Eternity

[blood_pardon]

A new concept that fascinates me on a secular level is this idea that if you were able to put on some "time traveling goggles" and look back you would see that the past goes on forever behind us. There would always be something there to "see" even if it were pure energy, the substance that was 'before' space, or whatever else your mind may imagine.

I dont see how there could have ever been "nothing." Even grasping this word with the mind is difficult. How is it possible for there to be no REALITY at all?

To say that there was absoltuely NOTHING, no space/time/matter/energy, then there was something is completely illogical. I know this is just a philosophical argument, but if you take it for face value I think you will draw the same conclusion.

Thats why I reason we are living in "eternity" and that the past is extends forever behind us, and the future is forever before us.

I know Im speculating here, I can't really prove any of this of course but I think my logic is solid on this point.

What do you think?

 

[Muto]

In this context it is problematic to say that there was nothing and then suddenly the universe existed. If the past is finite, and the universe existed in every moment of time then there litterally was no moment of time when the universe did not exist.

 

[devilsadvocate]

There is also view in which university as a whole has zero amount of energy. I can't claim to understand it, but some argue that, for example, gravitational potential energy is negative energy and it exactly cancels out the positive energy (mass itself etc.) This is likened to how quantum fluctuation can make particle and anti-particle seemingly out of "nowhere" and then annihilate themselves (it isn't actually true 'nowhere', but anyways.)

I don't know if it 's actually possible but as long as we're just speculating, universe could be -1+1=0 rather than 1=1, which would lessen the "something out of nothing" problem a bit.

 

[Yfelsung]

You may run into a problem when you hit the big bang.

How I understand it is that time is little more than a dimension of measurement like height or width, just in a way we can't comprehend properly. We are forced to comprehend slices of time instead of the whole of time.

Time didn't exist before the big bang, or at least this current time-space didn't exist. If your time goggles hit a spot of "no time" how do you think it would appear visually?

I think our understanding of the universe's origins point to an eternal universe, one that existed in a different from prior to the big bang but one that still existed, which of course completely negates the need for a creator.

Could human perception understand non-time?

 

[lrkun]

The answer for now is unknown, because man cannot go back into the past. Not with our current technology.

 

[DEXMachina]

I dont see how there could have ever been "nothing." Even grasping this word with the mind is difficult. How is it possible for there to be no REALITY at all?

To say that there was absoltuely NOTHING, no space/time/matter/energy, then there was something is completely illogical. I know this is just a philosophical argument, but if you take it for face value I think you will draw the same conclusion.

The trouble with your argument is that the idea that the universe is infinite is just as incredible as the idea that there was once nothing at all. Without more information, we can't make a conclusion about this question. A trip back in time certainly would help.

 

[lrkun]

I dont see how there could have ever been "nothing." Even grasping this word with the mind is difficult. How is it possible for there to be no REALITY at all?

To say that there was absoltuely NOTHING, no space/time/matter/energy, then there was something is completely illogical. I know this is just a philosophical argument, but if you take it for face value I think you will draw the same conclusion.

The trouble with your argument is that the idea that the universe is infinite is just as incredible as the idea that there was once nothing at all. Without more information, we can't make a conclusion about this question. A trip back in time certainly would help.

It's an argument from ignorance. Nevertheless, hypothetically speaking, one can imagine anything that he or she wishes. However, if applied in our reality, that is just not the case. (refering to blood_pardon's hypo.)

 

[Commander Eagle]

A new concept that fascinates me on a secular level

On a what now?

is this idea that if you were able to put on some "time traveling goggles" and look back you would see that the past goes on forever behind us.

No, you wouldn't.

There would always be something there to "see" even if it were pure energy, the substance that was 'before' space, or whatever else your mind may imagine.

You can't see what was "before space". There was nothing before the universe. You cannot look that far back. It is not possible.

I dont see how there could have ever been "nothing." Even grasping this word with the mind is difficult. How is it possible for there to be no REALITY at all?

It isn't. Get it? There was no time before there was reality. Therefore, there is no time where reality has not existed.

To say that there was absoltuely NOTHING, no space/time/matter/energy, then there was something is completely illogical.

The two bolded phrases are key.

There can never have been a time when there "was" nothing. Nothing cannot be. There was never a time when something came from nothing.

 

[devilsadvocate]

I just remembered something (I think) Weinberg said.Research of inflation theory points in the direction that "nothingness" is not a stable state. If there's nothingness it would burst out into existence according to that model. Someone knowledgeable here to tell us more about that, or what it means? My brain hurts.

 

[Vizard]

The answer for now is unknown, because man cannot go back into the past. Not with our current technology.

