Quantum physics musing
How could the universe have all just come from nothing?
This is a question that creationists often ask in an attempt to trip up atheists. The correct answer is "We don't know, but we're willing to admit that we don't know rather than fill it in with God". An equally valid but incorrect answer is "So where did God come from to create the universe?", they'll just cover their ears and sing "lalala". But there is a question there, how did this all come from nothing? Perhaps the appropriate question is "could this all come from nothing".
There is a line which is occasionally bandied about, "You are at the center of the known universe". The emphasis here is on the word "known". We are familiar with the scale in which we exist. 3 spatial dimensions, of a particular order of magnitude, and time, of a particular order of magnitude. Once we try to observe things outside of these orders of magnitude, our minds start to explode. However it is important to recognise that the familiar world in which we live doesn't necessarily apply on the incredible grand, and incredibly small scheme of things. This is something which humankind this last 120 years has started to discover.
Right now I have to focus on nothing, or define nothing. It may seem absurd that something can come from nothing. In fact, in our universe, something does come from nothing. Matter is nothing more than condensed energy, collide particles together with enough energy and you get new matter. But on another scale of weirdness, particles blink in and out of existence for seemingly no reason all the time. Due to laws of symmetry, these "virtual particles" are created in an infinitesimally small amount of time along with their anti-particles, and then because when you put particles and anti-particles together they tend to annihilate, that's exactly what they do as soon as they blink in to existence. More on this later. Even this example is confined to what we know, the universe in which we exist. Our universe is governed by a set of rules, which we are beginning to understand. In this universe, we rarely see entities just pop in to existence, it seems absurd. What what about these rules? Where did these rules come from? Rules exist as surely as matter exists. Just as in the beginning matter had to be created, so too did the rules that govern that matter. Multiverse theory speaks of multiple universes can exist which each contain varying levels of what is called dark energy, a repulsive force which prevents matter from collapsing on itself. This is a very brief and lacking explanation but it'll do for now. This of course is just one fundamental change. What about the other laws? Where did the rules come from that govern how that dark energy interacts with matter? We are still playing with fundamental numbers here, where did these numbers come from? Could the "multiverse" be a single entity among even more multiverses?
There is another concept that I need to introduce here, well two actually. One is uncertainty, which deals with probability, and the other which springs from this, quantum permissiveness. When you get down to the extremely small scale, things start to become fuzzy. Not because we can't measure them, but because they actually are fuzzy. An example of this is an electron in orbit around a nucleus. You can't know where an electron is at one time. The reality is, it is never at one place at one time. It exists in a probability cloud, there is a certain probability that it can be at this one place at any given time, and it is in all of those places at once in a weighting which is reflected in that probability. What we have learned since making this startling discovery, is that probability rules the quantum world. Everything has uncertainty. This may seem strange on the macro world in which we live. We weigh ourselves, so we know how much mass we have. We know what speed we are travelling at, therefore how much momentum we have. The thought that we can never simultaneously know our mass and momentum is something of a strange concept. However on our scale that uncertainty becomes very small on both a relative and a real scale. With very tiny molecules, those uncertainties get much bigger on both an absolute as well as a relative scale. On the opposite ends of the same scale you have quantum permissiveness. Say you have an atom. Let's make it an unstable atom for simplicity. There are forces inside that atom which are pushing it apart, it wants to expel a pair of protons, and a pair of neutrons want to come along for the ride (why this happens is a whole other essay). However within the atom are things called gluons, which bind the atom together. Any attempts to escape will result in the particles being pulled back in to the nucleus. As is the case with electrons, these protons and neutron exist in a probability cloud, except theirs is a lot denser. They also tend to exist everywhere within these probability clouds. Within these clouds there is a region which is outside of the grip of the gluons that bind the molecules in the nucleus. In other words, there is a probability that these particles will just spontaneously appear on the other side of this barrier and fly away. This sounds absolutely absurd, but this is exactly what happens in alpha decay of a particle. The probability is obscenely small, this happens maybe once in a billion billion years (probably less). However, there are so many molecules with all of this going on at once that we can observe this happening all the time. If you put a geiger counter, which detects these little alpha particles (which are in fact helium nuclei), next to an alpha emitter, you can hear it chirping away. But there wont be a pattern to it. It might chirp a couple of times, go silent for a while, then start chirping like crazy before settling down to a lull, and so on. There is an overall number, the rate of decay, which becomes apparent. But this rate is only a measure of the probability that the particle will decay in a given time, not saying that it WILL decay. If you flip a coin a billion times you can say that you'll get 500 million heads and 500 million tails. It might be more like 499,999,874 heads...close enough. If you flip a coin 4 times, your relative error is likely to be a lot larger. This is the nature of probability. Quantum permissiveness focuses on the application of opportunity. If something can happen, no matter how seemingly unlikely, given enough time it WILL happen. Now we're starting to get closer to an answer to the initial question.
