Or that the universe had a beginning.
Why is there something and not nothing
- Thread starter Alan McDougall
- Start date
Or that the universe had a beginning.
taichitarot
Registered Senior Member
Question: Does nothing have a place on the number line? How about you?
The number line: actually comprised of 'hogwash' and 'gobbledegoop' is not properly understood by 99.99% of humanity and is taught in schools as a form of propaganda to prepare them for the confused path they are about to embark on while sitting in front of the television or conputer screen. The number line is also a form of torture because it is an unattainable object to be looked at in segments but never to be completed nor perceived in its entirety.
+ as long as the number line is, I shall debunk it. I agree.
The number line: actually comprised of 'hogwash' and 'gobbledegoop' is not properly understood by 99.99% of humanity and is taught in schools as a form of propaganda to prepare them for the confused path they are about to embark on while sitting in front of the television or conputer screen. The number line is also a form of torture because it is an unattainable object to be looked at in segments but never to be completed nor perceived in its entirety.
+ as long as the number line is, I shall debunk it. I agree.
Last edited:
Yes.
Substantiate that please.
And that.
And that. What do you mean by "propaganda"?
Go ahead, debunk it.
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nothingness/#WhyTheSomRatThaNot
Well, why not? Why expect nothing rather than something? No experiment could support the hypothesis ‘There is nothing’ because any observation obviously implies the existence of an observer.
Is there any a priori support for ‘There is nothing’? One might respond with a methodological principle that propels the empty world to the top of the agenda. For instance, many feel that whoever asserts the existence of something has the burden of proof.
If an astronomer says there is water at the south pole of the Moon, then it is up to him to provide data in support of the lunar water. If we were not required to have evidence to back our existential claims, then a theorist who fully explained the phenomena with one set of things could gratuitously add an extra entity, say, a pebble outside our light cone. We recoil from such add-ons.
To prevent the intrusion of superfluous entities, one might demand that metaphysicians start with the empty world and admit only those entities that have credentials. This is the entry requirement imposed by Rene Descartes. He clears everything out and then only lets back in what can be proved to exist.
St. Augustine had more conservative counsel: we should not start at the beginning, nor at the end, but where we are, in the middle. We reach a verdict about the existence of controversial things by assessing how well these entities would harmonize with the existence of better established things. If we start from nothing, we lack the bearings needed to navigate forward. Conservatives, coherentists and scientific gradualists all cast a suspicious eye on ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’.
Most contemporary philosophers feel entitled to postulate whatever entities are indispensable to their best explanations of well accepted phenomena.
They feel the presumption of non-existence is only plausible for particular existence claims. Since the presumption only applies on a case by case basis, there is no grand methodological preference for an empty world. Furthermore, there is no burden of proof when everybody concedes the proposition under discussion. Even a solipsist agrees there is at least one thing!
A more popular way to build a presumption in favor of nothingness is to associate nothingness with simplicity and simplicity with likelihood. The first part of this justification is plausible. ‘Nothing exists’ is simple in the sense of being an easy to remember generalization. Consider a test whose questions have the form ‘Does x exist?’. The rule ‘Always answer no!’ is unsurpassably short and comprehensive.
Well, why not? Why expect nothing rather than something? No experiment could support the hypothesis ‘There is nothing’ because any observation obviously implies the existence of an observer.
Is there any a priori support for ‘There is nothing’? One might respond with a methodological principle that propels the empty world to the top of the agenda. For instance, many feel that whoever asserts the existence of something has the burden of proof.
If an astronomer says there is water at the south pole of the Moon, then it is up to him to provide data in support of the lunar water. If we were not required to have evidence to back our existential claims, then a theorist who fully explained the phenomena with one set of things could gratuitously add an extra entity, say, a pebble outside our light cone. We recoil from such add-ons.
To prevent the intrusion of superfluous entities, one might demand that metaphysicians start with the empty world and admit only those entities that have credentials. This is the entry requirement imposed by Rene Descartes. He clears everything out and then only lets back in what can be proved to exist.
