What Does Nothing Really Mean in the Context of the Universe?

[nannoh]

G... did we do an experiment on it where scienctists actually produce a universe from a vaccum?

Yes. They created a universe in the vacuum between their ears.

 

[heusdens]

That is perhaps the biggest 2 question for the whole of existence.
Without it, there would be no sciences, no human, no anything...at all.
Can the laws come into being without matter/universe? Can the universe come into being without the laws? (It is said that universe might come out of a quantum vaccum, but that( quantum vaccum) itself is a laws, a generalization within the universe. Can we apply the laws of nature outside the universe? Is there such a thing as "nothing"? By "nothing", i mean the non-existence of everything.

Remark 1: The Opposition of Being and Nothing in Ordinary Thinking

§ 135

Nothing is usually opposed to something; but the being of something is already determinate and is distinguished from another something; and so therefore the nothing which is opposed to the something is also the nothing of a particular something, a determinate nothing. Here, however, nothing is to be taken in its indeterminate simplicity. Should it be held more correct to oppose to being, non-being instead of nothing, there would be no objection to this so far as the result is concerned, for in non-being the relation to being is contained: both being and its negation are enunciated in a single term, nothing, as it is in becoming. But we are concerned first of all not with the form of opposition (with the form, that is, also of relation) but with the abstract, immediate negation: nothing, purely on its own account, negation devoid of any relations — what could also be expressed if one so wished merely by 'not'.

§ 136

It was the Eleatics, above all Parmenides, who first enunciated the simple thought of pure being as the absolute and sole truth: only being is, and nothing absolutely is not, and in the surviving fragments of Parmenides this is enunciated with the pure enthusiasm of thought which has for the first time apprehended itself in its absolute abstraction. As we know, in the oriental systems, principally in Buddhism, nothing, the void, is the absolute principle. Against that simple and one-sided abstraction the deep-thinking Heraclitus brought forward the higher, total concept of becoming and said: being as little is, as nothing is, or, all flows, which means, all is a becoming. The popular, especially oriental proverbs, that all that exists has the germ of death in its very birth, that death, on the other hand, is the entrance into new life, express at bottom the same union of being and nothing. But these expressions have a substratum in which the transition takes place; being and nothing are held apart in time, are conceived as alternating in it, but are not thought in their abstraction and consequently, too, not so that they are in themselves absolutely the same. ®

§ 137

Ex nihilo nihil fit — is one of those propositions to which great importance was ascribed in metaphysics. In it is to be seen either only the empty tautology: nothing is nothing; or, if becoming is supposed to possesses an actual meaning in it, then, since from nothing only nothing becomes, the proposition does not in fact contain becoming, for in it nothing remains nothing. Becoming implies that nothing does not remain nothing but passes into its other, into being. Later, especially Christian, metaphysics whilst rejecting the proposition that out of nothing comes nothing, asserted a transition from nothing into being; although it understood this proposition synthetically or merely imaginatively, yet even in the most imperfect union there is contained a point in which being and nothing coincide and their distinguishedness vanishes. The proposition: out of nothing comes nothing, nothing is just nothing, owes its peculiar importance to its opposition to becoming generally, and consequently also to its opposition to the creation of the world from nothing. Those who maintain the proposition: nothing is just nothing, and even grow heated in its defence, are unaware that in so doing they are subscribing to the abstract pantheism of the Eleatics, and also in principle to that of Spinoza. The philosophical view for which 'being is only being, nothing is only nothing', is a valid principle, merits the name of 'system of identity'; this abstract identity is the essence of pantheism.

§ 138

If the result that being and nothing are the same seems startling or paraodoxical in itself, there is nothing more to be said; rather should we wonder at this wondering which shows itself to be such a newcomer to philosophy and forgets that in this science there occur determinations quite different from those in ordinary consciousness and in so-called ordinary common sense-which is not exactly sound understanding but an understanding educated up to abstractions and to a belief, or rather a superstitious belief, in abstractions. It would not be difficult to demonstrate this unity of being and nothing in every example, in every actual thing or thought. The same must be said of being and nothing, as was said above about immediacy and mediation (which latter contains a reference to an other, and hence to negation), that nowhere in heaven or on Earth is there anything which does not contain within itself both being and nothing. Of course, since we are speaking here of a particular actual something, those determinations are no longer present in it in the complete untruth in which they are as being and nothing; they are in a more developed determination, and are grasped, for example, as positive and negative, the former being posited, reflected being, the latter posited, reflected nothing; the positive contains as its abstract basis being, and the negative, nothing. Thus in God himself, quality (energy, creation, power, and so forth), essentially involves the determination of the negative-they are the producing of an other. But an empirical elucidation by examples of the said assertion would be altogether superfluous here. Since the unity of being and nothing as the primary truth now forms once and for all the basis and element of all that follows, besides becoming itself, all further logical determinations: determinate being, quality, and generally all philosophical Notions, are examples of this unity. But self-styled sound common sense, if it rejects the unseparatedness of being and nothing, may be set the task of trying to discover an example in which the one is found separated from the other (something from limit or limitation, or, as just mentioned, the infinite, God, from energy or activity). Only the empty figments of thought, being and nothing themselves are these separated things and it is these that are preferred by 'sound common sense' to the truth, to the unseparatedness of both which is everywhere before us.

