The Quatum leap out of nothing

[Blue_Horizon]

1. The scientific method proceeds on the principle of methodological naturalism

1. Peer review Science therefore has nothing to say about that which exists or does not exist beyond physical reality or the limits of the scientific method.

Not quite sure about this.
Scientists seem to trek into what is effectively philosophy in formulating hypotheses (models?) to explain micro-physical experiments that don’t make sense using macro-physical understandings of things we all accept as true by “first principles” as it were (e.g. two separated bits of matter are not the same object in our everday macro world). This hypothesis making (which elicits new physical experiments to confound the hypothesis) is part of the scientific method isn’t it?

1. When scientists, limited to peer review standards, says that an object came out of nothing, it is not a metaphysical statement about how an object came to be. It is not the claim that an object came to be by itself out of absolute nothingness, since nothingness is not an empirical entity and neither is the idea that a thing came to be by itself something that is empirically verifiable. These are metaphysical claims that go beyond the legitimate and epistemological limits of the scientific method and asserts metaphysical-naturalism as opposed to methodological naturalism.

Yes. Despite this that is what they often seem to do. See below, “nothing” may in fact be “something” without extension. Descartes/Newton has to call that “nothing”, but Aquinas would still call it existant “corporeal substance”. If that is the case we are still dealing with the “empirical” but for Descarftes (and most scientists today) it would, by definition, have to be called metaphysical. I think a paradign shift is being forced upon such scientists by the Higgs Field.

Conclusion: Quantum particles, fluctuate in and out of nothing physical. This cannot be taken to be scientific evidence or even metaphysical evidence that these events occur without an existential-cause; that is to say a cause that actualizes the potential of a particles existence. It can only be taken to be scientific evidence of the idea that there is no physical cause; which is entirely different to saying that it has no cause at all.

I find it interesting that scientists may have to come around to the realisation that Descartes and followers (including Newton) were mistaken in redefining “matter” by what Aristotle/Aquinas considered to be the primary accident of corporeal substances- i.e. quantity (which includes extension, mass and inertia). Aristotle of course considered “matter” as but one (in itself non-existant) component of “physical” reality.
So maybe the quantum Physicists are having such ar hard time understanding their experiments because the “physical” (regardless of whether you call it matter or energy) itself may not be definable by either inertia or extension in the end.

How can one understand “nothing” properly if what we think is “something” has been misunderstood?

A Thomist I read somewhere attempted to define Einstein’s “ether” by positing the existence of a form so simple that it perfectly actuated prime matter into a truly existing corporeal substance that was yet so primitive as to be without extension or intertia or sensibility. Of course by “without extension” we mean something “invisible” that is therefore “everywhere” at once in the cosmos.

What would the point of such a form be? What “act” could such a form have? Pretty much what the Higgs field (if it “exists”) does - it gives mass/extension to other slightly more complex forms giving rise to “physical” particles/energy.

Perhaps these sorts of principles are what scientists are on the verge of having to accept as the only viable models for explaining the foundations of the “physical” universe.

Perhaps the only reason why scientists think metaphysics is dead is because their assumed metaphysical models/principles operating behind the word “physics” is … merely physical (perhaps what you mean by “naturalism”).

 

[sealoch]

Neither is the scientific method useful for construing what is and what is not acceptable knowledge. Neither is the scientific method capable of determining whether or not a thing can begin to exist without an existential-cause. It can only determine if a thing has no physical mechanistic cause. The scientific method properly applied simply describes events as they happen. It makes no metaphysical inferences.

Yes the scientific method is used to explain what is occurring around us. There is the evidence of the big bang occurring at time zero. coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/page/big_bang

Just because we do not have a definite answer of how this happened does not mean we should jump to a god. As with many other things it takes time and further testing to figure out the answers. All of our science were born from religious backgrounds.

