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Lawrence Krauss isn't one of the Four Horsemen of New Atheism. Daniel Dennett is the other.

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>> ^kir_mokum:

as far as i understand it the only thing that create something from nothing is in fact nothing.

http://videosift.com/video/A-Universe-From-Nothing-by-Lawrence-K
rauss-AAI-2009


What Dr Krauss is referring to when he says "nothing" is actually something..he changes the definition of that something many times throughout his book..sometimes calling nothing a quantum vacuum, or the laws of nature, or a condition that is lacking any matter or energy, but at no time is the "nothing" he is referring to purely nothing..it is always something. So there is no theory of how "nothing created everything".

Doesn't logic itself tell you that from nothing, nothing comes? The first cause must be eternal because if there ever was "nothing", that's all there ever would be.

as far as i understand it the only thing that create something from nothing is in fact nothing.



http://videosift.com/video/A-Universe-From-Nothing-by-Lawrence-Krauss-AAI-2009

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

>> ^charliem:
....why didnt the big bang need a cause?

The theoretical physicist who most recently takes this question head on is Lawrence Krauss, you can see him do a lecture on this topic here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo
He has also written a book about this subject since the video drew a lot of attention: http://ww
w.amazon.co.uk/Universe-Nothing-Lawrence-M-Krauss/dp/145162445X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337434114&sr=1-1


Quantum mechanics is still a cause, even if the universe itself was born from a quantum strangeness, its still SOMETHING. This is vastly different from no cause at all.

Krauss' talk is to lamen understanding of nothing....ie apparently empty space with still yet something there (the laws of nature have particles and anti particles popping in and out trillions of times a second!!!) This is still not nothing.

Still havnt explained it well enough to qualify that as saying - there was no need for a cause. QED is still a cause.

>> ^Bhruic:

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

No.
That was facts. As far as I could make out, every one of these claims are well-documented with mountains of evidence and hard science to back them up.

We have no idea how many planets there are in the galaxy. We haven't discovered enough of them to determine any sort of pattern. So claiming that we "know" there are 1.6 planets per star is indeed speculation. Similarily, suggesting that "The Big Bang did not need a cause" is speculation. We don't have nearly enough information about how it happened, or under what conditions it happened to be able to do anything more than theorize at this point.
There are other examples, but I'm too lazy to go through them all. Claiming certainty about things for which we have insufficient evidence to make such claims is poor science.


He doesnt say "we know there are 1.6 planets" he specifically says "an ESTIMATED 1.6 planets" so its an estimate based on the available evidence, which is that we've discovered 770 and counting planets, and we know that its currently very hard to detect planets, yet we find lots. From this we can extrapolate, and the 1.6 ratio is probably at the low end of an estimate.

I wont pretend to understand how the big bang didnt need a cause, but the lawrence Krauss talk I linked to explains this in some detail. Notice that he does NOT say "the big bang didnt HAVE a cause", he says it didnt NEED one. In other words, physicists have worked out ways the big bang could have happened without a cause. That doesnt nescessarily mean that it didnt actually have a cause. Its like saying "Cats dont need owners" It doesnt mean that noone owns a cat.

>> ^charliem:

....why didnt the big bang need a cause?

The theoretical physicist who most recently takes this question head on is Lawrence Krauss, you can see him do a lecture on this topic here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo
He has also written a book about this subject since the video drew a lot of attention: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Universe-Nothing-Lawrence-M-Krauss/dp/145162445X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337434114&sr=1-1

>> ^spoco2:
I'm amazed that @shinyblurry can, with a straight face, (well, I assume he's not sniggering) suggest that it's inconceivable that while we've seen that when matter and anti-matter come together they cancel each other out and form 'nothing' the reverse cannot possibly happen.


