Something Instead of Nothing

I would say that at any given time this is the case. To the best of some people’s ability - scientists, whoever - it is being demonstrated, with whatever success this leads to. I am not sure we ‘need a context in which…’ etc. We might need it for some specific (unnamed here) goal. Though determining that we need that seems to me as problematic as anything thing else. Some people want that.

Though in the latter case there is still internecine disagreement about all sorts of stuff, as you and the thread point out. And utterly fundamental stuff. As far as the former, sure. Most people can see that we have learned to make stuff using scientific research and engineering. What this means about all sorts of is issues is unclear.

Ah, we agree. yes, we don’t know what these feats mean about metaphysics, the nature of reality, what can’t be true, much of what is true and so on.

Then this part…

Yup.

Though popularity may not mean anything. If we look to the past even consensus about somethings did not lead to it continuing to be consensus.

They certainly can’t be now and I doubt they ever will be. If one agrees with that, then the question becomes, potentially, what do I do given that I don’t think this will ever happen?

If one disagrees, what does one base this optimistic evaluation on.

But if one is trying to move things towards greater consensus, if that is your goal, what steps lead to that.

In this thread it seems like the point you make could be summed up as ‘look at all the stuff we don’t understand’.

Now that could be a good approach. Let’s face our situation and this situation includes us not knowing a lot of fundamental stuff.

Is this the best approach? I don’t know.

What other steps would be useful? Based on what knowledge does one decide?

What interpersonal skills are needed?

Who should one build consensus with first?

Or one might decide the goal is unreachable or that one is not the right person or that given all the problems some other activity might be more enjoyable or more important (to one).

Why is there something rather than nothing?
By Robert Adler
From the BBC Earth website

Think about the “underlying geometry” of anything at all in this somethingness we call the universe. However flat or not flat it is, it is always perceived from within the universe itself. Everything is always in relationship to something else. And then to everything else.

It is only when we grapple with describing the “underlying geometry” of nothing at all that the mind implodes. Just to contemplate it requires being a something that can.

And even if the universe itself is construed as flat how can this “flatness” not in turn be in or on or under or over or around or next to something?

Like everything in our somethingness world always is.

This sort of speculation is often discussed in documentaries on the Science Channel here in America. Or in a PBS/Nova doc.

I watch as they introduce all of these elaborate graphics in an attempt to illustrate the point. And all the while I’m thinking that only because something exist that allows them to do this are they actually able to do it at all.

They attempt to explain the existence of space-time as a sphere or a saddle. Or with a balloon being inflated.

But ever and always their attempt to explain something presupposes the existence of the something that they are already in.

I can’t even imagine how they would go about moving beyond theories bursting at the seams with all manner of equally theoretical assumptions to arrive at nothing at all.

And yet this point itself is almost never raised by them.

Why is there something rather than nothing?
By Robert Adler
From the BBC Earth website

And isn’t this “perspective” frame of mind all the more problematic when considering why something – this something – exists and not nothing at all?

At least with the three angles, we actually have things – triangles, balloons, saddles – that allow us to illustrate our point. But what of the variables on hand with respect to nothing at all? Suppose the universe/multiverse isn’t flat at all? Suppose those things that we don’t even know that we don’t even know about it yet make anything that we possibly can know [must know] about it way, way, way beyond what we can even imagine. Possibly even beyond what the human brain is even capable of imagining.

And even here assuming some measure of autonomy.

Only that just begs the question: What of the possible gap between what we think we know about inflation here and now and all that can possibly be known about it.

And [of course] all the while there is always something here to point to and to discuss and to figure out.

Nothing at all on the other hand…?

We can only ever understand that which is both observable and capable of comprehension
We must never assume that all knowledge can ever be known as that is simply not possible

Think about what you are saying here.

On the one hand, you are asserting that “we must never assume that all knowledge can ever be known”. That this is “simply not possible.”

But then this particular claim of knowledge itself seems to be the exception.

