# Ultimate question: Why anything at all?



## Kon

> 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]. &#8230; 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?'&#8230; 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. *


Does the argument below sound convincing?

*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.*


*Why is there something rather than nothing?*
http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2009/06/05/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing/


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## Alduriam

I would reject this argument because it confuses the questions of existence and essence.

Mixing non-being with other possiblities for being amounts to qualifying non-being as one possility of being, which is self contradictory.


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## Jnmcda0

We can only ask this question because we are here. If nothing existed, the logical question would be "why isn't there something?", only there would be no one around to ask it.


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## fatelogic

There is no such thing as nothing to me. Humans only define nothing to things they cannot understand or perceive. For example, based on the human eye sight, if someone were to ask you "do you have something in your hand?", and your hand being empty, you would say, "nothing is in my hand".

The "nothing" there you are defining as "nothing" based on your limited abilities to see. Now if you were to put your hand under a microscope and someone were to ask you, "is there something in your hand?" you would say, "yes, I see something there moving." So the nothing changes along with the perspective. Further more, the inside of your hand is not nothing because the hand exists. If I want to get philosophical, "nothing" cannot exist if it is inside something.

So "nothing" is a made up word that we have learned to label it as a "law" to our reality.

Coincidentally, I was reading today about electricity and how there is an "atom" which consists of "electrons", "protons", and "neutrons" . So in a way, electricity is being perceived as coming from "nothing" too. Our abilities to see that phenomena gave it labels and names and applied it to math. So the atoms, electrons, neutrons, and protons are believe to be born from "nothing" too.

The question of "*Why anything at all? *Is rooted in believing there is nothing when we don't know if there is nothing at all. IMO.


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## Kon

Alduriam said:


> Mixing non-being with other possiblities for being amounts to qualifying non-being as one possility of being, which is self contradictory.


I don't think it's self-contradictory. In mathematics we speak of an empty set versus a set with n elements/objects in it. But I'm not sure if nothingness is the same as the empty set because an empty set isn't really nothing. It's kind of like talking about an empty box with nothing inside but the box is still there.

Some argue that the argument fails because of problem of multiple nothings. I just find the idea of an uncreated/uncaused something (e.g. our universe) strange, unless there's some logical reason for it. And if there was a moment of creation, it seems one can always ask what the cause was ad infinitum*.*

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nothingness/


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## PaysageDHiver

Kon said:


> *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.
> 
> [URL]http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2009/06/05/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing/[/URL]


Pretty interesting, but there are a lot of premises there. I don't think I have a grip on the sentence 'there are no variants in nothing', because I doubt that our folk concept 'nothing' can be used meaningfully in cosmological theorizing of this sort. This also brings in possible worlds, which seems to me to often to lead to faulty metaphysics.

Again, interesting stuff, but I'm inclined to think that the original question is a pseudo-question. Doesn't mean it isn't worth thinking about though, because someone may yet come up with a satisfactory answer.


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## Kon

PaysageDHiver said:


> Pretty interesting, but there are a lot of premises there. I don't think I have a grip on the sentence 'there are no variants in nothing', because I doubt that our folk concept 'nothing' can be used meaningfully in cosmological theorizing of this sort.


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


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## PaysageDHiver

Kon said:


> 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


That helps.


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## Hiccups

*Ultimate question: Why anything at all?

Ultimate answer: ...
*


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## ndh505

Why don't you try Heidegger... That guy was obsessed about being and nothingness. Of course he's a philosopher, not scientist, so his work might seem kind of pointless. Also, he's somewhat snobbish and very convoluted.


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## Cynical

I always believed the question "Why there is something rather than nothing?" could easily be answered by "because there is something" meaning if there was nothing at first the question would not exist but since there is something the question exist with it. its a bit confusing but its perfect for me.


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## ColdTurkey

I've been wondering if I've been living a dream. It kind of gives me motivation to live so that I can reach the "lucid" stage.


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## Alduriam

I'v always thought, looking at how the world and natural life is evolving, that universe isn't eternal. Now, if it had a start, it had to be a cause, which was uncaused itself.
"Big bang" and other scientific theories fail here because every physical effect has a cause.


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## hoddesdon

Jnmcda0 said:


> We can only ask this question because we are here. If nothing existed, the logical question would be "why isn't there something?", only there would be no one around to ask it.


If there were no-one around to ask it, there would be no thought to generate questions, so the question would not exist either.


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## hoddesdon

A fundamental law of physics is that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. If it can not be created, then why is there anything at all?


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## ColdTurkey

hoddesdon said:


> A fundamental law of physics is that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. If it can not be created, then why is there anything at all?


My guess is that there's some unobserved law that's behind this. Of course we're going to question what creates that law even then.

The key of this universe is probably going to be pretty complex in order to terminate that sort of pattern and whatnot.


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## NeonSloaney

Aldarium has been questioning the thread from a strong anthropological view, which is wrong. I won't go into why, but I will link a youtube video going into why if a universe comes from nothing, god could not have caused the Universe period because of how we define causal relationships.




When faced with an unknown you don't go to an assertion. It's as simple as that.