§ 139

We cannot be expected to meet on all sides the perplexities which such a logical proposition produces in the ordinary consciousness, for they are inexhaustible. Only a few of them can be mentioned. One source among others of such perplexity is that the ordinary consciousness brings with it to such an abstract logical proposition, conceptions of something concrete, forgetting that what is in question is not such concrete something but only the pure abstractions of being and nothing and that these alone are to be held firmly in mind.

§ 140

Being and non-being are the same, therefore it is the same whether this house is or is not, whether these hundred dollars are part of my fortune or not. This inference from, or application of, the proposition completely alters its meaning. The proposition contains the pure abstractions of being and nothing; but the application converts them into a determinate being and a determinate nothing. But as we have said, the question here is not of determinate being. A determinate, a finite, being is one that is in relation to another; it is a content standing in a necessary relation to another content, to the whole world. As regards the reciprocally determining context of the whole, metaphysics could make the — at bottom tautological — assertion that if a speck of dust were destroyed the whole universe would collapse. In the instances against the proposition in question something appears as not indifferent to whether it is or is not, not on account of being or non-being, but on account of its content, which brings it into relation with something else. If a specific content, any determinate being, is presupposed, then because it is determinate, it is in a manifold relationship with another content; it is not a matter of indifference to it whether a certain other content with which it is in relation is, or is not; for it is only through such relation that it essentially is what it is. The same is the case in the ordinary way of thinking (taking non-being in the more specific sense of such way of thinking as contrasted with actuality) in the context of which the being or the absence of a content, which, as determinate, is conceived as in relation to another, is not a matter of indifference.

§ 141

This consideration involves what constitutes a cardinal factor in the Kantian criticism of the ontological proof of the existence of God, although here we are only interested in the distinction made in that proof between being and nothing generally, and determinate being or non-being. As we know, there was presupposed in that so-called proof the concept of a being possessing all realities, including therefore existence, which was likewise assumed as one of the realities. The main thesis of the Kantian criticism was that existence or being (these being taken here as synonymous) is not a property or a real predicate, that is to say, is not a concept of something which could be added to the concept of a thing. By this Kant means to say that being is not a determination of the content of a thing.' Therefore, he goes on to say, the possible does not contain more than the actual; a hundred actual dollars do not contain a whit more than a hundred possible ones; that is, the content of the former has no other determination than has the content of the latter. If this content is considered as isolated, it is indeed a matter of indifference whether it is, or is not; it contains no distinction of being or non-being, this difference does not affect it at all. The hundred dollars do not diminish if they do not exist, or increase if they do. A difference must come only from elsewhere. 'On the other hand,' Kant reminds us, 'my fortune benefits more from a hundred actual dollars than from the mere concept of them or from their possibility. For in actuality, the object is not merely contained analytically in my concept, but is added synthetically to my concept (which is a determination of my state), although the hundred dollars in my thought are not themselves increased one whit by this being which they have apart from my concept.'