In other words, this, in my view, is just another example of the objectivist frame of mind. It asserts things as “I” that “I” cannot possibly demonstrate as in fact true objectively for all of us.

And this [of course] goes back to the gap between the infinitesimal and tiny insignificance of “I” in the staggering vastness of “all there is”.

It’s more a psychological assessment in my view. A wanting to believe that what you think you know about this is true. That somehow your own particular “I” is able to be grounded in knowledge such as this.

Which is no less true of my own assumptions here. But in acknowledging this…how does that make me different from others?

Assuming in turn…

1] a No God world
2] some measure of human autonomy

The inevitability of our extinction means that no knowledge can ever be acquired after the event in question
Even if we could attain immortality it would take longer than infinity to know everything there was to know

The totality of all human knowledge is absolutely infinitesimal in comparison to everything that we do not know and never will know
In an infinite ocean all we have accumulated is one drop of water - in an infinite desert all we have accumulated is one grain of sand

Our extinction however is just another component of somethingness that we can speculate endlessly about but are not able to pin down definitively. You have to actually die first.

This is just more of the same though – an objectivist claim that you have absolutely no capacity to demonstrate is true.

It seems reasonable to me only because I am not able to imagine a frame of mind that might allow me to grasp everything there is to know.

That perspective is ascribed to God. And, no, here and now, I don’t believe in God. But that does not mean that God does not exist. And to the extent that He does, mere mortals [after they die] either will or will not be apprised of His mysterious ways.

As poetry, this may or may not make sense. But, as philosophy, it is no less just another an assertion without a shred of hard evidence to back it up.

Why is there something rather than nothing?
By Robert Adler
From the BBC Earth website

And yet in order to have a few odds and ends [or even lots and lots of them] the universe must first exist as something. So it would seem to be “existence” itself in need of a few odds and ends. And one particular beginning. And what could be odder than it beginning out of nothing at all?

How? Sure, maybe it revolves around this:

But how on earth does one wrap their head around this? How would one go about trying to actually picture it happening?

I must be missing something. Okay, every object in the universe [including you and I] creates gravity. Every object is pulling on every other object. But this part…“this balances the energy needed to create the matter in the first place”…is lost on me.

How does gravity existing in objects that exist in this somethingness universe have any relationship with energy unless the objects creating the gravity already exist?

Though I will be the first to admit I don’t possess either brain power or the education to properly “think this through”.

But who does?

Yeah, illustrate the text with explanations/examples like this. But this is already unfolding in the already existing somethingness. Where’s the “nothing” part come into play? How is that illustrated?

Beyond worlds of words in particular.

Why is there something rather than nothing?
By Robert Adler
From the BBC Earth website

Basically, what this amounts to in my view is an intellectual making a certain set of assumption about relationships he cannot possibly fully grasp; and then merely taking a conjectural leap to the conclusion that “the initial leap from nothing to something may have been inevitable.”

But isn’t this in itself inevitable until we are able to grasp a complete understanding of existence itself? If we are able to. For some though the leap in itself is fascinating enough.

Here I am and here it is: someone in something.

But how…why?

Leading to still more problematic speculation…

Taking the conundrum of something out of nothing to multiple somethings out of multiple nothings in parallel universes that may well operate under an entirely different set of natural laws.

But what doesn’t change is the gap between “sheer speculation” like this the actual reality of what is in fact true. The part that we take to the grave with us.

Which then begets the gap between “sheer speculation” about the part beyond the grave and the actual reality of what is in fact true about that.

From THE DINNER TABLE website.

I can’t actually recall the first time my own mind was boggled by this question. Nor can I put a precise count on the number of times it has boggled my mind since.

And the bottom line is that some no doubt go from the cradle to the grave without it ever once having truly boggled their mind. Either because they have already put all their cards in God or because they are overwhelmingly preoccupied with merely subsisting from day to day. And there are after all countless distractions to take the mind in other directions.

