Ultimate question: Why anything at all?

Ken G

There was always the freedom to adjust logic, it doesn't matter what version is used-- the problem is not resolvable by changing logic. If we allow self-reference in logic, then logic itself is what is broken. If we don't, we can save logic, but the connection with the semantics of language is still broken in the way I mentioned above. Either way, we cannot have a system that does everything we'd like, and that is the fundamental issue-- which evil we choose as the lesser when faced with these limitations is a subjective matter, what we must acknowledge is the existence of the limitation.

Ken G

Actually I thought that was pretty clear, so let me give you my understanding of what that means. The reductionist approach to physics, where we break everything down to its smallest parts and try to understand the action of everything in terms of elementary interactions between those parts, can be thought of as a kind of syntactic approach. We are trying to understand nature by understanding her syntax, a chain of local causes adding up to one big Cause. But the word "understand" implies a semantic content, which seems impossible to obtain by consideration of pure syntax, just as you could not understand this sentence by analyzing how letters combine to form words or how words are ordered in a sentence. You must have experience, something global or transcendant, to reference, in order to have any hope of following the collisions of meaning in this sentence. An understanding of nature may require similar higher-level processing techniques.You said this right after he did give an example. The example was the statement "nothing exists." That's an example of a syntactically well formed statement, which, in a perfect world, would allow its semantic elements to merge in a semantically meaningful way. But we know that doesn't always happen. Lesser difficulties emerge from statements like "green is hot", which require a rather special context to avoid being nonsense. But "nothing exists" seems to assert a claim that is not sheer nonsense, but it encounters semantic bugbears if we dig into it. It confronts us with the problem that our words might not really mean anything in any kind of absolute or unimpeachable way, we find that language is itself a kind of bumbling collision of ideas that somehow manages to make sense but is not guaranteed to be well founded.

sigurdW

The sentence "nothing exists" has two interpretations: it might mean that there is an object called "nothing" and that said object does not exist, or it means that for any object x then x does not exist. Its a question of how language works, to extend concepts of language to apply to nature seems a risky business. Analogue thinking should be avoided if possible.
Also I feel uncomfortable with the concept "syntax" it seems to have to do with joining together words irrespectively of their meanings... but isnt meaning indirectly involved? Words are sorted into classes. And how is that done? Mustnt it be decided by what the word means or how it functions? All Im saying is that we should avoid trouble, and speaking of the syntax and semantics of...say...molecules invites it. So when you call the sentence "nothing exists" syntactically well formed my reaction is...
Is It? So what use is there in having the concept of "syntax" if it cant spot theres something wrong with the sentence?

Connected with this is the idea that the meaning of a sentence depend on its constituents and only on its constituents: Read the following : "You are reading this text." When you read it the sentence is true, but left alone it is not true. The truth and therefore perhaps also the meaning of the sentence depends of something not within the sentence. Understanding and explaining the basic behaviour of sentences is no easy matter...I think.

So my initial reaction is that the sentence" Why anything at all?" is not well formed. The word "is" is missing but including it: "Why is anything at all" doesnt makes me much happier, for "obvious" reasons. We need to really understand the foundations of semantics and logic. The rest of Reality must wait!

I think most of the efforts in this thread is directed towards a certain narrow interpretation of the topic question: Why is there a physical reality? Its nothing really wrong in that...its a tremendous question indeed. But depending of what is meant by the missing word "is"... It raises the question: Why is there truths? Would there be truths even if there were no reality?
And there I think I see some hope: Surely something must be the case here!

Maybe what really is meant by the topic question is something like the following:

Is there among the possibilities of how things could be a possibility where the correct answer to all and any question is no?
And the answere is: NO! (Unless you accept a contradiction as a possibility.)

Ken G

It could probably mean a hundred somewhat different things, in fact. Those are two, but there's also meanings like, the term existence is unclear enough that we cannot assert that anything does it. But that might also mean we cannot assert that for any x that x does not exist because we just can't tell. Or, maybe we think the word "exists" is perfectly clear, but the term "thing" is giving the problem and cannot be associated in an unambiguous way with the clear notion of "existence". So if that were the meaning, it would be more like "no things exist," but maybe ideas do, or maybe Platonic forms do, but they are not regarded as things.

