Much Ado About Nothing

[peter]

I started of today with an introductory book on Philosophy for the 'interested lay-person' and by page two I was already in trouble. The author, in expressing his view that there were questions beyond the remit of science took the example of the Big-Bang. He felt the theory, great as it was at answering all the stuff that had happened from that (first) moment on, had nothing to say about the 'WHY' of it. ie Why there was 'something' as opposed to 'nothing'. Here's the passage:-

"Does it (the BB theory) explain why there is something rather than nothing? No - for we can now ask 'why was there a big bang rather than no big bang'. The mystery of why there is anything at all has not been solved, only postponed".

Is this true? I thought the whole thing about the current understandings of Cosmologists, theoretical physicysts et al was that the question as to 'why' the event had occured had become nonsensical in that at the quantum level (the size of the emergent Universe just post big bang) and at t=0, the rules of 'cause and effect' don't opperate. Thus there is no 'why' to consider; like a random radioactive atomic decay there is no reason why it happens when it does - it just happens. Now I assume in this the 'brains' are not just turning their backs to the cave entrance and retreating into an 'It just happens and that's that and we're not talking about it" stance, for this would be nothing but 'mysticism' under another name. This idea of the dissapearence of the 'why' question (if I'm not hopelessly misguided in thinking that this is where 'Science is at at this point)[gosh, this is getting difficult - stay with it Peter] must be in some way 'built into the math' of the thing (ie not just a convenient 'get out of jail free' thought experiment).

If all this is baloney and there is still a 'why' question to be adressed re the big bang's occurance - then it must be adressed 'outside' our Universe, and at present there seems (to me at least) plenty of scope for that (or what's a multiverse for). To answer this with 'If it's outside our Universe then we can know nothing about it, so it's irrelevant on that score' is again a retreat into mysticism, and no scientist worth his salt would take that stance. If it's a problem it has a solution - I just can't work out what it is today.

Summing up question. Is the author of that philosophy book wrong in saying that we still have no answer as to why there is 'something as opposed to nothing'.

(quick footnote:- Is "why was there a big bang as opposed to no big bang" even the same question as "why is there something as opposed to nothing". Could it be that as some philosophers have proposed, the concept of 'nothing' we have in a big bang context is where the problem lies. ie attacking the question from the other side as it were.)

[Orlion]

The Big Bang theory was never meant to explain why. Merely 'how'. It actually doesn't deal with the beginning of the universe, either. It's a model meant to explain an expanding universe and its background cosmic radiation. Other areas in science deal with the 'beginning' and before time.

This guy seems to make a big deal out of 'why'. Should we even care? I really do not. Life's simpler that way where the 'how' becomes a source of genuine enjoyment and I am not always trying to put purpose in everything.

To answer your other question: Science is and always has been concerned with the mechanics of nature. The why never entered into it. A good mechanic does not concern himself with why a loving Ford would build such crappy cars, he merely learns and applies his knowledge of how a car runs.

[peter]

But is the guy correct Orlion - is the 'why' question still unanswered or has it 'dissapeared' in the way I thought; in the way say, that the question 'where is the edge of the world' dissapears once you know the earth is round.

( By the way, respect as I do your position re the 'how's and why's', this is an important question. Many see religion as a major problem in both the past and future of our world - and many also would see the answering of this ultimate 'why' question by science as the final nail in the coffin of religions fell influence over all our futures. What the scientists understand today, the people will tomorrow.)

[I'm Murrin]

Saying that time and space as we understand them do not exist outside of the universe doesn't excuse you from trying to say what does exist. It may be practically impossible to ever know, but that's still an unanswered question.


An aside on the subject of time and space being emergent properties specific to our universe:
I'm reminded of the ending of Ian McDonald's River of Gods, set in near-future India. The SF premise is very much grounded in that same theory of how time and space work. At the end of the novel, an experiment succeeds in briefly opening a portal into another universe - as it turns out, time in the other universe flows in reverse and much faster compared to our own. This produces the explanation for an extra-universal and apparently prophetic artifact discovered at the beginning of the novel - it contained information from the moment the portal opened which had then re-entered our universe millions of years in the past.

