Far out cosmology (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 25, 2013, 22:18 (3984 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt: I follow Krauss, not Brian Greene. An unanswered question by Krauss, if the universe as it is guarantees a multiverse, at what point does this begin? -Still all supposition which may make sense to you but not many:-"Another example of the something for nothing approach
is A Universe From Nothing: Why there is something rather than
nothing (Lawrence Krauss 2012). Michael Brooks, the reviewer,
observes: "Space and time can indeed come from nothing; nothing,
as Krauss explains beautifully, being an extremely unstable
state from which the production of 'something' is pretty much
inevitable. However, the laws of physics can't be conjured from
nothing. In the end, the best answer is that they arise from our
existence within a multiverse, where all the universes have their
own laws—ours being just so for no particular reason. Krauss
contends that the multiverse makes the question of what determined
our laws of nature 'less significant'. Truthfully, it just puts
the question beyond science—for now, at least. That (together
with the frustratingly opaque origins of a multiverse) means
Krauss can't quite knock out those who think there must ultimately
be a prime mover" (http://www.newscientist.com/article/
mg21328472.000-trying-to-make-the-cosmos-out-of-nothing.
html)."-"David Albert, a professor of philosophy at Columbia and the
author of Quantum Mechanics and Experience, has a more devastating
review: "But since the space I have is limited, let me
put those niceties aside and try to be quick, and crude, and concrete.
A century ago, it seems to him, nobody would have made so
much as a peep about referring to a stretch of space without any
material particles in it as nothing. And now that he and his colleagues
think they have a way of showing how everything there is
could imaginably have emerged from a stretch of space like that;
the nutcases are moving the goal posts. He complains that 'some
philosophers and many theologians define and redefine 'nothing'
as not being any of the versions of nothing that scientists currently
describe,' and that 'now, I am told by religious critics that I
cannot refer to empty space as 'nothing,' but rather as a 'quantum
vacuum,' to distinguish it from the philosopher's or theologian's
idealized 'nothing,'" and he does a good deal of railing about 'the
intellectual bankruptcy of much of theology and some of modern
philosophy.' But all there is to say about this, as far as I can see,
is that Krauss is dead wrong and his religious and philosophical
critics are absolutely right" (NY Times Sunday Book Review,
March 23, 2012)."