Why something rather than nothing?

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The discussion centers on the philosophical question of why there is something rather than nothing, suggesting that the existence of something is a brute fact without an underlying reason. It posits that to understand this, one must identify a fact C that makes something (A) more likely than nothing (B), but concludes that such a fact cannot exist since C is part of something. The conversation also touches on the nature of everythingness and nothingness, arguing that everythingness could be seen as a form of nothingness. Ultimately, the dialogue emphasizes the complexity of the question while asserting that the existence of something is an assumption that science cannot definitively prove. The discourse highlights the philosophical implications of this inquiry, suggesting that it challenges foundational assumptions made by science.
  • #91
tauon said:
@vectorcube...

I don't get your argument?
isn't your argument that existence is merely a brute fact.

to quote you:

"It means that there is no underlying reason for why there is something rather than nothing. That the existence of something is a brute fact."

what exactly about your argument do I fail to understand? please enlighten me... -_-

It means that the original question do not following the usual template. The problem is with the inclusion of nothing as a state of affair.

The meaning is that nothing is not a state of affair, and the question should really be "Why something?", or "Why something exist?". Since there is no alternative of why there is something, because " nothing" is not a state of affair, thus not a possibility. The existence of something would be a brute fact.
 
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  • #92
apeiron said:
Again, who are these people?

The majority of people( non-philosophers and philosophers) that ask the question.
 
  • #93
vectorcube said:
The majority of people( non-philosophers and philosophers) that ask the question.

But again, not the very philosophers you cited, so presumably not the academic community you had in mind whose views on these things could be taken as read.

Nor apparently the majority of those responding here on this forum. So that is a weak reply.
 
  • #94
vectorcube said:
It means that the original question do not following the usual template. The problem is with the inclusion of nothing as a state of affair. The meaning is that nothing is not a state of affair,

and with this part, as I so many times now said: I AGREE. however-

vectorcube said:
and the question should really be "Why something?", or "Why something exist?". Since there is no alternative of why there is something, because " nothing" is not a state of affair, thus not a possibility. The existence of something would be a brute fact.

that is incorrect! whether existence is a brute fact or not, does not follow from this reasoning.

the question does not fit only in the "why A and not B?" where A and B were both the same type-states of affairs.
however, the question is perfectly valid in a context of "why Q and not P?" where Q and P are different types (not both states of affair) or "why Q and not not-Q ?".
 
  • #95
What are is the probility that a universe doesn't exist aka nothingness... Would stay as nothingness from now till tomorrow and every tomorrows after that. Id say the chances of a universe that started as nothing and remained nothing would be zero.

The only problem with this idea is the religious dogma of science that says energy can't be created or destroyed. If you do away with that rule then a universe can come from nothing and at that point the question would be... Why/How does energy get made or unmade? Because I have a spiritual side I would answer that with this word... Choice.
 
  • #96
vectorcube said:
Well, perhaps to the less than informed, but the original questions obvious talks about contingent concrete objects.

*head-desk*
 
  • #97
apeiron said:
But again, not the very philosophers you cited, so presumably not the academic community you had in mind whose views on these things could be taken as read.


Honestly, you don` t know what you saying here. Most philosophers that asked it had in mind contingent concrete objects. They include Parfit, and nozick. Are you honestly comparing yourself to me? You even misquote them! Seriously, all of you quotes from parfit, nozick are misinterpreted, and outright wrong.
 
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  • #98
tauon said:
however, the question is perfectly valid in a context of "why Q and not P?" where Q and P are different types (not both states of affair) or "why Q and not not-Q ?".

For the 100 times. NO!

nothing is not a state of affair, and so the scheme does not apply. What you have here does not make any sense.
 
  • #99
qraal said:
*head-desk*


Is it too "ontological"?
 
  • #100
vectorcube said:
Honestly, you don` t know what you saying here. Most philosophers that asked it had in mind contingent concrete objects. They include Parfit, and nozick. Are you honestly comparing yourself to me?

Yes but you gave two references where both these philosophers explicitly included what you dub abstract objects as part of the general question of what exists. They also seem as concerned about necessary objects as contingent ones. So you're just being weird about this.

Just happened to be reading something that made me smile...

One famous quote attributed to Buddha states: “Unity can only be
manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.”

To talk about worlds, we have to talk about both the contents and the container. You insist that only contents is a natural thing to be concerned with. But you can never escape the equally necessary idea of a container no matter how you wriggle.

A state of affairs is - quite plainly - both a state and the affairs we deem to constitute it. Even your own terminology has to smuggle in the notion of context to justify the notion of events.

Furthermore, on nothingness, I think we all agree that it cannot actually exist. Even if there is no affairs, there is still the state level description.

But is this then merely a trick of the modelling - our habit of talking in state-based, set theoretic, terms? Perhaps in reality we can define the null set in such a way there is both no contents and no bounding brackets (the denoter of global state)?

That's where the questioning here actually becomes interesting.

Then further, if we take a limits approach to these kinds of questions rather than a set theoretic one, could we treat [null] as being almost no container, almost no contents - so an asymptotic approach that is bounded by actual, but non-existent, nothingness?


