Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Could the Universe Have Come from Nothing?

It turns out that the answer to the question posed above is no and yes.

This 12 minute video from Inspiring Philosophy addresses two questions about the origin of the universe. The first is whether the universe could've arisen out of nothing naturalistically, that is without any input from anything non-spatial and immaterial. The second is whether there's a reality more fundamental than the space-time cosmos we find ourselves in.

Most philosophers find the first claim as proposed by physicist Lawrence Krauss to be incoherent since Krauss' "nothing" is not really nothing.

The second question is leading a lot of philosophers and scientists to the same conclusion that George Berkeley arrived at, namely, ontological idealism. These thinkers believe that the fundamental reality is not matter but information, but if that's so, then that would presuppose a pre-existent mind.

Watch the video and see what you think: