[Halc]

The set of integers contains nothing

No. The set of integers contains a number that can denote the absence of stuff.

Please don't quote me out of context.
The set of integers contains integers, which is not an example of nothing.

You are using a different definition of 'nothing', which is fine, but then don't interpret my quote using your definition.

indeterminacy is an essential property of matter, not induced by observation

With this I agree.

[Halc]

It is not trivial because we are stuck with probabilities in experiments.

That cannot go away. That's the nature of the world in which we find ourselves, and any theory that does away with it will not describe us. The problem is, quantum field theory does not describe gravity, so the theory falls apart in places where gravity cannot be ignored. Hence we don't have a working model of what goes on at say a black hole event horizon.

Bohm's theory is just an example but it does not go far enough. There are many others like causal sets or the Many-Worlds, which is a weirder kind.

Bohm's interpretation is full blown acceptance of counterfactual definiteness: That there is a reality that is definitely in some actual state, and that probability arises simply from not being able to know that state.  It is like the shell game where one shell really does contain the token, but until we look under them, we cannot know which.
MWI is also a realist model that says the token is in superposition of being under all three shells, and by peeking, three worlds branch off with the token being in each. It is not a counterfactual interpretation, since the token is not in fact under a specific shell before they are measured.

Realist interpretations suffer from a problem, which is the (current) subject of this topic. It isn't the original subject, but the OP guy has fled the building. The problem is why this universe is real, instead of a different universe, or more in particular, the lack of one?  None of the realist interpretations address that issue, and for that reason I don't buy into either of the interpretations you've mentioned.  Yes, I was a MWI guy for a while, but that point seemed contradictory to me no matter how I looked at it, so I dropped it.

The thing is when you look at QM from a causal sets point of view, it explains so many things without any contradiction that it is just striking. And this is how GR works.

Causal sets is an attempt at quantum gravity and isn't really an interpretation of QM until it unifies with it. So I don't know how to look at QM from a causal sets POV since it's a theory of gravity. I don't know how it would interpret the Schrodinger's cat scenario for instance. Do you?

[CPT ArkAngel]

Superpositions means the probability of finding the state of a particle is 50% up and 50% down. It does not mean it is in a real superposition. You say for you what is real is what can be measured or detected. You can't detect a superposition. Superposition just means you don't have the necessary prior information. Superpositions have never been measured. You either measure up or down. Here I use the 50-50% up down example for simplicity.

The MWI is special because it tries to include the superposition in parallel worlds, but in the end, it is a causal set in many worlds instead of one. There are big problems in the justifications of the cause of the splitting anyway.

Forget the specific theory called Causal Sets Theory, just think of how GR works as a causal set. The farthest star we could see has an impact on us due to gravity, even though you can neglect it in practice because it is too small. Now take a particle and apply this principle to all other interactions...

There is no proof that randomness is fundamental. If you are a tiny part of a huge causal set, you will be stuck with probabilities in practice without having any fundamental randomness. When you throw a ball in the macroscopic world, you can easily get enough information to predict the trajectory but you can't predict with a 100% certainty the exact trajectory, but you could if you had the information on all the rest of the Universe. Now, if you take only a very small number of particles and you have no prior information on them, your power of prediction becomes minimal. Your uncertainty was small for the ball but it is huge for the particles... QM gives the same thing but we need to describe the causal connections for all interactions! And there is quantization, which cause uncertainty by itself in practice (sudden unpredictable steps needing more prior knowledge).

Unrealistic interpretations are not better, they are worst because they all demand more free parameters. Show me a good explanations on why the Universe is the way it is. By Occam's razor, the best should be the one with less free parameters... It is not realistic because it is not real...

[CPT ArkAngel]

Aharonov and his team have lately demonstrated a dependency of the phase of photons and their positions on interference patterns. Not knowing the phase adds to the uncertainty. Not explained by QM random interpretations.