Directing you to a general reply, here:

http://videosift.com/video/Richard-Dawkins-and-Lawrence-Krauss-Something-from-Nothing?loadcomm=1#comment-1443305

>> ^spoco2:
And yet God 'just is'. You cannot fathom that something that we HAVE OBSERVED would seem to logically go the other way also, and yet are happy to accept a notion of an omnipotent bearded man existing for all eternity.... so just giving up on the concept of time and saying 'he just was, and is'.


No one has given up on the concept of time. The evidence indicates that time had an absolute beginning:

http://www.ctc.cam.ac.uk/stephen70/talks/swh70_vilenkin.pdf

If time had an absolute beginning, that means that whatever created the Universe is timeless (as well as spaceless, powerful, immaterial and transcendent). Meaning, the evidence points to an eternal first cause of the Universe. That is already matching up to a description of God and His attributes. Also, God is not a bearded man; you came to that conclusion because of religous imagery, not what scripture says. What scripture says is that God is a spirit.

>> ^spoco2:
I don't get how you think you have any point of argument. Sure, I can completely get that people can conceive that there is some higher power, that's fine. But to think there's any infinitesimally small shred of logic or reason contained in that belief that is any more reasoned than what science is coming up with is baffling.


I'm glad to hear that you can allow for belief in a higher power. Though, it doesn't sound like you are very familiar with the logical arguments for the existence of God. The kalam cosmological argument, for example, establishes an eternal, personal, transcendent first cause of the Universe.

>> ^spoco2:
You believe that, you also think it's your mission to convert others, but you know what? Trying to argue it out, thinking that you have some logical gotcha is just futile. You know the best way to bring people to your way of thinking? Be compassionate, lead by example, do good works, help others. DO NOT PREACH. Seriously, some of the nicest people I know actually have their own church, they run it, they created it. But they DO NOT preach AT ALL to us, they don't try to convert us at all. But they are helpful, kind, caring people who are wonderful to be around, and when they bow their heads and pray and make speeches thanking their lord during their birthday parties and other celebrations it doesn't grate, because it's not done in any way that's trying to rope in us unbelievers.


I agree with you, that a Christian should do good works. That is the fruit of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. However, Christians are also commanded by Jesus to preach the gospel. We are supposed to do both, not one or the other. There are specific, spiritual reasons for why this is so. Your friends sounds like excellent Christians, however, if you were to die tomorrow, and they had never told you the gospel, they will answer for that at the judgment seat of Jesus Christ. Christianity does not come by osmosis; faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

>> ^spoco2:
Please take that as a way to spread your word, Do Good Deeds. We like to watch videos like this because it's two people discussing some really deep questions and we like to know what scientists think about these things that are in their field of expertise. I would just as much like to watch a discussion between theologians about morality and differing religions and how they think their teachings fit in there. As long as it wasn't a case of 'if you don't believe in me you are doomed to hell', just 'I believe that following these commandments will lead to a better life', or 'I don't take the story of Noah to be a factual account, but more a parable with a lesson'.


There is a difference between having a debate, and telling someone the gospel. However, why would you expect someone to compromise, or water down what they believe? You've felt very comfortable in telling me exactly what you believe, and what I should be doing, and how I should be doing it, yet I must censor myself for the sake of your sensitive ears? Do you think I am going to obey God, or man?

>> ^xxovercastxx:
The question is answered, it's just not what you want to hear. You are insisting that he explain how the universe sprang forth from a state that he never asserts as having existed.

It would be like me saying I originated from a fertilized egg and summarizing the human gestation process and then you saying, "Eggs have shells and yolks and come out of chickens! Where did the chicken come from and why don't we ever see eggshells during birth?

Also, a creator is not compatible with your definition of nothing, either. If absolute, immaterial, spaceless, timeless nothingness was the precursor, then there would be no God to create a universe.


Directing you to a general reply to this, here:

http://videosift.com/video/Richard-Dawkins-and-Lawrence-Krauss-Something-from-Nothing?loadcomm=1#comment-1443305

I agree that if absolute nothingness was the precursor, there would be no God to create the Universe. That is why I am saying that God is eternal, and has always been around to create the Universe.