§ 142

There are presupposed here two different states (to retain the Kantian expressions which are not free from a confused clumsiness): one, which Kant calls the concept (by which we must understand figurate conception), and another, the state of my fortune. For the one as for the other, my fortune and the figurate conception, a hundred dollars are a determination of a content or, as Kant expresses it, 'they are added to such a concept synthetically'; I as possessor of a hundred dollars or as not possessing them, or even I as imagining or not imagining them, is of course a different content. Stated more generally: the abstractions of being and nothing both cease to be abstractions if they acquire a determinate content; being is then reality, the determinate being of a hundred dollars; nothing is the negation, the determinate non-being of them. This determinate content itself, the hundred dollars, also grasped isolatedly in abstraction is unchanged the same in the one as it is in the other. But since, furthermore, being is taken as a state of my fortune, the hundred dollars stand in relation to this state, as regards which the determinateness which they are is not a matter of indifference; their being or non-being is only an alteration; they are transposed into the sphere of determinate being. When, therefore, it is urged against the unity of being and nothing that it is nevertheless not a matter of indifference whether anything (the hundred dollars) is, or is not, we practise the deception of converting the difference between whether I have or have not the hundred dollars into a difference between being and non-being-a deception based, as we have shown, on the one-sided abstraction which ignores the determinate being present in such examples and holds fast merely to being and non-being, just as, conversely, the abstract being and nothing which should be apprehended is transformed into a definite being and nothing, into a determinate being. Determinate being is the first category to contain the real difference of being and nothing, namely, something and other. It is this real difference which is vaguely present in ordinary thinking, instead of abstract being and pure nothing and their only imagined difference.

§ 143

As Kant expresses it, 'through its existence something enters into the context of the whole of experience... we obtain thereby an additional object of perception without anything being added to our concept of the object'. As our explanation has shown, this means simply that something, through its existence, just because it is a determinate existence, is essentially in relationship with others, including also a percipient subject. The concept of the hundred dollars, says Kant, gains nothing by their being perceived. Concept here means the hundred dollars previously noted as thought in isolation. As thus isolated they are, it is true, an empirical content, but cut off, having no relationship with any other content and possessing no determinate character relatively to such; the form of identity-with-self strips them of any connection with an other, so that it is a matter of indifference whether they are perceived or not. But this so-called concept of the hundred dollars is a spurious concept; the form of simple self-relation does not belong to such a limited, finite content itself; it is a borrowed form attached to it by the subjective understanding; the being of the hundred dollars is not self-related but alterable and perishable.

§ 144

The thinking or figurate conception which has before it only a specific, determinate being must be referred back to the previously-mentioned beginning of the science made by Parmenides who purified and elevated his own figurate conception, and so, too, that of posterity, to pure thought, to being as such and thereby created the element of the science. What is the first in the science had of necessity to show itself historically as the first. And we must regard the Eleatic One or being as the first step in the knowledge of thought; water and suchlike material principles are certainly meant to be the universal, but as material they are not pure thoughts; numbers are neither the first simple, nor the self-communing thought, but the thought which is wholly external to itself. ®

§ 145

The reference back from particular finite being to being as such in its wholly abstract universality is to be regarded not only as the very first theoretical demand but as the very first practical demand too. When for example a fuss is made about the hundred dollars, that it does make a difference to the state of my fortune whether I have them or not, still more whether I am or not, or whether something else is or is not, then-not to mention that there will be fortunes to which such possession of a hundred dollars will be a matter of indifference-we can remind ourselves that man has a duty to rise to that abstract universality of mood in which he is indeed indifferent to the existence or non-existence of the hundred dollars, whatever may be their quantitative relation to his fortune, just as it ought to be a matter of indifference to him whether he is or is not, that is, in finite life (for a state, a determinate being is meant), and so on — si fractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinae was said by a Roman, and still more ought the Christian to possesses this indifference.

§ 146

There remains still to be noted the immediate connection between, on the one hand, the elevation above the hundred dollars and finite things generally, and on the other, the ontological proof and the Kantian criticism of it we have cited. This criticism, through its popular example, has made itself universally plausible: who does not know that a hundred actual dollars are different from a hundred merely possible ones? that they make a difference to the state of my fortune? Because this difference is so obvious with the hundred dollars, therefore the concept, that is, the specific nature of the content as an empty possibility, and being, are different from each other; therefore the Notion of God too is different from his being, and just as little as I can extract from the possibility of the hundred dollars their actuality, just as little can I extract from the Notion of God his existence; but the onotological proof is supposed to consist of this extraction of the existence of God from his Notion. Now though it is of course true that Notion is different from being, there is a still greater difference between God and the hundred dollars and other finite things. It is the definition offinite things that in them the Notion is different from being, that Notion and reality, soul and body, are separable and hence that they are perishable and mortal; the abstract definition of God, on the other hand, is precisely that his Notion and his being are unseparated and inseparable. The genuine criticism of the categories and of reason is just this: to make intellect aware of this difference and to prevent it from applying to God the determinations and relationships of the finite.

