Ultimate question: Why anything at all?

As I replied in post #103, and as Rickles himself argues, MN can subtract away everything from a world, but that still leaves a world. So this approach is a dead-end.

So what you're saying here is even the empty set is, in the final analysis, a set? Kind of like even if we were to take all the stuff out from the bucket, the bucket remains?

If that is what you are arguing, would this still hold in a Machian-type universe?

It might help to define your view of a Machian universe. But I agree it has the right kind of contextual self-organisation. The parts anchor the whole, which in turn anchors the parts...But I don't think the Machian approach is expressed in a way that allows you to dissolve its structure in the way needed.

I'm not sure either but as I understand Mach's relationist position: without parts, there is no whole. So without the stuff in the bucket, the bucket could not exist. I'm not sure if this is an accurate representation of Mach but that's how I interpreted his view because according to Mach's principle, in absence of matter, space should not be able to exist. But I'm not sure if the latter implies the former?

There are a few examples of clear-cut attempts at explicit whole-part causation theories in physics. One of these is Mach’s principle, according to which the force of inertia, experienced locally by a particle, derives from the particle’s gravitational interaction with all the matter in the universe. There is currently no very satisfactory formulation of Mach’s principle within accepted physical theory, although the attempt to construct one is by no means considered worthless, and once occupied the attention of Einstein himself.

http://www.ctnsstars.org/conferences...0causation.pdf

As I said at the start, a comprehensive paper on the options regarding "why anything" is...

Apostel, L. 1999. Why not Nothing? In World Views and the Problem of

On the other hand, if the reason for existence is found in the organic unity of those possible worlds that are realized, its meaning and value will also lie in the consensus, the communication, the solidarity of mankind, culture and ethical system.

I just don't see how taking any of these positions has any socio-political repersussions.

“Why is there Something rather than Nothing” is “just the kind of question that we will be stuck with when we have a final theory [of physics]. … We will be left facing the irreducible mystery because whatever our theory is, no matter how mathematically consistent and logically consistent the theory is, there will always be the alternative that, well, perhaps there could have been nothing at all.” In modern physics, Weinberg explains, “the idea of empty space without anything at all, without fields, is inconsistent with the principles of quantum mechanics—[because] the [Heisenberg] uncertainty principle doesn’t allow a condition of empty space where fields are zero and unchanging.” But why, then, do we have quantum mechanics in the first place, with its fields and probabilities and ways of making things happen? “Exactly!” Weinberg says. “[Quantum mechanics] doesn’t answer the question, ‘Why do we live in a world governed by these laws?’… And we will never have an answer to that.” “Does that bother you?” I ask. “Yes,” Weinberg says wistfully. “I would like to have an answer to everything, but I’ve gotten used to the fact that I won’t.” Here’s how I see it: The primary questions people pose—Why the universe? Does God exist?—are important, sure, but they are not bedrock fundamental. “Why anything at all?” is the ultimate question.

Why there is something rather than nothing?

Think of all the possible ways that the world might be, down to every detail. There are infinitely many such possible ways. All these ways seem to be equally probable—which means that the probability of any one of these infinite possibilities actually occurring seems to be zero, and yet one of them happened. “Now, there’s only one way for there to be Nothing, right?” There are no variants in Nothing; there being Nothing at all is a single state of affairs. And it’s a total state of affairs; that is, it settles everything—every possible proposition has its truth value settled, true or false, usually false, by there being Nothing. So if Nothing is one way for reality to be, and if the total number of ways for reality to be are infinite, and if all such infinite ways are equally probable so that the probability of any one of them is [essentially] zero, then the probability of ‘there being Nothing’ is also [essentially] zero.” Because there are an infinite number of potential worlds, each specific world would have a zero probability of existing, and because Nothing is only one of these potential worlds—there can be only one kind of Nothing—the probabilily of Nothing existing is zero.

http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.c...-than-nothing/

So he is arguing that if you have a lottery with an infinite number of combinations , there is only 1 number that corresponds to nothingness (the empty set). The chances of picking that number among all the others is essentially 0, so that isn't going to happen. I guess he's trying to say that the universe exists because existence is far more probable than non-existence.

