I think you've made a pretty good argument so far, but here is where you're stuck. I think its fine to call spacetime a substance, but plugging it into the argument we haven't proven that spacetime cannot come from nothing. We never noted that substances couldn't come from nothing, only that they needed spacetime. Saying, "Nothing to spacetime cannot happen" is the conclusion, so we can't use it as a premise. We have to have true premises that necessarily lead to the conclusion being true, without the premises needing the conclusion to be true. — Philosophim

Here you run into another problem. If there is no time before the beginning of time (spacetime), then what is there? There can't be something that's different from spacetime because you required that spacetime exist for change to happen. And you can't have infinitely regressive time as you've already ruled that out. The only option left is that nothing was before spacetime. — Philosophim

No, you said time is a substance. you were asked you to explain how you reached that conclusion.

Time is defined as the fourth coordinate that is required (along with three spatial dimensions) to specify a physical event.
Time if anything is a human construct used to understand the passage of events. — Sir2u

According to this article on Time and Physics there might not be a temporal structure at a fundamental level (referring to recent theories of quantum gravity).

If they're right, then time may be an emergent property, or contingent as in being relative to observers, time-symmetry, or detachable from causation (as described in that other article on Backwards-Causation). — jkop

So I think what you're going for here is saying we would need spacetime to be for spacetime to appear. But that doesn't really make sense right? If spacetime already exists, it doesn't need to create spacetime. The simplest and clearest statement is that "There was nothing, then spacetime". We don't violate that we need spacetime for change. Spacetime appeared from nothing, therefore change. So no, I don't see a reasonable infinite regress that makes sense here.

You did not prove that spacetime cannot come out of nothing. — Philosophim

For the first part, if I were to grant you that nothing to something was impossible, that would preclude the conclusion. That's what we're trying to prove, so I can't grant you that before we've proven it. I can definitely grant you that spacetime is a substance, but I don't see anything here that grants that it cannot come out of nothing. Granted, it doesn't mean we can't still attempt the conclusion, but we need some other premise here for a logical proof. — Philosophim

I didn't quite get this. You don't need spacetime for spacetime. Spacetime either exists, or it does not. If we say there is a first or beginning, that means at one point it did not exist. Since we don't believe an infinite amount of time (which is a property of spacetime) has existed, then it means that spacetime has not always existed. Meaning that before spacetime, there must have been nothing. — Philosophim

Speed is irrelevant. At the level of fundamental physics the temporal order of cause and effect is, arguably, contingent.

If the temporal order is contingent at some level, then there is change without the need of time as we know it.
/quote]
Could you please let me know what you mean by the contingent here? The article you cite is interesting but I think I need a day or so to understand it properly. — jkop

Because our logic comes from and involves things that already exist. No one has every empirically observed 'nothing' then seen something come from it. Meaning that so far we have not seen this happen. That's the best we can say. We can't say its impossible within our general meaning of the term, 'possibility'.

What i like to do for instances like these is introduce a new term, 'plausibility'. Basically we can logically imagine and conclude all sorts of things. But its not really 'possible' unless its been empirically observed at least once. Anything which could logically be but has not been empirically observed or denied would be 'plausible'. Thus it is plausible that spacetime came from nothing. Of course, it would be equally plausible, at this point, that spacetime has always existed. Since we have two competing plausibilities, and it is currently outside the realm of empirical verifiability, we must demonstrate that one of the arguments is implausible. — Philosophim

If something exists without cause, that means 'nothing caused it'. — Philosophim

And I don't mean that nothing literally caused it, but that there was nothing, and then something. — Philosophim

All you've been able to logically note so far is that for change to occur, there must be spacetime. — Philosophim

You did not prove that spacetime cannot come out of nothing. — Philosophim

If the universe had a beginning, what is there before a beginning? Nothing. — Philosophim

Is that right though? — bert1

I'm not sure what it could mean for time to change. — bert1

Things move from one place to another, that is a kind of change. They do so at a speed, which involves a concept of time. — bert1

But can we just replace the concept of time with counting movements? We know Earth rotates 365 times in a year. A year is a unit of time. But we don't need that do we? We can say the Earth rotates 365 times for every one rotation of the Earth. That's just movement and counting, no? — bert1

Is time reducible to that? Or is time something over and above measuring one set of movements against another? If everything stopped moving, would there be any time? What does it mean for time to 'pass' sans movement in space? — bert1

I should do a basic physics course. — bert1

This is a nice attempt, but its just an empirical observation of change withing spacetime. — Philosophim

What we haven't observed is if its impossible for spacetime to emerge from nothing. — Philosophim