St. Augustine had more conservative counsel: we should not start at the beginning, nor at the end, but where we are, in the middle. We reach a verdict about the existence of controversial things by assessing how well these entities would harmonize with the existence of better established things. If we start from nothing, we lack the bearings needed to navigate forward. Conservatives, coherentists and scientific gradualists all cast a suspicious eye on ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’.
Most contemporary philosophers feel entitled to postulate whatever entities are indispensable to their best explanations of well accepted phenomena.
They feel the presumption of non-existence is only plausible for particular existence claims. Since the presumption only applies on a case by case basis, there is no grand methodological preference for an empty world. Furthermore, there is no burden of proof when everybody concedes the proposition under discussion. Even a solipsist agrees there is at least one thing!
A more popular way to build a presumption in favor of nothingness is to associate nothingness with simplicity and simplicity with likelihood. The first part of this justification is plausible. ‘Nothing exists’ is simple in the sense of being an easy to remember generalization. Consider a test whose questions have the form ‘Does x exist?’. The rule ‘Always answer no!’ is unsurpassably short and comprehensive.
IamJoseph:
Please provide a reference to where and when this statement by Darwin was made, precisely, and a quote of the full statement.
If you cannot do so, you will retract your claim and apologise to members of sciforums for lying.
I will give you a little time to respond, or else you may be banned for trolling.
(PS This post also sent by PM to be sure you've seen it)
IamJoseph said:
Please provide a reference to where and when this statement by Darwin was made, precisely, and a quote of the full statement.
If you cannot do so, you will retract your claim and apologise to members of sciforums for lying.
I will give you a little time to respond, or else you may be banned for trolling.
(PS This post also sent by PM to be sure you've seen it)
taichitarot
Registered Senior Member
... so the 3 year trail of destruction
And while we're on the subject of something and not nothing..
A list of iamjoseph's activity is available when i visit his profile but I do not see
the same option to review my activity when I visit my profile.
And while we're on the subject of something and not nothing..
A list of iamjoseph's activity is available when i visit his profile but I do not see
the same option to review my activity when I visit my profile.
You mean a list of the last time you were active and what you were doing (which thread was being viewed etc.)?
The reason that doesn't appear is because it would show you were last active right now and viewing your profile. What would be the point?
Also: Who's online gives the same information.
The reason that doesn't appear is because it would show you were last active right now and viewing your profile. What would be the point?
Also: Who's online gives the same information.
November 27, 2007
Did nothing become everything?
In my opinion the Universe Simply Could Not Have Popped Out From Nowhere
Reversing time the Earth de-form into clouds of stellar materials produced from exploded stars which themselves de-explode and then de-coalesce toward becoming a dense uniform opaque plasma.
As time accelerates backwards space itself collapses inward, as if it is being vacuumed away, moving all the material in the universe ever nearer, with all finally crashing into a beginning point. As the universe crashes inward it seems obvious that we must be closing in on some sort of birth. We seem to be moving backward toward what must inevitably be a distinct creation event, where the somethingness of matter arises from a primordial nothing.
Be this moment an act of omnificent magic, a fortunate accident, or something completely inexplicable, considering the universe is expanding it appears evident that somehow all that we know, has been, and everything that shall follow in the wake of the present, came to be all at once at one moment of time in our past. It seems evident that somehow something impossibly erupted to create a beginning, even if all the laws of nature as they are known today in science forbid such an event.
The first law states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. Furthermore, every ounce of logic be it intuitive or mathematical, demands that something cannot be created out of absolutely nothing. A zillion zeros still add up to zero. And logically, if something comes from nothing, then it Was not really nothing to begin with then was it? And yet the universe is here, and all is expanding away from one single place and one single time, before which there is no possibility of time as we perceive time.
