Something Instead of Nothing

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.

Maybe.

But the words that we are exchanging in this forum on this planet in this solar system in this galaxy in this universe appear to be a part of something linked to whatever it means to speak of something going all the way back to the existence of existence itself out of or not out of nothing at all.

And all of this is somehow intertwined in, among other things, the something that is Martin and Adolph and genocide of the Jews. And not all that long ago if we go back to the Big Bang.

And then speculating as to why and how that came to be something instead of something else.

“The Fundamental Question”
Arthur Witherall

To be awed or not to be awed? That is the question. And, as always, “I” am down in my hole, fractured and fragmented.

It seems rather certain the “I” that I have come to embody here and now will tumble over into the abyss that is nothingness before there is an answer to this question able to tackle it once and for all.

So, for all practical purposes, it might just as well all be meaningless. Only I have managed to think myself into believing that the answer to the question “why is there something – this something – instead of nothing at all?” – is somehow linked to the answer to the question, “what happens after ‘I’ die”?

It’s just a teeny tiny sliver of hope but, in the interim, what else is there? In other words, unless and until others can convince me of another possibility. God or otherwise.

That is clearly “what is at stake” here. For all of us eventually. And this is merely how “I” – existentially – have come to “interpret the problem” as dasein.

Ever and always assuming that, sure,“I” am going about it all wrong. Then back to what others are actually able to demonstrate to me as a more reasonable, more hopeful frame of mind.

So, “what on earth” does that mean? It’s a typical “general description” of the problem that, on the other hand, all serious philosophers come too, probe more or less “daringly” over the course of their own lives, die, and then punt it on to the next generation of more or less didactic scholars.

But don’t get me wrong: What else is there?

Until science, using its own methods, is able to offer up more substantive evidence one way or another, philosophers are left basically to explore it all “metaphysically” in a world of words.

“The Fundamental Question”
Arthur Witherall

Existentially, given the manner in which my own thoughts and feelings regarding “the fundamental question” have evolved over the course of my lived life, the feeling of awe continues to accelerate.

Which is only to point out the obvious: that, the more I think about it, the less certain I am that any answer at all can possibly make sense. Let alone encompass the most rational manner in which to make sense of it.

It seems to be the very embodiment of antinomy itself.

Either that or embedded somehow in my own psychological reaction to death, to oblivion. The awe being all that I have left to cling to.

All I know is that I felt considerably less awe toward God in my Christian years than I feel today in grappling with the mystery embedded in the very existence of existence itself.

Sure, philosophers with their, at times, preposterously ponderous intellectual contraptions can attempt to lessen the awe in asserting this or that about “universal laws”, “probabilities” and “teleology”. And all these hopelessly didactic – pedantic? – assessments need but do is to work for them. Reality is pinned down “in their head”. The end. Over and out.

Here is yet another assessment of the fact that there are still so many “unknown unknowns” that we are not yet privy to in regard to that which we call “something”:

washingtonpost.com/outlook/ … 4957d7ec35

“The Fundamental Question”
Arthur Witherall

No, in my view, one can only argue that…

1] “In my own opinion
2] here and now
3] certain individuals are predisposed existentially to find that something rather than nothing is appropriate and desirable”

And that’s crucial because then we avoid altogether the discussion of whether one is obligated to feel this way as a rational human being.

Unless of course someone actually can demonstrate that this is in fact the case.

After all, if your life is awash in all manner of pain and suffering, the last thing you might feel about something – about anything – is how appropriate and desirable it is.

And yet it is no less human psychology that is shaped and molded by a particular aggregation of genes and memes. And “why” what pertaining to what particular set of circumstances?

Right, until it actually comes time to communicate with others what this “something” is. When that unfolds and the answers don’t coincide there is a tendency [among objectivists in particular] to be convinced that their own answer comes closest to the optimal explanation.

All the more reason [for some] to avoid providing any answer at all.

Again, from my frame of mind, individuals react to the question based on the variables in their lives that predispose them to consider it as more or less important.

Only then do those it does intrigue come around to pondering whether “philosophically” it is worth pursuing more substantively.

