0 = 1 + -1

Question from Herman:
Hello!
For so long I have tried to understand the atheistic theory of the creation of “everything”.
I get the answer that before the big bang there was this waves/energy/*something about density I am too much of a aesthete to understand * or that there is negative matter so that it is really zero matter, but there still is something here right? I guess my question is the ultimate “what happened before that”.

My thinking goes thus:
Energy can’t be created, just altered. Therefore either we believe in eternity and something that has existed without ever being created. Or something outside of the laws of physics must have started it, that in turn must be able to create itself.

Help me understand!
Best regards and holiday greetings!
The Deist from Sweden

Answer by SmartLX:
Holiday greetings to you too Herman.

The idea of the “negative matter” is antimatter, which has been observed and even generated and “captured” in labs. It really is the negative of matter; when it comes into contact with matter the two annihilate one another. If there is as much antimatter as there is matter in the universe then it all comes to zero in a very real sense; it just hasn’t recombined to level out, so there are local positives and local negatives.

Regarding the origin of this system, the answer to the question, “Why did something come from nothing?” in this context is, “because ‘nothing’ is unstable.” Quantum fluctuations can apparently cause matter and antimatter to spontaneously emerge or erupt from an area of zero matter, which violates no laws because the total matter is still zero. This is what has been caused in labs on a very small scale to produce detectable antimatter. This on a large scale can produce a universe’s worth of matter, and if it happens quickly then there’s your Big Bang.

This is of course one theory of many. Another is that, as you say, matter has always existed in some form without ever needing to be created. As for something outside the laws of physics, that’s another possibility but it may only be outside our laws of physics, e.g. another “progenitor” universe in a larger multiverse with its own separate physics (and possibly in an infinite series).

I’ve written a lot about this over the years; search the site for the keyword “origins” to find most of it.

18 thoughts on “0 = 1 + -1”

  1. Congratulations, both to Herman and Smartlx, because this is, in my humble opinion, both the best question and the best answer that I have read so far here !!!

    The only thing I think Smartlx should tell us, what does science say about the cause of antimatter having been smaller in number of whatever or quantity of it, if only minimally, from matter, thus enabling the Universe to occur. Otherwise, there would be nothing instead of something…that we are, as a final and finest consequence of the existence of matter in otherwise empty space, if it is so without matter.

      1. SmartLX, thank you, I now understand these things better, kinda, but one thing remains unsaid.

        If the origin of matter is energy, light, I get that, then, what is the origin of energy in space?!

        There are, in my very humble opinion, two solutions to this puzzle, but theoretic physicist shy away from BOTH of them, again in my modest opinion, out of their immodesty and VANITY.

        One possible answer would be that THEY SIMPLY DO NOT KNOW. The problem of this answer is obviously embarrassing for a theoretic physicist to give.

        The other would be that energy has no cause, WITHOUT implying in it GOD as cause.

        This answer is even worse for a vain theoretic physicist, because Aristotelian logic says CAUSALITY for all that happens, Aristotle was a determinist, obviously, as am myself, but then, I make an exception, which is that our logical brains evolved from first neurons into what they are now, on Earth, not in the Universe as a whole, for me it is only LOGICAL for our logical Aristotelian brains to conclude, that it, the brain, cannot possibly understand some possibly very different laws of physics that rule the happening in the Universe away from our planet.

        So, my answer to the question of origin of energy in space is that we are not clever enough to understand that something can be, or happen, WITHOUT (ITS) CAUSE and that thaat it is there forever both in the past and in the future. Einstein, yes, said that, but nobody with a human, i.e. with Aristotelian logic, that is our brains, cannot REALLY fathom this, it is only so, we conclude unwillingly, because there is no other solution to the puzzle.

        ENERGY IS FOREVER AND SPACE IS WITHOUT END IN TIME AND SPACE AND NOBODY UNDERSTANDS HOW IT MAY BE AND IS POSSIBLE, YET IT IS.