Aldarium said:


> If it had a start, it had to have a cause that was itself uncaused


Big assertion there. 
Premise 1. The Universe has a cause.
Premise 2. That cause is God. (in your case THE catholic god, not a vague concept of God like Einstein uses)
Premise 3. God is uncausal.
Conclusion: God Caused the Universe to exist.

Now I can say that your conclusion is a premise, that it's the fallacy called begging the question, and can be dismissed because it makes for a circular argument, and circular arguments can have no bearing on reality.

I would say that the Universe itself is a big bang interpretation of an at the core steady state universe, in that there is always something, be it before this Universe or after it.
Theories like multiverse theory, many worlds theory etc support this idea of an infinite and absurd state governed by probablities itself not governed by time.


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## Alduriam

NeonSloaney said:


> Aldarium has been questioning the thread from a strong anthropological view, which is wrong. I won't go into why, but I will link a youtube video going into why if a universe comes from nothing, god could not have caused the Universe period because of how we define causal relationships.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> When faced with an unknown you don't go to an assertion. It's as simple as that.
> 
> Big assertion there.
> Premise 1. The Universe has a cause.
> Premise 2. That cause is God. (in your case THE catholic god, not a vague concept of God like Einstein uses)
> Premise 3. God is uncausal.
> Conclusion: God Caused the Universe to exist.
> 
> Now I can say that your conclusion is a premise, that it's the fallacy called begging the question, and can be dismissed because it makes for a circular argument, and circular arguments can have no bearing on reality.
> 
> I would say that the Universe itself is a big bang interpretation of an at the core steady state universe, in that there is always something, be it before this Universe or after it.
> Theories like multiverse theory, many worlds theory etc support this idea of an infinite and absurd state governed by probablities itself not governed by time.


A conclusion is a conclusion. It can be supported adequatly or inadequatly by the premisses, but it's still a conclusion.

I would formulate my argument like this:

Premisses
1. Nature is in constant change. Just like rocks, plants, animals and humans, it seems logical to think that the Cosmos as a whole also had a generation and will undergo a corruption.
2. No effect is uncaused in the physical world.
3. By going back in the chain of causality, we must come to an uncaused cause, else the causality chain would be infinite, and thus the world would be eternal.

Conclusion
Therefore, we can deduce a supernatural intervention.

Care to tell me where you think this argument is weak?


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## NeonSloaney

Alduriam said:


> A conclusion is a conclusion. It can be supported adequatly or inadequatly by the premisses, but it's still a conclusion.
> 
> I would formulate my argument like this:
> 
> Premisses
> 1. Nature is in constant change. Just like rocks, plants, animals and humans, it seems logical to think that the Cosmos as a whole also had ta generation and will undergo a corruption.
> 2. No effect is uncaused in the physical world.
> 3. By going back in the chain of causality, we must come to an uncaused cause, else the causality chain would be infinite, and thus the world would be eternal.
> 
> Conclusion
> Therefore, we can deduce a supernatural intervention.


There are two conclusions. One is supernatural intervention, but that begs the question what is god? A blanket statement that he is uncausal is not enough, you do have to back up the god assertion with something. Otherwise, it renders the god argument meaningless.
The other is that some things don't have logical explanations, in terms of causality. We don't know anything about non-causal relations, how can we attempt to argue so when there is no evidence of this non-causal demon?

Let me put it this way. Quantum mechanics dictates the universe is non deterministic, and chaos theory exacerbates this. The definition of non-deterministic is that no one, not an outside observer, not the particles themselves, not us can predict the EXACT future given we know exact given starting conditions.
This erodes God as religion portrays him as he is omnipotent, and omniscient. 
The only way you can bring God into the debate is if you use god similar to as how Albert Einstein did.


Einstein said:


> I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things.


In this sense, god can be anything from a multiverse, to a blanket term for what was before the big bang. It does not allow for specific and literal interpretations based on thousands of years old texts.


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## Alduriam

NeonSloaney said:


> There are two conclusions. One is supernatural intervention, but that begs the question what is god? A blanket statement that he is uncausal is not enough, you do have to back up the god assertion with something. Otherwise, it renders the god argument meaningless.
> The other is that some things don't have logical explanations, in terms of causality. We don't know anything about non-causal relations, how can we attempt to argue so when there is no evidence of this non-causal demon?
> 
> Let me put it this way. Quantum mechanics dictates the universe is non deterministic, and chaos theory exacerbates this. The definition of non-deterministic is that no one, not an outside observer, not the particles themselves, not us can predict the EXACT future given we know exact given starting conditions.
> This erodes God as religion portrays him as he is omnipotent, and omniscient.
> The only way you can bring God into the debate is if you use god similar to as how Albert Einstein did.
> 
> In this sense, god can be anything from a multiverse, to a blanket term for what was before the big bang. It does not allow for specific and literal interpretations based on thousands of years old texts.


My argument did not precise what was God, or even if it was a God. The conclusion was simply "a supernatural intervention". So you cannot accuse me of begging the question on this point.

Regarding Quantum mechanics and Chaos theory, you are confusing two things: predictability and determinism. Events may be very hard to predict based on our current knowledge and the vast amount of possible results given a set of conditions, and still be determined.

