iambiguous wrote:
You assert that this fear of death is irrational and that talking about death makes it go away
And yet there are any number of others [ like me ] who react to this dumbfounded . How can anyone actually manage to think themselves into believing it ?
iambiguous wrote:
You may even manage to take it all the way to the grave
After that well who the fuck really knows ?
surreptitious75 wrote:iambiguous wrote:
You may even manage to take it all the way to the grave
After that well who the fuck really knows ?
What happens beyond the grave is not something I worry about because I have no reason to
For me death is nothing more than just a transition from consciousness to non consciousness
I have no problem passing very slowly into a state of non existence as I would want that anyway had I the choice
Also I was in that state forever before I was conceived so all I am doing is simply returning to where I came from
The easiest way to show that there must be something rather than nothing is to try to define nothing. Nothing must have no properties: No size. No shape. No position. No mass-energy, forces, wave forms, or anything else you can think of. No time, no past, no present, no future. And finally, no existence. Therefore there must be something. And this is it.
surreptitious75 wrote: I adapt the narrative that is the most convincing not the most consoling as this is of no consequence to me
And should you therefore convince me I am wrong and you and are right I will adapt your narrative instead
surreptitious75 wrote: I know nothing and so claiming certainty about anything is unwise which is why I need to have an open mind
I will always know nothing regardless of what I actually think which is why I am interested in all possibilities
is there something rather than nothing? I vouch for ‘play’. Bear with me. Sartre writes in Being and Nothingness that a perfect nothingness would nihilate itself. It’s as if there is something in nothingness that must become something. So imagine, if you will, a pre-Big-Bang cosmic boredom. Now imagine it, in some fundamental way, seeking to become something. This implies a kind of experimentation, or play, for the sake of seeing what happens. And how can there be any ‘seeing’ without consciousness, which is as removed from nothing as anything could be?
Everything seems to exist for the sake of being perceived. Consider, for instance, secondary qualities such as light and sound. While we can easily imagine a universe of form and extension – primary qualities – without consciousness (specifically, without being perceived), secondary qualities are different. If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around to hear it, it doesn’t make sound as much as disturb the air. The same goes for light: neither color nor sound exist without being perceived.
So why all this rather than nothing? To see what happens? Experimentation, perhaps? Play? In this sense, all perceiving things can be thought of as the eyes and ears of God.
...consciousness distances us from nothing. So we can assume that the more it evolves, the further it removes itself from that nothing.
...attributing a purpose to the laws of nature fails to appreciate the sort of thing those laws and the Universe that results are. The seeking of a purpose for all things, by the questioners we have become, reflects not something out there in what led to our creation, but something internal we use to organize our short lives within this magnificent creation.
iambiguous wrote:The Science Channel just aired the following documentary. It is clearly pertinent to this thread:
https://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows ... lly-happen?
Bottom line: The Big Bang is only one possible narrative attempting to explain the existence of Somethingness. And we really have no true understanding at all of the relationship between this and nothing at all.
Prismatic567 wrote:
Note Science makes the fundamental assumption [note assumption!] there is always something.
This assumption is taken for granted in Science, thus there is no way Science will ever prove there is something instead of nothing.
Why does something exist rather than nothing? And why this something and not something else? And did everything that does exist come into existence out of nothing at all? What can that even mean though?
And then there are the speculations of Bryan Magee about time and space:
time
For a period of two to three years between the ages of nine and twelve I was in thrall to puzzlement about time. I would lie awake in bed at night in the dark thinking something along the following lines. I know there was a day before yesterday, and a day before that and a day before that and so on...Before everyday there must have been a day before. So it must be possible to go back like that for ever and ever and ever...Yet is it? The idea of going back for ever and ever was something I could not get hold of: it seemed impossible. So perhaps, after all, there must have been a beginning somewhere. But if there was a beginning, what had been going on before that? Well, obviously, nothing---nothing at all---otherwise it could not be the beginning. But if there was nothing, how could anything have got started? What could it have come from? Time wouldn't just pop into existence---bingo!--out of nothing, and start going, all by itself. Nothing is nothing, not anything. So the idea of a beginning was unimaginable, which somehow made it seem impossible too. The upshot was that it seemed to be impossible for time to have had a beginning and impossible not for it to have had a beginning.
