Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss discuss Something from Nothing
Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss recently sat on the stage at the Australian National University to discuss "something from nothing." What follows are my notes from that conversation. (9) Dawkins offers two methods for illustrating the long periods of time that are critical to understanding natural selection. (13:30) The key idea is that we might be getting something from nothing. Life comes from non-life. Matter appears to come from the lack of matter. (14:47) We are dealing with the new version of "nothing." (16:00) It is plausible that everything started with no matter,and maybe no loss. It might not violate any laws for matter to come from the lack of matter. Especially in physics, scientists have learned to ignore the common sense. The total energy of the universe might be "zero." It might nonetheless be a bubbling brew of virtual particles, and this offends some people. (20) Krauss: The universe doesn't care what we like or what we understand. We need to deal with this. (21) Dawkins: Natural selection has equipped us to be bad physicists and we have to work to overcome this. (22) Space is curved, but we cannot visualize this. Our picture of natural/normal reality is myopic. [More . . . ]