case, then the answer to the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” is that true nothingness can’t be an actual state of affairs! something has to exist.

 

[Linux]

You seem to be making the argument that true nothingness is logically impossible. If that is the case, then the answer to the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” is that true nothingness can’t be an actual state of affairs! something has to exist.

Its true that absolutely nothing cannot exist, since nothing is a distinction that is always referential to something that truly exists objectively speaking. For example there is no bike in the room. The absence of a bike is not the objective presence of a no-bike; that is meaningless. Nothing is the negation of a possible truth, not the presence of truth. Objective truth does not exist in nothing, so it can never be an objectively true state of affairs. Therefore an absolutely perfect act of existence - the antithesis of nothing - must exist.

 

[zro_x]

Its true that absolutely nothing cannot exist, since nothing is a distinction that is always relative and referential to something that truly exists objectively speaking. Objective truth does not exist in nothing, so it can never be an objectively true state of affairs. Therefore an absolutely perfect act of existence - the antithesis of nothing - must exist.

I don’t see why the the fact that a state of nothingness is logically impossible demands that there must be a perfect act of existence. It just means that something must exist.