And God created, indeed, out of nothing at all. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights. Why is there something instead of nothing? This explains what appealed to me about Jim Holt’s TED Talk on “Why Does the Universe Exist?” Talk about a big question! The argument was a lengthy quote in a book I was reading by Dr. Henry M. Morris, founder of the Creation Research institute. AS DOUGLAS ADAMS once wrote: “The universe is big. Particle physicist Harry Cliff works on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and he has some potentially bad news for people who seek answers to these questions. “These bubbles of spacetime form particles out of nothing just like those weird particles, and we think a similar bubble may have formed out of nothing to create our entire universe.”. At first all the matter and energy in the universe was crammed together in one … Clearly, premise 1 is understood through our ability to interpret the world, and our own mind. “It spontaneously starts producing quark-antiquark pairs.”. Like a rapidly expanding balloon, it swelled from a … : An Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt "Why Does the World Exist?" Why does the universe exist? In other words: Why does the universe exist (and why are we in it)? Why does so much interesting stuff exist in the universe? Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." These Quantum physicists first theorised, then proved, that particles simply pop into existence, usually in pairs, from absolutely nowhere. Express. “Even in a perfect vacuum particles and anti-particles flash in and out of existence, and they return to no-where when they’re done. If this Universe did NOT exist, NO ONE, including YOU, would exist to ask the question. Scientists send particle into orbit from lab. Why Does the Universe Exist and Other Things We Cannot Know Philosophy used to be the king of science. But what appealed to me about Holt’s Talk wasn’t just the chutzpah of the question, but that he proposes several possibilities, not trying to reduce such a … But there was the chance for that nothing to become the universe. Of course, biblically we would say that God, the God of Scripture brought the universe into existence. therefore, the Universe had a cause. The writer Jim Holt explores the fundamental question of ontology. When I was a freshman in high school, I encountered the following argument for the existence of God. Really big.” And yet if our theory of the big bang is right, the universe was once a lot … The whole group of universes, if there are indeed more than one, is commonly called the multiverse. TED.com translations are made possible by volunteer order back issues and use the historic Daily Express Moreover, the Universe does seem to be special. There are several prespective advaita is one such perspective.. its like scientific big bang theory.. out of explosion universe created.. why the explosion happened … Why does the universe exist instead of nothing? And scientists have theorised that the once this principle is proven the rest is just a matter of scale. Before the universe, there was nothing. Sorry if this is a stupid question, but do we know what, if anything, happened before the big bang, and why the singularity would have existed in the first place? But thankfully, Carroll doesn't stop with the witticism (though one … He either was or pretended to be an Orthodox Christian in his metaphysical outlook, and he said it’s obvious why the world exists: because God created it. The new findings seem to break the classical physics law of the Conservation of Energy – that energy can neither be created nor destroyed – showing that new energy can appear within a closed system from nowhere. By Jay Rogers. Home of the Daily and Sunday Express. This fact would seem arbitrary. Basically what he’s saying is that the universe exists because it can exist. According to the standard Big Bang model, the universe was born during a period of inflation that began about 13.8 billion years ago. Why does the universe exist? We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. is an intellectual quest of one the most intriguing philosophical questions, "Why Does the World Exist". translators. Premise 1 seems to me to be more likely to be true than its negation. Actually, the title does not say it all–the question should be framed: “why does the universe exist?” This is a question which most likely goes back to the dawn of mankind, to our most primitive myths and religions, and which certainly interested our earliest philosophers. SHOCK QUANTUM THEORY: The future is affecting the PAST, TELEPORTATION CRACKED! Well, possibly because the universe is no more than a temporary quantum fluctuation from the true vacuum state. The instant after the Big Bang, know as Inflation, was a period of massive energy and expansion but the negative energy of gravity precisely cancelled this out – leaving a zero sum. Why Does the World Exist? A spokesman for science explainer channel Strange Mysteries said: “According to quantum mechanics the idea of nothingness persisting for all time is unrealistic as there’s no such thing as empty space. newspaper archive. By Sean Carroll. Carroll begins the chapter with a glib anecdote from Sidney Morgenbesser, a philosophy professor at Columbia. Ultimate free lunch: The universe came from absolutely nothing, ‘You are everywhere!’ Human consciousness exists BEFORE birth, ‘Angel Particle’ found, could lead to 100 MILLION times faster comps, Alan Guth: Universe is ultimate free lunch. Does it exist because God created it, in kindergarten school, weren't you attentive to the teachers' lessons?-----Additional data: after 36 minutes. If there were nothing, there would be nobody to complain. Go deeper into fascinating topics with original video series from TED. Why does the universe exist? It began with the big bang almost 14 billion years ago. The novelist John Updike playfully responds. “Stephen Hawking found that space is unstable. The Universe could have been, in countless ways, different. Why is there something rather than nothing? This, of course, is non-sense. Well, here is one thing that it's for: Figuring out why the universe exists, instead of not existing. Wheeler believes the quest for an answer to that question inevitably entails wrestling with the implications of one of the strangest aspects of modern physics: According to the rules of quantum mechanics, our observations influence the universe at the most fundamental levels. “Perhaps the big bang was just nothingness doing what comes naturally”. 