        WITHOUT GOD, AND THAT !!!

        1. An addition to my own thinking.

          What caused the energy in space to become matter, even when we understand that it is the prevalence of matter against antimatter, but WHAT STARTED THE TURN of energy into matter???

          1. See this other article. A type of photon called a boson (yes, as in Higgs boson) can decay into matter and antimatter when it has enough energy. Since a photon is itself light energy, all that’s required for matter is energy upon energy, which comprised the whole universe immediately after the Big Bang. That’s when a huge amount of hydrogen and helium (the simplest forms of matter) was produced.

          2. Big Bang Scientists: Universe Shouldn’t Exist
            by Jake Hebert, Ph.D. *
            https://www.icr.org/article/10330

            There is so much evidence that shows that all of the scientific theories used to try and explain the universe and even life, but contradicts the Biblical explanation, fall far short of providing any kind of proof that what they are supposed to explain actually explains what they are supposed to explain.

            1. Preacher Gerald, I will first note the obvious and blatant double standard you have in your mind that allows you to claim there is no proof for the scientific work on the universe while also claiming that the baseless unsupported Abrahamic deity in the most edited book in the world (Bible) is somehow true. Either you want evidence to be important, or you don’t. Make up your mind. Requests for empirical data to support the existence of your favorite flavor of god creature continually go unfulfilled, yet you constantly claim that proven theories like evolution have no empirical data supporting them when they do. Your tired rhetoric is predictable and false.

              Moving on to your latest link, the article at ICR has nothing to do or say about evolution and life, so your conclusion that “all the scientific theories used to try to explain the universe and even life fall far short” is so moronic it defies any logic. The ICR article deals with the Big Bang, and only the Big Bang. It has nothing to do with life or evolution. No sane rational thinking intellect would ever decide that this article defeats the scientific theory of evolution, yet that is the conclusion that you somehow reached. This unfortunately is not surprising since you have, for years now, lumped things like the Big Bang, Abiogenesis, and Evolution into one theory, when in reality they are separate topics that are unrelated to each other. Yet once again we’ve had to take the time to explain to you why your comments are misinformed verbal diarrhea, and point out the reason why. I’m confident you won’t learn from your mistakes this time either, but we must point it out anyway so that the wandering reader who peruses this thread will not leave thinking you have any clue about the things you are trying to discuss…

              As for the actual ICR article, it is horrible. To quote the article directly, it states: “Big Bang scientists have long claimed that some unknown physics somehow allowed a slightly greater amount of primordial normal matter to be produced, and this “leftover” normal matter eventually became the material “stuff” of the universe. But because this claim is not based on any empirical science, it’s never been anything more than pure speculation.”

              The problem with that statement is the actual empirical evidence that exists that shows how there is more matter than antimatter. It’s called CP violation, and it was discovered in 1964. How a supposed physics PhD is unaware of this longstanding fact I can’t possibly say, but his ignorance (real or feigned) has led to an article that is erroneous, which in turn has been used to feed you more of the pseudoscience that you think justifies your continued ignorance of scientific fields.

              Just last year there was a discovery that neutrinos might have something to do with the asymmetry of the universe:
              https://www.quantamagazine.org/do-neutrinos-explain-matter-antimatter-asymmetry-20160728/

              Your continued reliance on websites run by your creationist masters that feed you pseudoscience garbage is continually failing you, Preacher Gerald…

        2. The theoretical physicists whose opinions I’ve read are quite comfortable not knowing, and of course they don’t know. They need something unknown or they’d have nothing to do as theorists, and probably no jobs.

          As for cause, quantum mechanics have always had obscured or nonexistent causes so they’ve had time to get used to it. It would be an earthshaking, career-making discovery to confirm that this aspect of the universe is genuinely spontaneous, which would do much to mitigate any existential concerns on the part of the discoverers.