So this is the point-- language is just plain not clear, and this is an important feature of language, because to be completely clear is to be completely necessary, but that is not saying anything worthwhile, it's not flexible or provisional or context-dependent-- so it's also not useful or responsive or alive.

Yes, it is risky, and this is its purpose. It is supposed to be risky, attempting to communicate involves taking risks. I'd say this very thread makes that clear enough! And attempting to communicate about nature is also risky, because we know we will never completely succeed, but we do have our small victories.On the contrary, that's what thinking is. All thought that is expressed in language is analog thinking, because all language involves drawing analogies, that's exactly what semantics means.
The purpose of the term "syntax" is to focus on the structure separately from the meaning. So no, meaning is not involved, to whatever extent that separation can be made. That the separation is artificial is a big part of what I've been saying.

The syntax of "nothing exists" is noun-verb. If it doesn't have that syntax, that's how we spot something wrong. Whether or not that noun goes with that verb, or what it means when those words collide, is a matter of semantics, and that's where language gets tricky. That's also where mathematical logic gets tricky-- when we want the mathematical constructs to mean something, not just be correctly syntactically combined.
Sure, that's common in language: "my name is Ken," or "it is raining now." These statements are contextual, provisional, and goal-oriented-- which is common for semantic usefulness.

sigurdW

No! It is ok with selfreference, it does not make logic inconsistent.
But I think we should discuss that question in a thread about it: How to solve the Liar Paradox.
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=586013 check #38

(Also I think Smullyan has written a treatise on self reference but I havent read it yet.)

pm97112

hi i am trying to understand the quantum mechanics many world theory / interpretation. do the alternate universes split off from only our universe as if this universe is the initial universe from which all others derive or do other universes split off in billions of ways at once as well? also are our conciousness' allowed to travel among these alternative universes or is the conciousness set on one univese and in the billions of universes spliting off from our universe or the other universes another completely new conciousness formed.

Whovian

pm97112, you probably sholdn't ask that on this thread, it has nothing to do with the thread.

sigurdW

The topic is Ancient! A fellow named Parmenides
gave around three thousand years ago
a satisfactory treatment of the problem.

He claimed that the statement:" Nothing is." is self contradictory and therefore not true!
Not much of his texts have survived only the claim but not the proof so lets try ourselves:

We begin by firmly claiming that: Nothing is!
Eh... we are saying that it indeed is so that nothing is!
Oh! Arent we saying that it IS so that it is SO that nothing is?
We are actually saying that something IS when we are saying that nothing is!
But if something is... then nothing is not...
So it is really so that we have proved that something is and nothing is not.

If we change the tense used in the proof
we can likewise prove that nothing was not
and that nothing will never be.

This is Logic as Ancient as we can trace it

bohm2

What about this indirect subtraction argument against this position posted in post 114 and mentioned in the Rickles piece:
On Explaining Existence
http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-f...les_fqxi_2.pdf

audioloop

i think, why something ?
please let me delve....

Substance = Object = Things



latin
substantia:‘something that stands under or grounds things’

foundational or fundamental entities of reality.

entities = objects


substances (objects) are distinct from their properties.
properties are just predicates of objects, not the substance itself.
(Being objects of predication but not being themselves predicable of anything else)
i.e. paradigm subjects of predication and bearers of properties.

Bare particular:
is the element without which the object would not exist, that is, its substance, which exists independent from its properties.

Inherence relation:
inherent relation of property with the object.

two types of predicables:
what is ‘said of’ objects (i.e red apple) and that which are ‘in’ objects (the apple is on the table)

substance play an irreducible and ineliminable explanatory (reductive definition but not by physical causes), a fundamental efficient cause by its own.



hmm.. very similar to.

cosmological argument

1. A contingent being (a being that if it exists can not-exist) exists.
2. This contingent being has a cause of or explanation for its existence.
3. The cause of or explanation for its existence is something other than the contingent being itself.
4. What causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
5. Contingent beings alone cannot provide an adequate causal account or explanation for the existence of a contingent being.
6. Therefore, what causes or explains the existence of this contingent being must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
7. Therefore, a necessary being (a being that if it exists cannot not-exist) exists.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/co...ical-argument/

bohm2

I don't see the similarity.

audioloop

not teleologically, just on the same footing "Contingency".

