Something Instead of Nothing

“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.

It does suggests that, but as suggestions go, they are merely powered by self induced perspectivism. They conveniently omit the program as a simulated paradigmn of transcendentially established adhesive embededness.
(Per Your. and Polanyi’s definition.)

Here is Polanyi’s definition analyzed:

Embeddedness

In economics and economic sociology, embeddedness refers to the degree to which economic activity is constrained by non-economic institutions. The term was created by economic historian Karl Polanyi as part of his substantivist approach. Polanyi argued that in non-market societies there are no pure economic institutions to which formal economic models can be applied. In these cases economic activities such as “provisioning” are “embedded” in non-economic kinship, religious and political institutions. In market societies, in contrast, economic activities have been rationalized, and economic action is “disembedded” from society and able to follow its own distinctive logic, captured in economic modeling. Polanyi’s ideas were widely adopted and discussed in anthropology in what has been called the formalist–substantivist debate.[1]Subsequently, the term “embeddedness” was further developed by economic sociologist Mark Granovetter, who argued that even in market societies, economic activity is not as disembedded from society as economic models would suggest.[2

Note: if doubt were to arise between e economic theory and ontological analysis of existence, let’s not forget that substantial of ‘subance’ can refer to both, in light of the passed up economic theory of the ‘ID’ by Freud.

But, if that objection fails any remediation, then , iambig, take Your definition as the most reducible and paradigmnal.

However here is an ontological tie-in, as a down to earth relevance to Capital and dispossession.:

Abstract
This article offers a substantive understanding of the variegation of capitalism, in an attempt to move beyond the current impasse in the mainstream varieties-of-capitalism approach. Drawing on existing conceptualizations of capitalism-society relationships, as well as on Agamben’s reconceptualization of the Foucaldian notion of ‘dispositif’, the article identifies the ontological ‘dispositifs’ of embeddedness, dispossession and subsumption, associating them with ‘purely relational’, ‘sovereignty-based’ and ‘dualistic’ ontologies of capitalism, respectively. The article argues that these dispositifs are instrumental in capitalism’s process of subjectification, laying the foundations for a renewed belief in capitalism even under the most adverse conditions.

Copyright © 2019 by SAGE Publications

Only two days ago and in this very thread too did I genuinely acknowledge the limitation of my own knowledge and the humility that goes with such a revelation
But here you are once again implying that I possess some monopoly on wisdom and / or that which I do not know does not matter so makes no difference anyway

I make no claim to know more than anyone else and all I do is try to justify any statements that I do make THAT I HOLD TO BE TRUE as rigorously as possible
Thus me stating that how awesome the Universe is can be stated as a simple fact and nothing else is only true FROM MY OWN PERSPECTIVE AND NO ONE ELSES

SO WHAT YOU OR ANYONE ELSE THINKS IS FOR YOU OR THEM TO DECIDE UPON AS I DO NOT SPEAK FOR ANYONE OTHER THAN MYSELF
As I have precisely zero interest in convincing anyone of anything so no one is under any compulsion to take anything I say as gospel

You seem entirely incapable of not applying straw man motivations to my reason for posting even after I have clearly demonstrated that they are totally false
Your own mind is so concerned with discovering the absolute truth that everytime I say something it disagrees with it assumes on my part some ulterior motive

So from now on could you restrict your comments to what I actually post and keep the pop psychology about why I post it to yourself if that is at all possible

I hope so as I have precisely zero desire to waste any more mental energy on having to remind you once again of everything that I have just said
So have a word with that mind of yours to make sure it remembers this time as it does seem to unfortunately have a rather unreliable memory

Hmm, no thats no how it went with me. I actually was close to dying of regret and misery when I came to the conclusion of awesomeness. How? Beats me but it goes to show, its a pretty strong truth.

Well (haha funny) I agree with it in broad strokes. The universe builds itself up bottom-up by the combined forces of individual worker-particles (valuers, givers, value-givers (see what I did there!!)) and then decadence (entropy) becomes a factor especially in closed (bourgeoise) environments.

Okay, you acknowledged that. But how then isn’t it reasonable on my part to suggest that the manner in which you conveyed your point above is not expressed as though you were asserting it to be an example of a “simple fact”?

I’ll leave it to others to either agree or not to agree with my own reaction.

All I can point out here is that is not how I reacted [subjectively] to the point you made. That frame of mind did not come through at all for me.

I have no idea what this is meant to convey regarding my reaction above. And my frame of mind here at ILP revolves almost entirely around attempts on my part to feel less “fractured and fragmented” in confronting human interactions out in the is/ought world. That and connecting the dots between this and the really, really big questions that revolve around things like something/nothing, existence qua existence and the quandaries embedded in the determinism/free-will debate.

No can do. From my frame of mind what we think philosophically is profoundly interwined in the manner in which I construe human psychology here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296

Which is ever and always related to my reaction to that which I construe to be objectivist thinking.

Sure, I may be completely off base here in reacting to you. After all, the gap between how you see me “in your head” and how I see you “in my head” is always going to be problematic to say the least.

But I can only honestly react as I do in fact react “in the moment” to any particular post. If that doesn’t sit well with others, they can steer clear of me here. Or, as with Karpel Tunnel, we can just agree to avoid responding to each other’s posts.

Iambigious,

Please refer to my above comments as to why a social psychological relevance may be more appropriate, or, down to earth. I suggested a philosophical psychology, a longer time ago, and was seconded by a past member Hume"s Choice, but it never caught on here.

“The Fundamental Question”
Arthur Witherall

In other words, name something believed to be a “necessary truth”, or something that is believed to be “natural”, and then criticise anyone who is foolish enough to feel awed by it?

People come to conclusions like this as though conclusions like this can be come to merely in the act of naming those things that they believe are or are not necessary truths or natural.

Why feel awe regarding the extraordinary facts that astrophysicists have compiled with respect to the universe itself. Billions of galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars going back a “singularity” that commensed the Big Bang out of nothing at all?

Why feel awe in the face of the extraordinary technology all around us? Technology that, if those thousands of years ago were able to experience it, they would be simply dumbfounded.

From my frame of mind, the explanation here is dasein. That seems as “natural” a truth as any to me.

Yes, the definitional logic that is so vital to those who hammer a reality together out of a world of words. Then what is believed “in their head” becomes all that they need by way of an explanation able to be construed as a necessary truth. Even with respect to things – something out of nothing – they cannot possibly be privy to.

I’m sorry, but, as I explained to you on another thread, I am unable to refer to you regarding many of your reactions to the things I post. Why? Because I rarely have a clue as to what it is that you are attempting to say. I make my point. Then your point seems [to me] to be an exercise in irony. As though you were actually just mocking the ponderous “intellectual contraptions” of the “serious philosophers” here.

But that’s just me. If in fact you are not being ironic and are attempting to make what you construe to be an important point about my own point regarding something and nothing, I’m afraid you will have to choose different words.

Note to others:

How would you translate his point above as it relates to the points that I am making in regard to the post that he is reacting to – my exchange with surreptitious75 ?

Below his username he gives his location as Mysterium Tremendum which translates as : awe inspiring mystery
Whether his posting style is a consequence of this one cannot say but it is definitely mysterious if nothing else

I think what he could mean is that sometimes ones world view can be determined more by how one sees it rather than actually studying how it really is
But his prose is so inscrutable that I truly have no idea how accurate this interpretation is and any elaboration may prove to be just as incomprehensible