Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No Beginning

Re:Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No... by Koshkin on Thursday June 06, 2019 @05:18PM (#20119327)

> Pure nothingness has no potential for creation

In mathematics, at least, this is not true. For example, a set consisting of the empty set is not empty.

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Re:Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No... by bobthechef on Thursday June 06, 2019 @07:12PM (#20120143)

You're confusing formalism with metaphysics.

Emptiness isn't nothingness. Emptiness presupposes something that is empty of something expected to fill it, the absence of something not the total absence of anything. Absolute nothingness isn't empty because there's nothing that can be empty. Nothingness is not a something, but people here seem to be reifying the notion.

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Re:Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No... by Dylan16807 on Friday June 07, 2019 @01:57AM (#20121994)

Because you can't get rid of the potential to reify.

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Re:Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No... by brankoB on Friday June 07, 2019 @12:39AM (#20121703)

"Pure nothingness" would be the empty set, not a set with something in it.

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Re:Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No... by Dylan16807 on Friday June 07, 2019 @01:56AM (#20121990)

Yes, that's their point. Pure nothingness, the empty set, has the potential to create the set containing the empty set, and then the set containing that, sets containing combinations, etc etc.

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Re:Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No... by brankoB on Friday June 07, 2019 @07:17AM (#20123398)

How does the empty set "create" the set containing the empty set?

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Re:Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No... by Dylan16807 on Friday June 07, 2019 @08:05AM (#20123677)

By being the contents that make that set exist.

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