Cosmologic philosophy: something from nothing went bang? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, June 12, 2018, 19:13 (2356 days ago) @ David Turell

This article challenges the something from nothing Big Bang theories and wonders about consciousness and how it appears:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15120475-000-forum-on-creating-something-from-no...

"IT’S the simple questions that usually tax science the most. For instance,
why should there be something instead of nothing? The Universe is so
outrageously enormous and elaborate. Why did it—or God, if you
prefer—go to all the bother?

"Yes, I know that if the Universe was not more or less the way it is then
there would be no one to reflect on such problems. But that is a comment, not an
explanation. The fact is, nothing could be simpler than nothing—so why is
there something instead?

"I’ve read the party manifesto on this and I didn’t buy it. I can go
along with the quantum foam stuff, the good news (for once) about inflation, the
quark soup and so on. That’s fine. I may not be able to imagine it—who
can? But, as far as I am concerned, the fact that the Universe was an incredibly
weird place 10-43 seconds after “time zero” is no big deal. What is a big
deal—the biggest deal of all—is how you get something out of
nothing.

"Don’t let the cosmologists try to kid you on this one. They have not got a
clue either—despite the fact that they are doing a pretty good job of
convincing themselves and others that this is really not a problem. “In the
beginning,” they will say, “there was nothing—no time, space, matter or
energy. Then there was a quantum fluctuation from which . . . ” Whoa! Stop right
there. You see what I mean? First there is nothing, then there is something. And
the cosmologists try to bridge the two with a quantum flutter, a tremor of
uncertainty that sparks it all off. Then they are away and before you know it,
they have pulled a hundred billion galaxies out of their quantum hats.

"I don’t have a problem with this scenario from the quantum fluctuation
onward. Why shouldn’t human beings build a theory of how the Universe evolved
from a simple to a complex state. But there is a very real problem in explaining
how it got started in the first place. You cannot fudge this by appealing to
quantum mechanics. Either there is nothing to begin with, in which case there is
no quantum vacuum, no pre-geometric dust, no time in which anything can happen,
no physical laws that can effect a change from nothingness into somethingness;
or there is something, in which case that needs explaining.

"One of the most specious analogies that cosmologists have come up with is
between the origin of the Universe and the North Pole. Just as there is nothing
north of the North Pole, so there was nothing before the Big Bang. Voilà!
We are supposed to be convinced by that, especially since it was Stephen Hawking
who dreamt it up. But it will not do. The Earth did not grow from its North
Pole. There was not ever a disembodied point from which the material of the
planet sprang. The North Pole only exists because the Earth exists—not the
other way around.

"It’s the same with neurologists who are peering into the brain to see how
consciousness comes about. I do not have a problem with being told how memory
works, how we parse sentences, how the visual cortex handles images. I can
believe that we might come to understand the ins and outs of our grey matter
almost as well as we can follow the operations of a sophisticated computer. But
I draw the line at believing that this knowledge will advance our understanding
of why we are conscious one jot. Why shouldn’t the brain do everything it does
and still be completely unaware? Why shouldn’t it just process information and
trigger survival responses without going to the trouble of generating
consciousness? You only have to read the musings of Daniel Dennett, Roger
Penrose, Francis Crick and others to appreciate that we are discovering
everything about the brain—except why it is conscious.

"No, I’m sorry, I may not have been born in Yorkshire but I’m a firm believer
that you cannot get owt for nowt. Not a Universe from a nothing-verse, nor
consciousness from a thinking brain. I suspect that mainstream science may go on
for a few more years before it bumps so hard against these problems that it is
forced to recognise that something is wrong. And then? Let me guess: if you
cannot get something for nothing then that must mean there has always been
something. Hmmm. And if the brain doesn’t produce consciousness . . . well, no,
that is just too crazy isn’t it?

Comment: We have more than one unsolved problem from a materialism reductionist point of view. Published in 1996!