Quantum permissiveness is of course, almost totally irrelevant to the question, but it does introduce the idea of probability and how even in the universe in which we exist, probability is king. Everything rests on probability. There are a few rules which under no circumstances can't be broken, there is no level of probability in which these laws can be contravened. Conservation of energy, lepton flavour, baryonic charge, spin and fermion charge are prime examples. These laws can not be broken. Not in our universe anyway. But now try to imagine nothing. True nothingness. Let's not just do away with all energy (matter is just condensed energy, E=MC² describes the mass-energy equivalence) but do away with all of the rules. If nothing existed this is exactly what we'd have, nothing. No energy and no rules. Time becomes irrelevant, both infinitely small and infinitely large at the same time. This has an interesting consequence. Remember quantum permissiveness? If it's allowed by law then given enough time it will happen? Well, time is infinite, and there are no laws. Anything and everything can happen, ergo, anything and everything DOES happen. Our universe is born simply because it can, there is nothing to stop it. Along with an infinite number of other universes, each with a unique set of parameters. Different laws creating different effects, with some set of laws creating harmony in which the universe exists, and some where the universe collapses on itself. How does this occur, is there a pattern? No, it's splayed out in all directions and time, which for those which inhabit space and time is convenient and tangible but on another level are still compressed to a singularity, a point infinitesimally small which contains our entire existence.
So why does this universe exist? Well simply because it must. In a state of nothingness where time is infinite and there are no laws to govern what can and can't happen, it's inevitable, it will just pop in to existence. And why do we find ourselves here in this perfectly tuned universe? Because it just is that way. The fundamental laws that guide this universe are such that life can form, and driven by probability, here we are. It may seem highly unlikely that we would exist by what a creationist might describe as pure chance, but on a grander scale of time and space even within our OWN universe life is inevitable. And then we come back to one of the first things I said. You are at the center of the known universe. You see all of this because you are here. You exist in this universe, on this planet, in the space where you're sitting. By the time you read this I will no longer be writing it. It will have been done, and as I was doing it you would have been completely oblivious to the fact that I was writing it. Much the same that you are oblivious to life on other planets. Much the same as we are oblivious to other dimensions, to other universes. We see things the way that they are in our universe because we are here, we exist bound by the laws which govern where we live. The nature of reality is far beyond what our brains can perceive, even for those who discover it.
This is a question that creationists often ask in an attempt to trip up atheists. The correct answer is "We don't know, but we're willing to admit that we don't know rather than fill it in with God". An equally valid but incorrect answer is "So where did God come from to create the universe?", they'll just cover their ears and sing "lalala". But there is a question there, how did this all come from nothing? Perhaps the appropriate question is "could this all come from nothing".
There is a line which is occasionally bandied about, "You are at the center of the known universe". The emphasis here is on the word "known". We are familiar with the scale in which we exist. 3 spatial dimensions, of a particular order of magnitude, and time, of a particular order of magnitude. Once we try to observe things outside of these orders of magnitude, our minds start to explode. However it is important to recognise that the familiar world in which we live doesn't necessarily apply on the incredible grand, and incredibly small scheme of things. This is something which humankind this last 120 years has started to discover.
Right now I have to focus on nothing, or define nothing. It may seem absurd that something can come from nothing. In fact, in our universe, something does come from nothing. Matter is nothing more than condensed energy, collide particles together with enough energy and you get new matter. But on another scale of weirdness, particles blink in and out of existence for seemingly no reason all the time. Due to laws of symmetry, these "virtual particles" are created in an infinitesimally small amount of time along with their anti-particles, and then because when you put particles and anti-particles together they tend to annihilate, that's exactly what they do as soon as they blink in to existence. More on this later. Even this example is confined to what we know, the universe in which we exist. Our universe is governed by a set of rules, which we are beginning to understand. In this universe, we rarely see entities just pop in to existence, it seems absurd. What what about these rules? Where did these rules come from? Rules exist as surely as matter exists. Just as in the beginning matter had to be created, so too did the rules that govern that matter. Multiverse theory speaks of multiple universes can exist which each contain varying levels of what is called dark energy, a repulsive force which prevents matter from collapsing on itself. This is a very brief and lacking explanation but it'll do for now. This of course is just one fundamental change. What about the other laws? Where did the rules come from that govern how that dark energy interacts with matter? We are still playing with fundamental numbers here, where did these numbers come from? Could the "multiverse" be a single entity among even more multiverses?