Source:

Hegel, Science of Logic
Doctrine of Being
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/slbeing.htm

 

[heusdens]

Remark 2: Defectiveness of the Expression 'Unity, Identity of Being and Nothing'

§ 147

Another contributory reason for the repugnance to the proposition about being and nothing must be mentioned; this is that the result of considering being and nothing, as expressed in the statement: being and nothing are one and the same, is incomplete. The emphasis is laid chiefly on their being one and the same, as in judgements generally, where it is the predicate that first states what the subject is. Consequently, the sense seems to be that the difference is denied, although at the same time it appears directly in the proposition; for this enunciates both determinations, being and nothing, and contains them as distinguished. At the same time, the intention cannot be that abstraction should be made from them and only the unity retained. Such a meaning would self-evidently be one-sided, because that from which abstraction is to be made is equally present and named in the proposition. Now in so far as the proposition: being and nothing are the same, asserts the identity of these determinations, but, in fact, equally contains them both as distinguished, the proposition is self-contradictory and cancels itself out. Bearing this in mind and looking at the proposition more closely, we find that it has a movement which involves the spontaneous vanishing of the proposition itself. But in thus vanishing, there takes place in it that which is to constitute its own peculiar content, namely, becoming.

§ 148

The proposition thus contains the result, it is this in its own self. But the fact to which we must pay attention here is the defect that the result is not itself expressed in the proposition; it is an external reflection which discerns it therein. In this connection we must, at the outset, make this general observation, namely, that the proposition in the form of a judgement is not suited to express speculative truths; a familiarity with this fact is likely to remove many misunderstandings of speculative truths. Judgment is an identical relation between subject and predicate; in it we abstract from the fact that the subject has a number of determinatenesses other than that of the predicate, and also that the predicate is more extensive than the subject. Now if the content is speculative, the non-identical aspect of subject and predicate is also an essential moment, but in the judgement this is not expressed. It is the form of simple judgement, when it is used to express speculative results, which is very often responsible for the paradoxical and bizarre light in which much of recent philosophy appears to those who are not familiar with speculative thought.

§ 149

To help express the speculative truth, the deficiency is made good in the first place by adding the contrary proposition: being and nothing are not the same, which is also enunciated as above. But thus there arises the further defect that these propositions are not connected, and therefore exhibit their content only in the form of an antinomy whereas their content refers to one and the same thing, and the determinations which are expressed in the two propositions are supposed to be in complete union-a union which can only be stated as an unrest of incompatibles, as a movement. The commonest injustice done to a speculative content is to make it one-sided, that is, to give prominence only to one of the propositions into which it can be resolved. It cannot then be denied that this proposition is asserted; but the statement is just as false as it is true, for once one of the propositions is taken out of the speculative content, the other must at least be equally considered and stated. Particular mention must be made here of that, so to speak, unfortunate word, 'unity'. Unity, even more than identity, expresses a subjective reflection; it is taken especially as the relation which arises from comparison, from external reflection. When this reflection finds the same thing in two different objects, the resultant unity is such that there is presupposed the complete indifference to it of the objects themselves which are compared, so that this comparing and unity does not concern the objects themselves and is a procedure and a determining external to them. Unity, therefore, expresses wholly abstract sameness and sounds all the more blatantly paradoxical the more the terms of which it is asserted show themselves to be sheer opposites. So far then, it would be better to, say only unseparatedness and inseparability, but then the affirmative aspect of the relation of the whole would not find expression.

§ 150

Thus the whole true result which we have here before us is becoming, which is not merely the one-sided or abstract unity of being and nothing. It consists rather in this movement, that pure being is immediate and simple, and for that very reason is equally pure nothing, that there is a difference between them, but a difference which no less sublates itself and is not. The result, therefore, equally asserts the difference of being and nothing, but as a merely fancied or imagined difference.

§ 151

It is the common opinion that being is rather the sheer other of nothing and that nothing is clearer than their absolute difference, and nothing seems easier than to be able to state it. But it is equally easy to convince oneself that this is impossible, that it is unsayable. Let those who insist that being and nothing are different tackle the problem of stating in what the difference consists. If being and nothing had any determinateness by which they were distinguished from each other then, as has been observed, they would be determinate being and determinate nothing, not the pure being and pure nothing that here they still are. Their difference is therefore completely empty, each of them is in the same way indeterminate; the difference, then, exists not in themselves but in a third, in subjective opinion. Opinion, however, is a form of subjectivity which is not proper to an exposition of this kind. But the third in which being and nothing subsist must also present itself here, and it has done so; it is becoming. In this being and nothng are distinct moments; becoming only is, in so, in so far as they are distinguished. This third is an other than they; they subsist only in an other, which is equivalent to saying that they are not self-subsistent.