  2. With regard to “the atheistic theory of the creation of everything” I’d also like to point something out from a purely skeptical standpoint: One doesn’t need to have an explanation for anything that someone attempts to explain.
    Person A and B pass by a house that has burned down.
    A: “Wauw! That mush have been a powerful dragon.”
    B: “What? You think a dragon burned down that house? Okay. I don’t see why you would believe that. I don’t believe that.”
    A: “Oh yeah? Then you explain how that house burned down! If it wasn’t a dragon, what was it?”
    In this situation, would you say that B is in any way obligated to explain how that house burned down? A asserts something. That assertion stands or falls based on its own evidence, does it not?
    What about this situation:
    P: “You, Q, have been charged on a claim of murdering miss Johnson.”
    Q: “WHAT!?!?!? Based on what? I didn’t do it!!”
    P: “Then who did?”
    Q: “I don’t know, I don’t care! I didn’t do it. You have no evidence I did it. You have presented no case! There’s no evidence I did it. You have no reason to believe I did it. Whether or not you have any reason to believe that anyone else did it is irrelevant; you have no reason to believe I did it, and that’s the end of it. If tomorrow or if in 24 years you find the answer, good for you, but don’t you dare treat the case as if it’s believable I did it, just because nobody has explained who did it if not me!”
    P: “Enough excuses. If you didn’t do it, someone else did, and you explain who killed her if not you, otherwise the jury ought to find you guilty of murder.”
    Who here is reasonable; A or B?

    1. Reasonable by what standard? Reason is relative. And if you really expect what is reasonable to be what is the reason that makes more sense, then you need to find the evidence that supports the end result.
      And there is nothing that suggests that quantum mechanics, can give the actual cause for the appearance of the universe. Especially since the explanation that quantum mechanics gives actually contradicts the laws that are usually are used to explain everything else. And then other excuses need to be invented to make the explanation that the so called “quantum mechanics” made up to be more palatable and easier to swallow. But then the excuse is given that even though the theory can’t be duplicated so that it can be shown to support the theory, that the theory should be accepted just because it was though up by someone who has won the right to be called a scientist, even though the theory is more akin to a suggestion than to actual science. Because science rules out possibilities using logic and that which has been observed or not, in order to declare a theory as valid or not. And guessing as to how something has happened without there being evidence is nothing more than a guess.

      1. Gerald, what explanation from QM “contradicts the laws that are usually are used to explain everything else”?

          1. Thanks for the links Gerald.

            None of what you presented deals with anything in Quantum Mechanics, just so you know. It’s covered under the bigger umbrella of physics, and perhaps you didn’t know the difference, but that’s not a problem. We can still address your links.

            Your first link from ICR is a scientifically inaccurate article. I can’t say if the writer, Henry Morris, was intentionally trying to mislead people or not. He’s dead so I can’t ask him. The reason his article is inaccurate is because he doesn’t understand what entropy is. An accurate description of entropy is this: the process of energy moving from a state of being able to do work to a state of being unable to do work. In other words, you can only burn coal once to get it to power an electric generator. If you were to collect the energy with 100% efficiency (you can’t in reality) and try to remake the coal, you’d end up using more energy to get back to the previous state of unburned coal then what energy the coal had available in the first place.

            Entropy used to be defined as moving from a state of order to a state of disorder. While that’s not a bad definition per se, it really wasn’t as accurate as the work definition I’ve noted above. Morris goes with the order/disorder definition for his article.

            Without getting too much into the whole thing, I want to note some sleight of hand done by the author. First he posts this quote from an article: “There is a factor called “entropy” in physics, indicating that the whole universe of matter is running down, and ultimately will reduce itself to uniform chaos. This follows from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which seems about as basic and unquestionable to modern scientific minds as any truth can be. At the same time that this is happening on the physical level of existence, something quite different seems to be happening on the biological level: structure and species are becoming more complex, more sophisticated, more organized, with higher degrees of performance and consciousness.” Then he writes: “As Harris points out, the law of increasing entropy is a universal law of decreasing complexity, whereas evolution is supposed to be a universal law of increasing complexity.”

