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Can Something come from Nothing?

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10/06/2009

We’ve all heard it before.  The classic argument from a theist’s perspective on why a god must have created our universe.  I can’t tell you how many times religious people have said to me: “well, can you think of one example where something comes from nothing in the universe?”

Hubble Deep Field: thousands of galaxies in one tiny view of space

They are correct in noting that “something cannot be created from nothing” within our known universe, as far as we have been able to demonstrate through scientific inquiry.  However, when considering the big bang and the origins of our known universe, we cannot apply the laws of physics WITHIN the known universe to that which act OUTSIDE the known universe.  Before the start of our universe, it is plausible that other laws of “physics” governed and dictated how our universe singularity began and where the energy and material originated from.

There is also a notable phenomenon observed in quantum mechanics.  Particles composed of quarks such as protons, neutrons, positrons, etc have been observed popping into existence from nowhere and leaving again just as fast.  Such particles “appear” in a vacuum where no other matter or energy exists.  At the quantum level, even empty space is not truly empty but is seething with activity;  particles are constantly popping in and out of existence everywhere.  In pair creation, a particle and its antimatter partner seem to “appear”  (see Bosons).  This is cutting edge quantum mechanics research.  The Large Hadron Collider in Switzlerand was built and is just recently up and running in the search for the Higgs-Boson particle.

We cannot apply the laws of this universe to that which acted outside of the universe.  The laws that hold true within the bubble of our universe may not govern outside the bounds of this universe.  It is plausible that there are endless numbers of other universes “floating” about and our universe is just one of them.  Within each of these multi-verses different laws and properties may govern the interactions within.  This “Multiverse theory” is the leading theory in the scientific cosmology community, though it remains untested and still a speculation.  (Though this speculation is based on other observations and evidence of how our universe operates).  It is probable that the “laws” that act outside our bubble universe commonly call into existence something from nothing.  We cannot say with certainty so  it is irresponsible to jump to a conclusion without the ability to test or prove it to be false or true.  This applies to the multi-verse theory and the theory of a god or gods.

Watch this 10 min video where Dr. Michio Kaku, a leading cosmologist explains the multiverse theory:

  • Steve Duncan

    I find it interesting that your blog here is called “liberated mind,” and yet it is nothing but a website for atheists, because you presume that you must be an atheist to have a liberated mind.

    Paradoxically, IF you had a liberated mind, you would actually be open to the possibility for the existence of God, whether God actually exists or not. I hope the irony is not wasted.

  • http://liberatedmind.com LiberatedMind.com

    Do you have proof that a god exists? If so, I am certainly open to hearing your argument. I was a fundamentalist catholic for 19 years of my life and have argued with atheists from that viewpoint. It was some of those debates that left me unable to explain the irrationality of my beliefs that helped crack my mind open to explore other ways of thinking, finally landing upon the conclusion that “we don’t know”. And until we do know (with provable, repeatable evidence), it is dishonest to go around saying we have the answer and it’s name is god.

  • http://zoroark'snightmare Ventus

    PROVE THAT GOD DOES NOT EXIST. If you had a liberated mind, you’d actually be able to believe in things like that.
    Got any other proof besides your opinion? Huh?

  • http://meow Zeus

    I dont think the quantum mechanics part can apply to the beginning of the universe because what they are testing or seeing is something happening within activity and within our universe which is all matter. Therefore it cant apply to before our universe where there is no activity and nothing. Also everything you said is in proof of God. Its funny how when I argue with atheists we almost have the same arguments, the difference is that I think that this world couldnt be subject to chance or randomness because of the complexity and order and mechanisms you see everywhere. Science explains how things work but not why they work. If everything wasnt so constant or the same I think I would question if there was a creator, but everything seems to be subject of intelligence rather then something randomly happening. For example sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid or gas composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level suffieciently strong to be heard or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations. This is my question how or why if we are the subject to chance did something so intelligent and complex and precise just appear out of nothing but a chaotic explosion? How did the idea of vision just come from a random explosion how can we just process visual detail how can we just interpret information from visible light to build a repersentation of the surrounding world. WE are able somehow to identify and categorize visual objects. Scientist will say we evolved. I have a question how if something cannot see can it comprehend the idea of seeing and then evolve to be able to see? Or how would it just mutate to seeing and keep this mutation going forever without dying off at any point along the history of this earth. Or if you say the first organism had the capacity to already see then you run into some problems also, how from an accident was something already able to precieve complex information which it couldnt comprehend? Chance? All I know is when I go through a book of equations(kind of like this universe) I assume that some intelligent being put those equations there not that they randomly appeared by chance or by nothing. If your going to use logic you would go with the more probable choice of an intelligent being putting those equations there because thats all we have witnessed and have observed so far.

