Nothing does not exist physically. The big bang was not a universe banging into existence from nothing. The nothing. In physics one means the vacuum. And as is known nowadays, the vacuum is not empty. The dark energy drove the virtual Planck cell apart. The universe came into real existence in an inflationary expansion of the 3D singularity on an eternal 4D substrate. The universe cannot be non-eternal. It has to be temporal infinite. The eternity might even be parsed in sub infinites. The universe we are in can cause a new big bang behind us, at the symmetric origin from where all new big bangs spring. This origin can be called the magical umbellicus of life, the dual fountain source of life. The Wondrous Dual Ejaculata in cosmic orgasm, with infinite foreplay.

What seems more far-fetched (1) something from literally nothing (2) an infinite past? — Down The Rabbit Hole

Since we are only familiar with being, non-existence is counter-intuitive. So, it's easier for us to imagine NOW extending into the Past and Future with no boundaries. But intuition tends to be prejudiced by personal experience.

The ancient Greeks were excellent mathematicians, but they had no concept of "Zero" (nothingness). Yet in more recent times, that non-intuitive notion has proven to be quite useful in abstract mathematics. Consequently, as hypothetical philosophical postulations, we are now more comfortable with such literal non-sense, even though it has no counterpart in physical Reality. That's why "Zero" and "Infinity" are meta-physical philosophical speculations, not physical scientific facts. And philosophical thinkers have been known to fetch some of their most exotic ideas from afar-far-away. :nerd:

Lovely question. :up:

Which is worse/better: Electric chair/Firing Squad?

I haven't really given these matters as much attention as I believe they deserve, but I will say this: the answer would depend on how bizarre the assumptions that are needed to prove these claims. Of course that raises the question, what do you mean by bizarre? Questions spawning questions - that's the heart of philosophy.

If I were to hazard a guess, infinity, nobody's really understood it very well. Paradoxes, paradoxes, and more paradoxes.

On the other hand, nothing, another concept that's a head-scratcher.

Quite the fix we find ourselves in. Nothing & Infinity or $0$ and $\infty$. We're, in a sense, trapped between them, our minds struggling so much, too much?

What exactly does "nothing" mean?
Or, what @Raymond said

Contrary to the results of my poll so far, something from literally nothing intuitively seems more far-fetched to me. However, as @Gnomon pointed out, non-existence is counter-intuitive, and intuition tends to be prejudiced by personal experience. Other than our intuition, what's to say actual no-thingness didn't give rise to everything else? Bear in mind, something having an infinite past is absurd too.

This one's easy; something from nothing is more far-fetched, and it isn't especially close.

There isn't even anything particularly far-fetched about an infinite past at all; if anything, the proposition that the past isn't infinite strikes me as wildly implausible and far-fetched. That isn't to say a finite past is impossible, only that it would represent a radical and qualitative leap from anything we've experienced or previously known about how the world and causal order works and so the initial presumption is certainly against it.

In a sense, the singularity lies already infinitely far in the past. If we reverse our clock we would see the cosmic clock go slower and slower approaching the singularity as the mass density grows higher and higher, and when the end of inflation is reached, the universe was already big in size. If you count that inflation blew up the size about 10exp70 times, and multiply this by the Planck length, the universe was about 10exp35 meter in diameter. If you consider a lightyear to be about 10exp13 meter, you realize how big it was already then. About 10exp22 ly across! Thats not 100 billion (10exp11) ly, as the visible universe's diameter is now, but 10exp11 times as big!
Entropic time took off after inflation. But before that the perfect clock ruled supreme. When our universe has accelerated to infinity, conditions are set for a new bang at the singularity. A new entropic time appears from the total clock. Ad infinitum..

I am unable to vote on such a question - I doubt we have access to the relevant information. Personally, the idea of 'nothing' versus 'something' are human constructs to help us understand lived experience - useful on the plains of the savanna no doubt - not sure they fit when applied to cosmology.

Why shouldn't they? It's about space matter and time.

Infinity and nothing are one and the same. The 2 poll options are not mutually exclusive.

Sure they are. Either the universe is past-eternal, or it is not (i.e. it came to be "from nothing"). If the one is true the other cannot be and visa versa.

And the only way "infinity and nothing are one and the same" is if you're re-defining one or both terms. Given their usual meanings in English, obviously they're very different concepts.

Why shouldn't they? It's about space matter and time. — Raymond

Because space and time are conceptual notions humans have developed to understand the world. I am not sure they map to anything beyond us.

Because space and time are conceptual notions — Tom Storm

Conceptual notions? They seem pretty non-conceptual to me. Space is where I move in, time is the number of periods the perfect clock ticks. The perfect clock is non-existent though and the strange thing is that on the singularity the universe constituted a perfect clock.

They seem pretty non-conceptual to me. — Raymond

Of course - they map to human experience.

What do you mean then with them being conceptual?

literally nothing — Down The Rabbit Hole

Nothing? literally nothing? You really do not know what you're talking about. Or at least if you did, you would understand that the request to define your term was serious. Why don't you give it a try? What do you mean, or what do you understand, by the "nothing" you're referring to?

