Something From Nothing?

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How did something come from nothing. This means, how did matter come from non matter as an original cause? For the Creation theory, the question boils down to this question: Which came first? Creation(matter) or a Creator?

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The big bang doesn't suggest the universe arose from "nothing" or "non matter" at all. A little reading up on what the actual theory is would avoid confusion like this. Since you're a creationist, I will take the time to inform you that the big bang theory is not about a dot that spun out of control and exploded.

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How Did Life originate? Frankenstein...electricity?? By now, you guys know that I am a Christian absolutist. By definition, I would think that much of the collective belief systems originate from one of two sources:

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This has nothing to do with the big bang whatsoever. One deals with biology and the other deals with the dense, early universe. How can you get those confused?

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Obviously, I am a believer along the path of A, but I respect everyone in this forum and shall try and understand any comments..k?

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Neither A or B has anything remotely to do with the origin of life.This forum is for the discussion of cosmology, and how it relates to the evolution/creation debate. You mention the big bang, but your post has very little to do with it. If you want to discuss cosmology, great. But please don't throw things off course by bringing up the origin of life, religion or epistemology when it doeesn't belong here.

A few misconceptions here, Ringokid:

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The unverse was created out of "nothing" and is still expanding into it.

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Not quite. The volume of the universe is increasing over time (IOW space is expanding) but the universe is not expanding into anything at all. That's because the universe is all of space to begin with. This doesn't mean matter is flying apart from an explosion into an empty void. Rather, the void itself expanding.However, the void is still something. Space does not have any independent existence of it's own, but is the volume of the gravitational field. So in that sense, there is no such thing as completely empty space at all. Space expands, but the universe is not embedded in any larger volume.On another note, "nothing" is merely the linguistic negation of "things", in the same context of words like "nowhere" and "nobody". IOW, the word is short form for "not anything". Saying "not anything" is a thing in it's own right is not profound or philosophically deep, but pure nonsense. Such statements shows a lack of basic logic and even a misunderstanding of basic english.

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...substitute GOD or the much more mysterious sounding "the void" for "nothing" and you still get the same result...yeah ?

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Nope. The void is just a relatively flat region of the gravitational field. Nothing musterious sounding about that. God on the other hand, is a being with supernatural powers. I don't see how the 2 are even remotely similar.

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So the big bang wasn't an explosion of matter into a void ? And the singularity existed as "the void" or was it surrounded by it, thereby making it non singular as there would then be two things, it and the medium it existed in.

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As I said, the expanding universe refers to the expansion of space itself. If it helps, imagine a universe that is empty of matter that is expanding. Wind the clock back on this expanding void, and you find that the density at each point becomes very high. At the classic big bang singularity, this density becomes infinite. However, this expanding universe is not contained in any medium.

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can you prove this?

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Yes, if you accept the validity of general relativity as a description of space and time. In GR, space is just the volume of the gravitational field. If you were to somehow take away the field, then space (as defined here) would vanish with it. Because of this, an expanding universe is not expanding into any larger spaces.Even if you assume the existence of some kind of external space, that space would still be something. After all, it has properties just like any other object does.

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surely an expansion needs a medium to expand into

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Logically, it does not.

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I'm actually trying to follow a logical chain of simple events in laymans terms, apologies if it seems naive, but something from nothing can only happen if that nothing is actually a something or was surrounded by it...

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But you're not using logic, you're using intuition. It may seem that empty space is somehow ontologically different from everyday objects, but that is only because of the way depth perception works. If you take the time to break things down into logical arguments, you'll find that there is no reason that a finite space must be embedded in a larger space.As well, another misconception that has come up is that the big bang implies the universe is finite. This is also incorrect, as the universe may well be infinite.

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Do you mean that it has infinite volume, or that its volume is finite but unbounded? I confess I have a hard time wrapping my head around how a universe could go from infinitely small to infinitely large without being finitely large in-between.

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I mean a universe of infinite volume. This is one possible model for the expanding universe used by cosmologists. Such a universe does not start out finite and become infinite, so don't worry about that one. An infinite universe is always infinite, even at the moment of the big bang itself. As I said, every point throughout this infinite volume of space reaches infinite density at the beginning, but only finite universes actually get smaller as you wind back the clock.[This message has been edited by Beercules, 01-07-2004]

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space takes time to expand meaning distance is involved so doesn't that mean the possibility exists that it does have an edge and a centre and a medium which it is expanding into?

