Lawrence Krauss on the Origin of the Universe from Nothing

In my first post, I pointed out that one explanation for the origin of the universe is that it came into being uncaused. Some philosophers reject this on the grounds that from nothing, nothing comes; nothingness has no potential to bring anything into existence. Other philosophers, especially David Hume, counter that the idea of the universe coming into being uncaused is logically coherent and that principles such as "whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence" cannot be demonstrated by deductive argument.

However, someone pointed me to a contemporary argument for a universe that comes from nothing. In A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing, Lawrence Krauss argues that the universe came from nothing. His argument runs:

1. The universe came from a quantum vacuum.
2. A quantum vacuum is nothing.
3. Therefore, the universe came from nothing.

The problem lies with the second premise. A quantum vacuum is not nothing; it's a state of low energy, not an empty void. Physicists such as Krauss are treating nothing as if it were something and then concluding that the universe came from nothing when it came from something. Indeed, Neil deGrasse Tyson, in his praise for Krauss' book, says:

Nothing is not nothing. Nothing is something. That's how a cosmos can be spawned from the void -- a profound idea conveyed in A Universe From Nothing that unsettles some yet enlightens others.

I don't know how to be charitable here. Tyson is saying that A is not A but is in fact non-A. Hence, he's violating both the law of identity and the principle of non-contradiction, both of which are fundamental to rational thought and logic.

The upshot is that if any state of affairs spawned the universe, then it is not the case that the universe came into being from nothing.

Further reading

"On the Origin of Everything" by David Albert.

"Nothingness" by Roy Sorensen. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.