I have to confess: I opened post 249.
One part of the problem is that the troll is fundamentally ignorant. He doesn't have a conceptual basis for understanding the basic issues.
'Nothing' is an interesting concept, especially in light of (what I understand of) the Standard Theory.
Space-time is a 4-dimensional volume and even in a perfect vacuum the theory is that particles at the most fundamental level of reality are popping into existence, in pairs with a net energy of zero, and then, usually, annihilating each other: the analogy I have seen is to a continual foaming sort of creation and destruction.
Krauss, in his analysis of how something can be and, in his view, inevitably will be generated from 'nothing' asserts, persuasively in my view, that we need to go further than this 'vacuum' when we speak of 'nothing'.
'Nothing' includes the absence of space-time itself. I don't know about Krauss, but my ability to feel that I had some intuitive grasp or mental image of the concepts failed at that point, but that is no reason to ignore the argument.
His idea is that 'nothing', in this absolute sense, is unstable and will lead to the spontaneous creation of 'something', which in turn means that space-time comes into existence and so on.
By contrast, we see that 325's concept of 'nothing' is extremely parochial: wind, water, earth and so on.
His mind is so limited that his understanding of language is different from those of us with even a modicum of exposure to 'science'. He literally doesn't understand words the same way we do.
Krauss touches upon the ignorance of the meaning of 'nothing' that became apparent in the words of, iirc, a bishop of some branch of the Christian church, but I suspect it is a common lacuna in the understanding of many. Indeed, I had not thought of 'nothing' in the Krauss sense until I read his book.
But I and, I suspect, most of us here did have some understanding that 'nothing' was a concept somewhat more sophisticated than not having any water or air
The Big Bang postulates (and the math seems to work all the way back to an extraordinarily short time after the BB) that the early universe was so dense with energy, that it was too 'hot' for anything we'd recognize as 'matter' to exist. As it inflated and expanded, the density of energy (the 'heat') dissipated and 'matter' began to, as it were, precipitate out. As the expansion continued, the average energy density dropped, and matter began to clump together, due, it seems, to a very tiny asymmetry in the energy distribution.
And so on.
This theory allowed for the calculation, based on estimates of the size of the universe, of what the 'background' residual energy density ought to be: the residual 'temperature' or measurement of 'heat' of the universe. It was only after theorists had said that this ought to be measurable that experimentalists tried to capture it.
Interesting, the Noble prize for discovering the background radiation went to a team of researchers who were not actually looking for it. They were trying something else, and noted what they first thought was signal contamination. It was only after they spent time trying to eliminate it, and found that it was uniformly present no matter which direction in the sky they aimed their apparatus, that they realized that they had found this theoretically predicted concept.
As Deutsch, and others, have argued: while it is possible to observe a phenomenon and then theorize to explain it, the Enlightenment ushered in an era in which it has become possible and popular, amongst scientists, to theorize first and then test the theory by looking for data consistent or inconsistent with the theory. This is, for example, precisely what led to the discovery of the higgs boson: higgs and others, at about the same time, came up with the idea that there was some particle that played a role in providing mass to other particles, and many years later experimental physicists were able to devise experiments that would either confirm or refute the predicted particle.
It is this, some philosophers argue, that caused the rapid expansion of human knowledge that started almost exclusively in the Western World. The Enlightenment led to many changes, including the notions that underlay both the American and French Revolutions and the development of capitalism, but also and, for these purposes, the development of the approach that became known as the scientific principle. It was only after the intellectuals began to realize that one could and should challenge authority and the notions promulgated by authority that, gradually, the idea emerged that one could make conjectures and then test such conjectures. The result: an exponential growth in the discovery of ideas and facts. However, some people can't cope with the resulting uncertainty and reject all of this. Ironically, the troll seems unaware that his ability to post his ravings is based entirely on the concepts that he rejects. The ideas that allow the design and construction of microprocessors are founded on the very same mathematics and physics that validate the Big Bang
All of this attitude towards reality is alien to the troll. Imagine a homo sapiens from 50,000 years ago. Cave painting and the creation of crude musical instruments from hollowed out bones constitutes the latest advance in manipulation of the external world. Imagine a helicopter landing nearby. There is no possibility that an adult homo sapiens could ever understand how the helicopter came into existence or was able to fly. He simply lacks the concepts and, being adult, his brain isn't flexible enough to allow him to be taught.
Instead, in all likelihood, he'd either run away or he'd make some show of bravado...howling at the helicopter the way my dogs bark at objects they've never seen before.
To my way of thinking the troll is either the howling homo sapiens/my barking dog, or he actually has some understanding but is getting his jollies by pretending he doesn't, while provoking us with his absurdities. Or both
Anybody willing to bet that if he comments on this post, he will show that he understands the idea of the cosmic background radiation and the role that its discovery played in validating the big bang theory? or that he'll point to a plausible explanation of the existence and level of the radiation that is consistent with an explanation of the universe beyond 'god did it'?
I thought not
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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