Is it really impossible to get something from nothing?

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Furrowed Brow
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Is it really impossible to get something from nothing?

Post #1

Post by Furrowed Brow »

You cannot get owt from nowt!

This looks like plain old common sense. :-k

But lets look at this from a logical point of view.

If we take Occam's principle: entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.

Twist it around a bit to get get: principles should not be multiplied beyond necessity.

Take a few moments to absorb that last thought and then cast an eye over the next two definitions.

Def 1: nothing = no things and no principles.
Def 2: nothing = no things and the principle "you cannot get something from nothing".

The first question is: where did the "you can't get owt from nowt" rule come from? Is this a principle that belongs to logic or empiricism?

I say it is empirical.:yes:

The second question: is not def 1 a more minimal possibility than Def 2 and therefore closer to being absolute nothing.

I say it is.:yes:

Third question: Is Def 1 useful or is it just baloney?

I think it might be useful, would like to argue it is :2gun: , so is there anyone who thinks it is baloney and can give some reasons why? (If anyone can see a use for it that would be cool).

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Post #21

Post by Cathar1950 »

Ok I am going out on a limb here.
I am afraid of both high places and low ones.
I sometime hate think about this stuff as I feel I might fall in some mental pit called insanity. It may be to late.
I love time travel stories and movies.
I was wondering it maybe as we mature we discover how to travel back in time or send information back. We find out in the future that no one started the universe so we go back and start it so everything is fine. It is kind of like the book story.

But lets say there are virtual particles and they pop in and out of existence and have been doing so for virtually forever. At some point in the past two of them collided which would be virtual impossible but it happened anyway.
The collision knowing no bounds caused an explosion of such magnitude that it affects every other virtual particle and due to the relationship with everything else it sets limits or rules because of its relationships to everything else.
Of course it could be that there was a ball of eternal particles that happened to collide causing the same results.

Of course I have read about particles going backwards in time and maybe they did it.

Where is our screenwriter?

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