Humans have compiled an immense amount of knowledge and understanding in the last several centuries and this rate will likely continue. The scientific method you seem to so harshly wish to stop using has been the basis of many of the greatest innovations that are used every day.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Yes the scientific method is used to explain what is occurring around us. There is the evidence of the big bang occurring at time zero. coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/page/big_bang

Just because we do not have a definite answer of how this happened does not mean we should jump to a god. As with many other things it takes time and further testing to figure out the answers. All of our science were born from religious backgrounds.

Humans have compiled an immense amount of knowledge and understanding in the last several centuries and this rate will likely continue. The scientific method you seem to so harshly wish to stop using has been the basis of many of the greatest innovations that are used every day.

I can’t speak for Linux or any other particular Christian, but many of us accept the big bang as a likely event and don’t take it as a philosophical/theological certainty/necessity that it was directly caused by God. We might say that such seems feasible, and even perhaps even likely, or that it’s a nice idea that we’d like to imagine is (or simply think is) true. We may point out that current scientific understanding has no better answer, though we should take care here because science is in the habit of acquiring answers - and so accepting current scientific understanding as absolute unchanging truth and trying to base religion off it can be just as philosophically stupid for us as it can for others (such as all those people in Newton’s day who decided that the universe was absolutely deterministic).

The first cause principle does not necessitate that any particular secondary cause be the “first secondary cause”. That is, we don’t have to say “God is the first cause, He made the big bang, and then everything else happened (perhaps with further intervention).”

It only says that there is a fundamental cause and that logic dictates that it must be a different sort of thing than the stuff we see around us. Again, it is possible that this Cause made the big bang directly, or it is possible that He didn’t, but it doesn’t really matter.

Applied to what you said more directly, and taking the limitations of science into account - science may determine that the big bang has another physical cause. It may determine that it doesn’t (I tend to think that it would be very hard to say there was no physical cause for something via the scientific method, but I am not ruling that out for the sake of argument). It may find 15 logically previous causes, but then decide that that 15th has no physical cause. Or it may never decide whether or not a particular thing has a physical cause.

But none of that matters to the fundamental question. Because logic, completely independently of the physical sciences, dictates that there is a fundamental cause. This is an ascientific question, science has no (name removed by moderator)ut here because it is very specifically limited to physical stuff.

 

[sealoch]

I can’t speak for Linux or any other particular Christian, but many of us accept the big bang as a likely event and don’t take it as a philosophical/theological certainty/necessity that it was directly caused by God. We might say that such seems feasible, and even perhaps even likely, or that it’s a nice idea that we’d like to imagine is (or simply think is) true. We may point out that current scientific understanding has no better answer, though we should take care here because science is in the habit of acquiring answers - and so accepting current scientific understanding as absolute unchanging truth and trying to base religion off it can be just as philosophically stupid for us as it can for others (such as all those people in Newton’s day who decided that the universe was absolutely deterministic).

The first cause principle does not necessitate that any particular secondary cause be the “first secondary cause”. That is, we don’t have to say “God is the first cause, He made the big bang, and then everything else happened (perhaps with further intervention).”

It only says that there is a fundamental cause and that logic dictates that it must be a different sort of thing than the stuff we see around us. Again, it is possible that this Cause made the big bang directly, or it is possible that He didn’t, but it doesn’t really matter.

Applied to what you said more directly, and taking the limitations of science into account - science may determine that the big bang has another physical cause. It may determine that it doesn’t (I tend to think that it would be very hard to say there was no physical cause for something via the scientific method, but I am not ruling that out for the sake of argument). It may find 15 logically previous causes, but then decide that that 15th has no physical cause. Or it may never decide whether or not a particular thing has a physical cause.

But none of that matters to the fundamental question. Because logic, completely independently of the physical sciences, dictates that there is a fundamental cause. This is an ascientific question, science has no (name removed by moderator)ut here because it is very specifically limited to physical stuff.

I can understand your point of view and even agree with most up to the end. Because the universe began and is physical there will probably be a physical answer. That will be testable at least on some scale.

Your puppy is cute!!

 

[Iron_Donkey]

I can understand your point of view and even agree with most up to the end. Because the universe began and is physical there will probably be a physical answer. That will be testable at least on some scale.