[CPT ArkAngel]

On the measurement problem by Sabine Hossenfelder:

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/

When I speak of the wave function of the Universe, I don't speak of a function giving probabilities but a real function which includes all wave-particles having real trajectories and their intrinsic properties (space-time included). The QM wave-function is not real but represents our expectations due to our limited knowledge. In that sense, I am not a realist. Though QM wave-function includes a part of reality demonstrated by its predictive power which comes from the limited but valid prior knowledge.

[Halc]

Superpositions means the probability of finding the state of a particle is 50% up and 50% down.

I'm no QM expert, but are you saying that superposition is confined to spin measurements, and to 50/50 probabilities? Given what you say below, I don't think you mean that, but it sounds like just an epistemological assertion:  I toss a coin and catch it under my hand and don't know if it's heads or not.  That's not superposition, but your description here seems to indicate it being your understanding of it.

It does not mean it is in a real superposition.

I've never heard of 'real superposition' as distinct from a different sort of superposition. Kindly give an example or a link or something. You've really lost me with all this.

You say for you what is real is what can be measured or detected.

I said that under my preferred view, what is real to X is what has been measured by X. It has nothing to do with what can be measured.

You can't detect a superposition.

Interference is one way superposition is detected. A simple lack of knowledge does not explain interference.

The MWI is special because it tries to include the superposition in parallel worlds, but in the end, it is a causal set in many worlds instead of one.

I don't know your personal understanding of MWI.  There's typically the actual-splitting-worlds interpretation (De Witt) where ontologically distinct worlds result from a measurement, and then there's the relative state formulation (Everett) which is just one thing.  The former has serious problems in my opinion, but the latter has problems as well.

The farthest star we could see has an impact on us due to gravity, even though you can neglect it in practice because it is too small.

Not negligible since there's so bloody many of those distant stars.  They have more effect on our potential energy than do the nearby objects.

There is no proof that randomness is fundamental.

Of course not.  Neither Bohm nor Everett have any randomness in their interpretations, but some others do. Einstein had a significant distaste for it, but most of the QM interpretations at his time posited randomness. I'd love to hear his take on some of the more modern ones.

Now, if you take only a very small number of particles and you have no prior information on them, your power of prediction becomes minimal.

I'd say the particles do not meaningfully exist at all given no prior information on them. I suppose Bohm would say otherwise since he posits a measurement-independent reality.

Unrealistic interpretations are not better, they are worst because they all demand more free parameters.

One that is free of contradictions seems better than one with them, but with fewer 'free parameters'.  Not sure what you consider these free parameters to be.  What's your QM interpretation of choice?  Causal sets is not a QM interpretation.  Not without unification with QM at least. I like the relational one (Rovelli, 1994) for the reasons I've posted in this thread.

[Bill S]

I've never heard of 'real superposition' as distinct from a different sort of superposition.

Possibly this does not refer to “'real superposition' as distinct from a different sort of superposition”, but rather to superposition, as distinct from something that might be proposed as an example of superposition, but is not.
You give a good example of this: “I toss a coin and catch it under my hand and don't know if it's heads or not.  That's not superposition”. 

I'd say the particles do not meaningfully exist at all

A similar interpretational dichotomy could be involved here.  What is the difference between “existence” and “meaningful existence”? 
I would interpret “meaningful existence” as involving some sort of personal judgement of the value/significance of the entity under consideration, which, presumably, exists.  Is that what you meant?

[Bill S]

Particles in physics do appear without cause, so I cannot agree with that part.  Hawking radiation is such an example.

I’m really puzzled by this.  I thought that Hawking radiation had a well described cause, and that this depended on the “vacuum” not being “nothing”. 

[Halc]

I'd say the particles do not meaningfully exist at all

What is the difference between “existence” and “meaningful existence”?

I get the wording from the concept of the principle of counterfactual definiteness (PCD).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_definiteness

(CFD) is the ability to speak "meaningfully" of the definiteness of the results of measurements that have not been performed (i.e., the ability to assume the existence of objects, and properties of objects, even when they have not been measured).
...
In such discussions "meaningfully" means the ability to treat these unmeasured results on an equal footing with measured results in statistical calculations.