Becoming is as much the subsistence of being as it is of non-being; or, their subsistence is only their being in a one. It is just this their subsistence that equally sublates their difference.

§ 152

The challenge to distinguish between being and nothing also includes the challenge to say what, then, is being and what is nothing. Those who are reluctant to recognise either one or the other as only a transition of the one into the other, and who assert this or that about being and nothing, let them state what it is they are speaking of, that is, put forward a definition of being and nothing and demonstrate its correctness. Without having satisfied this first requirement of the ancient science whose logical rules they accept as valid and apply in other cases, all that they maintain about being and nothing amounts only to assertions which are scientifically worthless. If elsewhere it has been said that existence, in so far as this at first is held to be synonymous with being, is the complement to possibility, then this presupposes another determination, possibility, and so being is not enunciated in its immediacy, but in fact as not self-subsistent, as conditioned. For being which is the outcome of mediation we shall reserve the term: Existence. But one pictures being to oneself, perhaps in the image of pure light as the clarity of undimmed seeing, and then nothing as pure night — and their distinction is linked with this very familiar sensuous difference. But, as a matter of fact, if this very seeing is more exactly imagined, one can readily perceive that in absolute clearness there is seen just as much, and as little, as in absolute darkness, that the one seeing is as good as the other, that pure seeing is a seeing of nothing. Pure light and pure darkness are two voids which are the same thing. Something can be distinguished only in determinate light or darkness (light is determined by darkness and so is darkened light, and darkness is determined by light, is illuminated darkness), and for this reason, that it is only darkened light and illuminated darkness which have within themselves the moment of difference and are, therefore, determinate being.

Source:
Hegel
Science of Logic
Doctrine of Being
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hl083.htm#HL1_90

 

[heusdens]

The way I see it, those are fundamentally unanswerable questions, which I assume is your point. And when I say unanswerable, I don't mean merely that possible answers are unverifiable, I mean that there is actually no answer that makes sense at all.

For example, "God made the universe and its laws" seems like an answer at first, but it is really just a reframing of the original question. It just becomes, "Why is there God instead of not-God? Why are these laws better than other possible laws?" There have naturally been lots of attempts to answer those questions, but I haven't really encountered any that weren't circular reasoning, or that couldn't just as well be applied to the universe instead of "god," eliminating the middleman.

Here you reason from a strange position, which sees Being and Nonbeing as only separate, and doesn't recognize the fact that:
- Being and Nonbeing, without any determination, are just the same. And at the same time, they are each others opposites.
- The truth of Being and Nonbeing lies in their unity, which is becoming (in which one passes over in the other).

So, it would be rather nonsense to ask why is there being instead of nonbeing, because you then already separated the two, and don't recognize that they necessarily belong to each other, that one is not defined without the other, that in fact (without anything determined) they are the same and at the same time each others opposite.

Some other way to explain this is, that there is only light, because there is also darkness.

See also my Hegel quotes, who gave a long treatment on this issue, and in which he uses the method of dialectics.

See:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlbeing.htm

 

[out of whack]

As to question "why is there something rather than nothing", it is a meaningless inquiry, for the fact or existence of a "thing" must already be present priori to the question

Indeed, and let me add this:

Asking "why" is asking for a reason, a purpose, a cause, or something of the kind. But a reason assumes that someone or something with a motive already exist. A purpose also assumes a existing goal. Even it its simplest form, a cause assumes at least some previous state and some existing rule leading to its effect.

No matter how you look at it, asking "why" assumes the necessity of a pre-condition that would lead to "existence". But of course this pre-condition would also have to exist otherwise "existence" would not follow, so we have a circular question. Asking "why existence" already assumes existence as part of the requested answer, which makes it an ill-conceived question.

It would seem that existence is the ultimate eternal truth.

 

[mosassam]

The something/nothing debate seems to be pretty much exhausted. Anyone got any ideas about the laws of nature. Do they really exist? If so, do thy dictate the nature of the physical universe? If so, how? Are they an illusion of the scientists mind in that they reflect consciousness? Do they have an independent existence or are they a property of matter? If they exist, where indeed do they come from?

