The Physics of Nothing - Uncertainty is the source of Creativity

Physicist Ethan Siegal has a knack for making difficult concepts accessible to a general audience of non-physicists  (like myself). In his blog 'Starts With A Bang' he stays away from the heavy math, and uses lots of beautiful images, cartoons, and quotes to communicate the essential ideas. Two posts that cover the concept of a physical definition of nothingness, and it's relation to the unfolding of our ever expanding universe serve as nice examples (here, and here).

Philosophically the idea of 'nothing' is difficult to comprehend. We can only imagine it in relation to 'something'. Often what we imagine is empty space. This empty space however is not really 'empty'. As Siegal puts it:

We are surrounded by matter, radiation, and energy everywhere we look. Even if we blocked it all out — creating a perfect, cold, isolated vacuum — we still wouldn’t have nothing.We would still exist in curved spacetime.

We can only imagine the form of ‘nothingness’ where a space/time dimension is completely flat.

Even on the smallest physical scale (a Planck scale) with curvature removed, space-time is still not completely empty. On a Planck scale, relative to human scale a single atom is about the size of the sun. On this scale in a quantum vacuum, fundamental physical particles do not exist as separate objects the way we conceptualize objects normally. Empty space even on this scale is not really 'empty' but instead vibrates, and this vibration contains a fundamental uncertainty (look up ‘Uncertainty Principle’).  

Siegal describes this vibrational uncertainty:

This quantum vacuum — on these very small scales — manifests this fundamental uncertainty by spontaneously creating pairs of particles-and-antiparticles for very brief amounts of time.

Recent state of the art experiments in vacuum chambers suggest that this fluctuating uncertainty creates an attractive force that is always present within this type of 'nothingness'. Ironically the attractive force within this type of 'nothingness' can only cause an expansion. The result is an expanding universe ('something' from a type of 'nothingness'). The source of the expanding universe is uncertainty. 

The quantum state is uncertain, yet full of possibility for expansion and creativity.

Lets compare this cutting edge physics to another of Lao Tzu's insights, paragraph 1 of Chapter 25 of the Tao Te Ching as translated by Stan Rosenthal:

25. THE CREATIVE PRINCIPLE OF TAO
The creative principle unifies
the inner and external worlds.
It does not depend on time or space,
is ever still and yet in motion;
thereby it creates all things,
and is therefore called
'the creative and the absolute';
its ebb and its flow extend to infinity.

The creative ('something' from 'nothing') principal unifies the subjective and objective worlds. It does so even when the space-time curvature is flattened. In the quantum state paradoxically there is both stillness and motion, and this flux holds the possibility for infinite creativity. Taoist philosophy does not speak in absolutes other than in paradoxical form such as, 'the only constant is change'. Here I interpret 'the creative and the absolute' to refer to uncertainty.

Creativity has as it's source a well of uncertainty which is absolute.

Siegal also quotes Alan Watts connecting this concept with Buddhist philosophy. 
(click the quote for video)

  "Nothingness is really like the nothingness of space,which contains the whole Universe. All the Sun and the stars and the mountainsand rivers and the good men and the bad men and the animals and the insects,the whole bit: all arecontained in the void. So out of this void comes everything, and you're it.

Finally, the great physicist Niels Bohr was famously quoted:

“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.”

These concepts seem to me continuous between the objective world of physical observations, and the subjective world of cognitive insights. If we begin from a place of subjective certainty we will likely be drawn towards observations that confirm our certainty, thus nothing novel will be created. If we embrace our subjective uncertainties perhaps an intrinsic curiosity may emerge. This curiosity will emerge not in search of confirmation, but instead to attract understanding.
  