Wouldn't traveling back in the past be a violation of the conservation of energy? For instance, if I were to travel in the past, the matter and energy that make up my body would already exist in another form in the past.

 

[lrkun]

The answer for now is unknown, because man cannot go back into the past. Not with our current technology.

Wouldn't traveling back in the past be a violation of the conservation of energy? For instance, if I were to travel in the past, the matter and energy that make up my body would already exist in another form in the past.

Time is a man made concept (my opinion, so I can't really back this up until I've done better research)

Anyway, that's why I said that we cannot, as of now, go back in the past.

 

[devilsadvocate]

The answer for now is unknown, because man cannot go back into the past. Not with our current technology.

Wouldn't traveling back in the past be a violation of the conservation of energy? For instance, if I were to travel in the past, the matter and energy that make up my body would already exist in another form in the past.

Certainly would, and also, perhaps more importantly, violation of causality. Paradox in the Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy is a book that is taken back in time to it's claimed writer. So who DID write the book, where did it come from?

 

[Nashy19]

The trouble with your argument is that the idea that the universe is infinite is just as incredible as the idea that there was once nothing at all. Without more information, we can't make a conclusion about this question. A trip back in time certainly would help.

I don't think so, there's the state of the universe and trends in discovery. I mean, stuff clearly exists right now.

 

[Yfelsung]

The answer for now is unknown, because man cannot go back into the past. Not with our current technology.

Wouldn't traveling back in the past be a violation of the conservation of energy? For instance, if I were to travel in the past, the matter and energy that make up my body would already exist in another form in the past.

Thinking of the entirety of time, the full 4th dimension, maybe the atoms and energy that makes up you could only exist in a single point in space-time, so you may not exist in the past, since you exist in the future.

Physical time travel has a lot of physical problems.

 

[Skillbus]

Whether you can imagine something or not has no bearing on whether it is or not. There exist real things that some people cannot imagine.

 

[blood_pardon]

I hope this isnt considered spam because of how long of a quote it is. Im posting this because I think it really hits the nail on the head.

Have you ever thought about the beginning? What is that, you say? You know -- whatever it was that showed up first. Or whatever it was that was here first, at the earliest moment in time. Have you ever strained your brain to think about that?

Wait a minute, you say, isn't it possible that in the beginning there was nothing? Isn't it possible that kazillions of years ago, there wasn't anything at all? That's certainly a theory to consider. So let's consider it -- but first by way of analogy.

Let's say you have a large room. It's fully enclosed and is about the size of a football field. The room is locked, permanently, and has no doors or windows, and no holes in its walls.

Inside the room there is...nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not a particle of anything. No air at all. No dust at all. No light at all. It's a sealed room that's pitch black inside. Then what happens?

Well, let's say your goal is to get something -- anything at all -- into the room. But the rules are: you can't use anything from outside the room to do that. So what do you do?


Well, you think, what if I try to create a spark inside the room? Then the room would have light in it, even for just a moment. That would qualify as something. Yes, but you are outside the room. So that's not allowed.

But, you say, what if I could teleport something into the room, like in Star Trek? Again, that's not allowable, because you'd be using things from outside the room.

Here again is the dilemma: you have to get something inside the room using only what's in the room. And, in this case, what's in the room is nothing.

Well, you say, maybe a tiny particle of something will just show up inside the room if given enough time.

There's three problems with this theory. First, time by itself doesn't do anything. Things happen over time, but it's not time that makes them happen. For example, if you wait 15 minutes for cookies to bake, it's not the 15 minutes that bakes them, it's the heat in the oven. If you set them on the counter for 15 minutes, they're not going to bake.

In our analogy, we've got a fully enclosed room with absolutely nothing in it. Waiting 15 minutes will not, in and of itself, change the situation. Well, you say, what if we wait eons? An eon is merely a bunch of 15-minute segments all pressed together. If you waited an eon with your cookies on the counter, would the eon bake them?


The second problem is this: why would anything just "show up" in the empty room? It would need a reason why it came to be. But there is nothing inside the room at all. So what's to stop that from remaining the case? There would be nothing inside the room to cause something to show up (and yet the reason must come from inside the room).

Well, you say, what about a tiny particle of something? Wouldn't that have a greater chance of materializing in the room than something larger like, for example, a football?

That brings up the third problem: size. Like time, size is an abstract. It's relative. Let's say you have three baseballs, all ranging in size. One is ten feet wide, one is five feet wide, one is normal size. Which one is more likely to materialize in the room?

The normal-size baseball? No! It would be the same likelihood for all three. The size wouldn't matter. It's not the issue. The issue is whether or not any baseball of any size could just "show up" in our sealed, empty room.