So issue 1) Can we treat the "state of affairs" as a two part story? How does this actually divide our concept of nothingness (as into an absence of affairs vs an absence of state)?

And issue 2) If set theoretic approaches are not helpful, could we do better with a limits approach? What would it mean to be infinitesimally close to nothingness? For a start it would turn the question from one about existence or structure into one about development or process.
 
  • #101
Yes but you gave two references where both these philosophers explicitly included what you dub abstract objects as part of the general question of what exists.

Where? reference? quotes?

You are amazing...

One more time. All the philosophers that ask the original question have in mind contingent concrete objects. It is the contingent objects that is most puzzling

The existence of abstract objects is not in question, because they exist necessaily even if there is nothing.


Many real philosophers agree here:http://www.closertotruth.com/topic/Why-is-There-Something-Rather-than-Nothing-/118
 
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  • #102
apeiron said:
Yes but you gave two references where both these philosophers explicitly included what you dub abstract objects as part of the general question of what exists. They also seem as concerned about necessary objects as contingent ones. So you're just being weird about this.

Just happened to be reading something that made me smile...

One famous quote attributed to Buddha states: “Unity can only be
manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.”

To talk about worlds, we have to talk about both the contents and the container. You insist that only contents is a natural thing to be concerned with. But you can never escape the equally necessary idea of a container no matter how you wriggle.

A state of affairs is - quite plainly - both a state and the affairs we deem to constitute it. Even your own terminology has to smuggle in the notion of context to justify the notion of events.

Furthermore, on nothingness, I think we all agree that it cannot actually exist. Even if there is no affairs, there is still the state level description.

But is this then merely a trick of the modelling - our habit of talking in state-based, set theoretic, terms? Perhaps in reality we can define the null set in such a way there is both no contents and no bounding brackets (the denoter of global state)?

That's where the questioning here actually becomes interesting.

Then further, if we take a limits approach to these kinds of questions rather than a set theoretic one, could we treat [null] as being almost no container, almost no contents - so an asymptotic approach that is bounded by actual, but non-existent, nothingness?


So issue 1) Can we treat the "state of affairs" as a two part story? How does this actually divide our concept of nothingness (as into an absence of affairs vs an absence of state)?

And issue 2) If set theoretic approaches are not helpful, could we do better with a limits approach? What would it mean to be infinitesimally close to nothingness? For a start it would turn the question from one about existence or structure into one about development or process.

The existence of a null set, implies that which is not a null set. Zero implies 1, which implies all the properties of the rest of the numbers...
 
  • #103
apeiron said:
A state of affairs is - quite plainly - both a state and the affairs we deem to constitute it. Even your own terminology has to smuggle in the notion of context to justify the notion of events.

Vectorcube, please explain how your term "state of affairs" does not imply a dichotomy as stated.
 
  • #104
apeiron said:
Vectorcube, please explain how your term "state of affairs" does not imply a dichotomy as stated.


"state of affairs" is another way of saying "facts". They have technical meaning.
 
  • #105
vectorcube said:
"state of affairs" is another way of saying "facts". They have technical meaning.

And what are facts? Do they exist as facts qua a circumstance? Is there a context in which some facts are factual, others can be judged as counter-factual? Is there no conceal dichotomy in facts just as there is in any other philosophical term of any utility?
 
  • #106
Yes facts are just opinions strongly held ones at that.

I do believe this question of why something rather then nothing is a good one but... I don't think anyone can really answer it. Its sort of like the what came before the thing that came before question. It might be better to instead ask what do we do now that we know about its complexity type of thing. In that case I would say learning how to better control ourselfs would be a good start. We would have to make some assumptions about what we are first and ignore the fact that we don't know the truth of what we are fully.
 
  • #107
magpies said:
Yes facts are just opinions strongly held ones at that.

I do believe this question of why something rather then nothing is a good one but... I don't think anyone can really answer it. Its sort of like the what came before the thing that came before question. It might be better to instead ask what do we do now that we know about its complexity type of thing. In that case I would say learning how to better control ourselfs would be a good start. We would have to make some assumptions about what we are first and ignore the fact that we don't know the truth of what we are fully.



I got the "properties of zero thing" from David Pearce's website. The site is primarily about the philosophical impliations of genetic engineering (taken to the extreme of consciousness engneering) but he does have a section on this question, not giving an answer but analyzing the parameters of the question, and various ways in which the universe is related to nothingness by means of the concept of zero. This was written sometime ago, so a few things are a bit out of date (when taking about black holes, he doesn't mention the holographic principle at all)
http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm This is page one, there are nine pages.
 
  • #108
Here is another philosophical paper, linked to at the end of the previous one, that discusses the human dimensions of the question in regards to various suppositions of its validity.

http://www.hedweb.com/witherall/existence.htm
 
  • #109
apeiron said:
And what are facts? Do they exist as facts qua a circumstance?

If you taken any courses that introduces your to modern philosophy, they most certainly teachs you what facts is. I have also mention it many times in PF.
 
  • #110
vectorcube said:
If you taken any courses that introduces your to modern philosophy, they most certainly teachs you what facts is. I have also mention it many times in PF.