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Err, let's simplify for a moment. Forget the expansion of the universe, as that is probably causing more confusion than need be. Imagine a static universe that is not expanding. There is still no center and nothing that the universe is embedded in.It seems obvious that an infinite universe would have no center, but the same is true for a finite one. That is because the curvature associated with mass allows for space to have an overall curved topology so that there is no edge. The most common analogy is that of a 2D surface. Flat surfaces, such as those on tables have edges and a center. But if you look at a surface that is curved, such as that of a basketball, you'll notice that neither a center or edge can be found. The same is applied to the 3D volume of space.

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thus it is expanding possibly to infinity and not infinite in itself.

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The expansion of space does not necessarily mean the universe is getting bigger. All it means is that the distance between points in empty space is increasing. In a finite universe, this means the overall volume increases. However, this is not so when the volume is infinite to start with. In such a case, any given region of space is an infinitesimal point in this infinite volume. Expansion means that the distance between points in this region will increase, but the region remains an infinitesimal point for the duration of the universe. As well, an infinite universe remains infinite at all times.

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I'm not talking about some "place" outside of the universe because that requires a point in spacetime as a reference point I'm talking about some "thing" of which we don't have a frame of reference so let's call it "nothing" yet instil it with conscious thought and power the universe with it.

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Why would you call a thing "not anything"? Again, basic logic.[This message has been edited by Beercules, 01-07-2004]

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a balloon and a basketball have a middle and an edge if you look at it from outside of it as a sphere. Being on it you wouldn't know especially if thats all you knew of it.

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The 3D sphere isn't the analogy here - the surface of the sphere is.

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so I'm thinking rather that the universe is the rubbery stuff it's made up of and the "thing I have no name for" is the air that inflated it and that surrounds it.

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The space the surface is embedded in is not part of the analogy.

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did dark matter/energy exist before it had a name or was it nothing because no one had observed it yet and named it ? For to look at it with einsteins eyes he would have just seen "nothing" and at the current level of understanding it may as well be that.

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That doesn't make any sense.

What are you talking about, Abshalom? The balloon is something, and it's not displacing anything by expanding.

In your example, the ballon is being placed into a medium. In this case, it's water which gets displaced when you do so. The universe however is NOT embedded in anything! It's not displacing some "thing" called nothing, it's not displacing anything.I think you are getting confused by the english language. You easily say "the universe is displacing nothing" but it is a negative that literally means "the universe is not displacing anything". You are taking the "nothing" to mean a thing in it's own right, which is inproper usage.

You haven't the slightest clue of what you're talking about, do you? There is nothing in the link posted that suggest either a. the big bang says the universe was created from nothing or b. the big bang involves a spinning dot. Please don't post links to artciles you haven't even bothered to read.[This message has been edited by Beercules, 01-15-2004]

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science cannot dispel the theory God so i would say religion has so far held up to the most critical scrutiny that being time...

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Since the God hypothesis makes claims that can never be tested, it has never been vulernable or subjected to scrutiny at all.

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so what would make the god theory into a testable hypothesis, ie...what sort proof would you need ???

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In order for something to be testable, it must make a prediction about our experience. IOW, we can observe phenomena through experience only. If you have a testable hypothesis, it will make predictions (previously unknown) about that experience.For example, how do we test the standard model of particle physics? We test it by making observations about our experience. What will we find when our atom smashers collide particles at enormous speeds? The standard model predicts we will find very specific results.The God hypothesis doesn't make any predictions, because it doesn't even say anything about our experience. If a God created the universe, we will never be able to do experiments to show it. That's because experience in a universe created by God appears identical to experience in an uncreated universe.

That's really the big difference between science and religion. Explanations offered by science must offer testable predictions, which leaves the hypothesis vulernable to being falsified. Religious explanations on the other hand, make no predictions and so cannot be falsified.

As crashfrog pointed out, an experiment must be repeatable by any individual. The scientific method attempts to remove human biases and other factors that can cloud judgment. As such, an experiment cannot be limited to certain individuals of certain beliefs. An experiment must be something that anyone can perform and get results that the next person doing the test will agree on. This rules out your so called experiment listed above.Falling back on the intellectual copout that "one wasn't truely listening" when the test fails to get results, does not make things any better. Science avoids such copouts.

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at least not with that attitude you won't, you'd be better off creating a super computer called "deep thought", just be careful what you ask it though cos you might not even understand the answer...

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It's got nothing to do with attitude, because the God hypothesis is untestable in principle. That is, the idea that God created the world in which we experience things. The only way the hypothesis would be testable in principle, is if God directly interacts with his creation.In such a case, I have explained what it means for a hypothesis to be testable. If it can make previously unknown predictions about our experimence we can observe, then at least in principle it can be tested. Given that, do you suppose God is an idea that is testable or not?

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clever fellow this God chap, knows how to cover his tracks. Do you reckon we'll ever get to be as clever ???

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Maybe God just likes to play hide and seek.