Now, to be clear, what we're talking about is a negative. Proving a negative is nigh impossible. For example if I said, "Empirically demonstrate that a unicorn does not exist", the best answer we can give is, "We have not discovered one yet." With a unicorn especially, there isn't even any logical evidence that it needs to exist. So we can probably dismiss that claim. — Philosophim

But can we do the same with 'nothing to something'. There is another age old question which is the idea that as we work up through causality we either reach a point in which there was nothing prior, or we have an infinite regress. Of course, in both cases we ask the question "What caused there to be anything at all?" It can't be something else, as we've reached the limit. In the case of the finite regression, its obvious. A little less obvious, but we also conclude the same with an infinite regress when examining the entire thing as a set. There is no prior cause for why anything should exist. Meaning, something existed despite there being nothing to cause it to exist. — Philosophim

That's not quite what I was going for. My point is that we would need spacetime to form at or slightly before something else. In other words, what your notion is proves is that any change from nothing to something must be the emergence of spacetime. You definitely give a valid argument that something cannot form without there being spacetime, but you haven't demonstrated in any logical proof that spacetime cannot emerge within nothing. — Philosophim

Lets take it one more way so you can see it from another angle. Perhaps we cannot empirically demonstrate that something came from nothing, but we also cannot empirically demonstrate that something always existed either. We need a logical reason why this would be, and I believe there are other compelling logical arguments that infinite time passing to get to our existent point today doesn't make any sense. Its a difficult subject for sure. :) But what do you think about this? — Philosophim

You are confusing the observation of the wave with time as a substance. Observed motions are not time itself. — Corvus

Nothing is a condition, and something is a condition too. So a condition to a condition means nothing has changed. — Corvus

What do you mean by substance? Is it a physical object you can see and touch? — Corvus

Until you clearly define what nothing, something, change and time is, the conclusion is nonsense. The first thing wrong is the concept of time, which doesn't exist in the actual world. — Corvus

Time is not defined in the OP. It could be referring to anything. — Sir2u

As I said, you gave no definition for time. But to claim that time is a substance would mean that it has some sort of physical presence, which is a long stretch of the imagination. Could you maybe explain that a bit better. — Sir2u

P1. Inside the cubic volume A there is a complete vacuum.
P2. Objects need material to exists
P3. There is no material in a A
C. Therefore something cannot come from nothing.

My apologies,you are right there is a bit missing.

C. Therefore something cannot come from nothing in cubic volume A. — Sir2u

Time doesn't exist in the actual world. Time is a priori condition for perception and experience in Kant, and I believe it is correct. Changes take place totally unrelated to time. Time has nothing to do with changes. Human mind perceives the duration or interval of something starting and ending, and that is all there is to it.

Time is simply a civil contract to say that it is 1 year for the earth to rotate around the sun, and 1 day for the earth to rotate itself to the same point on the geographical location. Without those planetary movements, the time as we know it wouldn't exist at all. It follows that changes don't need time. So we could say that changes generate the perception of time. — Corvus

A change is from something to something else. Why is it nothing to something? — Corvus

An ambiguous statement.  This cannot be accepted as a premise for its ambiguity.  Time is a concept and a priori condition for perception and experience.  Nothing is a concept to denote a state of non-existence.  You must define what "nothing" means before making the statement for consideration. — Corvus

C) Therefore, nothing to something is logically impossible. (From P1-P3)
— MoK
Can nothing be something? Then it can be possible for nothing to something. Hence the conclusion would be wrong. Because "Therefore, nothing which is something is logically possible." would be right.

But if nothing is not something, or if it is a state of non-existence, then the conclusion would be ambiguous, and invalid, because it doesn't clarify what "nothing" is, and it doesn't follow from the premises. There is no necessary logical connection from the premises to conclusion. — Corvus

We need a microscope to take measure of tiny things. We need time to take measure of change. — Fire Ologist

You said "Time is needed for any change." It sounded like time was in one bucket over there, and then something grabs some time, because it needed it, to make some change, sitting over here in this other bucket. So I meant to incorporate time and change into a similar premise as you and came up with really two premises: Change exists. Time measures change. — Fire Ologist

One view of time is that it is basically the same thing as change. — bert1

Time starts when change happens. Not sure if this fits with science or not. — bert1

Ok, with that, lets see if we can break down the underlying essence of what makes the argument compelling.

Spacetime is 'something". Its an existent measurement. And its required for us to have change. Which means that 'change' in your definition, is something that can only happen when things exist.

Now have we proven that spacetime is required for change? No, what we've done is declare it by definition. This isn't necessarily wrong or bad, but we have to be aware it is by definition, and not by empirical discovery. — Philosophim

So then what we've done can be simplified as follows:

1. Spacetime is needed for any change

Basically we say we need something for change to happen. Specifically that something is spacetime. (Though the actual detail of 'spacetime' will be irrelevant to our conclusion. We could call it "A" and it wouldn't matter)

2. Nothing to something is a change.
But we noted earlier that we need something for there to be a change. The only way this still works is if something appears. And this makes sense. Nothing to nothing isn't a change, but nothing to something is. — Philosophim

3. There is no spacetime in nothing
This still works. But does our original conclusion?

C: Therefore, nothing to something is logically impossible.