I was asking for a justification of your position. I realize that is difficult.
 
  • #111
apeiron said:
I was asking for a justification of your position. I realize that is difficult.

You ask me what "facts" mean, and i am telling you i am using it in the conventional way by philosophers. It makes no sense to ask for a justification of a definition. If you have problems with it, then your beef is not with me. You beef is with modern analytic philosophy.
 
  • #112
vectorcube said:
It makes no sense to ask for a justification of a definition.

?

If you don't like the conclusion don't you always challenge the premises?

Certainly I agree that the failure to model "facts" correctly - as events in contexts - is a central problem in modern, largely anglo-saxon, analytic thinking.

You are defending this approach so it seems fair you should defend one of its essential elements.
 
  • #113
apeiron said:
?

If you don't like the conclusion don't you always challenge the premises?

Like i said defore, i don ` t have a justification for the definition of the word "fact". It is given in any philosophical dictionary.

You are defending this approach so it seems fair you should defend one of its essential elements.

The word "facts" is defined by philosophers in a certain way, and i used it according to the standard convention. I am not at all committed to a particular view just because i use the word, and i don` t see why you would think so.
 
  • #114
vectorcube said:
For the 100 times. NO!

nothing is not a state of affair, and so the scheme does not apply. What you have here does not make any sense.

for the 1000th time: of course "nothing" is NOT a "state of affair"!

but as I said, the question fits in the pattern "why A and not Q?" where A is the fact of being a state of affair (existence, being: whatever you may label it) and Q is not a state of affair... -_-

it's like asking: why are the states of affair (gawd, this line is beginning to sound incredibly annoying) instead of not being any states of affair. the question "works". you just need to ask it right. whether it is answerable or not: that's a whole different matter altogether.

but of course, the pattern is merely symbolical. since we are somethings, we need something... so we use a something to inquire about not-something... like the symbol ∅ for the empty set etc. jeez what's so hard to get that? why are you so stuck in formalism? you confuse the term denoting the thing (or the lack of any thing) for the thing itself (or lack of).
 
  • #115
vectorcube said:
Like i said defore, i don ` t have a justification for the definition of the word "fact". It is given in any philosophical dictionary.

... ... a philosophical dictionary? hahaha
you're joking right? o_0

vectorcube said:
The word "facts" is defined by philosophers in a certain way, and i used it according to the standard convention. I am not at all committed to a particular view just because i use the word, and i don` t see why you would think so.

the word "fact" while it holds a relatively similar meaning/definition for almost everyone, it can be highly nuanced. furthermore, whether that definition correlates with "reality" is also something that different people while having a generally similar view of, may hold some divergent ideas for it.

as for you constantly touting "defined/said by philosophers" here and there, that it is meaningless and irrelevant- argumentum ad verecundiam -_-
 
  • #116
vectorcube said:
Like i said defore, i don ` t have a justification for the definition of the word "fact". It is given in any philosophical dictionary.
.

If you remember, what you were ducking was the request for a justification of your use of "state of affairs".

I pointed out that this is a dichotomistic term, one that signifies the global scale (state) and the local scale (affairs). I asked did you notice this fact and understand its logical significance?

So focus, as you keep demanding of everyone else.
 
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  • #117
tauon said:
for the 1000th time: of course "nothing" is NOT a "state of affair"!

but as I said, the question fits in the pattern "why A and not Q?" where A is the fact of being a state of affair (existence, being: whatever you may label it) and Q is not a state of affair... -_-

QUOTE]


Here is what is wrong. A, and Q needs to be a state of affair for the scheme to work.

If G is a not a state of affair. I don ` t see why "not G" is a state of affair.


it's like asking: why are the states of affair (gawd, this line is beginning to sound incredibly annoying) instead of not being any states of affair. the question "works". you just need to ask it right.

It does not work that way. *Something* that is NOT a state of affair do not fit into the scheme.
 
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  • #118
... ... a philosophical dictionary? hahaha
you're joking right? o_0

Are joking by saying this? hahaha

I think a word when used that commonly within philosophy have a high probability of being in a dictionary. It is a very likely of being in a philosophy dictionary. Why is that surprising?
Why is that funny?

as for you constantly touting "defined/said by philosophers" here and there, that it is meaningless and irrelevant

Why? It is crazy. It is like talking about modality, and not knowing what "possible world" means. Don ` t you want to know what are "possible worlds" mean. Why can ` t i define it according to what philosophers conventional hold to be the case? You make no sense here.
 
  • #119
If you remember, what you were ducking was the request for a justification of your use of "state of affairs".
What is there to justify? I see a table in front of me is a state of affair. Do you really want a justification? weird...
I pointed out that this is a dichotomistic term, one that signifies the global scale (state) and the local scale (affairs).
Well, i have no idea what dichotomistic mean.
I asked did you notice this fact and understand its logical significance?
Don` t know anything about it. I was not really paying attention, because of 1.
 
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  • #120
vectorcube said:
Well, i have no idea what dichotomistic mean.

As you would say, are you crazy, what you mean, everyone know, look it up in the dictionary, etc.
 

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