Philosophical Podcast

Richard Potter, President, Harper Corditt Software

Back in the days when I was pursuing a career in the philosophy profession, almost all of the articles I submitted to various journals were rejected.  Without a track record of publications, it is practically impossible to obtain permanent employment in academia.  As a result, I left  philosophy and learned a trade (software engineering) so I could make a living.

One exception to my dismal publication record was an article I wrote entitled, “How to Create a Physical Universe Ex Nihilo”, which was published in the journal, Faith and Philosophy.  An earlier version of my paper was read at the meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers, held at the University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, on April 9, 1983.  I am indebted to William P. Alston, George I. Mavrodes, and an anonymous referee from Faith and Philosophy for their helpful criticisms of that earlier version.  I am also indebted to the editor of the journal for accepting my paper for publication.  It is difficult to express how much it meant to a young philosopher that someone would actually find some merit in his research.

Here is a link to the original article which is now online:

How to Create a Physical Universe Ex Nihilo

Recently, I was quite surprised when I discovered that my article had been converted via AI into a podcast by academia.edu.  The podcast does not cover the entire content of my original paper; instead, it summarizes the main argument.  I think it does a pretty good job in that regard.

There is one other thing that I didn't mention in my original paper that might be of interest to others.

My model of the creation of the physical universe allows us to avoid the assumption that the physical universe emerges from a single point of infinite mass.  Indeed, my model allows for the possibility that the physical universe was always of some finite size.  For example, we can imagine a spherical region S whose radius R is 1 Planck length.  As we go further and further back in time towards the beginning of the universe, we find that the univese is always at least as large as S.  Its radius gets closer and closer to R without ever actually reaching R.

Although the mathematical model in question is logically coherent, I'm sure that this idea must violate some condition that is required by the Big Bang theory.  But since I am not a cosmologist, I will have to leave it at that.