Before the Big Bang? (Origins)

by David Turell , Monday, July 28, 2014, 18:42 (3771 days ago) @ dhw


> DAVID: Stenger and Krauss want a virtual vaccumm and a quantum perturbation to start the bb. No one knows why they are so positive in their assumption that we came from nothing.
> 
> dhw: This is confusing. You have told me that a virtual vacuum is not nothing, but contains particles that “pop” in and out of existence. Do Stenger and Krauss have a different definition?-Yes, of course this is the area of confusion. Stenger and Krauss, among others, think a virtual vacuum is nothing! But obviously it can't be a true void which is nothing. A virtual vacuum is obvously something to most philosophers.-
> dhw: The Strassler article (which you have referred to before) may make riveting reading for would-be quantum theorists, but I'm afraid it doesn't help me very much. .....I don't understand why you need to bring these highly specialised categories into the discussion.-Only to show you and others of the complexity in quantum source-of-the-universe theories, as a result of the particles discovered so far. All of the matter particles come out of pure energy, as do the field particles. The first cause logically has to be pure energy in some form, which is really unknown to us. Next step is to realize that if cause and effect are accepted, timeless energy has existed eternally as a first cause. You cannot get something from a pure nothing.