My bold.  So for instance, Pilot wave theory holds to CFD, and a photon does in fact go through one slit or the other despite our lack of measurement of that.  A planet 50 billion light years away in fact exists despite the fact that we have not in any way measured it.
An interpretation that does not hold to CFD (any local interpretation in fact) cannot meaningfully say these things. There is no measurement-independent state.

So I said the thing you quoted above because CPD-A² talked about taking "a very small number of particles and you have no prior information on them".  That is a contradiction in an interpretation without CFD.  If there are a few particles, that's information on them, even if the information is not known by anybody.  With CFD, there is no problem with particles that have never been measured.

Particles in physics do appear without cause, so I cannot agree with that part.  Hawking radiation is such an example.

I’m really puzzled by this.  I thought that Hawking radiation had a well described cause, and that this depended on the “vacuum” not being “nothing”.

As I said, I'm no expert here, but my understanding is that virtual particle pair production occurs uncaused all over the place, and most times these pairs immediately self-annihilate, but the tidal forces near an event horizon might pull such particles apart from each other before they can do that.  As they are pulled apart, one gains positive energy and the other negative energy.  The positive one thus becomes a real particle instead of a virtual one.  Something like that....
It happens more with small black holes since the tidal forces are greatest with them.

There are plenty other uncaused events like photon splitting, radioactive decay, etc. but those are not exactly 'particles in space appearing uncaused'.

[Bill S]

I suspected that CFD might be involved, and was interested to see if you differentiated between “speaking "meaningfully" of the definiteness of the results of measurements”, on the one hand, and making assertions about the existence/non-existence of physical objects in a 3+1 (apparent) reality. 

As I said, I'm no expert here, but my understanding is that virtual particle pair production occurs uncaused all over the place,

Almost certainly, I know less about it than you do, but my understanding is that pair-production requires that the vacuum be “something” and that there be an input of energy to act on that “something”. 
Can it be asserted that the presence of that “something”, and the input of energy are without cause?
Do we need an impartial referee, here? 

[Bill S]

I’ve just found a comment by JP, for whose views I have the highest regard. 
In a thread similar to this we were in discussion about the something from nothing idea.  The thread became so convoluted that we switched to PMs to look more closely at whether or not we could say that there could never have been nothing. 
He was adamant that we could not make this claim because, “outside the Universe conditions could exist in which something could come from nothing”. 
I pointed out that “conditions” must surely be something; and although the discussion continued for a while, we never really moved beyond his saying: “The problem with the idea that "nothing can come from nothing" is that to scientifically discuss this, we need to come up with a model, and we can't even describe "absolute nothing" scientifically (or at least I haven't seen a scientifically workable definition)”.

[Halc]

I suspected that CFD might be involved, and was interested to see if you differentiated between “speaking "meaningfully" of the definiteness of the results of measurements”, on the one hand, and making assertions about the existence/non-existence of physical objects in a 3+1 (apparent) reality. 

I don't see how the CFD thing is related to interpretation of time.  Most interpretations, with or without CFD, work both models of reality (time as a dimension or not).

My understanding is that pair-production requires that the vacuum be “something” and that there be an input of energy to act on that “something”. 

No energy is needed for virtual pair production since they have zero mass/energy.  But energy is needed to make the virtual particles real.  That has to come from somewhere.

Can it be asserted that the presence of that “something”, and the input of energy are without cause?

Energy cannot appear uncaused.  That would violate thermodynamic law.
The big bang seems not to violate this since it seems that the universe has zero total energy/mass.  There's enough negative energy to cancel all the positive energy.

I’ve just found a comment by JP, for whose views I have the highest regard. 
In a thread similar to this we were in discussion about the something from nothing idea.  The thread became so convoluted that we switched to PMs to look more closely at whether or not we could say that there could never have been nothing.