"We can use the axiom of extensionality to show that there is only one empty set. Since it is unique we can name it. It is called the empty set (denoted by { } or ∅)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_the_empty_set

Does the argument sound persuasive?

So some like to believe everything is essentially random, chance, meaningless, etc. Others that existence is purposeful, rational, etc.

Probability zero does not mean impossible and probability one does not mean certainty. There is no other reasonable way to do it. The fact that something exists does not imply that its probability is greater than zero. Get used to it.

Do you understand the argument? If nothingness is deemed to be an ultimately simple state, then there is only one way it can be. Whereas somethingness would have an apparent infinity of ways of being. There is no obvious limit on its variety.

So the probablity of nothing is such that it almost surely does not exist, while the probability of something is such that it almost surely exists.

One may find all sorts of reasons to dispute the probabilities being assumed (is nothingness in fact infinitely varied? Is somethingness indeed somehow inherently limited). But this handwaving probability argument seems a good enough place to start a metaphysical discussion on the issue.

For your point to have any meaning here, you would have to show us first why somethingness must be limited to just one way of being.

The comparison of likelihood of probability in between nothingness and something is absurd !
Nothingness or shall we clarify, NO-THING, does not qualify as an object with property´s such as "being"/existing...and thus it is a false question !
It simply if it is the case that Something does exist then Nothingness cannot be conceptualized as an absolute any more...the assertion of the first immediately excludes the second...
By the same token not everything that exists necessarily had a beginning !
Thus if its is the case, as it seams, that the Universe had a beginning, to prevent an infinite regression in the causal chain, its final cause, must necessarily to not have had a beginning...from where it follows, and granting that the best known rational mechanical explanation in so far asserts a Multiverse as the cause of our Universe, a place where all possible worlds do exist, seams rather natural to conclude, that the Multiverse has no cause nor it did begun to exist...

As best I can understand it, your argument is that each way of being is equally likely. Nothingness is one way of being. Somethingness includes virtually infinite ways of being. Therefore Somethingness is much more likely than nothingness.

The part I don't accept is that idea that each way of being is equally likely.

In section 8 we applied the principle of sufficient reason. Its negative
counterpart is the principle of insufficient reason. We are familiar with
this from the fundamentals of the probability theory. "If n possibilities
are given and there is no sufficient reason to choose one of these in
preference to another, then they are all equally probable". If "el or e2
... or en" has a probability factor of 1 (or is even necessary), and if there
is no SR to make el preferable to e2, all e, will have a probability of l/n.

We shall apply this to the set of possible worlds. In the most unfavourable
case for the refutation of "Nothing exists", we place the empty worlds
(which we shall call L) on one side and the not empty worlds (which
we shall call B) on the other side. We consider the two sets as a unity
and assume there is no reason to choose empty in preference to not
empty, or not empty in preference to empty. Assuming that there have
to be "worlds", then L has a probability of 1/2 and B too.

This is an extreme case, however. There is only one way of being "empty" , whereas
there are many ways of being not empty. We can therefore assume that
there are 1, 2, 3, 4, ... n, infinity, different non-empty worlds. In each of these
assumptions, assuming that we have no reason to suppose that one of
these worlds is more probable than another, the principle of insufficient
reason determines that the probability of L always decreases (from 1/2 to
l/n) and that the probability of B always increases (from 1/2 to 1/3+1/3
to 1/4+ 1/ 4+ 1/4 etc.).

If an infinite number of possible worlds exist, the
probability of L will approach the limit zero. We shall now apply the
principle of insufficient reason to the totality of all these distributions of
probabilities over possible worlds. In one distribution L has a probability
of 1/2. In all the other distributions L has a lower probability, and in an
infinite number of distributions the probability of L is arbitrarily close
to the limit zero.

All this follows if we can apply the principle of insufficient reason
both to the individual 2, 3, ... n possible worlds and to the assumptions
about the number of possible worlds, and if our ignorance or ontological
indifference (or both) are so great that there is no known and/or existing
reason to choose one world in preference to another. In concrete terms,
all the foregoing follows from the fact that being can offer more variety
than nothingness.