Something Instead of Nothing

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.


“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.”

Appearances can be deceptive, often the apparently more fractured can put up a facade of being more together.
So, nihilistic conceptions are unverifyable from the point of view of appearance.

But is nihilism one of total phenomenologically reduced epoch? Or, is it, balanced by the idea, (eidectic) of balancing? In Your case, I think it is of a balance, a gesture, whereby that is achieved.

“The Fundamental Question”
Arthur Witherall

This is always fascinating to contemplate. We are so used to having language at our disposal in communicating what we think and feel, it’s sometimes scarcely possible to imagine that there may well be things beyond the reach of words altogether.

It just depends then on how close this frame of mind comes to God. If you are unable to go there, and you feel a tugging inside, an ineffable conviction that surely there must be some other explanation for the existence of something, awe is certainly one plausable reaction.

And yet as much as we fall back on the assumption that the existence of something is a fact, our minds are also capable of imagining this fact imploding into all manner of surreal explanations. In other words, that even the fact of existence may well be just be illusion embedded in an “agent” that, in ways we do not or even cannot explain, transcends what we think of as something. That we are in someone’s dream, or computer simulation, or in a reality embedded in a multiverse that includes realms and dimensions we have absolutely no understanding of at all.

Or something of this nature:

Bottom line [always so far]: Who the fuck knows?!

The very word “contingency” can only be understood contingent upon all the factors that one can include in attempting to use it as but one more piece in the puzzle.

Awe might even be the closest thing we have to grasp the reason for existences existence.

It exists because it is awesome. It wouldn’t exist if it were anything less than utterly mindbendingly terrific.

The reason for the existence of existence is the cosmic labor theory of value; each universe is a proletariat that produces a surplus of matter and energy… then the bourgeois forces of antimatter and entropy try to consume that surplus and destroy it.

youtu.be/flFyaguUqIo

Non existence cannot persist since Nature will not allow it so by default there always has to be some type of existence
And so it exists not merely because it can but also because it has to - whether it is also awesome is entirely subjective
It may be beyond human comprehension in any absolute sense but this can be stated as a simple fact and nothing else

This is the part however where a frame of mind is derived from an actual set of circumstances. Something [rather than nothing] is awesome as long as the life that you are living now from day to day is awash in meaning and purpose…resplendent with all manner of fulfillment and satisfaction.

Then you can set aside the time needed to contemplate somethingness more philosophically. And, then, on a level that transcends the mundane, you feel some “thing” in your head akin to a “spiritual” wonder that not only is there something that exists, but it is the something that you are living.

And it’s all so terrific! So fucking awesome!!

But: then you tumble down or stumble down into a set of circumstances that takes all this away. Your life has now become a shithole. Not only has your own personal somethingness become a cesspool of misery, but you couldn’t possibly care less to think about it all…“intellectually”.

As usual, encompassed in a frame of mind that appears to suggest that, if others don’t see how obvious this is, they need to be reeducated regarding the stating of a “simple fact”.

Thus, all that stuff accumulated in the gap between what he thinks he knows here and now and a complete and comprehensive understanding of all there is to be known about the existence of something rather than nothing at all, is not really that important to consider at all.