 

[heusdens]

That is perhaps the biggest 2 question for the whole of existence.
Without it, there would be no sciences, no human, no anything...at all.
Can the laws come into being without matter/universe? Can the universe come into being without the laws? (It is said that universe might come out of a quantum vaccum, but that( quantum vaccum) itself is a laws, a generalization within the universe. Can we apply the laws of nature outside the universe? Is there such a thing as "nothing"? By "nothing", i mean the non-existence of everything.

The very simple answer is that:
a. That what exists is matter in motion (where matter can not be separated from motion), existing in time and space (the very concept of motion brings with it that matter requires time and space to exist- or perhaps better said: motion creates time and space)
b. This concept of matter in motion already includes the laws of motion, and they can not be separated.

To ask the question why is there matter (instead of what?) is just utterly nonsensical.

Being and nonbeing just are two coins of the same medal, they can not go without each other. They form a dialectical unity of opposites, to be synthesized in their higher unity of becoming.

And further:
Read some dialectics!

 

[mosassam]

a. That what exists is matter in motion (where matter can not be separated from motion), existing in time and space (the very concept of motion brings with it that matter requires time and space to exist- or perhaps better said: motion creates time and space)

Just for laughs let's say that the Laws = the set of all scientific laws known and unknown. The Laws would be non-local (ie:they have no location in space-time) and they would dictate/guide the nature of space-time itself (as well as the nature of existence, motion, matter and even something like consciousness). Motion does not dictate the nature of (or create) space and time, the Laws do. To say "That what exists 'is' matter in motion" comes across as a very presumptous statement (doesn't anything else exist? what if your ideas about motion prove false? what if it's simply another aspect of the Laws?)

b. This concept of matter in motion already includes the laws of motion, and they can not be separated.

The 'concept' does not include the laws of motion (maybe it includes the concept of the laws of motion!). Indeed, matter in motion and the laws of motion cannot be separated (I assume), but they do appear to be separate things. I would argue that the laws of motion (part of the Laws) have primacy and that matter in motion appears as nothing more than a result of the Laws in our observable universe (ie: motion can be viewed as secondary to the Laws). Or am I talking codswallop?
Where do the Laws come from?
Like...totally out there duude!

 

[moving finger]

Question 1 : Why is there something instead of nothing?
Answer 1 : How can there be literally "nothing"? If the existence of "nothing" has no meaning then the only thing we have left is "something"

Question 2 : Where do the laws of nature come from?
Answer 2 : It may be the case that the laws of nature arise out of logical necessity (its just that we haven't figured it all out yet); it may be the case that there are multiple parallel universes each with different laws of nature, and we see the ones we do simply by virtue of the cosmological anthropic principle.

Moving Finger

 

[heusdens]

Question 1 : Why is there something instead of nothing?
Answer 1 : How can there be literally "nothing"? If the existence of "nothing" has no meaning then the only thing we have left is "something"

But how can there be just being? Being would be just as changeless and featureless as non-being.

The whole issue which makes the question unanswerable is that the question presupposes that being and non-being are only separate notions.

The absolute seperatedness of being and non-being presupposed makes the notion of becoming impossible. To become means things come into being, in which both being and non-being are moments of becoming.

Question 2 : Where do the laws of nature come from?
Answer 2 : It may be the case that the laws of nature arise out of logical necessity (its just that we haven't figured it all out yet); it may be the case that there are multiple parallel universes each with different laws of nature, and we see the ones we do simply by virtue of the cosmological anthropic principle.

Moving Finger

The laws of motion can not be separated with matter and motion itself, to the extend that the question then reads: where does matter come from?

That of course has no answer.

 

[baywax]

Where do the laws of nature come from?

Nature.

Why is there something instead of nothing?

Where is there proof of a replacement?

 

[heusdens]

Why is there something instead of nothing?

Where is there proof of a replacement?

Right. And even better stated, the question already assumes some negative, namely that there is only something and not nothing. For if there is only something, it is saying that there is just being, which then is in fact the same as that there is just non-being. There is being and there is non-being only because there is becoming.

 

[-Job-]

Aren't Something and nothing relative terms? It's like asking "why am i going 10Mph instead of standing still?". Maybe you are standing still and everything else is going 10Mph. Is it a logical question if how fast you are going depends on how you look at it?
I think a better question is why do these opposites exist? Why is there a difference between nothing and something, or between going 10Mph and standing still?
Maybe because of how the human brain operates. Maybe the universe is a smooth continuum of one thing only, and somewhere in there a brain exists that sees opposites, and then it asks why there is one instead of the other when probably there's neither.