Your puppy is cute!!

There will be proximate physical answers to most things in the universe, but there cannot be an ultimate physical answer to reality itself. Various lines of reasoning show that the ultimate answer must be unchanging, not subject to an external constraints, etc. etc.

And yeah, she’s really nice when she’s not trying to eat someone’s face off.

 

[inocente]

Quantum physics- it strikes me as nonsense. A particle, no matter how small, cannot just ‘pop’ into being. Why should I believe it? Because other people ‘say’ its true?

Because it’s one of the most rigorously tested theories in physics and the chips in your computer and mobile phone couldn’t have been designed or made to work without it.

There are more things in heaven and earth than got dreamt of in any philosophy

 

[StrawberryJam]

I think you may be misunderstand what I am saying.

Science is not looking at the question “why is there something rather than nothing.” It can’t. It’s not logically possible.

Now, science might be able to answer the question “why is there stuff in space rather than not stuff in space,” but that is not the same question at all.

Nor are we making up answers or grasping at straws because we demand an answer “right now”. That is not it at all. The fact is we have an answer that stands very well by itself, and so hold on to it. It is no more a result of impatience simply because it didn’t come from physical experimentation than the fact that apples tend to fall to the ground when released is a result of impatience because that fact is not a direct result of philosophy.

Again, the answer is there. Admitting to have and acting on an answer that you have does at all equate to impatience with not having answers. Rather, it is simply not being in the state of not having answers.

Are you telling us that science is not asking/ looking into this question?
Or is it not coming up with a pat answer quickly enough for your preference when you have one you can cling to that already exists with dogma?

There is no answer from faith nor should there be.
Give me a list of any reliable ways your bible or Church has enlightened us to the natural world around us.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Are you telling us that science is not asking/ looking into this question?
Or is it not coming up with a pat answer quickly enough for your preference when you have one you can cling to that already exists with dogma?

The first. Science is not looking into the question of why there is something rather than nothing. The first reason being, anything that science finds at all qualifies as something (in fact a particular subset of possible somethings). Every time science finds an answer, that answer is a thing that we can also ask about. Which doesn’t immediately seem to be a problem, but let me expand:

The singularity proposed by the big bang, for example, is a thing. A weird thing, but a thing. Why was it there? We don’t know, but there are some theories about quantum fluctuations and stuff. Suppose one of those theories is right.

Quantum fluctuations are a thing. Why are they there? And don’t get me wrong, science could probably find the answer if indeed there is a physical answer. But the process repeats.

There are two options here: Either science will ask why continually, and continually come up with answers. Which is great, but which leaves everything fundamentally unexplained. I may know that A ← B ← C ← D ← …, but unless and until that chain stops on something that is just true, that needs no and can have no explanation, then the whole thing, the question “why is that chain of reasoning there at all” remains unanswered.

Option 2 is that there actually is a physical beginning (logically speaking), some sort of physical principle that cannot be explained as resulting (physically) from anything else. This could be just physical laws, or physical laws together with some primer such as the big bang singularity. Science (assuming we do it well enough) would eventually discover this thing (at which point it would sit there spinning its wheels, as explained below, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself).

But it still doesn’t answer the question. For several reasons, starting by what is meant by “answer” and ending with what is meant by the question.

For one thing, because science is empirical, it is always searching for more fundamental explanations (one of its biggest strengths), but as a result of this, it can’t actually know if it is “done,” so to speak. So suppose the big bang (or whatever) was just there. The process of science will continually ask why it is there. But if it is fundamental, there is no answer. It just is.

But science will not, indeed cannot, accept that and maintain its integrity. Because there is no way to tell the difference between “has no fundamental explanation” and “has no fundamental explanation that we have found so far.” Saying that there is no explanation - whether there is one or not - is the equivalent of giving up in science, exactly because it is not possible to know when we’re done.

