[extropy-chat] Big Bang & "the origin of the Universe"

[Russell Wallace]

On 2/6/06, Jeff Medina <analyticphilosophy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks for your thoughts, Russell.


No problem, it's an interesting question.

Now suppose there is indeed no information about whether Something can
> come into existence from Nothing. (There is indeed no such
> information. And virtual particles don't count because they come into
> existence from a background of spacetime, not Nothing.)\
>
> Then any belief about the Universe coming into existence at the Big
> Bang is going to be 'philosophical rather than scientific'. Said
> process of getting-Something-from-Nothing is _at least as speculative
> as_ the proposal that there was Something prior to the Big Bang.


I didn't say anything about Something coming into existence from Nothing.  I
said if Something-B comes into existence from Something-A in such a way as
to carry no information about the Something-A, then there is no difference
between that and coming into existence from Nothing; in particular, any
putative Something-A would in this case not be part of our universe,
therefore it would be true that our universe originated in the Big Bang,
whatever other universes might or might not have existed "beforehand".

[Aside: When you said "said prior state is not part of our universe",
> this might be taken to mean "by definition, the universe is
> Big-Bang-and-after, so even if some state existed prior to the Big
> Bang, it wasn't 'part-of-the-universe'". So, to clarify, by "the
> universe" I mean Everything, All of Existence, Reality. Prior states,
> posterior states, concurrent unreachable states, polka dot fairy dust
> states, and so forth, are all part of the universe on this definition,
> *so long as those states EXIST or EXISTED* in a way conceptually
> distinguishable from Nothingness.]


Oh, okay, I mean "universe" in the normal English language sense, defined as
something like "a set of things that are causally connected to each other".
You're using the philosopher's definition (i.e. what most people who
consider the issue at all would call the multiverse) - well, following Plato
and Tegmark, we can note that the multiverse has always existed and always
will exist, indeed the concept of it not existing isn't a coherent one, so
the question doesn't arise. But the scientists you criticize weren't talking
to philosophers, they were talking to normal English speakers, so they were
correct to refrain from using the philosopher's definition.

Do you claim the theory of gravity, or any scientific theory for that
> matter, is 'certain fact'? I certainly hope not.


If I'm talking to a normal English speaker, of course, because it is,
according to the normal definitions of the words. If I'm talking to a
philosopher, of course not, because it isn't in philosophical jargon. Again,
the scientists you criticize weren't talking to philosophers.

- Russell
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