In some theoretical frameworks, such universes could exist.

[Orlion]

But is the guy correct Orlion - is the 'why' question still unanswered or has it 'dissapeared' in the way I thought; in the way say, that the question 'where is the edge of the world' dissapears once you know the earth is round.

( By the way, respect as I do your position re the 'how's and why's', this is an important question. Many see religion as a major problem in both the past and future of our world - and many also would see the answering of this ultimate 'why' question by science as the final nail in the coffin of religions fell influence over all our futures. What the scientists understand today, the people will tomorrow.)

You can not find the correct answers without finding the correct questions first. If we do not understand the mechanisms of some machine, we can not know why it exists. To say that "Why remains unanswered" or "why has disappeared" ignores the logical progression of reason necessary to uncover truth. It narrows one's perceptions and stunts progress.

In a more grounded example, you can not run a marathon if you can not run a mile. Merely saying that the marathon hasn't been run yet or that it has disappeared ignores the possibility of training and overcoming current limitations.

[peter]

I can't remember how he did it Murrin, but David Deutsch in his book 'The beginning of Infinity' seemed to think we *can* know something of what is happening in alternate universes by what is happening in our own. He seems a very smart guy on the face of it (it must take balls to disagree with Bohr, Feynman, Dawkins *and* Hawking all in the same book) and very much the man who I've got the idea that all problems have a solution from.

The question 'dissapears' idea is one that I have taken from Stephen Hawking who uses the 'edge of the world' analogy in explaining why the idea of 'before the big bang' has no meaning in the minute quantum(?) universe existant a jiffy after t=0 (where the space and time dimensions were not separate as they now are). So forgive me Orlion - can I get this straight. You are saying that the question "Why was there a big bang as opossed to no big bang" is not redundant merely in the manner of the 'edge of world' analogy - but is fundamentally misguided because in some way logically it does not stack up ( I think I see something of what you are getting at in your marathon analogy). The implication is that we are not yet at the point in terms of our knowledge where we can even begin to know what questions we should be asking. (Can I just ask Orlion - it will sound stupid I know, but, do you give your answers as a scientist or a philosopher. I should be able to work this out but your posts seem to have elements of both in them.)

[Orlion]

I can't remember how he did it Murrin, but David Deutsch in his book 'The beginning of Infinity' seemed to think we *can* know something of what is happening in alternate universes by what is happening in our own. He seems a very smart guy on the face of it (it must take balls to disagree with Bohr, Feynman, Dawkins *and* Hawking all in the same book) and very much the man who I've got the idea that all problems have a solution from.

It's actually not as hard as you think. A lot of Bohr's ideas are outdated, Dawkins is a one trick pony, Hawking is wrong 8 times out of ten, and Feynman is probably the one who has held up the best out of the bunch... but in the end, the most any of them has done was 'popularize the sciences', with Bohr and Feynman making actual contributions

[I'm Murrin]

Hawking radiation?

[Orlion]

Hawking radiation?

Named after him, had some work with it, but wasn't it also a major work of one if not more other physicists? Also, it's in the hypothetical phase, the last time I checked. Makes sense, and I believe it exists, but I think we'll find the Higgs Boson before we have proof of Hawking radiation.

[Vraith]

Roughly in line with what O already suggested: In the sciences "why" is basically a malapropism for "how"...in fact in ordinary language we often let why and how elide/conflate with each other, but that's just sloppy/habitual.

When the author says:

"Does it (the BB theory) explain why there is something rather than nothing? No - for we can now ask 'why was there a big bang rather than no big bang'. The mystery of why there is anything at all has not been solved, only postponed".

he's, in one sense, speaking nonsense. The why is either really a "how,"...which is being worked on...or not applicable...the "mystery of why" won't be solved cuz it doesn't exist in this context. "Why," is really always a sub/super/extra/un/non-natural question.

