A few months ago, I wrote two posts on Lawrence Krauss’ take on the question of why is there something rather than nothing. In the meantime, he has written a book on the subject. I don’t need to review the book, because David Albert has done it for me in the New York Times. Here’s a highlight:
The fact that some arrangements of fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some don’t is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers happen to correspond to the existence of a fist and some don’t. And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings — if you look at them aright — amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing.
Even worse is Dawkins’ afterword to Krauss’ book: “Even the last remaining trump card of the theologian, ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?,’ shrivels up before your eyes as you read these pages. If ‘On the Origin of Species’ was biology’s deadliest blow to supernaturalism, we may come to see ‘A Universe From Nothing’ as the equivalent from cosmology. The title means exactly what it says. And what it says is devastating.” Pathetic, desperate nonsense. By his own admission, Krauss isn’t answering the question “why is there something rather than nothing?”; he is using equivocation to substitute an unrelated scientific question “why are there particles rather than the quantum vacuum?” and then announcing victory over the philosophers. What it says is not devastating. It is sophomorically irrelevant.
Via Ted Poston.
Letters to Nature 
Luke, I notice that Martin Rees is quoted as endorsing the book, yet Rees (In ‘Just Six Numbers’) speaks against the ideas that Krauss is supporting. Do you have any comment on that?
[…] Luke Barnes, in his blog Letters to Nature, calls Krauss’s work “sophomorically irrelevant”. Prof David Albert (who has […]
Quantum mechanics is interesting, and it deserves to have books written about it. But not these “God doesn’t exist because quantum mechanics says something can come from nothing” books. As an athiest, I dislike that argument because it makes it seem like you need to answer the something-from-nothing question in order for atheism to be tenable, which is silly. If God exists, it wouldn’t solve that problem anyway because God would be something, not nothing.
There is something rather than nothing because the state of “nothing” is UNSTABLE. Quantum Physics tells us that the state of “nothing” does not stay “nothing” for long. A true nothing means no energy, no space and no time. Nothing is like a sphere of zero radius with nothing around it. Once a quantum event occurs inside this sphere (and it will according to physics) the radius of this sphere expands slightly causing the pressure ratio of the inside pressure to the outside pressure (zero) to be infinite or near infinite. Remember that a number divided by zero is INFINITY. This infinite pressure ratio causes a rapid expansion resulting in the Big Bang explosion. If we put a partially filled balloon in a vacuum chamber, it expands rapidly and bursts since the internal pressure is greater than the external pressure. Inserting this same balloon into a state of true “nothing” is even more explosive. Google and download “The Origin of the Universe – Case Closed” for a simple explanation that anyone can understand – lots of pictures and simple language. The key to understanding creation is knowing that gravity is actually negative energy allowing a creation from nothing where the total energy of the universe is zero. Since the state of “nothing” is unstable, the stuff around us is the result of nature seeking stability. It’s amazing that modern physics says it’s possible for the universe to exist without a creator.
Bob, I must say I find your use of English a little difficult.
* What makes ‘nothing’ like a ‘sphere of constant radius’? Isn’t ‘nothing’ like, well, nothing? If it could be like a sphere, then couldn’t it equally well be like a ham sandwich without any ham or bread, or like universe of zero size, or a God of infinite power but zero mass??
* If ‘nothing’ is unstable, it has a property. Doesn’t that make it something other than nothing?
* If gravity is zero energy, before the creation of the universe, then doesn’t that mean ‘nothing’ has gravity and energy, albeit set at a zero level? Doesn’t that make ‘nothing’ actually something?
To sum up, your ‘nothing’ appears to have the properties of being like a sphere of zero radius, has gravity and energy and instability. So the question surely is – how did this pseudo-nothing appear out of real nothing?
[…] Luke Barnes, in his blog Letters to Nature, calls Krauss’s conclusions “sophomorically irrelevant”. Prof David Albert (who […]
Jerry Coyne seems to mostly agree with Albert: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/david-albert-pans-lawrence-krausss-new-book/
Krauss responds in the comments (#30) that:
“I made the point somewhere in the book that when one considers these things the question why is there something rather than nothing (where we live to ask the question) is like asking why some flowers are blue and others red.. it may not be a fundamentally interesting question from a scientific perspective. That may be disappointing, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be true. If it is a bait and switch that is because science as done the switching. I may not be focusing on the classical question that has bother philosophers, but I don’t think I ever claim to.”
Someone is going to have to explain to me how a book titled “A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing” doesn’t claim to answer the question “why is there something rather than nothing”.
I asked Victor Stenger to respond to Albert’s piece, for the sake of discussion, maybe its of some small interest to you…:
http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=4754
Krauss was in discussion with Rodney Holder, cosmologist turned priest, in last weeks episode of the excellent radio programme Unbelievable?.
http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid=02949395-E52F-4784-BF29-3A3138738B0B
If memory serves correctly, when David Albert’s article was mentioned by the host of the show, Krauss dismissed the piece not on the strength or weakness of the arguments made but on the basis that Albert isn’t a cosmologist. Startling stuff, really.
Sorry about the broken link. It actually will work if you pop the entire url into your browser’s address bar.