With our clearer breakdown, we can no longer conclude this. Point two notes that a change can occur when we go from nothing to something. What is is impossible is that nothing to something cannot occur 'without spacetime'.

Revised C: Therefore, nothing to something is logically impossible without spacetime also appearing.

This is the real logical conclusion we can make based on our definitions and premises so far.

But lets follow up a bit because one conclusion out of a set of revised terms doesn't mean that we still don't want to prove our original intent. Maybe with a change we can still do so. To preserve our original intent we can add one thing.

P: Spacetime cannot appear within nothing.

The problem is, this is only by definition and not empirical proof. Meaning at this point we haven't proven anything, we've simply declared it. So I still don't see a way to my mind of salvaging our original intent which was to prove that change nothing to something is logically impossible. But what do you think? — Philosophim

As far as the big bang theory goes, it's a method of working things backwards. The universe is expanding so if you go backwards the universe would reduce to a point. Something like that.

At that point things are left to our imaginations.
Is it really a point? Do the laws of physics still apply? Like I said, I don't know. Difficult to find a handle. — Mark Nyquist

A substance is something material; it consistse of matter. Time is not physical. It doesn't actually exist. It is a dimension. We use it to measure change and motion, as well as for description purposes. — Alkis Piskas

A state is a condition. It has attributes. How can "nothing" be a state, of affairs or anything else? Nothing is simply absence of existence. absence of anything. How can something that doesn't exist be anything at all? — Alkis Piskas

At the planck scale P1 is arguably meaningless or false. For example, does it take time for particles to pop in to, or out of, existence? — jkop

Your pseudo-syllogism doesn’t produce a logical contradiction and, thusly, doesn’t prove the logical impossibility of nothing becoming something. Your argument, in its form (as best as I could infer), is:

P1: T ↔ C
P2: E → C
P3: N → !T → !C
C: E → (C & C!)

The conclusion doesn’t following from the premises. — Bob Ross

Secondly, I think you are thinking that nothing being unrestrained by time entails it cannot spontaneously be involved with temporal sequences, which doesn’t necessarily follow. I don’t see why one would believe that. — Bob Ross

Thirdly, P1 seems false to me or, at least, requiring further elaboration: I don’t think there needs to be an actual ‘change’ in the sense of a sequential, temporal movement of one thing to another thing even if the temporal relations are real. Time, in the sense of actual movement (of ‘change’ in terms of what you seem to be talking about) is simply a form of one’s experience: it is a mode by which your representative faculty intuits and cognizes objects—it does not exist beyond that. — Bob Ross

Not a problem! We're here to think with each other. Also welcome to the forums. You will encounter some people who will talk down to you or passively insult you for just bringing an idea up. Please ignore them. — Philosophim

Good start. Can time exist apart from spacetime? If so, can you describe what it is? If not, then we have to change premise one from "Time" to "Spacetime". — Philosophim

I've always had problems with this problem.

I can visualize a sphere reducing to a point and vanishing... or not existing then appearing but how does it happen physically? — Mark Nyquist

The big bang theory is usually presented with a time component of 13.8 billion years but is time really a physical component or just a derived measure of physical matter. Probably just derived so it's not fundamental. — Mark Nyquist

"Time is needed for any change." Although "time" is treated as a substance here, and "change" is really the question here, I can grant this premise. — Fire Ologist

I also don't like "needed." I would replace this premise with "Change, measurable over time, is." — Fire Ologist

Nothing to something is a change. Parmenides broke this down as being and not-being, which I like better for such a concise argument. I can grant this premise too as "Not-being to being, or nothing to something, is change." — Fire Ologist

So we've asserted the existence of change, asserted time measures it, and then asserted one example of change as nothing to something, or not-being to being. — Fire Ologist

"There is no time in nothing" This needs more explanation to be a meaningful statement. I mean I get what you are driving at, but this premise is supposed to do all the work in the argument, and it ranges from meaningless, to meaning not enough to do the work. Let's pretend there is nothing. Then let's pick a point and pretend it is time 1. Now let's wonder about was before time 1 and after time 1. There still is nothing before time 1 and nothing after time 1, no seeming change, nothing to mark or measure, but by now we have still asserted there is time in nothing. The point is, to merely assert "there is no time in nothing" without explanation, as to what time, and a concept such as "in nothing" are, I am left wondering if we can conclude anything yet. But you then just leap to your conclusion. — Fire Ologist

