What Does Something Really Mean?

[Erck]

What is "something?"

In the "simplest" terms you can come up with... what are we looking for?

 

[JesseBonin]

hmm...ourselves

 

[Erck]

Ok... I'll put in my .02.

This contains two ideas... one is fairly obvious, but not often stated as such... the other is not at all obvious and actaully goes against almost all that is a "given" in physics.

We are looking for "an absolute and the method in which it manifests the relative within itself."

 

[JesseBonin]

isent that what i said? 8)

 

[Erck]

Yes... and you said it so much better than I did :-)

 

[Erck]

This is a quote by John Archibald Wheeler...

"One of the biggest problems is how to state the problem. It's an old
saying that the minute you can state a problem correctly you understand
90 percent of the problem."

It's why I ask the question... "What is something?"

Even before we find it... if we can accurately describe what we are looking for... we are a good deal of the way there.

If we are looking for "car" but don't know what it is... if we decide to look for "a method of transportation" we might have a better chance of finding "car."

 

[JesseBonin]

i really like the way you think, i can see all the gears turning 8)

this particular thread like a couple of the others you and i discuss is a philisopocal disscussion. And much to my surprise, you and i think a lot alike, in process anyway.

if your a robin williams fan as i am you will remember the following extract.
a man holds up 4 fingers in front of robin williams' charecter and asks, "how many fingers do you see" and muck like the analogy you gave, robin first answers "i see four fingers" the man frustrated says "no, you are looking at the problem and not for the answer" "look beyond the problem" and as robin does his near vision distorts making the 4 fingers look like 8 fingers and thus solves the riddle. One of my favorite analogies by the way.

the more we "look beyond the problem" the likely we are to find the right question. As silly as these boards are, this is where the universe will be unlocked. People like you and I trying to unravel our own little paradoxes and sharing this with each other. this is what make us sembiant 8)

 

[Erck]

this particular thread like a couple of the others you and i discuss is a philisopocal disscussion.

Yeah, it's fun discussing it with you.

As all things converge... even philosophy, religion, and science necessarily converge.

All things become one... or very nearly one anyway.

 

[JesseBonin]

1 is a powerful number it is essetially the basis of everything we know and believe. (at least mathamatically)
heres a funny thought.
in the beginning there was a void, and god said let there be light, and there was light and darkness. or in math 1s and 0s
funny how close we have become to the creator, concidering we now understand the digital 1s and 0s and use it everyday without a second thought.

I am not one of the scientologist, but it does seem interesting to me that the first part of genesis could acuratly describe the creation of our universe as we know it.

god created the heavens and the earth? the big bang?
god said let there be light? the super plasmas and anti-plasmas cooled into stars and planets?
god created the waters? Earth cooled and the first micobes
god created all things on the land? animals evolved out of the sea and onto land?
god created man? we evolved from that

i think that is un nervingly accurate for someone who lived 2 thousand years ago

i doubt Earth is the only place in the universe that experianced this evolution. and probably early man was in some way guided by "our neighbors" who conveyed to the author in terms he could understand the creation of the universe.. thus the referances to god not knowing time as we do. More profound is that almost without exception, all religons of the time experianced similar accounts. at the very least, there is no way someone of that time could have accuratly predicted the nature of creation, and got all 6 things in the correct order to boot.

 

[Moonrat]

In the "simplest" terms you can come up with... what are we looking for?

well, glad to see we are staying balanced...nothing, and now 'something'!

Something is an object or internal concept that is DISTINGUISHABLE from all else, until it is distinguished, it just blends into nothingness or mystery and stays as an unknown in the subjective realm

 

[Moonrat]

1 is a powerful number it is essetially the basis of everything we know and believe. (at least mathamatically)
heres a funny thought.
in the beginning there was a void, and god said let there be light, and there was light and darkness. or in math 1s and 0s
.

0 and 1's don't really cut it fully. To have a proper numerical representation of all in universe, you must have a 0, and 1, and a '2', a false number to distinguish a true number against, an irrational, a functioning one!

On, off, and BOTH on and off at the same time!
or particle, wave, and BOTH particle and wave.

 

[Erck]

It's interesting how much more attention "nothing" gets, than "something" gets.

 

[UltraPi1]

It's interesting how much more attention "nothing" gets, than "something" gets.

Thats because something is made out of nothing, and not the other way around. Thats like discussing a bottle of Jack Daniels without the Jack.

 

[Stevo]

Depends on whether you define "something" as contingent or necessary. Although, I guess that's part of the answer to the question.

 

[Erck]

Just thought I'd bring this thread up to the front again.

Again, the question... "what is something?"

First there's the biggest question... how does something come from nothing, if it did?

Then... how do other somethings come from the original something?

Then... are the multiple somethings, simply replications of the original something, or parts of it?

Then... is the nothing between the more than one somethings, the same as the nothing that we began with?

Then... is the original nothing still outside the somethings?

And finally... are we only able to see so far, that the original nothing we think we see, isn't original at all, and is in fact, inside something?

Just a few simple questions.