There is another concept that I need to introduce here, well two actually. One is uncertainty, which deals with probability, and the other which springs from this, quantum permissiveness. When you get down to the extremely small scale, things start to become fuzzy. Not because we can't measure them, but because they actually are fuzzy. An example of this is an electron in orbit around a nucleus. You can't know where an electron is at one time. The reality is, it is never at one place at one time. It exists in a probability cloud, there is a certain probability that it can be at this one place at any given time, and it is in all of those places at once in a weighting which is reflected in that probability. What we have learned since making this startling discovery, is that probability rules the quantum world. Everything has uncertainty. This may seem strange on the macro world in which we live. We weigh ourselves, so we know how much mass we have. We know what speed we are travelling at, therefore how much momentum we have. The thought that we can never simultaneously know our mass and momentum is something of a strange concept. However on our scale that uncertainty becomes very small on both a relative and a real scale. With very tiny molecules, those uncertainties get much bigger on both an absolute as well as a relative scale. On the opposite ends of the same scale you have quantum permissiveness. Say you have an atom. Let's make it an unstable atom for simplicity. There are forces inside that atom which are pushing it apart, it wants to expel a pair of protons, and a pair of neutrons want to come along for the ride (why this happens is a whole other essay). However within the atom are things called gluons, which bind the atom together. Any attempts to escape will result in the particles being pulled back in to the nucleus. As is the case with electrons, these protons and neutron exist in a probability cloud, except theirs is a lot denser. They also tend to exist everywhere within these probability clouds. Within these clouds there is a region which is outside of the grip of the gluons that bind the molecules in the nucleus. In other words, there is a probability that these particles will just spontaneously appear on the other side of this barrier and fly away. This sounds absolutely absurd, but this is exactly what happens in alpha decay of a particle. The probability is obscenely small, this happens maybe once in a billion billion years (probably less). However, there are so many molecules with all of this going on at once that we can observe this happening all the time. If you put a geiger counter, which detects these little alpha particles (which are in fact helium nuclei), next to an alpha emitter, you can hear it chirping away. But there wont be a pattern to it. It might chirp a couple of times, go silent for a while, then start chirping like crazy before settling down to a lull, and so on. There is an overall number, the rate of decay, which becomes apparent. But this rate is only a measure of the probability that the particle will decay in a given time, not saying that it WILL decay. If you flip a coin a billion times you can say that you'll get 500 million heads and 500 million tails. It might be more like 499,999,874 heads...close enough. If you flip a coin 4 times, your relative error is likely to be a lot larger. This is the nature of probability. Quantum permissiveness focuses on the application of opportunity. If something can happen, no matter how seemingly unlikely, given enough time it WILL happen. Now we're starting to get closer to an answer to the initial question.
Quantum permissiveness is of course, almost totally irrelevant to the question, but it does introduce the idea of probability and how even in the universe in which we exist, probability is king. Everything rests on probability. There are a few rules which under no circumstances can't be broken, there is no level of probability in which these laws can be contravened. Conservation of energy, lepton flavour, baryonic charge, spin and fermion charge are prime examples. These laws can not be broken. Not in our universe anyway. But now try to imagine nothing. True nothingness. Let's not just do away with all energy (matter is just condensed energy, E=MC² describes the mass-energy equivalence) but do away with all of the rules. If nothing existed this is exactly what we'd have, nothing. No energy and no rules. Time becomes irrelevant, both infinitely small and infinitely large at the same time. This has an interesting consequence. Remember quantum permissiveness? If it's allowed by law then given enough time it will happen? Well, time is infinite, and there are no laws. Anything and everything can happen, ergo, anything and everything DOES happen. Our universe is born simply because it can, there is nothing to stop it. Along with an infinite number of other universes, each with a unique set of parameters. Different laws creating different effects, with some set of laws creating harmony in which the universe exists, and some where the universe collapses on itself. How does this occur, is there a pattern? No, it's splayed out in all directions and time, which for those which inhabit space and time is convenient and tangible but on another level are still compressed to a singularity, a point infinitesimally small which contains our entire existence.
So why does this universe exist? Well simply because it must. In a state of nothingness where time is infinite and there are no laws to govern what can and can't happen, it's inevitable, it will just pop in to existence. And why do we find ourselves here in this perfectly tuned universe? Because it just is that way. The fundamental laws that guide this universe are such that life can form, and driven by probability, here we are. It may seem highly unlikely that we would exist by what a creationist might describe as pure chance, but on a grander scale of time and space even within our OWN universe life is inevitable. And then we come back to one of the first things I said. You are at the center of the known universe. You see all of this because you are here. You exist in this universe, on this planet, in the space where you're sitting. By the time you read this I will no longer be writing it. It will have been done, and as I was doing it you would have been completely oblivious to the fact that I was writing it. Much the same that you are oblivious to life on other planets. Much the same as we are oblivious to other dimensions, to other universes. We see things the way that they are in our universe because we are here, we exist bound by the laws which govern where we live. The nature of reality is far beyond what our brains can perceive, even for those who discover it.