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He said: “You can form a state that has no quarks and antiquarks in it, and it’s totally unstable. Why Does the Universe Exist? At any moment, the universe may collapse back into the true vacuum state, at which point there will be no universe. Browse the library of TED talks and speakers, 100+ collections of TED Talks, for curious minds. Physicists have found the answer and it will blow your mind QUANTUM physicists have finally answered the biggest question of them all – why is there a universe? Morgenbesser was once asked, “Why is there something, rather than nothing?” and purportedly answered, “If there were nothing, you'd still be complaining” (195). See today's front and back pages, download the newspaper, The eternal question of why the universe exists (or how something came from the nothing) is revisited by Jim Holt in his new book Why Does the World Exist? 1. In a mathematically perfect universe, we would be less than dead; we would never have existed. All rights reserved. Professor Wilczek added: “There is no barrier between nothing and a rich universe full of matter. © TED Conferences, LLC. Why does the universe exist? I believe this potential is infinite. Empty space, in time, eventually starts to froth and bubble. You will see the universe … A New Theory of the Universe (Robert Lanza, The American Scholar) The Simulation Argument (Nick Bostrom, Oxford University) Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation (Silas R. Beane et al, Cornell University Library Archive) Why does the universe exist? The Multiverse is an extremely controversial idea, but at its core it's a very simple concept. Open Translation Project. - An answer to atheism. Alan Guth, a cosmologist at MIT who came up with the inflation theory 30 years ago said:  “I like to say that the universe is the ultimate free lunch, “Maybe a better way of saying it is that something IS nothing.”. That’s how powerful God is. :An … Even if its features were in no way special, it would be puzzling why, out of all possible Universes, this is the one that exists. Must be a slow week. Posted September 10, 2008. Learn more about the Most physicists now think that the universe began with the Big Bang. Why isn't this obvious? Quantum physics involves a trade off between time and energy - something that lasts a long time must have little energy and vice versa. Since an impersonal eternal cause is not possible as an explanation for the existence of the universe, the only other option available to us as a personal, eternal cause of the universe. Indeed they have theorised further that the universe really does not like ‘nothing’ – and perhaps the state of nothingness is an impossible state. There will be nothing. These pop-up particles are known as Quarks and they make up wisps of existence known as Mesons and Baryons. if the Universe began to exist, it had a cause. Furthermore, the title incorrectly implies that the theory answers, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Sidney Morgenbesser, a much-beloved professor of philosophy at Columbia University, renowned for his aphoristic wisdom, was once asked, “Why is there something, rather than nothing?” “If there were nothing,” Morgenbesser immediately replied, “you’d … Why does the universe exist? This may sound like the dumbest of questions, for we know our universe is all the matter and energy that inhabits space and time. Philosopher and writer Jim Holt follows this question … Mr Universe: Everything, including us, from a bubble in spacetime? The personal, eternal cause of the universe decided at a particular point in time to bring the universe into existence. Nobel prize winner Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who specialises is quantum chromodynamics, the theory that describes how quarks behave deep within atomic nuclei, has found that the universe simply doesn’t like a state of nothingness. “According to quantum theory, there is no state of ’emptiness’,”. In this essay I summarize the cosmological argument from contingency offered by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Why does the universe exist at all, and why are we in it? The universe is more than 13 billions years old which suggests very low energies. Our best theories predict that all the matter in the universe should have been destroyed as soon as it existed. The question ‘Why does the universe exist?’ can be answered in two steps: 1) First of all we will have to know as to whether there is any God or not; 2) If we can somehow come to know that there is a God, then we can further ask as to why he created the universe. Many quantum physicists have even drawn the conclusion that nothingness itself cannot exist. I understood the difference between make; believe and reality before my 3rd birthday. Does science have a definitive (or at least widely agreed upon) answer to the question of why … Leibniz argues for the existence of God as the reason for the origin of the universe. A lot of these articles seem to be questions that Bill Nye gets from 8-year old kids on his show. Victor Stenger, a physicist at the University of Colorado in Boulder added: “Something is the more natural state than nothing. He doesn’t need any preexisting materials to fashion a world out of. Even at the level of absolute nothingness there is still potential. "Why does the universe exist?" Philosopher and author Jim Holt plays the role of the inquisitive detective who is on a mission to answer the ultimate question of existence. But this potential has no potential at all were it not for the fact that it is stirred into expressing such pote. Hard to imagine now, but it’s true. And since the possibility existed, it was bound to happen eventually. Something – existence – seems far preferable. Because the universe is a physical entity, it is contingent, and because it is contingent, there needs to be a sufficient reason for its existence. The zero sum actually gets around the Conservation of Energy problem because if there is zero overall energy to conserve, the problem evaporates – and a universe that simply popped out of nothing becomes not just plausible, but probable. Over the last few centuries, however, the divide between science and philosophy has grown larger and more irreconcilable, even while science overwhelmingly surpassed philosophy in importance. But many cosmologists now believe there are other “universes”, and perhaps our universe arose from one of them. We DO NOT KNOW the answer to that question. 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