Well I'm definitely not in the something from nothing camp.  A realist will say there is something, but not necessarily that it came from nothing, and the whole phrase "ever has been nothing" is a self contradiction.

He was adamant that we could not make this claim because, “outside the Universe conditions could exist in which something could come from nothing”. I pointed out that “conditions” must surely be something

Excellent point.  Especially if it's phrased as 'existing conditions'.

and although the discussion continued for a while, we never really moved beyond his saying: “The problem with the idea that "nothing can come from nothing" is that to scientifically discuss this, we need to come up with a model, and we can't even describe "absolute nothing" scientifically (or at least I haven't seen a scientifically workable definition)”.

A model about that for which there is no empirical test isn't a very scientific one.  I don't claim to be discussing science in this thread.

[CPT ArkAngel]

Superpositions means the probability of finding the state of a particle is 50% up and 50% down.

I'm no QM expert, but are you saying that superposition is confined to spin measurements, and to 50/50 probabilities? Given what you say below, I don't think you mean that, but it sounds like just an epistemological assertion:  I toss a coin and catch it under my hand and don't know if it's heads or not.  That's not superposition, but your description here seems to indicate it being your understanding of it.

It does not mean it is in a real superposition.

I've never heard of 'real superposition' as distinct from a different sort of superposition. Kindly give an example or a link or something. You've really lost me with all this.

You say for you what is real is what can be measured or detected.

I said that under my preferred view, what is real to X is what has been measured by X. It has nothing to do with what can be measured.

You can't detect a superposition.

Interference is one way superposition is detected. A simple lack of knowledge does not explain interference.

The MWI is special because it tries to include the superposition in parallel worlds, but in the end, it is a causal set in many worlds instead of one.

I don't know your personal understanding of MWI.  There's typically the actual-splitting-worlds interpretation (De Witt) where ontologically distinct worlds result from a measurement, and then there's the relative state formulation (Everett) which is just one thing.  The former has serious problems in my opinion, but the latter has problems as well.

The farthest star we could see has an impact on us due to gravity, even though you can neglect it in practice because it is too small.

Not negligible since there's so bloody many of those distant stars.  They have more effect on our potential energy than do the nearby objects.

There is no proof that randomness is fundamental.

Of course not.  Neither Bohm nor Everett have any randomness in their interpretations, but some others do. Einstein had a significant distaste for it, but most of the QM interpretations at his time posited randomness. I'd love to hear his take on some of the more modern ones.

Now, if you take only a very small number of particles and you have no prior information on them, your power of prediction becomes minimal.

I'd say the particles do not meaningfully exist at all given no prior information on them. I suppose Bohm would say otherwise since he posits a measurement-independent reality.

Unrealistic interpretations are not better, they are worst because they all demand more free parameters.

One that is free of contradictions seems better than one with them, but with fewer 'free parameters'.  Not sure what you consider these free parameters to be.  What's your QM interpretation of choice?  Causal sets is not a QM interpretation.  Not without unification with QM at least. I like the relational one (Rovelli, 1994) for the reasons I've posted in this thread.

You don't read carefully. I must admit my writing is generally a high condensate. If you want to understand me you have to read all my posts on this discussion and think about it. But maybe you don't have the background or you just have too much faith in your own beliefs.

I wrote 50-50% is used as an example for simplicity.

Most people think the superposition is real before the measurement and then collapses randomly to a specific value when there is a measurement or an interaction with the system.

What we know is, from our prior knowledge on the system, we can use the wave function to predict what are the possible states at a later measurement. The square of the wave function is a probability distribution which gives you the probability of any specific state within a distribution of possibilities. The measurement gives you a specific state as a result of new knowledge.

The long debate is, why this probability distribution (superposition) seems irreducible but the measurement still gives only specific states. Superposition is never observed.

1- The old rational point of view is simple, there is things you don't know that you need to know in order to predict the exact final state.  This point of view splits into two categories but both mean more work to be done:

A- You can get all the necessary knowledge 

B- There is hidden knowledge you cannot obtain because of the structure and the mechanism.