 

[heusdens]

Aren't Something and nothing relative terms? It's like asking "why am i going 10Mph instead of standing still?". Maybe you are standing still and everything else is going 10Mph. Is it a logical question if how fast you are going depends on how you look at it?
I think a better question is why do these opposites exist? Why is there a difference between nothing and something, or between going 10Mph and standing still?
Maybe because of how the human brain operates. Maybe the universe is a smooth continuum of one thing only, and somewhere in there a brain exists that sees opposites, and then it asks why there is one instead of the other when probably there's neither.

Being and non-being are just moments of becoming.

The human conscioussness splits the world into a subjective and objective world, and we can distinghuis between fantasys and imagination and objective things.
Without (human) consciousness, there would still be objective relations, like planets orbiting stars, etc., only that those relations are nor verified in a consciouss mind.

 

[-Job-]

Without (human) consciousness, there would still be objective relations, like planets orbiting stars, etc., only that those relations are nor verified in a consciouss mind.

I think that's an assumption. It's not something we can confirm so it's likely at best.

 

[heusdens]

I think that's an assumption. It's not something we can confirm so it's likely at best.

Well as far as science is concerned, that must be the case, and is not an assumption.

How else can we determine the fact that the Earth is 4,5 billions of years old, and the universe 13,7 billion years old?

Is anything before human consciousness arises impossible to verify and testify?

I mean the Earth may be older or less old as stated here, depending on our technical dating methods, but as far as science is concerned, those dating methods do have validity. They are not a wild guess.

 

[mosassam]

How else can we determine the fact that the Earth is 4,5 billions of years old, and the universe 13,7 billion years old?

These cannot be accepted as 'facts', only as educated guesses (as opposed to wild guesses)

Is anything before human consciousness arises impossible to verify and testify?

It may well be impossible in a specific sense but not in a general sense. Only the greatest Solipsist would argue that nothing existed before human consciousness arose (although it would be a valid argument) but, I feel, that if we try to nail down the specifics of what existed before human consciousness we find ourselves back in the realm of guessing.
In a previous post you said "Without (human) consciousness, there would still be objective relations..."
'Objective relations' must surely be viewed as a mental construct, so without human consciousness they cease to exist. I understand that what you say means "the things we call objective relations will still exist" but I would argue that breaking things down into separate entities - spacetime, matter, energy, forces, objective relations, etc.- is something that human consciousness does. Without human consciouness the universe exists as a unified whole and all out little categories and classifications disappear.
The rational mind fragments and divides things, thus displaying its own nature. Without the rational mind reality can be experienced as a unified whole.

 

[-Job-]

How else can we determine the fact that the Earth is 4,5 billions of years old, and the universe 13,7 billion years old?

As far as i know the universe might have been created earlier today when i woke up, purposedly setup to look like a 13.7 billion year old universe.

 

[sd01g]

As far as i know the universe might have been created earlier today when i woke up, purposedly setup to look like a 13.7 billion year old universe.

Perhaps you could offer evidence to support your supposition. I have never encountered anyone who could present any empirical, rational, or even imaginary evidence for such a statement. Arranging words is easy. Offering evidence can be more challenging.

 

[-Job-]

Ok, suppose i live inside a machine. A virtual world, wherein i came into being this morning and which is around when i wake up and gone when i go to sleep (reboot).

In this virtual world there exists a planet and people. The people claim that the planet is 4.5 billion years old, and they're probably correct as it matches the current state of the universe and how the universe operates.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that the universe was created earlier this morning in such a state as to have a planet that's 4.5 million years old, so the fact that the planet is 4.5 million years old doesn't eliminate the possibility that the universe was created today.

I'm not proposing that it's a likely possibility, although to be honest it's as plausible as any other, I'm only declaring it as a possibility to refute Heusdens claim that the fact that we can show the planet and the universe to be X years old proves that the universe is around when I'm not.
And this is not a wild assumption, it's a logical proposition.

 

[mosassam]

Heusdens claims do not qualify as 'facts', only educated guesses based on the amount of relevant information available. As has happened many times in the past (too many times to ignore) these 'facts' may turn out as wildly in error.

 

[sd01g]

Ok, suppose i live inside a machine. A virtual world, wherein i came into being this morning and which is around when i wake up and gone when i go to sleep (reboot).