I must be missing something here, I came to think. There are only these two alternatives so one of them must be right. They can't both be impossible. So I would switch my concentration from one to the other, and then when it had exhausted itself, back again, trying to figure out where I had gone wrong; but I never discovered.
space
I realized a similar problem existed with regard to space. I remember myself as a London evacuee in Market Harborough---I must have been ten or eleven at the time---lying on my back in the grass in a park and trying to penetrate a cloudless blue sky with my eyes and thinking something like this" "If I went straight up into the sky, and kept on going in a straight line, why wouldn't I be able to just keep on going for ever and ever and ever? But that's impossible. Why isn't it possible? Surely, eventually, I'd have to come to some sort of end. But why? If I bumped up against something eventually, wouldn't that have to be something in space? And if it was in space wouldn't there have to be something on the other side of it if only more space? On the other hand, if there was no limit, endless space couldn't just be, anymore than endless time could.
Prismatic567 wrote:Science is limited and what is meta-Science is philosophy.
From the perspective of philosophy, it is impossible to prove whether there is something instead of nothing or nothing instead of something. Thus as Wittgenstein proposed, we should just shut up whereof one cannot speak of.
This is one of those questions which, as the Buddha says in a sermon attributed to him, “tends not toward edification”, if by edification we mean achieving a final answer.
Perhaps one is possible, but attempts to answer the question by appeal to the principle of sufficient reason devolve quickly into infinite regress: God created everything, but who created God? Appealing to multiverse cosmology, we might say that we happen to live in a universe finely tuned for existence of certain particles and, especially, stars. Other universes may be an absence of things. But what created the multiverse?
biggy wrote:It's just that "nothing" becoming "something" becoming "everything in the universe today" is one of those mind-boggling conundrums that most of us own up to as really, really hard to wrap our heads around. Both "nothing at all" and an ever existing "something" seem impossible to wholly explain.
iambiguous wrote:Prismatic567 wrote:
Note Science makes the fundamental assumption [note assumption!] there is always something.
This assumption is taken for granted in Science, thus there is no way Science will ever prove there is something instead of nothing.
When grappling with the very existence of existence itself who doesn't start with one or another assumption? This one is yours.
And you and I have no way in which to know for certain what science either will or will not be able to prove hundreds or thousands of years into the future.
Indeed, imagine folks around the time of Aristotle speculating on what might be proven by science in our time.
It's just that "nothing" becoming "something" becoming "everything in the universe today" is one of those mind-boggling conundrums that most of us own up to as really, really hard to wrap our heads around. Both "nothing at all" and an ever existing "something" seem impossible to wholly explain.
promethean75 wrote:biggy wrote:It's just that "nothing" becoming "something" becoming "everything in the universe today" is one of those mind-boggling conundrums that most of us own up to as really, really hard to wrap our heads around. Both "nothing at all" and an ever existing "something" seem impossible to wholly explain.
and you know, while this is certainly a curious question - where did it all come from, or was it always, or will it end, etc. - it's not really the quest for an answer to these questions that drives the scientist and philosopher. rather it's what an answer would imply that the scientist and philosopher is looking for. he thinks that if he is able to find a 'creator' (whatever that might be), he might be able to find some direction for his other, more pertinent questions; does this 'creator' want me to do something specifically and/or will what i do offend or appease this 'creator'.
Prismatic567 wrote:You don't seem to get the point.
Note re Big Bang Theory;Hypothesis: The Big Bang is the beginning of the Universe.
Assumption: There is something rather than nothing.
Speculated Theory: Evidences support the theory BB is the beginning of the universe.
BUT, in this case the theory [conclusion] is conditioned upon the assumption.
As such you cannot covert the assumption to a conclusion, i.e.
'There is something rather than nothing'.
Thus the best you can conclude is according to Science, the BB is the origin of the universe conditioned upon the assumption 'there is something rather than nothing'.
Therefore we cannot be certain there is absolutely 'something rather than nothing'.