  • lawless imagination

    asking someone to prove that god does not exist is like asking a person to prove that unicorns do not exist, or fairies….because we have not witnessed a unicorn nor a fairy seems to be evidence enough that neither of these things exist. No one asks us to PROVE that these things do not exist because there is no evidence that either of these things are anything other than made up factions.

    most atheists do not claim that there is no god, they claim that they hold no personal belief in god (the semantics in this case seem to be relevant)…do not feel badly though, we hold no personal belief in ANY god…not just the one of the christian bible…we hold no belief in thor (thats reasonable right?) nor athena (thats reasonable right?, nor zeus (thats reasonable right?) nor any of the other gods in history and literature that have participated in virgin births and/or blood sacrifice. (that’s reasonable right?)..then why is it not reasonable to exert that the god of the christian bible probably does not exist, most especially considering there is not much evidence of him, nor his son outside the writing of the bible…that neither Him nor his son wrote even one word from their own hand that is seen in the bible…

    i myself am an apathetic atheist…i don’t care if a god existed because it would not change how i live my life as i live my life now in a manner that hopefully honors nature and the people that live here…i try to make good choices…i don’t need a god (most especially not the god of the bible…have you READ it??? or…even JUST Job?…he is kind of an ass). I do not point my finger at believers and tell them they are wrong…i am typically happy that they have found the path they are happy with. This is not a street that goes both ways. I will actually go to church or bible study with people just to learn new ways of thinking, or at least try to grasp why it is people think the way they do…..this street does not work both ways…ask a believer to even entertain the idea that there is no god and they will no longer listen (of course if someone says that god speaks directly to them and tells them to do something that is not lawful then they are crazy…as if god never asked people to do insanely cruel things )…from here…it seems…even believers only believe as far as their face

  • http://liberatedmind.com LiberatedMind.com

    @Zeus: The arguments you presented are classified as logical fallacies: “Argument from Ignorance”. You are saying that because you cannot think of how the order in the universe came to be as it is, there must be an intelligent deity driving it all. The argument from ignorance is a logical fallacy of irrelevance occurring when one claims that something is true only because it hasn’t been proved false, or that something is false only because it has not been proved true. A claim’s truth or falsity depends on supporting or refuting evidence to the claim, not the lack of support for a contrary or contradictory claim.

    As an atheist, I observe the same phenomenon that you do and then stop there. I don’t jump to conclusions or fill in the gaps of scientific knowledge with gods or goddesses. I am content to say “We don’t know, let’s keep looking for the correct answer”. Religion does the opposite and says “We don’t know, the answer must be god X”. The most classical example of this “god of the gaps” phenomenon is in the story of Zeus actually.. ancient people did not understand how or why lightening exists. It was a terrifying, ferocious natural occurrence they could not explain. What did they do in response? Chalked it up to Zeus throwing bolts of lightening down to earth from the clouds. Kinda ridiculous, right? Well, in today’s scientific knowledge it does, but back then it was a no-brainer that Zeus was responsible for lightening. Now just swap out Zeus for Jesus, lightening bolts for the existence of the universe and you have the modern version.

    @Ventus: see lawless imagination’s response

    @lawless imagination: thank you for answering the above two. I just had a baby and have found little time to regurgitate the burdon of proof explanation, as it seems needs to be done every time I turn around and bump into any religious folk. It gets tiring, but it’s good practice to have to say or write it over and over again.

  • lawless imagination

    grats on the baby!!! was it an immaculate conception?

  • http://www.facebook.com/larsen.thomas.h Tom Larsen

    I think this is based on a common misconception about the nature of “nothing” and the quantum vacuum; it is exacerbated when books written for a popular audience describe, for example, empty space as “nothing”. But empty space is not “nothing”: it has physical laws, and space and time dimensions, and so on. When philosophers speak of “nothing”, what they mean is the absence of all properties and laws: not a state in which different physical laws exist, but a state in which there are no physical laws at all.

