X-Message-Number: 17893 From: "Michael LaTorra" <> Subject: RE: Do you like philosophy? Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 17:08:37 -0700 david pizer asked: Subject: Do you like philosophy? 1. The idea that something can come from nothing doesn't make sense to me. For instance: I find that some theories of the Big Bang don't make sense. What I don't understand is how someone can hold that specific theory that says the universe was created (formed, arose, came from) from nothing. To me, "nothing" means nothing! That would mean not even the propensity to become something. Does anyone have advice on how to state this more convincingly?? Or can you show that something can come from nothing? 2. An uncaused event. I have never liked Hume's theory about how causation is just one event following another. And, I have nevered believed there can be an uncaused event. How would an uncaused event happen? What would be a good way to show that there can not be an uncaused event? => Gosh, Dave, I hate to disappoint you, but I think modern physics has shown fairly conclusively that something can come from nothing and that uncaused events do happen. The best example of something coming from nothing is the spontaneous - but temporary - creation of subatomic particle pairs (one matter, the other antimatter) from the "quantum foam" of the vacuum. These pairs recombine and vanish almost immediately in most circumstances. However, if the pair happens to appear right next to the event horizon of a black hole, then one particle gets sucked in while the other escapes. This is the so-called Hawking radiation. Some cosmologists also believe that our entire universe came into existence by a similar kind of process. Radioactive decay of a heavy nucleus is an example of an uncaused event. The timing of radioactive decay is said to be uncaused because there is no known cause for the decay of a single radioactive nucleus to happen at one moment and not another. To be sure, the statistical probability of radioactive decay by large numbers of nuclei is quite well defined. But no one can predict when any particular nucleus will spontaneously decay. The philosophical lesson I draw from these discoveries is that we can only predict the behavior of large assemblages of entities, but not of singletons. Probabilities rule large groups, but individuals can be unpredictable. Perhaps this also suggests why we each feel that we possess free will, yet at the same time we know that crowds tend to behave in predictable ways. Regards, Michael LaTorra Member: Extropy Institute: www.extropy.org Alcor Life Extension Foundation: www.alcor.org Society for Technical Communication: www.stc.org Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17893