Something From Nothing, Under the Last Turtle

How does something come from nothing? How did the first big bang start? Let's answer a slightly easier question, and do a quick thought experiment to find out!

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

More specifically, if tree is known to have fallen, but the sound, or any trace of its vibrational impact on the universe, was never known or measured, then it is possible for the sound to have literally never happened?

If the cause is known to have happened, but the effect was never observed, then yes it is possible for the effect to have literally not occurred. To understand this you must think with quantum paradigms. Until the observation is made, the effect of the cause is in both states at once as a probability over time.

So it can exist in a state of tree fell -> no sound, but only in a universe in which the sound was never observed. This may seem like arbitrary technicality, but this 'known unknown' is the most special kind of nothing.

Let's simplify the question.

Can a cause which has a known effect not have an effect if that particular effect is never measured?

Now we can reverse the question.

Can an effect which has a known cause not have a cause if that particular cause is never measured?

Now plug in our original question.

Can a universe which has a known origin(big bang) not have an origin(the first big bang) if that particular origin (the first big bang) is never measured or known?

So the answer would be yes, but ONLY because we cannot know.

Perhaps that is how consciousness came into existence as well, from the beautiful primordial nothing!

a reply to: MemeticHarvest

This theory of observation is very overrated. It is sounding very "new age" to me.

The lump of coal mined by the miner in Wales once was a tree that fell in a forest. It was before humans walked the earth. The tree fell, the tree vibrated and generated sound waves. The fact that there was no Mr J Doe around to hear it makes no difference.

I think this is all a Chinese whisper from the discovery of quantum particles behaving differently under observation than when not. It doesn't apply to things like trees, cars, people and stars. Think about it!

a reply to: MemeticHarvest

who knows what preceded the Big Bang. Perhaps whatever laws of physics have rise to it would have no context we recognize, and words like "something" and "nothing" would be rather meaningless under these laws.

You call this new age chinese whispers? This is a thought experiment put forth to answer a common question here. There is no reason to restate the null hypothesis and tell us to 'think about it' I mean common, that is why we are on this board is because we are thinking about it.

a reply to: Phallacy

i agree with you but i still have the urge to attempt!

Perhaps what we perceive as "nothing" is not a void, but has patterns and behaviors that we are incapable of witnessing or understanding, much less accurately quantify.

a reply to: MemeticHarvest

My understanding is that it's turtles all the way down.

Yes a tree makes a sound when it falls.

Trees are living organisms.

This post implies that humans are the center of the universe as well as the cause of it.

Why does our consiousness have to *phase* things into reality?
Is a tree just a program? Are all these animals just programs as well? Even aliens? Are all these animals and places just coding and humans are the only real thing in the universe?

if you answered yes then what i said is true then, you would believe humans are the center of all existance.
However i don't think that's even possible.
So how can a simulation theory even relate to us anyways. If we are just programs. What's the point to trying to push past the matrix to reach the *real world* If we arn't even *Real* to begin with.

There's actually tons of paradoxs that contradict much of what you said.

Like the big bang, IT takes more energy than what is present so it takes more energy to expand in square inches than what energy is present in those square inches and overall all energy being dispersed.

Likewise, the universe before this one would have to of been much larger before crumpling together to form this universe. So each universe that a big bang is possible, Entropy (Radioactive Decay) Nullfies and destroys the energy over time.

Think of it like interest. Or like the American Dollar. For every dollar loaned, There is interest on top of that dollar. So technically all money in circulation cannot pay back what is owed since there is more owed than what is in circulation because of interest.

It is the same scenario with the big bang theory.

Just like how the economy crashes because of inflation, so too does it in this theory. However, Money is just paper and numbers. We make the paper and numbers, not the universe.

So it does not relate at all completely because the universe very much is limited within infinity. If you can't understand what i mean by that.

Its reflected in growth and time. Such as the growth of a seed into a tree, We can cut down the tree as long as there is another one to take its place. If we take from trees enough for them to replenish and not go over their ability to replenish then such things can exist infinitely. As in there will always be life somewhere we can harvest.

But it is very much limited. To have an infinite density would be like... the same thing.
There is a flow, but the speed of the flow is limited. However the process occure infinitely.
So i guess black holes technically are singularities in a way. But its NOT infinite mass is held within all at once. It's all based on time and since black holes are everywhere, it's always occuring.

Pretty sure black holes are what replenishes decaying mass. If that is the case then there was never a big bang to begin with. In fact. The universe would of never had a begining at all. nore will it ever have an ending.

I could explain more in detail but i gotta go for a minute.

originally posted by: Monger
a reply to: MemeticHarvest

My understanding is that it's turtles all the way down.

Dixit.

a reply to: AnuTyr

Not simulation theory. i don't think humans are anything special either. i don't think we create reality by observing it, actually i said in the OP "Perhaps that is how consciousness came into existence as well" drawing a distinction there.

To clarify, i am saying the universe both came analogously from what we scientifically know as its origin and from absolute unknown. It is turtles all the way down, and i appreciate your astrophysics describing the turtles, but what i am attempting with this thought experiment is to use ideas like the many worlds paradigm and quantum mechanics to strangely describe what we know we will never know, that which is under the last turtle.

MemeticHarvest:

If the cause is known to have happened, but the effect was never observed, then yes it is possible for the effect to have literally not occurred...Until the observation is made, the effect of the cause is in both states at once as a probability over time.

I see a lot of this misunderstanding regarding cause and effect. Posters think they can switch between the microworld of quanta and the macroworld of our everyday experience without due diligence to what it entails.