Further, science can only tell what things “look like” not what they actually are. We tend to assume (for good enough definition of “look like”) that they’re the same, but that is not something that science has or can prove. After all, the theory “the physical universe just popped into existence 5 seconds ago” is logically consistent. Science tells us that if it did, it did so in a way that makes it look really, really old. But there is no scientific argument against the theory “the universe popped into existence 5 seconds ago in a way that looks really, really old.” Most sane people say that that theory is bogus, but not because science disproves it, but because of the non-scientific principle that what you see is what you get (at least if you look carefully enough).

And even further science never even actually proves its own theories, even under the assumption that what you see is what you get. It makes them extremely plausible. But it does not prove them. Science builds models, and tests them against reality, but the actual results of these tests are “the 13 billion times I ran this experiment, the results seemed to be what this model predicted.” There is no logical reason why the 13 billion and first run can’t completely contradict the other 13 billion. I could even theorize that some demon or other is staring at me, and decides that whenever I do experiments he will cause outcome x, but that he will cause outcome y at some other times. And science cannot disprove this proposition. We all reject it, but we reject it based on the non-scientific principle that the universe runs (more or less) according to principles, and that violations of these principles are rare if not nonexistent.

And even further than that even further, even if somehow science did determine that no model of the universe that contains any (physical) thing more fundamental than physical object/principle X is wrong (which it can’t), even if it it determined such absolutely (which it most certainly can’t), and even if it determined that the model was in fact identical to reality (which it absolutely can’t), then it still has no idea whether or not there is anything nonphysical, and if so where it fits on the how fundamental scale. How do you tell if everything you experience is all there is, or if everything you experience is contained in some sort of box that is completely isolated from everything outside it? (And complete isolation isn’t necessary to cause the confusion either, but it exemplifies it.)

[Finished next post.]

 

[Iron_Donkey]

[Finishing up previous post]

To sum up: Science is not asking about the ultimate cause because it can’t - it is continually asking about the next proximate physical cause. It will never know if it has found the most fundamental physical cause, it will never know with certainty if it has actually found a real actual explanation at all, or just a theory the model of which appears to agree with our universe everywhere we’ve managed to look, and it will never know whether or not there are things outside of the realm where it’s looking. A person who can only look straight ahead and can’t turn around may see a lot, but he’ll never know what, if anything, there is behind him.

Science can build very accurate, very useful models. It can give, with some non-scientific principles assumed, accurate answers to some pretty cool questions. But it can never answer the question of fundamental cause.

There is no answer from faith nor should there be.
Give me a list of any reliable ways your bible or Church has enlightened us to the natural world around us.

The general idea that the universe is ordered, and that not every action is a direct result of “the gods.” The scientific method. Genetics. The big bang theory. The university system. The Church has nearly always supported scientific endeavors.

But more importantly, it has also answered, based on reason and reason as applied to actual events, the questions of “why is there something rather than nothing,” “what does it mean to be human,” “is there actually a point to anything, and what should we do about it,” “what is the meaning of life, and what happens at its end.”

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Because it’s one of the most rigorously tested theories in physics and the chips in your computer and mobile phone couldn’t have been designed or made to work without it.

There are more things in heaven and earth than got dreamt of in any philosophy

Are you speaking as one who understsnds quantaum mechanics and all the " tests " which " prove " it and are you speaking as an expert on how the chips in our computer depend on them or are you just repeating what was said in Wikipedia or some other " peer revued " site?

And even if the theory is true is the " leap out of nothing " justified ( and I mean a real nothing, nada, zero anything ).

Linus2nd

 

[yppop]

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.’ Richard Feynman

On the other hand,

“No experiment should be believed until is has been confirmed by theory."

Sir Arthur Eddington,

Yppop

 

[yppop]

Quantum physics- it strikes me as nonsense. A particle, no matter how small, cannot just ‘pop’ into being. Why should I believe it? Because other people ‘say’ its true?

Because by assuming that virtual particles can appear “to be real” within the constraints of the time-energy uncertainty principle, physicists can explain certain observations to the satisfaction of a large number of members of the club, but not all.

