Something can come from nothing without cause.

Ave.I congratulate Pro on his visually appealing opening statement. His method allowed him to explain ideas in quantum mechanics with clarity and ease. Unfortunately, my rebuttal will not be as aesthetically pleasing.I'd like to start by giving a positive reason as to why something cannot come from nothing without cause. If you have absolute nothingness, then you have the universal negation of everything. Logically, you would then have the universal negation of all properties. But if something can come from nothing without cause, then that nothing does have a property. The property of something coming from it. By definition, something cannot come from an absolute nothingness, because then you never had an absolute nothing to begin with.When I read Pro's case, I am reminded of Dr. Lawrence Krauss’s book A Universe From Nothing. In this book, Dr. Krauss argues that the universe could have come from nothing. In response to ex nihilo nihil fit, Dr. Krauss uses examples from quantum mechanics to show examples of things coming from nothing. It’s an interesting book that I enjoyed reading, but his examples aren’t relevant to this debate. http://www.youtube.com...I’ve never understood statements like ‘’Nothing is unstable’’ or ‘’Nothing is actually something’’. It reminds me of the book 1984 and slogans like ‘’War is peace’’. They simply make no logical sense.The burden of proof on Pro is to demonstrate that something which exists can come from a state of absolute nothingness.[1] If I can show that virtual particles don’t come from a state of absolute nothingness, then the burden of proof has not been upheld by Pro. I understand that he’s given the definition of nothing in physics, but that’s not the definition of ‘’nothing’’ I gave for Pro’s burden of proof.I don't doubt the existence of virtual particles. There are very good reasons to think that virtual particles do exist. I only doubt the conclusions that Pro and people like Dr. Krauss try to make from their existence. This is a very good picture to demonstrate that virtual particles exist.http://abyss.uoregon.edu...David Albert is an atheist philosopher and physicist who was heavily critical of Dr. Krauss’s book. In his NY times review, he writes…“Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems — are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff. The true relativistic-quantum-field-­theoretical equivalent to there not being any physical stuff at all isn’t this or that particular arrangement of the fields — what it is (obviously, and ineluctably, and on the contrary) is the simple absence of the fields! The fact that some arrangements of fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some don’t is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers happen to correspond to the existence of a fist and some don’t. And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings — if you look at them aright — amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing.” [2]The simply fact is that the quantum vacuum that virtual particles come from is not nothing. It’s a sea of fluctuating energy, an arena of violent activity that has a rich physical structure and can be described by physical laws. The quantum vacuum exists, so there’s no way for virtual particles to be considered as ‘’coming from nothing’’. [3]Even Dr. Krauss himself has conceded that he’s not talking about absolute nothingness. On the Q&A section of A Universe From Nothing, he writes, ‘’Now, that state of no-stuff may not be ‘nothing’ in the a classical sense, but it is a remarkable transformation nevertheless”. [4] As Dr. Krauss himself has said, “By ‘nothing,’ I don’t mean nothing. . . . Nothing isn’t nothing anymore in physics.” Empty space is not empty. “Nothing is really a bubbling, boiling brew of virtual particles.’’ [5]I think the second video effectively demonstrates the hilarity of Krauss’s equivocation. http://www.youtube.com...I don’t think appeals to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle make any sense either. We are discussing an absolute nothingness. If there is an absolute nothingness, there is no uncertainty principle, because then there would be something. With absolute nothingness, there are no things at all, including rules like “it is physically impossible to measure both the exact position and the exact momentum of a particle at the same time”. Pro also advocates for the zero-energy hypothesis. This argues that because the positive energy and negative energy of the universe cancel out, then energy must have come from nothing. I don’t disagree with this hypothesis, but it’s not relevant to the resolution. We are not debating whether something can come from nothing. I, as a theist, believe that god made the universe ex nihilo. [6] Rather, we are discussing whether something can come from nothing without cause. Mentioning the zero-energy hypothesis seems to miss the point.To conclude, Pro had to show that something which exists can come from a state of absolute nothingness without any external cause. He appealed to quantum mechanics in order to show that this is possible. While his case was very beautiful and well-presented, it was bad with philosophy. The nothing that Pro talks about isn’t actually nothing. The burden of proof has not been upheld.Vale.References[1] http://tinyurl.com...[2] http://tinyurl.com...[3] http://tinyurl.com...[4] Krauss, Lawrence N. A Universe From Nothing. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.[5] Lawrence Krauss, “A Universe from Nothing,” Atheist Alliance International, 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=71mv1S8PL1o.[6] http://tinyurl.com...