            Did you see what he did there? He redefines entropy to be COMPLEXITY, not chaos. This is NOT the definition of entropy however, but he cannot continue with his entire article without doing this, because his main complaint is that complex living things can’t happen if there is entropy.

            Entropy is not a roadblock to complexity however. The universe clearly has entropy, yet local systems that are a decrease of entropy happen in nature all the time, and not just in living things. As I’ve pointed out to in previous topics, hurricanes (and all organized storms for that matter) are complex systems, and they are a decrease in entropy in their local area. So is lightning. So are diamonds. So is ice (compared to liquid water).

            The reason complex systems can form on Earth is because the Earth is not a closed system. It receives huge amounts of energy from the Sun. Most of that sunlight ends up as wasted heat (meaning it is not used by anything to decrease the entropy of the local area), but some of it is absorbed by a system that ends up increasing in complexity (again, a hurricane for example). So what happens is that entropy still increases overall (some of the light is turned to waste heat), but it doesn’t increase as much as it could have because some system (the hurricane) uses some of that energy to reduce it’s own entropy at a local level.

            The author also takes great liberties with quote mining. You and I have had plenty of discussions about this, and how often creationist websites take quotes out of context to create the appearance of support for what they are pandering to people like you. In the article Morris quotes: “One problem biologists have faced is the apparent contradiction by evolution of the second law of thermodynamics. Systems should decay through time, giving less, not more, order. One legitimate response to this challenge is that life on earth is an open system with respect to energy and therefore the process of evolution sidesteps the law’s demands for increasing disorder with time.” This quote comes from a study published in Science entitled “A Downward Slope to Greater Diversity” with the subtitle “Two phylogeneticists argue that increasing species diversity is an invariable consequence, not a violation, of the Second Law of Thermodynamics”. The very next paragraph in the article, that directly follows the quote that starts “One problem…” explains how the Earth being an open system is a legitimate challenge to this creationist mantra.

            The way he used the quote from that study is clearly quote mining! There are other quote mines in the article as well, which for the sake of brevity I won’t get into.

            So the article you’ve presented us has changed the definition of entropy, made a false claim that complexity can’t coexist with entropy, and then it quote mines things out of context to look like there is some scientific agreement to what the ICR article is trying to claim.

            Your other links face the same problems, which again for the sake of brevity I won’t detail out.

            In fact the threat of entropy is a constant battle for living things, so I’m not trying to pretend that entropy is not important. From this article it states that out of the calories we eat: “So, about 0.15% (give or take) of that food matter is used to build a body, and 99.85% is used for power and to fight the entropy drop involved in body construction and temporarily holding back the horrifying ravages of time.”
            http://www.askamathematician.com/2013/03/q-why-doesnt-life-and-evolution-violate-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics-dont-living-things-reverse-entropy/

            But it takes that outside energy (the Sun) for us to be able to battle entropy. Eventually, we lose out, like all living things do. But entropy does not stop complexity from happening. Far from it.

            I’ve tried to explain to you many times now that simply going to these websites run by your creationist masters, and grabbing articles that you don’t bother to fact check, is a poor way to make your argument. They lie to you Gerald, all the time. Their use of quotes mines is legendary, and rampant. They assume that people like you will take their word for it, and that’s how they sneak this stuff by you. Don’t take my word for it either, every single thing I’ve said can be verified by you if you take the time to do it. I’m not trying to hide anything, and they are. That ought to clue you in on who is speaking from the side of truth…

  3. Tim really. Let me ask you please. When someone goes to find gold, they have to sift through a bunch of other things, some of which may be almost as valuable, but they tossed everything else aside. That is until he see what he is looking for. Then he pulls it out recognizing it as what he is looking for.