In this virtual world there exists a planet and people. The people claim that the planet is 4.5 billion years old, and they're probably correct as it matches the current state of the universe and how the universe operates.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that the universe was created earlier this morning in such a state as to have a planet that's 4.5 million years old, so the fact that the planet is 4.5 million years old doesn't eliminate the possibility that the universe was created today.

I'm not proposing that it's a likely possibility, although to be honest it's as plausible as any other, I'm only declaring it as a possibility to refute Heusdens claim that the fact that we can show the planet and the universe to be X years old proves that the universe is around when I'm not.
And this is not a wild assumption, it's a logical proposition.

Score: Hyperspeculation 1--Evidence 0

 

[-Job-]

Score: Hyperspeculation 1--Evidence 0

I don't believe you're even up to speed as to what the discussion is about. Why don't you get with the context before entering the context.
The particulars of this "hyperspeculation" aren't relevant.
If somebody has to provide evidence it's you or Heusdens, who are claiming that my unlikely scenario is in fact impossible. Do you understand what I'm saying?

 

[mosassam]

I have never encountered anyone who could present any empirical, rational, or even imaginary evidence for such a statement.

Do you have any evidence to support this claim or do you expect us to simply accept it?
As you say "Arranging words is easy".

 

[baywax]

Right. And even better stated, the question already assumes some negative, namely that there is only something and not nothing. For if there is only something, it is saying that there is just being, which then is in fact the same as that there is just non-being. There is being and there is non-being only because there is becoming.

I like the idea of becoming. Is this a form of Gradient theory?
I am becoming nothing and I am becoming something.
Is it simultanieous?
Is there a way to distinquish between the two?
Certainly not by the standards of quantum theory.

 

[out of whack]

I don't see the merit of considering what isn't. Considering what is means considering what applies to something or other. But what is the point of considering what doesn't apply?

 

[tree]

If someone was able to make an infinite computer that could accurately simulate some sort of big bang, the universe produced would be simply made of the information or calculations of the program.

Assuming the program takes into account all known physical laws one would be able to view that information in the form of pixels represented in a virtual 3d space. You could even find a planet with life and the people would think they are real but are just a mathematical representation.

Of course the computer would have to calculate faster than time (maybe by using a program to simulate binary switches inside strings?)

Or you might beable to only calculate the slice of information you wish to "view" like when viewing a fractal.

If you could tap into a fractal pattern that represents the state of physical matter in the universe (maybe dna?), and using that as a reference point, the program could simulate an estimation of what is beyond the furthest telescope or smaller than an atom. (But no one can grasp infinity)

Maybe the only thing that exists is information.

 

[heusdens]

As far as i know the universe might have been created earlier today when i woke up, purposedly setup to look like a 13.7 billion year old universe.

Yeah, right.

But then you have a different understanding of what and how the world is.

If you really think that, there is no point in discussing anything with you, nobody can proof you wrong.
But that doesn't mean the idea itself has any use or significance.

All you are saying is that the world is unknowable.

If you like to think that, it is your choice.

 

[heusdens]

I like the idea of becoming. Is this a form of Gradient theory?
I am becoming nothing and I am becoming something.
Is it simultanieous?
Is there a way to distinquish between the two?
Certainly not by the standards of quantum theory.

No, this is dialectics.

Being and non-being are opposing terms which only exist in their unity (that is: they don't have separate meaning), which is becoming.

Being and non-being must be understood as separate moments of becoming.

Take for example water which has two (well in fact three) distinct phase: liquid and gas. When we heat the water it's liquidness vanishes into gas.
There you see that being and non-being in fact belong to each other.
The liquidness ceases to be, but at the same time the gasness comes into being.

 

[heusdens]

If someone was able to make an infinite computer that could accurately simulate some sort of big bang, the universe produced would be simply made of the information or calculations of the program.

Assuming the program takes into account all known physical laws one would be able to view that information in the form of pixels represented in a virtual 3d space. You could even find a planet with life and the people would think they are real but are just a mathematical representation.

Of course the computer would have to calculate faster than time (maybe by using a program to simulate binary switches inside strings?)

Or you might beable to only calculate the slice of information you wish to "view" like when viewing a fractal.

If you could tap into a fractal pattern that represents the state of physical matter in the universe (maybe dna?), and using that as a reference point, the program could simulate an estimation of what is beyond the furthest telescope or smaller than an atom. (But no one can grasp infinity)

Maybe the only thing that exists is information.

How do you have information without material substances??