Article #248
Subject: Nothing
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 3/27/2015 10:08:55 AM

link to U-Tube Video of the 2015 Isaac Asimov Memorial debate on the
Existence of Nothing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_cpRdxm4R4

participants:
Dr. Eva Silverstein Prof. Theoretical physics Stanford
Dr. Lawrence Kraus Prof. of Space Exploration
J. Richard Gott Prof. of astrophysics Princeton
Jim Holt writer on the intersection of physics and philosophy
Charles Sipes Expert on Zero, New York U.

Article #249
Subject: some notes on the video
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 3/27/2015 11:09:42 AM

Four different definitions of nothing were proposed:

13 definitions of “nothing”
Everywhere you go, there you are (Buckaroo bonsai)
1) Eva’s definition: Quantum tunneling or quantum energy as moving
between different, but measurable,
Energy states of matter in the universe. This she says, is a "conservatively
philosophical" definition in terms of "quantum fluctuations of the vacumn">

2) Richard’s definition has to do with the inflationary universe
expanding from a “null” point or nothing point.
Dr. Gott’s approach to defining nothing and understanding how the space and
time in the universe started, does not explain “why” the Universe was
created, as Leibnitz wanted to, but “how” it might have been.

3) This is my preferred way of looking at “nothing”. It is Biblical
which is how God created the universe out of nothing, by creating “time”
mathematically. It is spiritual or capable of being discussed rationally, but
not necessarily proved 'scientifically'. It involves a zero set (which may be
non-measurable as well as non-perceptible. It is the way we and God presently
define the integers using zero or “no” “thing” or the set with “no” elements.

4) Lawrence Krauss: "nothing is defined as the absence [in the verbal or
rationally understood...not necessarily scientifically understood sense] of
something" Dr. Krauss, my friend, believes that the "why" question
is "stupid", that it does not matter "why".

Article #250
Subject: further notes on the video
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 3/27/2015 12:13:27 PM

Ms Eva makes the point that this discussion depends on the number of
dimensions we are postulating for creation[ see discussion of this from Dr.
Einstein’s an my viewpoints in the 2014 ourprayergroup.blogspot.com
discussions Cal Berkeley Alumni trip to Switzerland. She reveals to us that
strings, for instance, don’t appear until you introduce ten mathematical
dimensions into the models. Having this many dimensions greatly
[exponentially] affects the hidden parts of the particles mass, expecially as
you approach singularities in the space-time [or what ever we call the places
in the model where the force fields exist and live

Jim Holt does not have his own definition of nothing…he quotes
Parmenides “about nothing, we cannot speak”. [obviously, God doesn’t agree
with this, see Genesis 1]. Lawrence, however, believes the philosophic
quote “anything that is possible” can exist. Jim Holt says this idea “that
whatever is possible exists” goes back to Plato. But, he says, “why does the
idea that the null universe exists” exist?

Question by Neil DeGraase Tyson to Charles Seife [excuse me for misspelling
your name above]
“Zero was hated by the Greeks” “It was only a calculatatal tools used by the
geeky astronomers.”
This gets down to an ‘aesthetic’ debate. Some people say the “universe does
not exist” to please them and us.


What is the best idea of nothing according to Dr. Seife? He thinks it is the
idea of zero, my choice, the “idea of the null set”.
What is it according to Dr. Gott? Just, “It is not there”.
What is it according to Jim Holt? “It is dreamless sleep”.
What is it according to Lawrence Krauss,…everything… “It is the whole
Universe”. [this comes from a different set of axioms for the mathematical
area of set theory. You have to have a postulate in this form of set theory
that “the Universe of all sets, itself, exists.” But, as Neil de Grausse
Dyson argued this set of postulates assumes that somebody or something exists
to ‘know’ these axioms. [this assumes that consciousness has intentionally as
part of its definition]

What is it according to Eva, “the ground state of all the quantum states of
the universe in the case of a gapped quantum system”
What is Mr. De Grauss, “what is outside of Rich Gott’s four Universe”. But,
Lawrence then said, “But, this doesn’t exist which you might also like?”
In answer to a question about what is the difference between nothing and
infinity…Dr. Seife made the fascinating point that according to his
definition of nothing, “it shares the property with infinity that if you take
an infinity away from infinity it is still infinity…and if you take nothing
away from nothing it is still nothing. As a mathematician who believes
mathematics is what is invariant under change of notation this lead me to ask
the question, “ are infinity and mathematics in some sense different forms or
realizations of the same thing or the same possibility?”