    Now say that an archeologist is searching for some man made ruins. He goes digging and throws out tons of rock an debris. But suddenly he comes across an object that he knows is not like the other rocks that he has been throwing out. He knows that what he is now holding is a man made object.

    Now when you look at everything organic, and get even right down to the sub cellular level, you see design, marvelous design. Patterns. and accidents do not make patterns. Every organism, shows pattern. Show design.

    Sure, sure I know. You want to tell me that just because organisms look as if they are designed, doesn’t mean that they are designed. But, but what about the object that the archeologist looking for his man made objects. Since he is the one that knows the difference between man made design and the “accidental design” of a nature that has been accidentally formed.

    But if every organism seemingly so wonderfully designed is not intelligently designed than what else designed it. It’s like the supposedly “first life that science has manufactured in the lab. When you look at it now, you have to see, “intelligently design, because we see that an intelligence did indeed design it. And yet every cell, of every organism, is even more complex and wonderfully design than the first man made block of life that a scientist has manufactured. It’s just a basic RNA but it is designed. But every cell of every organism has design written all over them. There are processes that begin and end all upon DNA that could only perform their processes if both were present in order for the cell and therefore the organism to survive.
    Like the process of respiration, one could not happen without the other. And the organism would not survive without both parts of respiration taking place. That is design.
    But once again, if it looks design, but is not intelligently designed, even though intelligence designed partial blocks of life in the form of RNA, then you tell me what caused the organisms to appear designed. And then show me laboratory examples of organisms that you completely make in a laboratory, that are not intelligently designed. I mean just take all the necessary parts that the scientists who believe in evolution, feel like the think that life came from and then show us that life as well designed as the life that we have today. Then we will know that indeed, seemingly designed organisms could have come from nothing.

  4. Gerald, I don’t see design in living things at all. The human knee is a hinge, and would be much less susceptible to injury if it were a ball and joint. Our retinas are backwards, causing many inefficiencies. (The amount of optical illusions we have is ridiculous). The recurrent laryngeal nerve goes from the brain, loops around a heart aorta, and heads back up the area of your larynx, because the aorta develops after the nerve in a fetus. The tissue that becomes the aorta moves down as you develop, taking the nerve with it. We breathe through and send food through the same pipe in our neck, making choking a threat to every single human ever born. That’s just a few examples, and that’s just in humans.

    To think life is designed by an all loving and powerful god is poppycock, once you actually look at the body of work.

    Let’s not forget, by the way, that I’ve patiently explained to you before that the existence of something doesn’t prove where it came from. The existence of life only proves that life does indeed exist. Life doesn’t prove gods and it doesn’t prove the Big Bang. You should have understood this by now.

    1. Tim this from you is so surprising. “I don’t see design in living things at all.” When others who used to be atheists, and even some who are still atheists, say this about life. First. “Biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose. Richard Dawkins
      Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/richard_dawkins
      https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/richard_dawkins

      “atheists are up in arms thinking that Professor Antony Flew has lost his mind. Flew, age 81, has been a legendary proponent and debater for atheism for decades, stating that “onus of proof [of God] must lie upon the theist.”1 However, in 2004, Prof. Flew did the unheard of action of renouncing his atheism because “the argument to Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it.”2 In a recent interview, Flew stated, “It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of
      DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.” Flew also renounced naturalistic theories of evolution:

      “Frank Tipler (Professor of Mathematical Physics): “From the perspective of the latest physical theories, Christianity is not a mere religion, but an experimentally testable science.”

      “Wernher von Braun (Pioneer rocket engineer) “I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.”