Category A seems to have been eliminated but there are still loop-holes.

2- Randomness is intrinsic to the system. The major problem is the randomness is not random but follows a complex set of rules giving specific distributions and so on. How is it even possible? This is ridiculous. Applying randomness ad nauseam to vacuum up to cosmology and hoping the models are good. What a joke! This makes good sci-fi stories and that's it from the theoretical point of view.


I told you about my interpretation already. Read my last post and think of it within a causal set.

[Halc]

You don't read carefully. I must admit my writing is generally a high condensate. If you want to understand me you have to read all my posts on this discussion and think about it. But maybe you don't have the background or you just have too much faith in your own beliefs.

What beliefs do you feel I'm pushing? I am trying to convey what I know about the various interpretations, and I may be wrong about some of them. I'm not asserting the correctness of a specific interpretation.

I wrote 50-50% is used as an example for simplicity.

I figured that out, and said so.

Most people think the superposition is real before the measurement and then collapses randomly to a specific value.

Superposition is real (part of fundamental QM theory). Collapse is interpretation dependent and not fundamental to the theory.
But I'm talking about what is (metaphysics), and not about what we know (epistemology).  I don't care if we know the state of something or not. I care if it has a state at all, so 1A and 1B below are metaphysically the same but epistemologically different. QM functionality was part of the universe long before there was anything that understood it, so epistemology isn't going to help us discuss an event like the big bang which happened when nothing was around to know anything about it.

A rock can measure a system, but it cannot manipulate a mathematical model to make predictions.  So I don't care about the ability to predict (other than to verify/falsify one model or another), but I care about what happens when a rock measures system X.

What we know is from our prior knowledge on the system, we can use the wave function to predict what are the possible states at a later measurement. The square of the wave function is a probability distribution which gives you the probability of a specific state within a distribution of possibilities. The measurement gives you a specific state.

Yes, but knowledge of the system and prediction is exactly what I don't care about in this discussion. I care about any interpretation of what the system state actually is, known or not.

The long debate is, why this probability function (superposition) is irreducible but the measurement is still a specific state.

1- The old rational point of view is simple, there is things you don't know that you need to know in order to predict the exact final state.  This point of view splits into two categories:

A- You can get all the necessary knowledge 

B- There is hidden knowledge you cannot obtain because of the structure and the mechanism.

Category A seems to have been eliminated but there are still loop-holes.

2- Randomness is intrinsic to the system. The major problem is the randomness is not random but follows a complex set of rules giving specific distributions and so on. How is it even possible? This is ridiculous. Applying randomness ad nauseam to vacuum up to cosmology and hoping the models are good. What a joke! This makes good sci-fi stories and that's it from the theoretical point of view.

Somebody has a clear bias against the intrinsic randomness interpretations. Instead of making fun of it, show where it is inconsistent. I mean, I don't buy it either, but all the interpretations are a joke to somebody who has chosen a different one. You seem to attempt this in mentioning Aharonov's findings in a prior post, but falsification by mocking seems fallacious.

OK, so you listed 1) a category where the system is in some actual state, and our problem is just that we cannot completely know that state.
You then listed category 2 which involves dice rolling, just like Einstein detested.  You missed all the non-random local interpretations like De-Witt's MWI which you've mentioned before. That doesn't seem to fit into either of your categories.  It isn't category 1 since even perfect knowledge won't let you predict the simplest experiment, and it isn't category 2 since no randomness is involved.  I think De Witt's vision has some empirical flaws, but my point here is that there are more categories than the two you've listed.

Your post suggests you're a hidden-variable kind of guy, but not necessarily anything by Bohm who asserts the reality of the wave function. Causal sets is an approach to quantum gravity, not a QM interpretation, and I got pretty lost trying to read about it.

[CPT ArkAngel]

Many-worlds is 1-B, the hidden variables are the other branches. There are other interpretations like QBism which are difficult to categorize but they are truly metaphysical.