But:

How on earth can anyone actually demonstrate that the question itself is a “piece of nonsense”? That sort of thinking would seem to be more nonsensical to me.

It’s a question that our brains are in fact able to ask. And assuming some measure of autonomy, who is to say what is nonsense in attempting to answer it.

The specifics might be unknown but they are actually irrelevant because death is simply a universal feature of Existence
Everything dies as the Second Law Of Thermodynamics has an absolutely one hundred per cent record in respect of this

Existence is a state of being rather than a physical thing as such so it cannot die but everything else does
So the future is not always a blank slate as some things will definitely happen regardless of anything else

My own death for example is an absolute certainty - there is no way I will achieve immortality as this mind in this body
It is therefore not speculation to make a claim about a future event that will definitely happen but actually has yet to

You accuse me of being an objectivist but from my own perspective you are being even more so in refusing any truth statements at all about the future
And therefore can your objectivist mindset accept as inevitable that you are going to die - that the Sun is going to die - that the Universe is going to die
Entropy is a feature of any system and when there is insufficient energy to do any more work then every thing within that system - including itself - dies

This is not a religious or philosophical truth but a scientific one and one that is therefore relatively easy to demonstrate :

After the Sun has reached a state of maximum entropy - another five billion years - life on Earth will become extinct from that point on
Even if some of our descendants actually manage to colonise another world that will be merely delaying the inevitable - no more no less

So regardless of what your objectivist mind thinks of these words of mine the Second Law Of Thermodynamics will go on slowly destroying life like it always has

My own mind which is a combination of subjectivist and objectivist - like all functioning minds including yours - sees death as just a point on the spectrum of Existence
Even after I die I will still exist in some form as something will always exist in some form or another - though by then it will not matter and it doesnt really matter now

That’s like someone saying that their own extinction from the human race is reconfigured by God into immortality and salvation in Heaven. But the specifics of this God’s existence is actually irrelevant.

As though an understanding of the Second Law Of Thermodynamics is intertwined in an understanding of existence itself intertwined in why there is something and not nothing. But the specifics that finally explain all of this are actually irrelevant.

In my view another exasperating assertion. You propound, posit, postulate that this is an essential truth about existence as though merely believing it is demonstration enough that it is true.

Then when you do bring it down to earth existentially it’s, well, the same thing:

As though you have investigated the deaths of others – death itself – and are now able to demonstrate to the world that there is no way that anyone will achieve immortality as their mind in their body.

You just know this.

First of all, my understanding of objectivism here revolves solely around the assumption that my own argument is no less an existential contraption. I have no capacity to demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to think as I do here.

And that’s my point. From my own subjective vantage point here and now, an objectivist is someone who argues that there are absolutely true things to be said about the future and that what he or she says about the future is an example of how and why this is true.

And that these truths are so even if one is not able to demonstrate how and why these predictions are in sync with an understanding of existence itself in sync with an understanding of how and why there is an existence rather than no existence at all.

You don’t even have the capacity to demonstrate beyond all doubt that this very exchange is not wholly in sync with the laws of matter such that predictions about the future are in and of themselves embedded in the only possible future.

But even this does not explain why and how it is this something and not another something in something and not nothing at all.

As though this particular understanding is, again, as far as you need go in order to “prove” that God is not factor here or that this particular something was necessary rather than nothing at all.

You just can’t bring yourself to acknowledge the gap between what you think you know about all of this in your head here and now and all that can be known [must be known] in order to definitively resolve all of the “unknown unknowns” that even science still faces.

An example I noted above: washingtonpost.com/outlook/ … story.html

Or this part:

“It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe.”

Q.E.D?

“The Fundamental Question”
Arthur Witherall

Still, the point I always raise here is not what someone believes about a question of this sort but how and why they came to believe what they did. Only to the extent “I” here is understood to be an “existential contraption” can we move beyond the argument of whether one ought to believe either this or that.

Joe thinks it’s a meaningless question. Jane thinks it’s the most important question of all.

But neither are able to show the world why and how one or the other position must become the default for all future discussions.

Instead, it’s basically an existential assumption rooted in all of the variables that came together to make them think what they do here and now.

At least until an argument is made [and then demonstrated to be true] that does in fact seem to pin down an answer all rational men and women are obligated to accept.