Besides, it’s not an answer that you need to have. It’s not even a pressing question unless you let it be.

But, for some, it ever gnaws at them. And it gnaws at them because they know [more or less deep down inside] that if there is ever to be “closure” regarding any possibly purpose and meaning in their lives, it will eventually get around to that.

From THE DINNER TABLE website.

This either sinks in – really sinks in – or it doesn’t. Look around you. With everything else we can think through it once not existing and then existing. And we certainly exist to think it through it. And we grasp the existence of human biology that allowed us to come into existence in the first place.

But what of existence itself? Is that the one exception? Has that simply always been around? But how to pin that down with any actual clarity.

In other words, if nothing at all is a “crazy concept”, imagine how bent out of shape any particular mind becomes trying to go beyond the concept of nothing, and actually capturing the reality of nothing itself.

Something is always doing the thinking while you try to imagine a nothing so it’s impossible to actually comprehend beyond what is. Consciousness cannot become non-existent because thoughts are always filling the voids whether they be ours or a wiser being who can harness all somethings to become more somethings.

That’s the point though. All we have at our disposal is the thinking “I”. And then the part where “I” go to the grave having lived an unimaginably obscure and insignificant existence in the context of “all there is”: Existence itself.

Of course, different folks will react to that differently. Just as they do to life and death itself. That’s all embodied in dasein.

Some fill in the blanks with God. Others with the belief that whatever is “behind” existence, their own particular life revolved around the “real me” in sync with “the right thing to do”.

At least they got that part right. The ever self-righteous objectivists.

Still, I can only acknowledge my own frame of mind here is but another example in and of itself of “sheer speculation”. There does not appear to be a “right way” to think about any of it.

Besides, who among us really knows what the hell happens to us after we die?

Care to bring this down to earth?

Care to demonstrate how and why “all reasonable men and women are obligated to think like this too”?

What are you saying here about your own consciousness? In relationship to death? In relationship to existence itself?

I have an immortal mind with dementia. :evilfun:

From THE DINNER TABLE website.

Still, just how mind-boggling this all either is or is not to you, is, in turn, just another part of the whole incomprehensible nature of “existence itself”. It can’t be pinned down now because there remains so much that we do not have access to in the way of knowing for sure what is true. We can certainly speculate that in a thousand years the human race will surely know so much more about the reality of reality than we do today. But we have no way in which to know if that will finally be enough. Or if the human brain itself will ever have access to what must be known in order to have enough.

In other words…

Yet even here we can only acknowledge that when we say “we”, we can’t possibly know for certain that no one at all [across the entire globe] is not a lot closer to it than you and I are. That sort of knowledge either comes to our attention or it does not.

All we can do is to Google the question “why is there something instead of nothing?” and then start clicking on the sites like this one where folks do at least make an attempt to answer it.

THE DINNER TABLE

Still, a Creator is one possible explanation. And it’s the explanation that covers every possible question that one might have about something and not nothing. And this something and not something else: God’s will.

And, sure, why can’t the Creator, in being both omniscient and omnipotent, become explanation enough for any questions one might pose about His own existence?

And if that isn’t reason enough to choose God as the explanation, there’s always the parts about immortality, salvation and divine justice.

So, there seems little doubt that a God, the God, my God, will always be the explanation of choice for most. And, even among atheists, there’s always the hankering and the hope that, by some miracle, He is the explanation.

Perhaps the anthropomorphic conception can be improved upon.
By the time an absolute nothingness can be demonstrated, then god will become a certainty.

Really, as some thing and no thing cease to be merely descriptions of preconceived states, then conception, especially immaculate ones , will exemplify more then vestiges of the rape of europa, by a bull.

When a so called personal god may not induce fear as it is nominally derived, within and without It’s own cognitive recognition and understanding, then a new language of love may sprout from the tree of knowledge, as to partake as a branch, rather as the whole tree. The fear of becoming Jesus may not totally consume our Buddha nature.

god forgive me for staring back into your depth!