I mean they are likely to be constructs we have developed that seem to reflect human experience and we use them conceptually in daily life to help us manage our environment. Can we say that they transcend human reality? I don't know. How would we show this? When we get to a question like was there ever 'nothing' we are kind of stumped because the idea of nothing is elusive and possibly incoherent. But I'm not a physicist... just my best shot at it.

Still. Even when both are an experience you can use them to go back in time and imagine how it was back then. How it would have looked if you were part of it. Pushing experience to the limit of the small and short. This can lead to a contemplation of how the situation must have looked, taking into account modern knowledge, its limitations, abstractions, and image of the micro cosmos.

Nothing can't be described, as it's nothing. Even empty space is something. But empty space can't exists without something in it. Nothing is the absence of anything.

. How it would have looked if you were part of it. — Raymond

Go for it Ray... I don't even know how things look now and I am here (I think), so I'm certainly not going attempt anything like that.

Other than our intuition, what's to say actual no-thingness didn't give rise to everything else? Bear in mind, something having an infinite past is absurd too. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Such distractions about abstractions can go-on into the infinity before infinity -- if we don't put up an arbitrary barrier to eternal extrapolation. One way to do that is to narrowly define the subject of discussion. So, what is this "no-thing-ness" we are imagining for the sake of argument? Typically, the term refers to the concept of a vacuum or absence of physical objects. But we humans tend to think of imaginary non-physical concepts as-if they are things. Does Absence count?

Should we include ethereal Feelings and Qualia in the category of things-in-absentia? The "Future" does not exist in any physical sense, but we speak & act as-if it's a real thing. Plato insisted that his abstract Forms "gave rise" to concrete Reality, even though they were merely abstract designs for potential things. As mentioned above, the notion of "Zero" seemed absurd to the Greek philosophers. Yet today, we use those "far-fetched" symbols of nothingness (00000) as-if they are countable objects.

So, perhaps we need to distinguish between actual physical "things" and imaginary metaphorical "things", in order to abbreviate this thread. Does "Absence" exist in any meaningful sense? If not, this may be merely an excursion into mundane somethingness. If so, we may be talking about "Constitutive Absence". :smile:

Absence :
It’s more like Gravity and Strange Attractors of Physics that “pull” stuff toward them. It is in effect a Teleological Attractor. How that “spooky action at a distance” works may be best explained by Terrence Deacon’s definition of “Absence”.
Re : Terrence Deacon : Incomplete Nature, How Mind Emerged From Matter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature

Absential : The paradoxical intrinsic property of existing with respect to something missing, separate, and possibly nonexistent. Although this property is irrelevant when it comes to inanimate things, it is a defining property of life and mind; elsewhere (Deacon 2005) described as a constitutive absence
Constitutive absence : A particular and precise missing something that is a critical defining attribute of 'ententional' phenomena, such as functions, thoughts, adaptations, purposes, and subjective experiences.
http://absence.github.io/3-explanations/absential/absential.html

I mean they are likely to be constructs we have developed that seem to reflect human experience and we use them conceptually in daily life to help us manage our environment. — Tom Storm

I really don’t get this argument. What could “our environment” possibly mean, if you don’t use space and time in defining it?

don't even know how things look now — Tom Storm

Haha! Good one Tom! Maybe that's exactly my reason to try...Things were much simpler back then.

What seems more far-fetched (1) something from literally nothing (2) an infinite past?
What seems more far-fetched (1) something from literally nothing (2) an infinite past? — Down The Rabbit Hole

More far-fetched than either of the above is the conviction that by answering the above question, we will find the meaning of life and end suffering.

And the only way "infinity and nothing are one and the same" is if you're re-defining one or both terms. Given their usual meanings in English, obviously they're very different concepts — Seppo

Yes well experience beats dictionary definition and through sustained practice of meditation one can begin to experience how these concepts dissolve into unity (as all concepts do).

Do you think the nothing has creation power?

Nothing? literally nothing? You really do not know what you're talking about. Or at least if you did, you would understand that the request to define your term was serious. Why don't you give it a try? What do you mean, or what do you understand, by the "nothing" you're referring to? — tim wood

I'll have you know, I do know what I'm talking about on the subject of nothing :joke:

I wasn't sure if you was serious. When responding, I did add the hyphen in no-thingness to give an indication of what I mean.

Nothing is the absence of anything. — Raymond

Do you think the nothing has creation power? — Raymond

No I don't. It seems to me that something having an infinite past is the least absurd option.

Nonetheless, you must agree that something just existing, with no reason or purpose, forever into the past, is very absurd. And then there are all the paradoxes of an actual infinity.

Ah, yes, meditation has secretly revealed to you that words that denote very different concepts are actually the same, because magic. :lol:

Very good. Not a very serious response, but definitely an amusing one.

Nonetheless, you must agree that something just existing, with no reason or purpose, forever into the past, is very absurd. And then there are all the paradoxes of an actual infinity. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I kinda like the notion. If there is no beginning, and every new bang forms the start, from a new time zero (well, not exactly zero, but a state fluctuating around it), of a new universe, then "it" will never end! But where then did an infinity come from? I think only the gods know that. But where did they come from then? They just are. I think it's more plausible though that the universe is created by gods (even in its infinity) than that it's an infinite spatial structure on which universes come into being one after another.