I'll ask a question. What else does observation give us besides everyday experience of the world? Answer...knowledge. When the tree falls it creates a sound, regardless of an observer being present or not. Sound happens, whether there is a pair of ears to hear it or not. All the physics are in place and connected and interrelated. Observance only tells us that which we can know, it has no influence on that which happens.

The cat in the box experiment assures us of this. We put a live cat into a box rigged to a mechanism whereby a random particle decay releases a poison, and thus kills the cat. The box is opaque, so we cannot see the cat. This is equivalent to the tree falling with no observer present. What do we know about the cat?

We know that it was alive when we put it in the box, that is a sure fact. We come back after a couple of hours have passed, what is our knowledge now of the cat? We have two choices...a) it is alive, or b) it is dead. At this time, we can say that the cat is both alive and dead to our knowledge of it. In reality, the cat can only be one or the other. It is either alive, or it is dead...it cannot be in both states simultaneously. The point being is that only in our imagination, in our anticipation of the answer is the cat both alive and dead. When we open the box, the puzzle is solved, giving rise to factual knowledge of the cat's true state.

Our opening of the box neither kept the cat alive, or killed it. All that did was to tell us what state the cat is truly in. So, the act of our observance does not break down wave function, it only tells us the state of the wave function when we look. Our observance doesn't interact. We don't send out an energy to interact when we look, the act of observance is passive not interactive or dynamic. As is the act of hearing, it is a passive observance.

All the physics occur as the tree falls, pressure waves are generated. To hear the motion of pressure waves we need a suitable instrument that can be stimulated by pressure waves...the ears do not send the sound out or create the sound. The brain processes the stimulations as sound.

originally posted by: MemeticHarvestCan a universe which has a known origin(big bang) not have an origin(the first big bang) if that particular origin (the first big bang) is never measured or known?

So the answer would be yes, but ONLY because we cannot know.

Perhaps that is how consciousness came into existence as well, from the beautiful primordial nothing!

There was no first big bang, it's more like a big melt slowly expanding and there are countless of big melts happening at any given time. Ours was not the first and not the last, to us it's important but really it's just one of countless. Space is infinite, in every six directions one could travel forever, it has no first cause, has existed forever and will continue to do so. If we had the technological means, we would be pointing at things claiming it's a cause only to find out there was a cause for that and this goes on ad infinitum, which also means no one can disprove my point since that person would be gone on finding causes forever.

johnnyjoe1979:

There was no first big bang, it's more like a big melt and there are countless of big melts happening at any given time.

Please elaborate further on your stance...a Big Melt? Never heard of it.

originally posted by: elysiumfire
johnnyjoe1979:

There was no first big bang, it's more like a big melt and there are countless of big melts happening at any given time.

Please elaborate further on your stance...a Big Melt? Never heard of it.

I believe elements came together without any big bang or impressive explosions, quite boring like a slow chemical reaction. It all just melted together into new combinations of atoms and slowly expanded (but still pretty fast compared to speeds measured on Earth). Not in an intelligent design kind of way but the atoms and molecules had no other function than to join and react the way they do. Once spent, the atoms drift away in all directions until they bond with remnants of other previous melts and it all begins again, in a timespan of billions of years.

johnnyjoe1979:

I believe elements came together without any big bang or impressive explosions, quite boring like a slow chemical reaction. It all just melted together into new combinations of atoms and slowly expanded (but still pretty fast compared to speeds measured on Earth). Not in an intelligent design kind of way but the atoms and molecules had no other function than to join and react the way they do. Once spent, the atoms drift away in all directions until they bond with remnants of other previous melts and it all begins again, in a timespan of billions of years.

Okay, fair enough. However, there's just a slight little problem in your understanding of the Big Bang. Allow me to elaborate.

At the initial ignition up to the first second of the Big Bang, the inflation of the explosion, consisting of simply pure energy radiation reached a size about that of our solar system. Until the inflation reached that second of life span, no particles existed, because all the known four forces in nature were enfolded in on each other, there was no separation.

Before there could be quanta, the pure energy radiation had to cool down enough for each of the four forces to separate from the mix. The first to do so was the strong force, which enabled the pure energy radiation to quantize under the stronf force's influence and mediation...quarks were born and came together in packs of threes, creating protons and other quanta, which helped to release the next forces out of the mix, weak force and then electromagnetic radiation. This resulted in a second phase of explosive inflation, because now Newton's 3rd law of equal and opposite force came into effect, physicality and material structuralisation came into effect.

Around 380,000 years later, planets and stars and galaxies formed. I'm just wondering where and when in all this a big melt could occur?

a reply to: elysiumfire

The old tree saying is more of a prop for the thought experiment, to be more specific it comes down to the double slit question. They camera can act as an observer, but does the slit itself act as an observer? There seems to be some kind of relation to the behavior of the quanta to the awareness of the observer. The subject matter is the primordial nothing that we cannot know, so its behavior would probably lean toward quantum.

You are very knowledgeable about the turtles, thank you for your input. i would like to ask, do you think there was any point in the universe in which there were no macroscopic particles?

MemeticHarvest:

do you think there was any point in the universe in which there were no macroscopic particles?

To be honest, I'm not sure I follow the question you ask, except to suggest that your viewpoint seems to be dealing with multi-verse and multi-dimensions?

The thing about the 'turtles' is as I remember (very poorly) a saying given as an answer to the question..."What is beneath that?", and the answer being, that it is 'turtles' all the way down. I suppose in a roundabout way, molecules are macroscopic particles, or in the least can be looked on as the bottom-layer of our macroscopic world, for going beneath them one enters the atomic and subatomic dimensions.