From THE DINNER TABLE web page

Bingo.

Yes, you have to admire those – scientists, philosophers, the rest of us – who are willing to consider a question like this important enough to pursue. To take it seriously. To ponder how all the other stuff that they do have answers for fits into all the stuff they don’t really have a clue regarding.

Especially stuff that, try as you might, you can never really completely wrap your head around. Stuff that leaves you sputtering and muttering in exasperation.

How does everything fit together in a world where there may or may not be a way of understanding the relationship between nothing and somethings and “I”.

And that’s before we get to the argument over whether we should just leave it all up to God; or to concentrate more fully on all the problems that need to be tended to out in a world that we are almost certain does in fact exist.

And around and around and around we ever seem destined to go here. Not only that, but we don’t really know for sure if it’s only the nature we know in the something we know that is compelling us to go around and around and around.

At least until the day we die.

Then what?

“The Fundamental Question”
Arthur Witherall

It’s always tricky to go here. Many have grappled with the question of something instead of nothing. And some always find themselves coming back to God over and over again. Why? Because that is one possible explanation. And, with God, you don’t have to delve much more beyond it because the existence of God itself is contained in His mysterious ways. We can’t grasp them. So we move on to that which we are able to ponder: the something that He created.

But even some who reject God [like me…“here and now”] find themselves stumbling over into the part about “awe”. We don’t call it a religious awe, but the question of something instead of nothing is so mind-boggling, so inextricably ineffable, it becomes the next best thing.

In, for example, considering what becomes of “I” after death. The mystery of existence qua existence allows at least a sliver of hope that it’s not just nothing at all, oblivion, the abyss, star stuff. Or, rather, that’s how it “works” for me.

Bingo. The perfect reaction perhaps. To ponder all of this as an infinitesimally small and insignificant mere mortal on an infinitesimally small and insignificant planet in an infinitesimally small and insignificant solar system in the vastness of “all there is” – the multiverse? – does seem nonsensical. But the fact that beings actually do exist able to ponder it seems remarkable enough to lend it at least some significance.

And then we get hopelessly stuck again.

Well, not counting I’ve-already-figured-it-all-out objectivists here of course. :wink:

bro. that’s not even a real question. fuckin’ german metaphysicists. all you gotta do is look at the way the word ‘nothing’ is used ordinarily and without abstraction, and you’ll see that the question ‘why something rather than nothing’ isn’t the kind of question you can ask about the nature of all that exists (the universe or whatever).

in the strictest sense, and ontologically speaking, ‘nothing’ never means ‘absence’; we open a cupboard and when noticing it’s empty, we say ‘there’s nothing in the cupboard’. but there most certainly is something in the cupboard… just not the box of triscuits you were looking for.

your friend calls and asks what’s up. you say ‘i’m doing nothing’. impossible. you’re always doing something.

freddie mercury says ‘nothing reeeely maaaters, anyone can see…’, but here he’s referring to values, not the nature of the things valued or not.

‘there’s nothing we can do about it’. we’ve all heard that before. but that’s impossible too. abstaining from action is an action itself.

seriously, give me any example of a statement in which that word is used and i’ll show you how through creating an improper analogy with it, a philosopher will come along and ask something stupid like ‘why something rather than nothing.’

what’s happening here is we take the meaning of the word ‘nothing’ out of an otherwise ordinary context - ‘nothing is there’ , when we expect something to be in place x - and then imagine that it would be possible for the entire universe to be missing.

the reason why there is something rather than nothing is not a matter of there being the logical possibility of there being nothing, and instead there just happened to be something. there can’t be nothing, but that’s not ‘why’, not the reason, there is something. there is no reason for there being something, so to ask ‘why’ there is, is idiotic.

jesus did martin write a whole book about this pseudo-problem? thanks for the heads-up. i’ll be sure not to read it.