It’s as simple as that. Are they “real”. Well that would take an interesting definition of the word “real”
yppop

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Are you speaking as one who understsnds quantaum mechanics and all the " tests " which " prove " it and are you speaking as an expert on how the chips in our computer depend on them or are you just repeating what was said in Wikipedia or some other " peer revued " site?

And even if the theory is true is the " leap out of nothing " justified ( and I mean a real nothing, nada, zero anything ).

Linus2nd

Linus what makes something “justified” seems to be the ultimate rub of your question.

I believe the best model for even comprehending/unifying different experiments in the unnatural world of sub-atomic Physics involves hypothesising that some “particles” (even that is not the right word) spontaneously come in and out of sensible existence.

This model is “justified” it seems only because other more “natural” models do not do as good a job at unifying these different experiments in such a way that “reality” (whatever that is) is wholly and consistently “explicable”.

Not that “particles” popping in and out of existence is terribly “explicable” anyway but perhaps that is better than nothing.

Sounds pretty metaphysical to me - but maybe not the Metaphysics of Aristotle or Aquinas… maybe.

 

[Paddy_Walker]

…

Conclusion: Quantum particles, fluctuate in and out of nothing physical. This cannot be taken to be scientific evidence or even metaphysical evidence that these events occur without an existential-cause; that is to say a cause that actualizes the potential of a particles existence. It can only be taken to be scientific evidence of the idea that there is no physical cause; which is entirely different to saying that it has no cause at all.

I am not claiming to know much about quantum events, however there are limits to what science can say about the universe, where it comes from, and how it comes to be.

But how would anyone know where a particle came from and why. 95% of the universes matter and energy cannot be seen but it must be there and it must interact with the visible universe. Is it not more likely that particles which appear and disappear into the visible universe already exist in the invisible universe and that interactions/collisions between them are the cause of their visible appearance.

 

[inocente]

Are you speaking as one who understsnds quantaum mechanics and all the " tests " which " prove " it and are you speaking as an expert on how the chips in our computer depend on them or are you just repeating what was said in Wikipedia or some other " peer revued " site?

And even if the theory is true is the " leap out of nothing " justified ( and I mean a real nothing, nada, zero anything ).

You won’t find anything from any trustworthy source that contradicts my statement.

The relevant area is QED, quantum electrodynamics. Richard Fenyman got his Nobel for the theory, and a short book based on of his lectures is still popular and very easy to understand: amazon.com/QED-Strange-Princeton-Science-Library/dp/0691125759/ref=dp_ob_title_bk (in fact it gets a bit repetitive in the working out of examples).

A hypothesis of a leap out of literally nothing must start from a total absence, including no deity, which would appear illogical. In terms of pure logic, the hypothesis of a preexisting deity and the hypothesis of a preexisting space both involve a conjectured eternal preexistence do they not?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Linus what makes something “justified” seems to be the ultimate rub of your question.

I believe the best model for even comprehending/unifying different experiments in the unnatural world of sub-atomic Physics involves hypothesising that some “particles” (even that is not the right word) spontaneously come in and out of sensible existence.

This model is “justified” it seems only because other more “natural” models do not do as good a job at unifying these different experiments in such a way that “reality” (whatever that is) is wholly and consistently “explicable”.

Not that “particles” popping in and out of existence is terribly “explicable” anyway but perhaps that is better than nothing.

Sounds pretty metaphysical to me - but maybe not the Metaphysics of Aristotle or Aquinas… maybe.

The point I was making was in regard first, to the comments of the poster and secondly, to the definition of " nothing. "

And of course, the folks who make these inferences or deductive conclusions deny the right of philosophers like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to also make inferences on their observations of nature. What is allowed the goose should equally be allowed the gander .

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You won’t find anything from any trustworthy source that contradicts my statement.

The relevant area is QED, quantum electrodynamics. Richard Fenyman got his Nobel for the theory, and a short book based on of his lectures is still popular and very easy to understand: amazon.com/QED-Strange-Princeton-Science-Library/dp/0691125759/ref=dp_ob_title_bk (in fact it gets a bit repetitive in the working out of examples).