Alcatrace IV

Sorry for backtracking a thought post mortem, but I just wanted to clear up any fallacies that the original author directed through his/her reasoning. (if this post is not allowed by the standard regulations, just edit/delete it please)

The set of real numbers (shorthand being R) implies the number 3. Probability doesn't work in determining why a certain number exists; of course, we could deform and reform it, but the underlying concepts and overlapping culture would still be untransformed - they would be necessarily identical. Likewise, any subset of a set is automatically granted providing the admission of sets it necessarily pertains to. In problems whence a subset merely _can_ pertain to a collective set (like whether possibility Y exists in system A), then you can apply probability to ascertain the plausibility of certain propositions

On the one hand, the existence of a universe, having many different forms, seems highly probable, but is merely a single possibility out of a massive deluge as engulfing the entirety of human thought. On the other hand, the existence of 3 (or III and '...') is a necessary condition of set R in which case it is an implication of set R. Thus, the criticism fails

However, although one hurdle has been cleared for vacancy in regards to preliminary plausibility, I would argue that there are many more pitfalls to evaluate and thereafter evacuate before excavation can even ensue in pursuit of life's finer pleasures - that of self-sustained understanding.

For one, although there are many different universes and only one state of nonexistance, there are only two contiguities in the constitution of reality - universes, although they may be diverse in development, by execution of emergence, only have one engine of design to match chemistry with. If the universe was created, let's say, then there is only one way that could've happened. It's likw how there are many different books all with different authors and different publishers, but how the books are basically all made the same way - namely via the machinery of the printing press. So, we've reduced the probability of the universe existing to only 1/2 with the chance of the universe existing at all to be equal to the probability of the university being a null set- there is roughly a 50/50 distribution.

As the conclusion forbears no preference for either one of the selected propositons in mind, we can only rationalize that the universe could've existed or not, but can't quite round off the edges in explaining why it came into being- even if simply by mathematical acrobatics.

On that leave, the very existence of the universe is a very interesting thing indeed. By far, "the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible" - in this case, we depart from that aphorism to terra incognita.

sigurdW

Seems everybody (including myself) got tired of arguing ;)
I will probably return to argue since I think the questions raised were good questions
and my opponents were serious and honest opposers. There has not been any ad hominem argumenting for example.

The concept of Semantic Content has been mentioned... Perhaps it needs elucidation?
Suppose you write the following on a paper on the table: This paper is on the table.
Its true isnt it? Then hold it in your hand and the same statement is not true.

So: How shall we explain the situation? You will speak about contexts I guess...
I will do essentially the same but in a slightly different way leading to my version of the Theory of Truth

RaptorWizard

The reason as to why there is something rather than nothing is because the all is mind; the Universe is mental, meaning that it is consciousness and the way that this energy is focused into form that determines our reality, the greatest goal of them all being perception.

Alcatrace IV

That doesn't explain why things exist in the first place; it merely hints at the nature of interpretive perception

You're reducing the problem from that of the physical to that of the mental and metaphysical. however, the problem of existence is indifferent to that dichotomy; the phantasms of our haunting have not yet left us in rest. If everything is good, why does good exist? If the universe is only mind, how come the mind exists? Surely, reasoning is not necessary of reality - otherwise, the universe could simply be factored into nothing but the rational in itself and that is certainly untrue

Diffy

This probability argument bugs me. There are only an infinite number of choices for reality because there is something versus nothing.

So why is it not a 50/50 chance of having something versus having nothing. Why is it that we should include all the possibilities of what reality could be. And who is to say what is not reality is something that could be (or could have been) reality. There is certainly no evidence.