>> ^AnimalsForCrackers:
Y'know, your concept of absolute nothingness doesn't actually exist, insofar as we can show it to exist, right? I mean, how would we? Material existence is what there is.

Yours is an abstraction, a theological/philosophical concept of the human mind, a thought experiment, in no way amenable to actual experiment or observation.

This assumes that there ever was or is such a thing as "absolute nothingness".


Directing you to a general reply to this, here:

http://videosift.com/video/Richard-Dawkins-and-Lawrence-Krauss-Something-from-Nothing?loadcomm=1#comment-1443305

>> ^AnimalsForCrackers:
I also don't see how positing a complex being as the cause of a supposedly simple beginning simplifies matters. At fucking all. You're simply slyly inserting god just beyond reach of humanity's current epistemological horizon. This begs the question, well, where did your god come from? It's a superfluous and unnecessary (not to mention completely evidenced) addition to the regress and reeks of special pleading/wishful thinking. It's crass and obvious and, quite frankly, fucking stupid.


I'll let John Lennox answer your questions:



>> ^AnimalsForCrackers:
I won't even address the arguments from DNA and fine-tuning, as the mental gymnastics required to leap even to the most generic of gods from either just blows my mind.


I didn't say they would necessarily prove any specific God as true, but rather, they are evidence that the Universe was created by a higher intelligence. It is more circumstantial evidence than direct proof, but establishing either would be a death blow to materialistic naturalism.

>> ^shinyblurry:

So, again, the question is not answered. In his book, some chapters of his book are: "Nothing is something" and "Nothing is unstable". He has redefined nothing as empty space or a quantum vaccum, and when pressed, he offers up a multiverse, but fails to explain where to multiverse came from. Nothing is not something, it is not unstable, it is not empty space, it is not a quantum vacuum, and it is not a multiverse. Nothing is nothing. From nothing, nothing comes. It has no states, no properties, no existence.

The question is answered, it's just not what you want to hear. You are insisting that he explain how the universe sprang forth from a state that he never asserts as having existed.

It would be like me saying I originated from a fertilized egg and summarizing the human gestation process and then you saying, "Eggs have shells and yolks and come out of chickens! Where did the chicken come from and why don't we ever see eggshells during birth?"

Also, a creator is not compatible with your definition of nothing, either. If absolute, immaterial, spaceless, timeless nothingness was the precursor, then there would be no God to create a universe.

I'll direct you to his own words. Here is Kraus talking about redefining what the word nothing means:

"And I guess most importantly that the question why is there something rather than nothing is really a scientific question, not a religious or philosophical question, because both nothing and something are scientific concepts, and our discoveries over the past 30 years have completely changed what we mean by nothing.

In particular, nothing is unstable. Nothing can create something all the time due to the laws of quantum mechanics, and it's - it's fascinatingly interesting. And what I wanted to do was use the hook of this question, which I think as I say has provoked religious people, as well as scientists, to encourage people to try and understand the amazing universe that we actually live in."

Here is Krauss describing how empty space could create the Universe:

Empty space is a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence in a time scale so short that you can't even measure them. Now, that sounds of course like counting angels on the head of a pin; if you can't measure them, then it doesn't sound like it's science, but in fact you can't measure them directly.

But we can measure their effects indirectly. These particles that are popping in and out of existence actually affect the properties of atoms and nuclei and actually are responsible for most of the mass inside your body. And in fact, really one of the things that motivated this book was the most profound discovery in recent times, and you even alluded to it in the last segment, the discovery that most of the energy of the universe actually resides in empty space.

You take space, get rid of all the particles, all the radiation, and it actually carries energy, and that notion that in fact empty space - once you allow gravity into the game, what seems impossible is possible. It sounds like it would violate the conservation of energy for you to start with nothing and end up with lots of stuff, but the great thing about gravity is it's a little trickier.

