Sorry for the delay in replies, I don't have a internet connection at home and have to use it while visiting a relative.
Oh, I see. You took a theory and mistakenly claimed it as fact. The theory might be correct if our universe is a closed system (but nobody presently knows if this is the case). Several models of reality posit that our universe is not closed (ex. in m-theory gravitons would permeate our universe from the bulk).
Many theories are mistakenly claimed as facts. The only difference is that some are more plausible than others. My point is that even though the total energy could be zero, it would still have existence. I thought that it was a generally accepted idea that the total energy of the universe was zero, hence something that I qualified (perhaps mistakenly) as "knowledge". It's hard to keep up with all the theories.
As you hopefully noted in the link I provided (as your response further down implied), a field is an abstraction of strength of force. It is a property of space-time (to the best of human knowledge) and is everywhere space-time is. A particle results in more field strength; however, the particle is still a ripple in field.
Yes, I understand what fields are, I just didn't understand that it related to the virtual particles in such a way that it created them from the field. I thought the field was always created by the particles, since they carry the forces, and not the other way around.
It means that the default energy potential for any point of empty space-time is not enough for the positive energy particle to have more energy than the negative one (and both are very very low energy to boot). If you can vibrate a mirror really really fast (close to the speed of light), those positive energy virtual particles will be infused with extra kinetic energy from the mirror. The result is that when the negative energy particle hits them, they will still have enough positive energy to persist and therefore become persistent (i.e. non-virtual) particles.
I heard of this vibrating mirror thingy...and guess what, they still described it as "particles coming from nothing", they never learn do they?
Again, your response to my link below implies that you were able to correctly move beyond this. All fields in space-time jiggle. It's the jiggling that causes the field disturbances that we call virtual particles.
What causes the jiggling?
To date, an absence of anything / everything (i.e. nothing) appears to be nothing more than a human idea that has no correspondence in actual reality. In fact, every model of reality / the universe that I am aware of has no state where everything / anything is absent. I can see from your verbiage that you are searching for *something* from *nothing*, but that concept doesn't appear to have any correspondence with actual reality.
Then I guess you weren't aware of Stephen Hawkings model then? He states that everything came from a state of pure nothing, such that it is absent from everything and anything, including space and time.
This is what he said (amongst other things), from his book "The Grand Design":
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing," the excerpt says. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to ... set the Universe going."
So there are theories that real nothing (the one without space/time, or anything else for that matter) was the state that brought about the universe.
I understand your confusion (even with Hawking). The reason is because everyone and their sister likes to throw around the word "nothing" without clarification as to whether they mean absolute nothing (i.e. absence of everything / anything) or relative (i.e. absence of a specific something). Take the phrase "There is nothing in the glass". That is relative nothing. It typically means there is an absence of liquid in the glass but does not mean there is an absence of everything / anything in the glass. The way the word nothing is thrown around in physics leaves people (who are by default very theistical/belief oriented) that absolute *nothing* is real. This is because they have no way of knowing that relative nothing is being used (they don't know what the container is or what the specific something missing from the container is).
"Nothing" is a word that can both mean "empty" and can mean "absence of anything/everything", it has to be seen in context, unfortunately the context implied that the particle became non-existent, hence that it "vanished" from existence, I had never seen any mention that it transformed to and from a field. Why they almost never say that is beyond me, but might be because QFT is a incomplete theory, which has to use "hand-crafted" techniques to avoid infinities.
And yet people assigned that rediculous interpretation to your assertion. No matter how much you try to defend your intent, the result was the result and nothing will change that.
Well, Enmos did understand what I meant, he agreed that "we didn't exist", though added "but the matter that made us up did". So generally I think people did understand what I meant and I later clarified what I meant because I saw that it could be interpreted differently. Though I still think it should have been clear. If we want to push it though, we could say that the exact definition of "you" if we are to take away everything that is essentially "not you" is your awareness, because without your awareness there wouldn't be anything defining 'you', and the body would be just as any other body.
If you ask anyone "do you believe that we exist after we die?", then you can be certain that they do understand what you mean. It was in context that the meaning had to be interpreted, and there is no reason to believe that you meant the body.
As much as we may do this in casual daily life, it's greatly minimized in science in engineering, and for good reason.
Trust me, there are words with several meanings in science too, it's a general flaw of language, perhaps it's just a way to minimise the number of words to make the number tolerable, if we had to invent a exact word for everything then we would probably have tenfold as many words, I know that science tries to be as exact as possible, but only to a certain limit and explanations of theories and maths are often made using ordinary words when that is possible.
There's also a risk that if we use too many words that the ordinary people can't relate to we minimise societies understanding of what's going on in science. This is generally a flaw of science, I think.
I would also like to remind you that we are in a discussion forum were not only scientists can participate, and I like to use ordinary/common words as much as possible even though a explanation of what I mean might be required later on.
I wouldn't say it's completely subjective (quite the contrary). If you want to prove objective reality, inject yourself with a healthy dose of anesthesia. You will be able to turn off your consciousness like a light. Being able to use *what you believe* to be external reality to consistently turn of your ability to perceive demonstrates that that external reality is real (i.e. it is objective reality).