My point is if you start by stipulating that the randomness is intrinsic then this is the end of it. No explanations for how the measurement influence the outcome. See the blog "backreaction". 

I don't think the Causal sets Theory is good. I speak of a general causal set. Logically, from what we have learned before the Schrodinger equation, the Universe is a causal set. There is no limit to the gravitational and EM fields which means each object is always subject to everything else. Now we have QM, which behaves like a causal set if you start with one particle and and then add particles one at a time. QM does not explain everything besides gravity. QCD, QFT... There is no theoretical synthesis of QM as a theory, It is more like an imperfect predictive operator.

The thing is, there is no reason to believe randomness is fundamental. If you don't look, you won't find anything. I've been thinking and reading about this almost everyday for 9 years now. What I have found is mesmerizing, a huge faith in randomness mostly based on weak and incomplete arguments.

I haven't try to falsify anything by mocking, I just expressed my feeling about it. I am ready to bet anything you like on the fact that Quantum Gravity theory will only be achieved within a realistic theory demonstrating that randomness is emergent.

Superposition being real is a belief. It is a mathematical equation... Which does not correspond to what is being observed as a result of a measurement.

I think I've said enough to at least demonstrate that a causal theory with randomness as being emergent is not only possible but probable. Randomness has been adopted, nearly a hundred years ago, more for historical reasons in a fight for prestige than from true scientific reasoning...

[CPT ArkAngel]

If I remember correctly, there are 26 or so necessary irreducible parameters in the current theories of physics as a whole. Twenty six parameters for 3+1 dimensions, this seems to be a very complex system for only four dimensions. Cosmologists will tell you that the Universe should be much simpler. The more parameters above the number of dimensions plus a few others, the less likely it is. To reduce the number of parameters by a huge factor, you need unification of many of them. Randomness is in the way of progress because physics needs reductionism desperately. We must learn about what's under the hood.

[Bill S]

I don't see how the CFD thing is related to interpretation of time.  Most interpretations, with or without CFD, work both models of reality (time as a dimension or not).

Interesting that you selected time; presumably from the reference to “a 3+1 (apparent) reality”, and ignored the essence of the quote.

No energy is needed for virtual pair production since they have zero mass/energy.

 

Shouldn’t that be zero net mass/energy?  If so, that’s quite different.  If something has no mass and no energy, in what sense does it exist?

The big bang seems not to violate this since it seems that the universe has zero total energy/mass.  There's enough negative energy to cancel all the positive energy.

It’s that “total/net” dichotomy again.

“Zero-energy universe. The zero-energy universe hypothesis proposes that the total amount of energy in the universe is exactly zero: its amount of positive energy in the form of matter is exactly canceled out by its negative energy in the form of gravity.”

Unless you say that positive energy = nothing, and negative energy = nothing, the “zero” must refer to net energy, not total energy.  Of course, I could have that wrong, but I do tend towards a pragmatic view.

Well I'm definitely not in the something from nothing camp.

I think that’s worth a “gold star”.

….the whole phrase "ever has been nothing" is a self contradiction.

Agreed; I’m always looking for better ways to express that idea.

Excellent point.  Especially if it's phrased as 'existing conditions'.

Thanks.  If the conditions were not “existing”, they would not exist, so there would be no conditions.  Right?

I don't claim to be discussing science in this thread.

I’m not sure where the dividing line between science and semantics might be in this thread, but it is still throwing up some interesting stuff.

[Bill S]

Archangel; I have, so far, only skimmed through your posts, but I plan to return for a better look.  I suspect that much of what you say would fit well with Bohm’s implicate/explicate orders.  If so, is that intentional?

[Halc]

There are other interpretations like QBism which are difficult to categorize but they are truly metaphysical.

Most interpretations are metaphysical. Copenhagen was originally intended as an epistemological interpretation, but some take it as a metaphysical description.

Many-worlds is 1-B, the hidden variables are the other branches.

You grossly misrepresent the interpretation. It is not 1-B. Everett's paper lists only one postulate:

All isolated systems evolve according to the Schrodinger equation.