My baby daughter is starting to babble. Soon she will mouth her first word, and then… Well, then come the questions. She will be asking why this and why that, so the powers of my knowledge and patience will be stretched to new limits. I have tried to prepare myself for that most puzzling question of all: Why is there something rather than nothing? She will, no doubt, phrase it differently, but I will know what she means. I close my eyes and begin to imagine what the wise men would say…
Professor Broot says, “There just is”; and Professor Endelez that “The universe was caused by a Big Bang, and before that was a Big Bang, and so on.” My daughter still presses her whys, even though the former dismissed the question and the latter dodged it by swapping nothing with infinity. That does not sit well with myself or my daughter. So my daughter swamps the pair with a stream of whys, and then I notice Professor Broot beginning to twizzle and tug at his moustache, and I know it is time for us to go. We move on to Professor Gottluv, who tells us that “Everything in the universe has a cause and the ultimate cause must, by necessity of avoiding an absurd regress, be uncaused, and we call this thing God.” Yet my daughter continues to ask why, and so do I. It sounds like our concept of nothing was now swapped for a kind of infinity called God. Meantime, rumours have been going around about our endeavour. A host of Professors are swarming around us now, and we are overwhelmed by ever more exotic definitions of nothingness and time, and pedantry about the question’s wording.
When predicting something that science will never do, it's wise to recall the French philosopher Auguste Comte. In 1835 he asserted that science will never figure out what stars are made of. That seemed like a safe bet, but within decades astronomers started determining the chemical composition of the Sun and other stars by analyzing the spectrum of light they emitted.
I'm nonetheless going out on a limb and guessing that science will never, ever answer what I call "The Question": Why is there something rather than nothing? You might think this prediction is safe to the point of triviality, but certain prominent scientists are claiming not merely that they can answer The Question but that they have already done so.
iambiguous wrote:"Science Will Never Explain Why There's Something Rather Than Nothing"
By John Horgan in Scientific American
....I'm nonetheless going out on a limb and guessing that science will never, ever answer what I call "The Question": Why is there something rather than nothing? You might think this prediction is safe to the point of triviality, but certain prominent scientists are claiming not merely that they can answer The Question but that they have already done so.
So, even before we get to any possible answers, we are encumbered with the uncertainty as to whether an answer is even within our reach at all. After all, how can we know for certain that the human brain [being itself but a component of our own particular somethingness] is even capable of connecting the dots here to that infamous TOE.
Let alone connecting the dots between that and an explanation for why "I" chooses particular things to do from day to day to day.
Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A thing-in-itself is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_theory
MagsJ wrote:On the below premises.. can we get/create an object/the Universe out of nothing? all the probable scientific laws say we cannot, and do the Universal laws say likewise? what of them..? and do we even know what they wholly and truthfully are..? are they even verifiable under our current scientific knowledge-base?
MagsJ wrote:On the below premises.. can we get/create an object/the Universe out of nothing? all the probable scientific laws say we cannot, and do the Universal laws say likewise? what of them..? and do we even know what they wholly and truthfully are..? are they even verifiable under our current scientific knowledge-base?
Prismatic567 wrote:As I had stated above the whole of the Scientific Framework from its essence is grounded and conditioned by an ASSUMPTION,
....There is something rather than nothing.
There is no way Science will work if Science do not include the above assumption as a fundamental condition.
Prismatic567 wrote:Note that 'something' refers to the ultimate thing, i.e. the thing-in-itself, the substance, essence, οὐσία ousia, and other names...
Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A thing-in-itself is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_theory
Prismatic567 wrote:One thing we are certain is there are humans [some, most?] who are desperate to want to be sure "there is something rather than nothing."
Prismatic567 wrote:I believe Science and Philosophy can find answers to the above to deal with the related cognitive dissonance.
Prismatic567 wrote:For most humans, there must be a cause to every effect, but Hume disagreed that such a principle is ultimate but rather the underlying factor to 'a cause for an effect' is actually psychological, i.e. grounded on the minds of human[s] individually and collectively.
Prismatic567 wrote:It is the same for the desperation to ground something to a substance [thing], we should ignore such desperation and instead focus on the psychology of the question of 'there must be something [ultimate] instead of nothing'.
Prismatic567 wrote:Btw, it is the same desperate psychology of why you are stuck in a deep shit hole you have dug for yourself.
Decades ago, physicists such as the legendary John Wheeler proposed that, according to the probabilistic dictates of quantum field theory, even an apparently perfect vacuum seethes with particles and antiparticles popping into and out of existence. In 1990, the Russian physicist Andrei Linde assured me that our entire cosmos—as well as an infinite number of other universes—might have sprung from a primordial "quantum fluctuation."
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.
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