I get it. I agree something from nothing is a logical impasse. And I agree that there is physical, changing, moving substance. But the above isn't an argument. — Fire Ologist

Parmenides said:
"Being is; for To Be is possible, and Nothingness is not possible."
"What is, is. Being has no coming-into-being or destruction, for it is whole of limb, without motion, and without end. And in never Was, nor Will Be, because it Is now. How, whence could it have sprung? Nor shall I allow you to speak or think of it as springing from Not-Being; for it is neither expressible nor thinkable that What-Is-Not, is."
"Nor will the force of credibility ever admit that anything should come into Being... out of Not-Being."
[Just as Being cannot come from nothing], how could Being perish? How could it come into being? If it came into being, it Is Not; and so too [it Is Not] if it is about-to-be at some future time. Thus coming-into-Being is quenched, and Destruction also, into the unseen."

Parmenides would agree with you that something from nothing, or nothing to something, are impossible. But his reasoning is from the fact that motion itself is impossible because motion itself requires what is not, to change into what is, which is impossible.

Parmenides was saying you can't pull a rabbit from what is utterly not-rabbit, and therefore, there is no such thing as change, as in change from what was not into what will be, also as in change from nothing to something.

You seem to be arguing that, just because there is change, just because we see rabbits come from things that were not rabbits, it still can't be true that something can come from nothing. Time as something that sits with things, but something that cannot sit with nothing, doesn't really do the work to explain how change is possible, or rule out how change is impossible. In fact Parmenides used the same assertion (something can't come from nothing), to more logically demonstrate quite a different result - time and change are not. — Fire Ologist

Define "nothing" (including how that concept differs from 'nothing-ness'). As an undefined term, your argument seems invalid. — 180 Proof

"Time" is only a metric; to conflate, or confuse, a metric with what it measures as you do, Mok, is a reification fallacy (e.g. a map =|= the territory). — 180 Proof

For instance, AFAIK, quantum fluctuations are random (i.e. pattern-less), therefore, not time-directional (i.e. a-temporal), and yet vacuum energy exists; so it's reasonable to surmise that "time" (re: spacetime) is not a fundamental physical property –only an abstract approximation (i.e. mapping) – of "something". — 180 Proof

No. The timelessness that existed before the beginning of time would put that "before" state in a time-frame. The beginning of time would have been a change from timelessness, and change cannot take place in the absence of time. Therefore, time cannot have begun. — Vera Mont

Right. It is impossible for time to have begun, since a beginning is an event and time is necessary for anything to change and any event is a change. It is impossible for something to have begun existing, because that would have been an event.
Therefore, logically, nothing exists.
OK — Vera Mont

But I don't agree we can posit "time" as if it was a prior substance that some other prior substance like a "thing" or a "nothing" (or a thing seeking to change) combines with in order to build a "thing changing over time" or a "something from nothing." Speaking like this may help animate an argument, but to say "in nothing" at all presupposes something (not sure what but you at least have a "nothing" with an "in"). — Fire Ologist

Basically I agree with your conclusion but don't see your argument. — Fire Ologist

Let me point out a weakness that needs to be resolved here. — Philosophim

P1. Time is needed for any change.
What is time? Without this definition nothing can be proven. — Philosophim

P2. Something appearing within nothing is a change.
Sounds good. — Philosophim

P3. There is no time in nothing.
Since you have not defined time this cannot be declared as true or false. — Philosophim

Therefore there can be no changes in space alone.
Therefore your screen is blank and you are me. — unenlightened

Time could be a trillionth of a second or even less, lots can happen in that time and we would not see it happen. — Sir2u

If you mean that something existing where nothing existed before, then you might be right. A tree in your garden where there was none when you moved in 25 years ago does not mean that it came from nothing.
The idea that the universe came from nothing is in my opinion an unfounded statement, because they have no idea what exactly was there before. If the big bang theory is correct then there was something there before. — Sir2u

Time is attached to action, not objects. — Sir2u

Yes maybe so, but not using your syllogism. — Sir2u

Try this.

P1. Inside the cubic volume A there is a complete vacuum.
P2. Objects need material to exists
P3. There is no material in a A
C. Therefore something cannot come from nothing. — Sir2u

Which means there must always have been something and time never started. — Vera Mont

P1) Time is needed for any change
OK — Alkis Piskas

P2) Nothing to something is a change
It's not. If it is possible, it is creation. (Nothing cannot be changed since it doesn't exist.) — Alkis Piskas

P3) There is no time in nothing
There is no time --contained or involved-- in something either. Things are not composed of time. (P1 indicates that time is involved in change.) — Alkis Piskas

C) Therefore, nothing to something is logically impossible. (From P1-P3)
OK, but it doesn't follow from P1-P3. — Alkis Piskas