what is "nothingness"

[612nova]

id like to discuss before the big bang. I know they say there was nothing but im sure we dissproved spontaneous generation centuries ago. So the question is what is the universe? what is the substance or "nothingness" our universe expands in and when it collapses whats left? was there ever a beggining or end if energy never dies?

 

[The Void]

Beginning is impossible.
First cause = beginningless cause.
No first cause = infinite regression = no beginning.
No cause and effect = may be not even time?
The true beginning of all that is, is simply impossible.
time = infinite past = actual infinite passed = impossible because infinite is a never ending process.
So was there a beginning of time?
Was there a 'time' when there was no 'time'?
TIME needs to exist in the first place or TIME can't even begin,
because even the transition from no time to time is a transition and transition => time.
Nothing comes out from nothing.
There was always something without any beginning?
Or not.

If time didn't have a beginning
1) Time always existed = highly unlikely (how can actual infinite of time exist? It is paradoxical but who knows?)
2) Time still don't exist = present past future all existing simultaneously = no beginning no end
3) Who knows? Who knows?

 

[Void]

It makes no sense to reason about what was present before anything was present, because there is nothing present to be reasoned about.

 

[QuickTwist]

My theory is that there was something in the beginning and then because of internal conflict within whatever it was that existed there was an explosion. All the mass and energy already existed, its just that there was a reaction that caused it to produce the universe.

 

[BigApplePi]

I don't know and come to think of it I was there at the time! One theory is two Universes bumped into each other and the bang was the bump.

My personal theory was the "big" bang was just a bang ... mislabeled as big. Big is relative and to say big is relative to smaller pieces ... well of course pieces are smaller than where they broke off from.

 

[QuickTwist]

For all we know there might be a bunch of these balls of energy and matter just waiting to develop into something similar to what we call a universe.

 

[Ada]

the "big" bang was just a bang ... mislabeled as big.

It was actually a label out of satire, by Robert Dicke(?) I believe when the theory was first proposed.

To the OP: the big crunch was disproved several decades ago. Right now, our measurements for the density of the universe is only ~1/4 the critical, so it's safe to say we are headed for a continual expansion.

 

[redbaron]

We disproved spontaneous generation centuries ago.

Actually, spontaneous generation is seeming increasingly plausible as of late.


On cosmic evolution: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12052-010-0237-x#page-1

On False Vacuum fluctuations: http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.5361

More related reading: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012PhRvD..86b5015A

http://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.8.3633

A whole plethora of works by Wilczek and Gross: http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=david+gross,+frank+wilczek&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

Asymptotic freedom as interpreted by David Politzer: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0370157374900143

I feel kind of stupid in just pasting a bunch of links without much explanation, however I do that because to explain how all these tie together is a task that I believe exceeds the constraints of both my time and ability to do so.

 

[Hawkeye]

To answer the title: it isn't

 

[612nova]

at first when i read it it made me confused but i think im stating to get it. thanks

 

[The Void]

nothingness is the unmanifested potential.
Everything will end up as potential, and the unmanifested potential will end up as manifestation.
From the void they come, into the void they go.
The Void is infinity.
Infinite Potential.
The Void is IP.

 

[Milo]

In the realm of psychology, the void is digging into your own values, only to realize that the truth is that everyone is a narcissist in denial. The people who have learned to accept this fact purge themselves of all pride and become void and are then granted the ability to build their own character--to be the person they want to be.

With this an inner contract is made with a self-fulfilling prophecy of telling yourself that you are invincible, unbeatable, unbreakable, and the best person you will ever be--you are a brute force of will power that defines itself and takes total control of life with pure knowledge based confidence of what you have inside yourself. The lion's pride and rule over the situations that arise around it becomes reborn in its purest form--knowing that one will never compromise who they are and pressing on in the fashion that one sees fit for their life.

The only question that plagues this mindset is "What is the best person like?" The answer is your idol, for which many people choose the concept of God or a very prominent person or fantasy character that has influenced that person's life--or even someone completely original and imagined from that person's own mind.

This is how something called "Self-actualization" is attained (One of the items on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs), only, I feel that the majority of the people in this world do not attain this level of consciousness because they find the process too painful, get lost along the way, or never even begin the journey because they let the world around them and their past dictate who they are for them, never truly becoming who they want to be.