Much Ado About "Nothing"

This video is mostly a response to Veritas48's recent Kalam epic, but it's also something I've wanted to address for awhile.

---A. A QUICK MESSAGE------

First, I want to apologize for not having videos in the last 2-3 weeks. I've been having internet issues, and I've been sick (maybe you can tell by my voice in this video). I have more videos in the works, so hopefully those will be out relatively soon.

I have to thank everybody so much who mirrored or spread the word about my recent flagged video (the one I did with ahughman08). I compiled a list of everybody I wanted to thank, but I decided not to include it under the worry that it would lead to other people getting flagged (also, if I left anybody out, I'd feel like a jackass).

Because of this, I open a secondary account where I'm attempting to mirror videos. You can find that account at http://www.youtube.com/antybuagain - I encourage everybody else to make a similar account for mirroring videos.

---B. OTHER NOTES---

There are many, many things wrong with Kalam, and this video just serves to address one issue I had with it. However, Veritas48's video (the hour-long one) had many scientific errors in it that I wasn't able to include in the video. Here are a few off the top of my head:

- He said that virtual particles were theoretical. Since they have been indirectly observed, they are actually not theoretical.

- He gave a whole shpeil about virtual particles being based on the uncertainty principle. While uncertainty explains the effects of VPs, I believe they are actually based on perturbation theory. Not that I'm a particle physicist (or a physicist of any sort), but this is just what I've read. So, I'm not sure what he was talking about.

- He talked about the density of a singularity being zero. I have no idea what this was about... the volume is zero (or 'approaching' zero), but the density is infinite ('approaching' infinite).

I really wish both Veritas and Craig would give up already on Kalam. It's just not a good argument.

---C. SOURCES---

Most of the sources are referenced in-video. But I should give at least a few links.

Veritas48's "EPIC" Kalam video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwKAsEe7ZHU

Craig's "What is nothing?" Podcast:
http://www.rfmedia.org/RF_audio_video/RF_podcast/What_is_Nothing_.mp3

Craig's "personal cause" article:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5321

Siegel's "Did the Universe Start from a Singularity?" article:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/04/did_the_universe_start_from_a...

Where Hawking/Hartle talk about a zero three-geometry . . .
From a 1983 paper titled "Wave Function of the Universe which you can find on page 311 of this book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=DEIidWCVlCIC

Craig's "Evolution and Skepticism" Podcast:
http://www.rfmedia.org/RF_audio_video/RF_podcast/Evolution_and_Skepticism.mp3

---D. RELATED LINKS---

Two previous videos I did concerning W.L. Craig:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_676IeyJNQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuYoU_IFQz8

TheoWarner did a couple great videos on Craig too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzQD2jA9qqk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx9v32hVLic

NoTruScotsman did a video in response to Veritas worth checking out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS9_QidmYaQ


---E. LINKS YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT---

My twitter:
http://twitter.com/antybu86

My BlogTV:
http://www.blogtv.com/people/antybu86

Category:

Education

Tags:

• veritas48
• Kalam
• cosmological argument
• nothing
• something
• william lane craig
• god
• science
• big bang
• hawking
• tippler
• antybu86

[piusvapor]

"Quantum" for this particular discussion is the atheist's God of the gaps.

[antybu86]

@piusvapor If true then our "God of the gaps" has been experimentally and observationally verified. Can't say the same thing about you "God of the gaps," can you?

[uvauva2]

I will be the math guy and say that "points and thus euclidean geometry both exist" does not follow. In fact (I'm a mathematician, and not a physicist, so I might be outdated on this point), my understanding is that current knowledge points to the fact that the geometry of our universe is ultimately not euclidean. "points and thus geometry" I would accept. In other words: don't go throwing the word euclidean around carelessly. It has a fairly precise technical meaning...

[antybu86]

@uvauva2 Maybe it doesn't follow (though, I'm not too concerned because there are many other reasons why a singularity isn't "nothing"), and you'd probably know.

Although, isn't Euclidean geometry all about points and lines? I could be entirely mistaken here... maybe I should have double-checked my source.

[ThatGuyWithHippyHair]

This is, of course, all ignoring the fact when Veritas defines "nothing" as the absence of all reality, yet he says God created some from nothing, this is essentially saying that God is not part of all reality. Who knew? Veritas was an atheist.

[Ekenedil]

Veritas is one of the most FUCKING UNLETTERED MORONS I have ever had the misfortune of encountering.

[alianchild]

@justanote7 Hey, no problem. Good point on the antiquated answer.

[justanote7]

@alianchild Gotcha .. good point. Thax ;)

[alianchild]

@justanote7 Mostly true. But It is a fact that normal physical laws break down at the quantum level. Making it quite possible that the universe DID come from nothing. By the way, I also think that the God hypothesis has completely failed, in every way.

[justanote7]

Dude, it's all speculation! Nothing comes from nothing, therefore, the universe didn't come from 'nothing'. No one can know for certain how it all came about because no one was there. Everything follows some natural law of existence, and so the creation of this universe had to do the same. Claiming that some diety created it all is just simple fantacy. It's an antiquated and easy answer for the unanswerable ... a quick solution for those who can't accept the 'not knowing'!

[arsenelupin123]

Lol the book you showed assigned a probability amplitude for the universe to come from nothing. I love this stuff.

[Ekenedil]

Veritas is an unlettered imbecile.

[nospacesallowed]

@dechha1981 Completely agree. My reasons are that the word creation is meaningless except in the realm of time. Without time creation can't happen, if it did when did it happen? Since to create there needs be a time before the thing you created, a time after the thing being created and at the intersection is the moment of creation.