"It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives." --Francis Bacon

"Nothing contains all things. It is more precious than gold, without beginning and end… Nothing always inspires. Where Nothing is, there ceases the jurisdiction of kings." - See more at: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/01/the-eternal-renewal-of-the-vacuum.html#more

"Nothing contains all things. It is more precious than gold, without beginning and end… Nothing always inspires. Where Nothing is, there ceases the jurisdiction of kings." - See more at: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/01/the-eternal-renewal-of-the-vacuum.html#more

"Nothing contains all things. It is more precious than gold, without beginning and end… Nothing always inspires. Where Nothing is, there ceases the jurisdiction of kings." - See more at: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/01/the-eternal-renewal-of-the-vacuum.html#more

"Nothing contains all things. It is more precious than gold, without beginning and end… Nothing always inspires. Where Nothing is, there ceases the jurisdiction of kings."--
Otto von Guerike

"on the microscopic level there exists a further source of still more radical uncertainty, embedded in the quantum structure of matter. A mutation is in itself a microscopic event, a quantum event, to which the principle of uncertainty consequently applies. An event which is hence and by its very nature essentially unpredictable."--Jacques Monod - Chance and Necessity (1970)

 

The Tao of Entropy

Over at the always excellent Empirical Zeal there is a new post that helps provide a non-mathematical understanding of the strange concept of negative temperature (related to a new finding in physics). The post is titled  'What the Dalai Lama can teach us about temperatures below absolute zero' and is well worth a read. Perhaps I will post on negative temperature when I get a good conception of it's potential implications.

For now, in this less ambitious post I am going to briefly introduce the normal everyday type of temperature and link it to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, increasing entropy, and chapter 77 of the Tao Te Ching.

As pointed out at Empirical Zeal:

Temperature measures the average kinetic energy of motion of particles. When you heat a substance, you’re speeding up its molecules, and when you cool it down, you’re slowing the molecules down. 

Temperature, motion and energy are unified, and you can play with the relationships using this online simulation (click the heater box and slide the temperature).

The second law of thermodynamics describes the tendency of all closed systems to approach equilibrium. This tendency only moves in one direction (with time) and we call this tendency of approaching equilibrium, increasing entropy. Often it is also described as a movement away from order and towards disorder. It requires work through an infusion of energy to delay this process. One example of increasing entropy is your hair style. After styling (an ordered state), if left alone the hair style will become more disordered. 

It is required by the nature of thermodynamics that energy flows from high energy states to lower energy states as fast as the constraints internal to the system will allow.

Take for example a cabin the in woods heated by a wood stove. When the stove is burning the wood, the energy state inside the cabin is greater greater than that outside the cabin. The hot temperature inside has greater kinetic energy than the cooler temperature outside the cabin. Gradually however, heat will be lost as it flows from the higher energy state inside cabin to the lower energy state outside the cabin.  

If a window or door inside the cabin is open the flow of energy will be less constrained and therefore will dissipate more rapidly than if the boundaries of the cabin more tightly constrained the heat. This relates to another physics principle known as the 'Principle of least action'. Regardless to the strength of the constraints, the flow of energy will always be directed from higher energy to low energy otherwise known as increasing entropy. This tendency is behind all the change that we experience.

Some find this dynamic depressing since everything at some level is in the process of dissipation. As is always the case however, there is another way to view the dynamic. Nature is altruistic in the sense that in every interaction it takes from what is more excessive, and gives to what is weaker. Thus at Empirical Zeal they define temperature as follows:

Temperature measures the willingness of an object to give up energy

Lau Tzu had this insight some 2500 years ago. Here is a translation of chapter 77 thanks to Stan Rosenthals online version:

77. THE WAY OF THE TAO
The Tao is as supple as a bow;
the high made lower, and the lowly raised.
It shortens the string which has been stretched,
and lengthens that which has become too short.
It is the way of the Tao to take from those
who have a surplus to what they need,
providing for those without enough.

The way of the ordinary person,
is not the way of the Tao,
for such people take from those who are poor
and give to those who are rich.

The sage knows that his possessions are none,
therefore he gives to the world;
without recognition, doing his work.
In this way he accomplishes
that which is required of him;
without dwelling upon it in any way,
he gives of his wisdom without display.

 The first sentence of the chapter describes this altruistic tendency in nature. 

The second sentence describes the misguided and overly self-conscious tendency to insulate ourselves from others and the outside world in an unbalanced way.

Life emerges from non-life, not by violating the entropic tendency, but by flourishing in the flow that entropy makes possible. This can only occur when each sub-system accepts the constraints that its complementary opposite provides. In this way the tendency toward disorder makes order possible, and the tendency towards dissipation causes things to flourish.

The third sentence describes how we might increase flourishing both within ourselves , and in the world outside by following the example of nature.