Creation Ex Nihilo

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rousejohnny</i>
<br />Heusdens said:

If there is no change of state, motion or transformation, then that is not something, and can not be called "energy" either.

Fields in physical reality though do have observable properties (else, how could we detect them and know they exist?)

Response:

What would we have then if E=MC squared principle were used deductively to change all matter into energy and the charges were to cancel out to equal 0. This would by your own words above not be something but rather "nothing". This is the only nothing that is possible. It is not detectable, but quantitatively deducible (is that a word?).
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In what form do you think that energy would exist?

To avoid having this discussion taking place on too theoretical issues, we might better take the approach from modern (big bang) cosmology, which in fact describes the early stage of the universe (but still not THE absolute begin, but just a relative begin) in which normal matter (the baryonic and leptonic stuff and so) did not yet exist.
In this cosmological theory though, there did took place changes, else the universe would have never started out of that state.

If we proceed further, one of the dominating theories that describe the universe, is that of inflation. This theory envisions a universe in which in a vacuum state one or more scalar fields exist. These fields do change in space and time , due too quantum fluctuations.

I won't get into much detail of this particular cosmological theory, but the properties of the matter in that theory, do require the existence of space and time, and also motion/change.

Larry B,

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">If anything exists on the other side of a candidate boundary, that boundary is automatically of Type A or B.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

What do you think about this: Let us define the universe as the ultimate superset, which is the set that contains all other conceivable existing sets of all conceivable forms, you name it. Hence, if anything exists on the other side of your boundary, then we are talking about a non-accounted subset of the universe.

The notion of a boundary for the universe is irrelevant, it is meaningless, for if there is a boundary, then we would expect an intersection with a non-proper subset, which implies that we have not taken all conceivable sets of forms into our universe, which is our superset, the set that contains everything, including our sets containing nothing. Thus, we conclude that the universe can have no boundary.

Whoop-dee-doo! This would make great stuff for some Late Night Show.... Larry K perhaps?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rousejohnny</i>
<br />Heusdens said:

If there is no change of state, motion or transformation, then that is not something, and can not be called "energy" either.

Fields in physical reality though do have observable properties (else, how could we detect them and know they exist?)

Response:

What would we have then if E=MC squared principle were used deductively to change all matter into energy and the charges were to cancel out to equal 0. This would by your own words above not be something but rather "nothing". This is the only nothing that is possible. It is not detectable, but quantitatively deducible (is that a word?).
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The notion of energy is defined with respect to units, which are well-defined properties for us. How can any sort of energy be quantified if we have no properties to begin with in the case of an absolute void of nothingness, which, by definition, has no conceivable properties to begin with?

Care to elaborate?

Heusdens,

Do you know what the word "preclude" means?

LB

[Jan] "Thus, we conclude that the universe can have no boundary."

I'm real sure that this was my point.

LB

To all,

The confusion following my first post today is part of what I'm trying to clear up by proposing definitions for things like the various kinds of boundaries that might exist (either in reality or as concepts ...).

Try thinking before you write?

LB