      “Henry “Fritz” Schaefer (Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia): “The significance and joy in my science comes in those occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, ‘So that’s how God did it.’ My goal is to understand a little corner of God’s plan.”

      http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/quotes.html

      And there are many other scientists and atheists and used to be atheists who come to the same conclusion. Life is or appears to have been designed. Now whether you think yourself of greater intelligence than these, or not. Still you can not and never will be able to demonstrate that what you think you believe or what other atheists think they believe of how life became is how life became.
      And this is supported by the fact that all humans who have ever lived, or who are alive today, never ever said that life came about by an accident. They never have testified that they observed life just pop out of nothing. No, they only have said that life came from another that had life. This is fact.
      If it is not the truth, then produce the evidence that shows otherwise. Or else tell the truth that life has only come from life.

  5. Gerald writes: [Tim this from you is so surprising. “I don’t see design in living things at all.” When others who used to be atheists, and even some who are still atheists, say this about life. First. “Biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose. Richard Dawkins]

    Gerald, from creation.com’s Richard Dawkins page: “In his book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins wrote: “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose”, then proceeds to argue that they were not.”

    In other words Preacher Gerald, Dawkins used the word appearance because he was saying that that’s how it might look at first glance, but the facts say differently. Even your creationist masters at creation.com admit as much.

    We just had a little chat about quote mining, Gerald. Did you forget about that already?

    [Flew also renounced naturalistic theories of evolution:]

    Good for him. He is entitled to his opinion. The vast majority of scientists involved in the fields of biology, and morphology, and genetics, and paleontology disagree with him. I’d post all their quotes, but it would take me the rest of my life and I don’t have the time for all that.

    More importantly though, has Flew provided us with a theory that explains all the facts? There are billions of fossils, sequenced genomes of many species, tens of thousands of radiometric date points for geologic samples, and much more. How does Flew thinking there is a creator god explain all that? The existence of fossils doesn’t prove the Christian slavery god put them there. The existence of similar DNA in all living things doesn’t prove your god either. It’s fine if that is his opinion, but if he can’t provide us a better theory that explains all the facts in existence, then his opinion is speculation.

    Gerald copies and pastes: [“Frank Tipler (Professor of Mathematical Physics): “From the perspective of the latest physical theories, Christianity is not a mere religion, but an experimentally testable science.”]

    And so far those tests have shown Christianity to be a completely false reality.

    Gerald writes: [Still you can not and never will be able to demonstrate that what you think you believe or what other atheists think they believe of how life became is how life became.]

    I find it hilarious that a guy (this would be you Gerald) who, until recently, repeatedly tried to state that the theory of evolution was related to the Big Bang, thinks that he can state with any authority whatsoever what science will and will not be able to demonstrate in the future. It is beyond ludicrous that you have the gall to think that, much less post it online for the entire world to read…

    [And this is supported by the fact that all humans who have ever lived, or who are alive today, never ever said that life came about by an accident. They never have testified that they observed life just pop out of nothing. No, they only have said that life came from another that had life. This is fact.]

    Yes, it is a fact that no human has ever seen life start from non-life. First of all, you’d need a microscope. Then you’d have to be looking at the right drop of water at the right time in order to see it. The odds are pretty long that anyone could ever be in that right place at the right time.

    I would not agree that no human has ever said that life started accidentally. I say that, and I am a human, so clearly your statement is false.

    [If it is not the truth, then produce the evidence that shows otherwise. Or else tell the truth that life has only come from life.]

    Science is working on that. In the mean time, produce the evidence that shows your slavery god exists, and produce the evidence that your slavery god had anything to do with the start of life.

  6. Tim, please don’t put words into someone else’s mouth. I didn’t I just posted what he was quoted as saying and left it for other to come to their own conclusion as to what he said and as to what he meant. “Dawkins used the word appearance because he was saying that that’s how it might look at first glance” This is what I posted. And Dawkins has yet to correct what he said or to back track and say what he really meant. He used “apparently” and not did not contract or contradicted what he said.
    And neither did any of the other individuals who were quoted. Some of whom were Atheists.
    Like I said. Like evolution, has not a fossilized leg to stand on, and yours opinion has even less merit.

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