Far out cosmology (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 25, 2013, 22:18 (4581 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt: I follow Krauss, not Brian Greene. An unanswered question by Krauss, if the universe as it is guarantees a multiverse, at what point does this begin? -Still all supposition which may make sense to you but not many:-"Another example of the something for nothing approach is A Universe From Nothing: Why there is something rather than nothing (Lawrence Krauss 2012). Michael Brooks, the reviewer, observes: "Space and time can indeed come from nothing; nothing, as Krauss explains beautifully, being an extremely unstable state from which the production of 'something' is pretty much inevitable. However, the laws of physics can't be conjured from nothing. In the end, the best answer is that they arise from our existence within a multiverse, where all the universes have their own laws—ours being just so for no particular reason. Krauss contends that the multiverse makes the question of what determined our laws of nature 'less significant'. Truthfully, it just puts the question beyond science—for now, at least. That (together with the frustratingly opaque origins of a multiverse) means Krauss can't quite knock out those who think there must ultimately be a prime mover" (http://www.newscientist.com/article/ mg21328472.000-trying-to-make-the-cosmos-out-of-nothing. html)."-"David Albert, a professor of philosophy at Columbia and the author of Quantum Mechanics and Experience, has a more devastating review: "But since the space I have is limited, let me put those niceties aside and try to be quick, and crude, and concrete. A century ago, it seems to him, nobody would have made so much as a peep about referring to a stretch of space without any material particles in it as nothing. And now that he and his colleagues think they have a way of showing how everything there is could imaginably have emerged from a stretch of space like that; the nutcases are moving the goal posts. He complains that 'some philosophers and many theologians define and redefine 'nothing' as not being any of the versions of nothing that scientists currently describe,' and that 'now, I am told by religious critics that I cannot refer to empty space as 'nothing,' but rather as a 'quantum vacuum,' to distinguish it from the philosopher's or theologian's idealized 'nothing,'" and he does a good deal of railing about 'the intellectual bankruptcy of much of theology and some of modern philosophy.' But all there is to say about this, as far as I can see, is that Krauss is dead wrong and his religious and philosophical critics are absolutely right" (NY Times Sunday Book Review, March 23, 2012)."