It would still only be what I *believe* to be the external reality. Because any knowledge of it
is completely subjective, can you be objectively aware of the external reality?
Excellent, and I think that scientists should probably strike the word "nothing" from their vocabulary
.
Yes, indeed. If particles become 'nothing' then I can't interpret it that they become 'empty'. If they want to use the kind of relative nothing that you talk about then they have to use it relative to something. Hence that the space that the particle occupied has become empty. But that's not true either, because the particle has returned to the field.
Fields naturally jiggle around (for whatever reason). That jiggling causes the disturbances that we call virtual particles.
"For whatever reason" is not good enough though. If it is completely random then it's still something from 'nothing'.
So the energy required for the fields to jiggle just isn't there? You understand that this would actually
be energy from nothing then? Or do you believe that there are hidden variables to account for the energy needed to make them jiggle?
I should also say that the 'uncertainty principle of energy-time' states that the shorter timespan that is measured the more uncertain is the amount of energy that could be present during that time. Which is why that amount of energy (to account for the jiggles) could briefly exist as long as it only exists for a short period.
It's the energy required to make the fields jiggle. It's a very small amount and the disturbances in the fields clear fast (as you have noted).
But the jiggles is uncaused according to current theories?
If you take an area of space-time and remove all energy from it, you still have space-time (i.e. 4 dimensions). 4-dimensions are *somthing*, not *nothing*. Some theories posit that space-time has the structure of a particle, but nobody knows if those particular theories are correct.
The uncertainty principle of position and momentum does imply it though, cause space-time in this view has the structure of all the properties of the particle reset to zero. Which means that it is well-defined and therefor must have a uncertainty as to wether the properties really are zero, so that we can't measure it's position and momentum to such a great degree.
Hopefully, you now realize that the fluctuations are caused by the fields jiggling around.
Yes, but it doesn't take away the notion that something could come from nothing though, cause what are the "fields jiggling around" caused by?
Yes, that is the relative definition of nothing and it is synonymous with the word "empty".
Not completely synonym, because when they say that a particle becomes 'nothing', then they don't mean that the particle becomes 'empty'. There is not a 1 to 1 correspondence. They should have said (if they meant nothing as in 'empty') that the space that the particle previously occupied as now become nothing - but that seems to be a stretch too.
As you have hopefully understood by this point, virtual particles are disturbances in fields caused by fields jiggling (as they naturally do).
How come they 'naturally' do this?
It's not spotaenous creation
Then why do they say 'spontanious'? Even in well-regarded scientific magazines and in scientific papers they say that they are created 'sponaniously'. Is this yet another blunder from their side? Is it a way to appeal to the crowd?
and I have demonstrated that this notion corresponds to actual reality via that last link that I sent you. That is truth, a correspondence between what's in a mind and actual reality. On a side-note I can't find any definitions of truth in information theory that are defined as "uncorrupted information". You are also ascribing lots of properties and behaviors to *nothing* (the absolute kind) and yet there is no known instance of actual *nothing* (absence of everything and anything) being real.
Nothing is a word that has no correspondence to reality (if taken literally), we use it to illustrate something that can't be imagined, words can be like that sometimes. It's like black is the absence of light. Naturally we can't describe visually the absence of light in any other way than the color black, it is still useful though. Nothing is often not taken in the literal sense that way, but fundamentally that is what it means.
Whever your idea is, I don't think that you are ever going to find a real *nothing* (let alone *something* coming from it).
If something is purely random, then that is *something* coming from *nothing*.
You can view it that way; however, it would be incorrect. Supersymmetry is the state of non-frozen stuff (i.e. it's identical stuff without any hint of differentiation).
It's just more natural for me to think of frozen stuff as avoid of differentiation. Unfrozen stuff is always changing and by the nature of it should offer much more differentiation.
To make that assertion means that *nothing* is real. Unfortunately; there is no evidence (not even a hint) that *nothing* is in fact real. But yes, a non-existent state of reality would not have any entropy (much like a non-existent life form... such as the Invisible Pink Unicorn).
I'm trying to find *nothing* not because I suspect that it is real, but because I suspect that if we find it then it actually wouldn't be *nothing* but something, and I like to study the behaviour of this *something* that seems to us to be *nothing*. Do you understand my intent with this?
Then you should use paragraphs (like the ones above) to describe what you mean and not try to hijack words that already have specific meanings.
Truth doesn't have a specific meaning, it has many meanings depending on context (as do many other words).
What you are describing is no different than having an identical twin. A twin's consciousness is unique to that twin in space-time.
A "identical" twin is not really identical, their DNA is identical upon inception but later becomes diverse as 'spontanious' mutations happen due to cellular processes and radiation. The "identical" twins therefor has small but significant alterations. Are you implying that our awareness is a function of space-time itself and not the physical properties of the body, or that it needs to be in this specific space and time, and cannot be in any other? What is the justification for such a view?
If a exactly identical body was born and developed until it resembled our brains as much as when we were born, then we wouldn't be that body? Is it space-time that holds the fact that we must be in this particular body? What property of spacetime would hold that information?