A hypothesis of a leap out of literally nothing must start from a total absence, including no deity, which would appear illogical. In terms of pure logic, the hypothesis of a preexisting deity and the hypothesis of a preexisting space both involve a conjectured eternal preexistence do they not?

We are talking about inferences made by certain scientists ( or their popularizers, to me it matters not which). And of course, the folks who make these inferences or deductive conclusions deny the right of philosophers like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to also make inferences on their observations of nature. What is allowed the goose should equally be allowed the gander . So what we have are competing inferences.

Linus2nd

 

[Linux]

We are talking about inferences made by certain scientists ( or their popularizers, to me it matters not which). And of course, the folks who make these inferences or deductive conclusions deny the right of philosophers like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to also make inferences on their observations of nature. What is allowed the goose should equally be allowed the gander . So what we have are competing inferences.

Linus2nd

No; what we have is someone called Linus putting words in the mouth of Aquinas. You are so incapable of critical thinking that you are willing to pit Aquinas against the findings of modern science.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

You won’t find anything from any trustworthy source that contradicts my statement.

The relevant area is QED, quantum electrodynamics. Richard Fenyman got his Nobel for the theory, and a short book based on of his lectures is still popular and very easy to understand: amazon.com/QED-Strange-Princeton-Science-Library/dp/0691125759/ref=dp_ob_title_bk (in fact it gets a bit repetitive in the working out of examples).

Yeah, QED is a fairly robust theory. Of course, just because of how things work and using the logical terms theory as “set of sentences” and model as “thing in which those sentences are true,” it would be very difficult to show that the theory itself is true (satisfied, more technically), but it is certainly true (under the assumptions that the universe is reasonable and that observations are real) that if QED is false then that any model of whatever the true theory is will have to agree with the standard model of QED pretty much everywhere where QED isn’t currently having issues.

Which isn’t to say that I doubt the basics of QED, but it is worth pointing out that it does have some problems that are still getting worked out, and it’s not clear what will change when these are worked out. But where it works, it works very well indeed.

A hypothesis of a leap out of literally nothing must start from a total absence, including no deity, which would appear illogical. In terms of pure logic, the hypothesis of a preexisting deity and the hypothesis of a preexisting space both involve a conjectured eternal preexistence do they not?

Yup, though of very different sorts.

Most of those who deny that Aquinas’ first cause thing shows God exists, because they say that they think an eternal universe can fill the same role, do so because ALL they have read is the first cause argument, and have not read any of the things that can be deduced about this first cause. (Those who say “but what caused God” are simply not paying attention to the argument.)

Various lines of reasoning can show that this first cause must be unchanging, simple, pure act (no potential), etc etc - all kinds of things that don’t apply and can’t apply to any physical thing.

 

[yppop]

Because it’s one of the most rigorously tested theories in physics and the chips in your computer and mobile phone couldn’t have been designed or made to work without it.

There are more things in heaven and earth than got dreamt of in any philosophy

Innocente
It is true that quantum mechanics, specifically Erwin Schrodinger’s wave equation, was the basis for the development of semiconductor devices, but it was had nothing to do with the design of such devices and it certainly did not have much to do with “making it work”.

The design of integrated circuits, the heart of the computer and associated devices, was based on the logic developed my a mathematician/logician/philosopher named Georg Boole. The design of computers was the work primarily of mathematicians such as Alan Turing and John von Neumann. The whole structure of electronic computation rests on Boole’s logic (a branch of philosophy). As far as computers are concerned, Boole’s logic is more important than Schrodinger’s science; computers were made with vacuum tubes before the transistor was invented.

As far as “making it work”, quantum mechanics had very little to do with that. The modern electronic devices happened mostly because of technology, specifically engineering technology, not science. I could, if you like, fill a couple of pages listing the essential steps that had to be solved technically before any of our amazing devices could be “made to work”. Very few of those steps were the result of what could be called science.

Yppop