Every bone in a reasonable person’s body screams that this sudden creation event could not have happened by itself. A universe cannot just pop into existence. The existence of a universe and our own existence require a cause. And so we ask, does this impossibility of ‘something coming from nothing’ mean that the universe absolutely had to have been created? Did a powerful being of some kind (usually assumed to be named God) create the first moment of our universe? It is almost a relief to consider this possibility in the face of such a paradoxical dilemma, except we actually know that this solution only suspends and relocates the mystery.
All the same questions we ask about how the universe came to be, must then be diverted to this being called God. The inference of some seems to be that God is so powerful that God is beyond needing an explanation, yet realistically the same old questions apply. How long has this being existed? How did God begin from nothing? If it has existed forever, then how can it just exist? Why does God exist rather than nothing at all?
Is the above not a reasonable assumption?
Alan
Did nothing become everything?
In my opinion the Universe Simply Could Not Have Popped Out From Nowhere
Reversing time the Earth de-form into clouds of stellar materials produced from exploded stars which themselves de-explode and then de-coalesce toward becoming a dense uniform opaque plasma.
As time accelerates backwards space itself collapses inward, as if it is being vacuumed away, moving all the material in the universe ever nearer, with all finally crashing into a beginning point. As the universe crashes inward it seems obvious that we must be closing in on some sort of birth. We seem to be moving backward toward what must inevitably be a distinct creation event, where the somethingness of matter arises from a primordial nothing.
Be this moment an act of omnificent magic, a fortunate accident, or something completely inexplicable, considering the universe is expanding it appears evident that somehow all that we know, has been, and everything that shall follow in the wake of the present, came to be all at once at one moment of time in our past. It seems evident that somehow something impossibly erupted to create a beginning, even if all the laws of nature as they are known today in science forbid such an event.
The first law states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. Furthermore, every ounce of logic be it intuitive or mathematical, demands that something cannot be created out of absolutely nothing. A zillion zeros still add up to zero. And logically, if something comes from nothing, then it Was not really nothing to begin with then was it? And yet the universe is here, and all is expanding away from one single place and one single time, before which there is no possibility of time as we perceive time.
Every bone in a reasonable person’s body screams that this sudden creation event could not have happened by itself. A universe cannot just pop into existence. The existence of a universe and our own existence require a cause. And so we ask, does this impossibility of ‘something coming from nothing’ mean that the universe absolutely had to have been created? Did a powerful being of some kind (usually assumed to be named God) create the first moment of our universe? It is almost a relief to consider this possibility in the face of such a paradoxical dilemma, except we actually know that this solution only suspends and relocates the mystery.
All the same questions we ask about how the universe came to be, must then be diverted to this being called God. The inference of some seems to be that God is so powerful that God is beyond needing an explanation, yet realistically the same old questions apply. How long has this being existed? How did God begin from nothing? If it has existed forever, then how can it just exist? Why does God exist rather than nothing at all?
Is the above not a reasonable assumption?
Alan
Last edited:
So you're now choosing to pretend you haven't read Spidergoat's post #12?
I have read it and think he was speculating , just like I am, there is of now no absolutely correct answer from my position in believing in an Intelligent Designer and his scientific speculations
This thread was moved to religion so I think in this sub-forum I can speculate around the possibility of an ID
Except for the slight discrepancy that Stenger's speculation has a solid footing in physics whereas any footing for an ID is, oh what's the word? Oh yeah, non-existent.
No space and no particles is very different from a space with no particles.
The former ceases to exist.
If you take the particles away, the space is still there.
If you take the space away, then you have nothing, or possibly a singularity.
Space is not nothing.
Last edited:
There can never be nothing because the observer will always be a something. We can only conceptualise nothing in relation to there being something. The nothing must always be surrounded by something or you have complete non-existence, which would mean the non- existence of an observer as well, so you would have a ‘tree falling in the woods’ type scenario.
(NB Unbounded space is another way of saying infinite space.)
(NB Unbounded space is another way of saying infinite space.)