If you don't think the smallest baseball could just show up in the room, no matter how much time passed, then you must conclude the same thing even for an atom. Size is not an issue. The likelihood of a small particle materializing without cause is no different than a refrigerator materializing without cause!


Now let's stretch our analogy further, literally. Let's take our large, pitch-black room and remove its walls. And let's extend the room so that it goes on infinitely in all directions. Now there is nothing outside the room, because the room is all there is. Period.

This black infinite room has no light, no dust, no particles of any kind, no air, no elements, no molecules. It's absolute nothingness. In fact, we can call it Absolutely Nothing.

So here's the question: if originally -- bazillions of years ago -- there was Absolutely Nothing, wouldn't there be Absolutely Nothing now?

Yes. For something -- no matter how small -- cannot come from Absolutely Nothing. We would still have Absolutely Nothing.


What does that tell us? That Absolutely Nothing never existed. Why? Because, if Absolutely Nothing ever existed, there would still be Absolutely Nothing!

If Absolutely Nothing ever existed, there would not be anything outside it to cause the existence of anything.

Again, if Absolutely Nothing ever existed, there would still be Absolutely Nothing.

However, something exists. Actually, many things exist. You, for example, are something that exists, a very important something. Therefore, you are proof that Absolutely Nothing never existed.

Now, if Absolutely Nothing never existed, that means there was always a time when there was at least Something in existence. What was it?

 

[Gerst]

Blood_pardon, I think that the analogy you're presenting is quite interesting. And it leaves you thinking.
But I think this analogy is not quite correct, as it describes a room which is completely empty, no particles, no light, nothing.
But as it is a room, it is still subject to the three dimensions of space and to the dimension of time. Even if the walls are teared down in the last part of the analogy, you're still assuming that there is space and time.The infinite empty room that this analogy presents, is not Absolutely Nothing. Rather, it's Absolutely Empty. This is not homologous to the state before the big bang in which there was no space-time at all.

Therefore, I think you can not make a sufficient prediction about the subject using this analogy.
It is hard to grasp the idea of absolute nothingness, but it is indeed evenly challenging to grasp the idea of an infinitely excisting universe.

 

[cs194]

It is not possible to imagine nothing as that is a contradiction in terms. When, last night, you were asleep (but not dreaming - or at least dreams you remember) what was that like? What were you feeling, thinking, seeing, hearing, etc? The answer is nothing.

If you think death is "the end" then death is permanent sleep and therefore death is nothing. Thus nothing did exist - before you were born. Whether anything "existed" before the creation of your own consciousness (and indeed after the end of it) is, from your point of view (and therefore in its entirety) irrelevant.

If you do believe in "something" after death (heaven, hell, a spirit world, reincarnation, etc.) then the argument, as mentioned above, relates to time. Time is something (it is a concept and arguably a man made one). Therefore in order for there to have been nothing, there would also have to have been a point when there was no time - i.e. something before anything existed. But this is a logical contradiction. The only other possiblity in that sense is that time is infinite - in which case there is not a point when nothing existed.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

this pseudo-intelect is nice, but already know the answer, so before you desapear lend me your hear.
There can not be infinite ammount of past, if to get from the past to here takes and infinite ammount of finite moments, and since a sum of finite moments is allways a finite period then infinite will never come to pass and therefore we shouldn't be here, and since we are that means such is not how things work.

And we sortof starting to grasp how a universe comes to be, even though the and definitive and precise answer is not yet known we do know the general propreties that the universe should have. And one of those propreties requiers the universe to be acausal self generated from a direct implication of the proprety being (no matter what that is), because only such universes can exist rather than not. Propreties like time and space may not even make sense in the way we precieve them (that we already know to be so), simple ilusions that confound our mind with not existant problems of what came before or what is beyond.
Recent developments in M theory does present a very good picture on how a universe can form out of nothing else other than a natural consequence of propreties of existance that we call laws of physics, if it is going to pass the test or if we can even prove it only time will tell.

So kudos to that. It is a really exciting period to live in, all the deepest mysteries of the universe that puzzled mankind for ages are in the verge of being answered, quite astonishing, you have absolutly no idea how priviledge you are to be here in this moment in time. Your God is just to small and yet blinding, you have no idea what your missing and I hope you realise that before you waste your only oportunity.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

this pseudo-intelect is nice, but already know the answer, so before you desapear lend me your hear.
There can not be infinite ammount of past, if to get from the past to here takes and infinite ammount of finite moments, and since a sum of finite moments is allways a finite period then infinite will never come to pass and therefore we shouldn't be here, and since we are that means such is not how things work.

That's nonsense... what you're saying is the equivalent of claiming that if a rope is infinitely long, it would be impossibly to mark off a three foot segment somewhere along its length.