Gravity allows positive energy and negative energy, and out of nothing you can create positive energy particles, and as long as a gravitational attraction produces enough negative energy, the sum of their energy can be zero. And in fact when we look out at the universe and try and measure its total energy, we come up with zero.

I like to think of it as the difference between, say, a savvy stockbroker and an embezzler. The savvy stockbroker will buy stocks on margin with more money than they have, and as long as they get that money back in there before anyone notices, and in fact if the stocks go up, they end with money where they didn't have any before, whereas the embezzler, of course, is discovered.

Well, the universe is a savvy stockbroker. It can borrow energy, and if there's no gravity, it gets rid of it back before anyone notices. But if gravity is there, it can actually create stuff where there was none before. And you can actually create enough stuff to account for everything we see in the universe.

But, you know, it's more than that because some people would say, and I've had this discussion with theologians and others, well, you know, just empty space isn't nothing. You know, there's space. How did the space get there? But the amazing thing is, once you apply in fact quantum mechanics to gravity, as you were beginning to allude again in the last segment, then it's possible, in fact it's implied, that space itself can be created where there was nothing before, that literally whole universes can pop out of nothing by the laws of quantum mechanics.

And in fact the question why is there something rather than nothing then becomes sort of trite because nothing is unstable. It will always produce something. The more interesting or surprising question might be why is there nothing. But of course if we ask that question, well, we wouldn't be here if that was true.

-----------------------------------------

What he said in this video is completely misleading; I'll show you his slight of hand. When he says you can take away everything, even the laws and still get a Universe, he has redefined "absolutely nothing" as a complete absence of this Universe, but not as we will see, a complete absence of anything. To explain the laws of quantum mechanics popping into existence, he postulates an external entity: the multiverse:

Well, you know, that's something I deal with at the end of the book because, you know, it's not a concept that I'm pretty fond of, but it - we seemed to be driven there by our theories, and it does suggest the last bit, because some people, indeed when I debate this question of nothing, they say, well, look, you can get rid of space. You can get rid of stuff in space, the first kind of nothing. You can even get rid of space, but you still have the laws. Who created the laws?

Well, it turns out that we've been driven both from ideas from cosmology - from a theory called inflation or even string theory - that suggests there may be extra dimensions - to the possibility that our universe isn't unique, and more over, that the laws of physics in our universe may just be accidental. They may have arisen spontaneously, and they don't have to be the way they are. But if they were any different, we wouldn't be here to ask the question. It's called the entropic idea, and it's not - it's - it may be right.

It's not an idea I find very attractive, but it may be right. And if it is, then it suggests that even the very laws themselves are not fundamental. They arose spontaneously in our universe, and they're very different in other universes. And in some sense, if you wish, the multiverse plays the role of what you might call a prime mover or a god. It exists outside of our universe.

So, again, the question is not answered. In his book, some chapters of his book are: "Nothing is something" and "Nothing is unstable". He has redefined nothing as empty space or a quantum vaccum, and when pressed, he offers up a multiverse, but fails to explain where the multiverse came from. Nothing is not something, it is not unstable, it is not empty space, it is not a quantum vacuum, and it is not a multiverse. Nothing is nothing. From nothing, nothing comes. It has no states, no properties, no existence. He has not explained how something came from nothing. All he has done is redefine nothing into something. Of course something can come from something. All he doing is playing a masquarade with definitions





>> ^xxovercastxx:
16:08-16:38

"...you could start with absolutely nothing; that means, unlike the Cardinal said and unlike some people argue, no particles, but not even empty space -- no space whatsoever, and maybe even no laws governing that space and we can plausibly understand how you could arrive, without any miracles, without any need for a creator, without any supernatural creation, you could produce everything we see."

>> ^shinyblurry:

Logic tells us that from nothing, nothing comes. You cannot get something from nothing. Therefore, the ultimate first cause of the Universe must be eternal. If it is eternal, why is it unlikely to be God?


This assumes that there ever was or is such a thing as "absolute nothingness".