    The “vacuum is a humming hive of activity. Fluctuations continually take place, in the course of which transient ‘particles’ appear and disappear. A quantum vacuum is more like a plenum than like empty space” (Polkinghorne, Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction). The quantum vacuum requires a context of space and time and physical laws with which to operate; it is decidedly not “nothing” in the philosophical sense. That something could come, uncaused, out of true “nothing” seems quite impossible.

    A couple of others points deserve to be made.

    First, it is not entirely fair to compare the multiverse hypothesis with the God hypothesis and conclude that they both have equal evidence in their favour. There is no evidence that other universes exist; the concept of the multiverse was developed, and is adopted by people today, due to metaphysical considerations. The universe is deeply fruitful and intelligible, and this is unsettling to many people, because it seems to imply that there is a mind behind the whole of physical reality. On the other hand, there is independent evidence for the existence of God: the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and the phenomenon of worship among many sensible people from diverse backgrounds, for example.

    Second, I disagree with the your statement that “we cannot say with certainty so it is irresponsible to jump to a conclusion without the ability to test or prove it to be false or true”. You appear to be endorsing a kind of positivism, and there are a several of problems with it. Every world-view requires a leap of faith, including atheism and agnosticism. It is only in mathematics that one can find absolute proof, and even in mathematics this is limited by Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. When one approaches the real world, positivism runs into a lot of problems. If you disagree, try proving that other minds exist, or that the world exists independently of your own mind!

    Moreover, your position may even be self-defeating. How can you say with certainty that people cannot experience God in a properly basic way, so that they can be certain of his existence in way that is independent of evidence? It should be noted that I do not claim to be able to prove the existence of God, and I know of no prominent Christian apologist who would make that assertion; rather, I think the evidence points quite strongly in that direction, and the truth of Christianity is confirmed by my personal experience.

  • Anonymous

    Tom, first of all thank you for commenting. I would like to respond to some of the points you raised.

    You objected to my comparison of the multiverse theory to the many god-claims. You stated that there is no evidence for the multiverse theory and then said “There is independent evidence for the existence of God: the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and the phenomenon of worship among many sensible people from diverse backgrounds, for example.” I would like to know why you think that stories about Jesus and the personal experience of people who state a belief in a god is evidence that a supernatural being is the catalyst before the “big bang”.

    In your second objection, you stated “You appear to be endorsing a kind of positivism, and there are several problems with it. Every world-view requires a leap of faith, including atheism and agnosticism.” This is a common misconception about what atheism is. Atheism is a rejection of godclaims. It is not a positive claim nor a set of beliefs or doctrines. Atheism is a rejection of godclaims in the same way that A-Bigfootism is a rejection of the claims that Bigfoot exists. As an atheist my approach to the unknowns in the universe is to humbly state that we do not know and leave it at that until evidence and discovery reveals more information. Religion jumps to conclusions by inserting “god” into the unknowns in human knowledge. For example, the god Zeus was thought to be responsible for lightening because humans simply could not understand lightening. Today, science has pushed god out of so many unknowns as we close the gaps in our knowledge with new discovery. God has been pushed out beyond the start of the universe where the religious like to jump to the conclusion that since we do not know what caused the birth of the universe, we must insert a god. I find this an egotistical method of trying to seem more informed than we really are as a species. It is a flawed practice that has proven to fail since the days of Zeus.

    To close, you stated “the truth of Christianity is confirmed by my personal experience.” If you believe in something that has no provable repeatable evidence, based solely on your own personal experience (which cannot be repeated by others), are you suggesting that others should believe what you do based on your personal experience? If your personal experience is evidence enough for you to believe in something, you must conclude that what others experience gives them just as legitimate a reason to believe in whatever it is they believe in and have it be just as valid as your belief, even if those beliefs are in complete contradiction to each other. This does not seem to be a very rational or pragmatic way of understanding how the world we live in actually works.

    Thanks for commenting!
    LiberatedMind

  • Anonymous

    “The theory that our universe is contained inside a bubble, and that multiple alternative universes exist inside their own bubbles — making up the ‘multiverse’ — is, for the first time, being tested by physicists.”
    Continue reading here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110803102844.htm

  • Afterwasbefore

    I think in trying to understand these sorts of things, for me, I like to think in terms of non-linear time, or eternity. The universe had a beginning, and probably an end. That is just a finite linear segment encapsulated by non-linear time. I think in this non-linear timeframe, either something exists that is eternal(a catalyst), or things just appear out of nothing. Its very possible that any wordly laws cannot be applied in this non-linear realm. Which is to say the absurd may be unreasonable, but at the same time true.