[aliantha]

Wouldn't a more cogent question be something along the lines of, "How does there come to be stuff here to make a Big Bang out of?" I mean, the mechanics of it are understandable, in layman's terms, even by little kids. The real question, it seems to me -- and it's both a scientific and philosophical question -- would be whence comes the stuff the planets, etc., are made from.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Science never answers "why", only "how"...as Orlion stated earlier.

If someone wants to know why the universe happened then they will have to discover that answer for themselves.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

The main proof addressed in this thread is that intellectuals still smoke dope.

[SerScot]

Peter,

Your question is one that is squarely addressed by Brian Green's book The Hidden Reality:

www.randomhouse.com/book/71272/the-hidd ... ian-greene

[Avatar]

Science never answers "why", only "how"...as Orlion stated earlier.

Except in the sense of causality though.

--A

[I'm Murrin]

"What caused this" isn't equivalent to "Why did it happen", though. "Why" as asked in the questions referenced in the first post is about trying to ascribe meaning to a meaningless universe.

[Fist and Faith]

peter's talking about a philosophy book. "Why" is the author's topic, and it's perfectly valid in philosophy. No, science isn't interested in it, but science is interested in things like "How did the BB come about?" and "What, if anything, came before the BB?" If philosophy's Why is answered in the pursuit of those questions, great. But not answering them isn't a failing of science. It's not science's function.

[peter]

Can we rephrase it then as "How was it that there was a big bang as opposed to no big bang" and bring it this way into the remit of science. If this is just playing with words then no doubt I'll be roundly told so , but there just seems to me to something inherently wrong with the "you can't ask this question" approach. Sure the mechanics of how the Universe came into being is getting to to be pretty well understood - but I just can't accept that no scientist would ever let himself ask 'why did this happen as opposed to not happen'. Scientists are not cowards and the question is clearly the next one in line once you have sorted the 'how' of it out. Surely the answer wouldn't *have* to be metaphysical.

I am sensing two trends here which seem to be at odds with each other. First we have the "The question is all wrong" approach, and then the "The question is beyond the remit of science" one. The first seems to make more sense to me in that the second seems to be a retreat into the lager of dealing with difficult questions by avoidance of them. At least the first approach allows for progress albeit by modification of the initial question.

Perhaps I am over simplifying this and in effect the two stances are but mirror images of each other but let me pursue the question in a different and perhaps more acceptable way. Has science in it's own mind satisfactorily answered all the questions that pertain to the existence of 'something' as opposed to 'nothing'. (ie has science reached a point that without the need to say 'there are some things science cannot answer' or 'this is a thing about which we can have no knowledge' it can happily say 'yes - we now know all we need to about how we come to be here' and feel satisfied that there is no need for further (be it metaphysical or not) speculation.

[Fist and Faith]

"How was it that there was a big bang as opposed to no big bang"

Has science in it's own mind satisfactorily answered all the questions that pertain to the existence of 'something' as opposed to 'nothing'.

Those are well said scientific ideas.

(ie has science reached a point that without the need to say 'there are some things science cannot answer' or 'this is a thing about which we can have no knowledge' it can happily say 'yes - we now know all we need to about how we come to be here'

Science will never say this. No scientist of any quality thinks we know all there is to know about much of anything, and certainly not the question of how it is that something exists as opposed to nothing.

and feel satisfied that there is no need for further (be it metaphysical or not) speculation.

There is almost always need for further searching. Scientific searching can begin with speculation, then move on to theorizing, predicting, observing, testing... But science won't speculate in the metaphysical realm. Metaphysics can't be theorized, predicted, observed, tested...

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I would say that quantum mechanics tells us that all waveform states exist until only one occurs and all others collapse to 0 but the Big Bang happened before quantum mechanics began working, so that wouldn't be very accurate.

I still think that the question "why did the universe happen?" is, at best, a question left for each person to answer for themselves and, at worst, an unimportant question--it doesn't matter why it happened, only that it did.