Anyway, if you are interested in hear Krauss and Holder in action but copying and pasting seems like too much trouble try this link instead –
[audio src="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/fec5de22-bec9-4a92-b9f9-6179236d05d4.mp3" /]
If that doesn’t work then
It seems obvious that Dr. Krauss overstepped his philosophical expertise and offended the sensibilities of many people, and he seems to know it. However, having read Albert’s review, he and many of Krauss’ critics seem to miss important portions of Krauss’ thesis and the great qualities of the book. As one can readily find in the book, Krauss’ point was that the kind of “nothing” he’s talking about – a quantum vacuum – while not purely “nothing,” is certainly not the something that is the Abrahamic God and the associated medieval philosophy. Further, Krauss argues quite sensibly that if anything is going to be understood about it, it won’t be secular metaphysics or pure thought that achieves it.
Albert also seems to suggest that Krauss concedes nothing of this sort until the end of the book, but Krauss actually spends quite a bit of time addressing this point, admitting that there is a lot we don’t know about the origins of “nothing” and the laws of physics which allow for this specific kind of “nothing” to spontaneously become something. Unfortunately, Krauss does belabor the slights against philosophy, which has caused many people to happily jump on the Krauss-bashing bandwagon, many of whom haven’t even read the book in its entirety.
Let’s not forget that Krauss wrote a best-selling, understandable, and overall captivating science book in an age when many publishing houses are closing and America is letting science/math education fall by the wayside according to the whims of fanatics. Dawkins’ afterword was probably extraneous, but that still doesn’t make the main body of text categorically bad. The point is probably obvious to many philosophers and scientists that a quantum vacuum doesn’t equal the Abrahamic God, but quite a lot of lay people will walk away from this book better understanding that argument and with a better appreciation for the complexity and mystery of nature without an intelligent creator. The precise definition of nothing – no offense – simply doesn’t matter to a lay audience or to broader sociological trends towards religious fanaticism in an otherwise developed and educated country.
Best Regards,
N
Erro,
the fact that Krauss acts as if “the precise definition of nothing” is somehow an open question and that the quantum vacuum is a good candidate for it is precisely why the book is so moronic.
First off i want to say how I agree with this post in its criticism of Richard Dawkins afterword, its embarassing. At best Krauss has shown how some other cosmologists (not Krauss) might have shown how a universe could have come from nothing (yes I know depends on what you mean by nothing, Ill come to that). theres no emperical evidence that this actually did happen. Hardly on a par with Darwin.
I think its important to distinguigh between different ideas of a “unvierse form nothing” . One idea was originally put forward by Tryon . Note that in this idea the universe results from a fluctuation in a pre existing space time. However Vilenkin suggested something different, that space and time can themselvews tunnel into existence. I dont think this should be considered as the same suggetsion as Tyron.
Just becuase Vilenkin suggested this and Guth is something of a fan of course does not mean its right. But its important to point out the two ideas are not exactly the same critcism and it seems Krauss’s critics are confusing the two. Both ideas are open to criticism but not the same criticism. If I understand it correctly at the origin point that Vilenkin imagines there are no fields as these require space and time to exist, there are just laws. The laws allow space and time to tunnel into existence after that fields can arise.
Big Blue Bump,
what does Vilenkin mean by “there are just laws”?
Because it seems to me that this suggests “the only objects that exist are laws”, but laws aren’t objects. They are abstract descriptions of how objects behave. If laws allow for something to happens, that means the objects they describe can behave in a way that results in that something to happen. This implies that “laws allow tunneling from nothing” is incoherent.
its not for me to defend this idea, you will have to read his work to do that but I would say he does not there are any objects that exist. What hes claiming is that space and time can tunnel into existence from a state where there was no space or time. nevertheless the laws of physics have to exist before the universe does. I guess you could think of them as the eternal uncased cause if you want to.
My only point to make is there is a confusion and I believe David Albert has made the same same mistake that others have – but Im happy to be corrected because Im only going off my memory of Albert’s review – between a Tyron type odel where the universe arises from a vacuum and a Vilenkin type model where a universe arises from a state of no space or time. Its fine to say that Vilenkin’s model doesn’t work or its incoherent or whatever you like. but tis not fine to mistake one model for the other, they are not the same. It seems to many reviewers are doing that .
As opposed to David Albert, I think that Krauss in his use of the word “nothing” is not completely out of line with the traditional use of the word in Philosophy. I’m thinking of the Christian concept of “creatio ex nihilo” – creation out of nothing. The way Christian theologians used this concept implied that the universe come from nothing in a very specific sense. It implied that the universe lacked a material cause in the Aristotelian sense. It still had an efficient cause, namely God. It just meant that the universe was not molded from any preexisting material. Apparently this interpretation of “creation ex nihilo” was good enough for Christian theologians. What I argue for is that Lawrence Krauss’ use of the idea “from nothing” is very close to the Christian concept of “ex nihilo”. In exactly the same way Christian theologians argued that the universe lacked a material cause, Krauss argues that the matter of the universe was not molded from any preexisting matter. Krauss’ matter also lacks a material cause in the Aristotelian sense. The laws of the vacuum field are the efficient cause in Krauss’ model. God himself is the efficient cause in Christian theology. The existence of an efficient cause didn’t discourage the theologians from talking about a creation from nothing. The only real distinction I can see is that we talk about a “spiritual driving force” as efficient cause in one case and a “physical driving force” as efficient cause in the other. Neither of them are truly “nothing”.
[…] in fact a quantum vacuum containing energy and potential capable of making our enormous universe. Physicists of all beliefs agree he is conning us, and hasn’t solved the conundrum at all, but Krauss […]
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