On the other hand, it would seem only natural for someone cognizant of their own existence to wonder what that does mean.

This would seem to be no less an existential reaction to the question. Believing is one thing, probing the etiology of that belief seems of far more importance. Why do some believe an explanation is required while others do not? Because they read Wittgenstein?

All Ludwig nudged us in the direction of believing is that “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”.

But what on earth does that mean? Relating to what in particular? If the human brain can pose the question [assuming human autonomy], then speaking of it will almost certainly follow.

“The Fundamental Question”
Arthur Witherall

Here we immediately get stuck in grappling to understand the relationship between the something that we believe does exist and how it managed to evolve into the something we call “I” able to ask these questions in the first place.

What then is the fundamental answer to this fundamental question: “How are human thoughts and human emotions intertwined in a brain able to ponder something instead of nothing at all?”

Is one better equipped than the other in providing answers? And then the part where “intuitively” they both seem to be intertwined in a truly problematic manner?

And [of course] the part where all of our answers are subsumed in the only possible answers we could ever possibly have given in a wholly determined universe.

Bingo! The role of language itself here. Words and worlds. And [perhaps] the only word more problematic than “why” is “because”.

Or maybe even “is” itself?

“Why” “because” “is”. In regards to nothing at all?

The brain becomes fried here precisely because empirically nothing at all has ever been around whereby these words [and all the other ones] were used.

“The Fundamental Question”
Arthur Witherall

Clearly, in the evolution of matter into mind, there are biological imperatives built into our genetic self. And, among them, there appears to be a universal capacity to feel awe. Just as there appears to be nary a community among our species [historically and culturally] that did not concoct one or another narrative that revolved around and embodied both morality and religion.

Instead, it’s the part revolving around memes, and the parts embedded existentially in individual experiences that come to encompass whatever particular awe some one particular individual might feel about “the fundamental question”.

Approach it along these lines and, in my view, the debate regarding whether one ought to feel awe about something instead of nothing more or less disappears.

In other words, for all practical purposes, no one is obligated to think about it at all. Not when faced with all that goes into the clear obligation to subsist from day to day.

And any number of us have opted out of even that obligation — they commit suicide.

Exactly. The question is there. And it is there because, unlike all other species of life on the planet, our minds are able to pose it. Coupled with the fact that feeling awe is part of the tool kit that nature provides us with merely in the fact of being born.

It only becomes a “philosophical question” to those who come [existentially] to ponder the question “metaphysically”.

Wittgenstein himself grappled with the tangled complexities embedded in exploring the relationship between words and worlds. Of words in worlds.

Here we encounter things like logic and epistemology. But what are the limitations of both in groping to answer questions like this?

I will be a long time dead before that ever happens - or to be more precise - if it ever happens . As for my apparent inability to acknowledge the gap nothing could be further from the truth . As in the grand scheme of things my own knowledge base amounts to absolutely nothing and while that is also true for everyone else I am still humble enough with regard to all that I do not or will never know . All I do is justify my own reasoning from within my own very restricted knowledge base as best as I can and learn from others who possess greater understanding than I do . I am therefore under no illusion whatsoever about my own limitations and neither should I be

IOW even if there are problems, which there are, there is no need to beat yourself up for not being God and thus creating another problem.

Yeah, me too. And this – subconsciously? – seems to trigger [in some] a psychological need to come as close as they possibly can to “settling things” “in their head” regarding gigantic questions like this.

But: to the extent this is applicable to you, is, of course, way, way, way beyond my capacity to examine. I merely suggest it is likely to be way, way, way beyond the capacity of even ourselves. There is just too big a gap between “I” and a comprehensive understanding of “all there is”.

On the other hand, sure, maybe I’ve got the rest of it wrong too.

Fair enough. All I am reacting to [subjectively] is the manner in which you seem – seem to me – to convey your points here with a degree of certainty that, down in my “hole” as a “fractured and fragmented” “me”, I am not able to match.

And, okay, maybe in a way I do not fully grasp myself, my exasperation with this spills over more than is necessary in reacting to those who seem considerably less fractured and fragmented than I am.