There are no hidden variables in there and it is entirely deterministic (no randomness). All the rest is corollaries. It is the essence of simplicity.
Unlike De Witt's take on MWI, Everett's MWI does not postulate that at certain magic instances, the the world undergoes some sort of metaphysical “split” into branches.

The thing is, there is no reason to believe randomness is fundamental.

I agree here, and hold no such beliefs myself, but you've not falsified such interpretations. Anyone who believes in any interpretation to the exclusion of others is exercising faith based on what would probably be seen as weak and incomplete arguments by those holding a different belief.

I am ready to bet anything you like on the fact that Quantum Gravity theory will only be achieved within a realistic theory demonstrating that randomness is emergent.

A quantum gravity theory probably will not resolve the QM interpretation issue.  It might cull out a few of them.  I doubt that all the randomness interpretation will be thus culled out (I'd take your bet in other words). The Schrodinger equation will need editing since the current one does not describe gravitational effects.

Superposition being real is a belief. It is a mathematical equation.

No, it's a real demonstrated fundamental thing, not even something asserted by interpretations. It might be described by a mathematical equation. The orbit of Earth is similarly described by a mathematical equation, but that doesn't mean that the Earth doesn't actually orbit the sun.
This seems to be a point of difference in our opinions.  I'm talking about what is, and you're talking about how we describe it. Physics worked long before anything came along that understood and described it.  I'm talking about that physics, not the description of it.

I think I've said enough to at least demonstrate that a causal theory with randomness as being emergent is not only possible but probable.

Not just probable.  Most interpretations deny intrinsic randomness, so their probability of existence is 100%. In fact, I'm not even sure which ones posit intrinsic randomness. Possibly the metaphysical Copenhagen interpretation I mentioned above.  It's hard to find a formal description of it because it seems to vary from one person to the next.

[Halc]

No energy is needed for virtual pair production since they have zero mass/energy.

 
Shouldn’t that be zero net mass/energy?  If so, that’s quite different.  If something has no mass and no energy, in what sense does it exist?

Yea, zero net, and yes, they don't really exist yet, hence being virtual particles instead of real ones. Separating virtual particles might yield positive energy to one and negative to the other such that the positive one might become real, just like Pinocchio.

It’s that “total/net” dichotomy again.

Is there a difference?  If I have objects with -3, -2, 1, 4 energy respectively, that's a net of zero and a total of zero, no?  Perhaps I'm missing the difference here.

“Zero-energy universe. The zero-energy universe hypothesis proposes that the total amount of energy in the universe is exactly zero: its amount of positive energy in the form of matter is exactly canceled out by its negative energy in the form of gravity.”
Unless you say that positive energy = nothing, and negative energy = nothing, the “zero” must refer to net energy, not total energy.

Don't understand.  -5 + 5 = 0 total, not just 0 net.  Anyway, your quote identifies it as hypothesis.  We don't actually have a measurement of the total, or more meaningfully, the energy density of the universe.  I computed it once and got a very negative number, but then I probably did one or both sides wrong.

….the whole phrase "ever has been nothing" is a self contradiction.

Agreed; I’m always looking for better ways to express that idea.

Just don't say 'come from'.  It implies an act of creation within something, in which case it just begs why the something it is within exists.

I found the best way to phrase it is not to say it at all, since it begs premises which I do not hold. The inability to phrase it correctly is a huge clue that it's contradictory and that there is a bias which needs to be reconsidered.  That's really hard to do, and I've only done it a couple times.

If the conditions were not “existing”, they would not exist, so there would be no conditions.  Right?

That's right, but not necessarily the point. The point is that 'conditions' is a poor example of 'nothing'.

I don't claim to be discussing science in this thread.

I’m not sure where the dividing line between science and semantics might be in this thread, but it is still throwing up some interesting stuff.

If your idea makes a testable prediction, it's science. I don't think anything I've said qualifies along those lines. I'm reaching for logic more than say physics.