Creation ex nihilo - Without God, by Mark Vuletic

There is no way that Universe could have come from a vaccum fluctuation because there was no "vaccuum" that the Universe was in. There was no before the Universe. There is no outside the Universe. Any child knows this. Despite this, you have the following garbage on your wensite.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/vacuum.html

Will you please remove this page at once! We have hard enough time confronting the ignorance of science promoted by creationists and New Age crackpots without athiests doing the same thing.

Jeffery Winkler

http://www.geocities.com/jefferywinkler

[Thank you for your feedback regarding Creation ex nihilo - Without God by Mark I. Vuletic (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/vacuum.html). E-mail notification has been sent to the author. Although there are no guarantees, you might want to check back from time to time for a further response following this post. But to answer your question, no, it is not likely that this article will be removed at once--if at all. It would probably be more appropriate to let the author respond rather than to remove it on the say of one critic, don't you think? ---Don--- ]

[-DM-]

Mark I. Vuletic rsponds:

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Dear Mr. Winkler,

I appreciate your feedback, though I am sorry I seem to have angered you so much. I have three things to say in reply to the substance of the letter.

First, a preexisting vacuum from which the universe arose cannot, to my knowledge, be ruled out at this time. While some people draw such a conclusion from Big Bang theory, doing so actually runs well beyond what the theory can tell us, since the way things went before the Planck time is obscured by the absence of a theory of quantum gravity. Hence, your statement that "any child" knows what you claim to know is incorrect, although I can understand why you might think it true.

Second, I am personally agnostic about the idea of a quantum vacuum fluctuation origin of the universe. As indicated in the preface of the document, I am maintaining the compilation not to endorse such an account as true, but simply to point out that there are many physicists who support the idea (and certain allied ones the document discusses, such as virtual particles, which you did not address). I leave assessment to the reader.

Third, even if the idea of a quantum vacuum fluctuation origin of the universe is mistaken - even if it is _horribly_ mistaken - truth would be better served by an intelligent and professional rebuttal than by the removal of the document altogether under a barrage of slurs and insults. Attempting to suppress a popular view one disagrees with will not help to lead those who have gone astray back to enlightenment; an intelligent rebuttal, on the other hand, might.

Sincerely,

Mark I. Vuletic

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[David Bowskill]

This is a very interesting website. I ahve been reading the article below and there is a concept in it I find difficult to conceptualise. This is the concept of NEGATIVE ENERGY (which I agree must exist). Is there anyone who could make this concept easier to understand - this would be much appreciated.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/vacuum.html

[E-mail address deleted. Check back here for any followup. -DM-]

[YHWH666]

The objection raised in the OP is one that I share, so I will try and express it a bit more coherently (and politely.)

The trouble is with how the word "universe" is defined. If it is meant in a narrow sense simply as "all of the matter/energy/particles etc." then a vacuum fluctuation may very well be what created that. However, in philosophy, the term "universe" is often meant in a much broader way, something like "The set of all things that exist." Under this definition nothing existed prior to the creation of the universe-- by definition. This is a very profound nothing. even to conceivv of it as empty space (vacuum) is inaccurate because space and time are themselves existants. There was no space, no time, no nothing. Any thing one could posit as existing prior to the universe would immediatly be an absurdity because that thing itself is included in "universe."

[robto]

Let's try to get a better idea what's involved in the types of statements in the linked article. This is going to get a bit technical, so bear with me.

Suppose we had a quantum theory of gravity. (Note: we don't.) The metric is the field that describes spacetime in GR. Presumably, in this new theory, the metric would be a quantum field.

Quantum fields have a vacuum state, essentially, the "no field" state. Presumably, the vacuum state for our quantum theory of gravity is the "no metric" state, hence no spacetime.

Quantum fields can undergo spontaneous fluctuations. Presumably, such a fluctuation could "take us" from the state of no spacetime to a state with spacetime, for example, an expanding universe full of matter.

Now, even if all these things were true (and there's no way we can know if they are until we come up with a real quantum theory of gravity), we still have some puzzles. Remember that the vacuum state is one of no spacetime. That is, no space and no time. What does it mean to have a fluctuation when there's no time? How can there be any kind of change of state?

Answer: we don't know, because we don't know what the theory is yet.

Another question: if we had some such theory that predicted the spontaneous appearance of universes, how would we test it? Answer: we don't know, because we don't know what the theory is yet.

Now, some string theorists will tell you that all these questions can be answered by string theory. However, if you try to pin them down to get some answers, they admit that they don't really know how to do it. "The math is just too difficult," to quote a recent Scientific American article.

I suspect there's more than the math that's the problem. I think there are fundamental philosophical issues that have not yet been resolved, and may never be.