Unless you believe the universe has always existed (which is very unlikely), the necessecity of an uncaused cause imposes itself logically.


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## NeonSloaney

Alduriam said:


> Regarding Quantum mechanics and Chaos theory, you are confusing two things: predictability and determinism. Events may be very hard to predict based on our current knowledge and the vast amount of possible results given a set of conditions, and still be determined.


2 interpretations arguing for non-determinism in quantum physics: Copenhagen interpretation, and many worlds theory. In both cases an observer changes the results of experiments.
Then I'll give the analogy of an apple. (this is from a different forum on a different site)


me said:


> I guess my side of the argument is, I don't see why everything we can't define logically has to have an explanation, but I'd prefer that we try logic before an assertion. I do respect that you know a fair a bit about the science behind quantum mechanics, but you'd probably agree with this: take an apple.
> You can know everything about the apple's properties. It has 300g mass, it has some radioactive particles, it is made of sugars that combine chemically because of the way electrons behave on a quantum level, it's room temperature is about 300K, there is water with some electrolytes in it, the electrons are kept in their orbits by Neils Bohr's postulates, the atoms are left over star material, the proton's mass is mostly empty space even on the quark scale, the electrons have infinite amounts of imaginary energy, which just cancels out in energy and mass to equal an electron in orbit with certain quanta of energy, sometimes a proton will decay in the apple.
> I predict that all the data we could detect from this apple would have more information than we could store in the biggest computer, and in this universe with just our apple, it only comprises 5% of the mass, another 25% of the universe is dark matter, and another 70% is it's equivalent in energy that we cannot see.
> If science could know everything in theory it would still not know everything. And I'm fine with that.


So if we can't know everything about an apple, only everything in theory, what hope does god have of taking into account every photon and proton and neutron and electron in a universe filled with astronomical numbers of them?
I guess, I agree to a degree with your argument, but I don't know how you expect me to suddenly think it's sentient or something. I was laying the ground rules for what a supernatural intervention may be. Again, this guy says what I'm trying to say in a more concise and clear manner.




It's just one of two interpretations, and one is much simpler than the other.


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## Kon

Alduriam said:


> Unless you believe the universe has always existed (which is very unlikely), the necessecity of an uncaused cause imposes itself logically.


An eternal universe is not mathematically forbidden. There are a number of eternal models of the universe although as far as I know they are not favoured.


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## fatelogic

> god could not have caused the Universe period because of how we define causal relationships.


 I am not going to pretend that I understand what you are talking about as a whole but I do understand the following sentence as a whole "*god could not have caused the Universe period*" because that is logically false. We only live withing our own limited understanding of the world and the universe being created from nothing. Se we accept nothing as something. Nothing gave birth to nothing... now our own view of nothing is just limited.... when there might be something there... and there is...

my point is that in 300 billion years in the future (and the future is just our own future.. could be(and is) some other galaxies past), if we where to exist then, we would have the knowledge to make galaxies. Heck, we can make rain now if we really wanted to. I believe it is expensive though to do... but durable none the less.

So if we can make galaxies we become gods. We become rulers of the world because if we can make then, we can destroy them.

This sound crazy but logically, that is possible. After all, the earth is made from universe debri and not just by magic.

Does evolution has and ending?


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## ugh1979

fatelogic said:


> my point is that in 300 billion years in the future (and the future is just our own future.. could be(and is) some other galaxies past), if we where to exist then, we would have the knowledge to make galaxies. Heck, we can make rain now if we really wanted to. I believe it is expensive though to do... but durable none the less.
> 
> So if we can make galaxies we become gods. We become rulers of the world because if we can make then, we can destroy them.
> 
> This sound crazy but logically, that is possible. After all, the earth is made from universe debri and not just by magic.


Indeed, I discussed it here.


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## fatelogic

Interesting theory though that is not what I tried to imply... second... hmmm what?

So prokaryotes became apes and apes became humans and now humans who can make computers choose to live in a virtual world. Nahh, that is too far fetched.

There are many things about that theory that do not add up. For one, we have just separated ourselves from true reality to a virtual work.

Computers are billions of years behind brain power... is not about how fast the computer can compute more than a human brain... is about if a little robot can reproduce on it's own with a purpose like a virus can. Show me where a micro robot (not visible to the naked eye) can or a robot in a virtual world can reproduce by it's own like a virus with a purpose, and then I might take that AI theory serious.

Again, why would "evolution" chose to change to a virtual world? This implies that AI is in control in the future when there is someone behind the computer all of the time. Which means that someone will always be in control of AI and that someone is a living soul.

It does not add up.

Like I said before and i'll say it again, "scientist" like to jump the gun... e.g. 




though you "love" your computer don't you


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## ugh1979

fatelogic said:


> Interesting theory though that is not what I tried to imply... second... hmmm what?
> 
> So prokaryotes became apes and apes became humans and now humans who can make computers choose to live in a virtual world. Nahh, that is too far fetched.
> 
> There are many things about that theory that do not add up. For one, we have just separated ourselves from true reality to a virtual work.


You must not have read the whole theory or or misunderstood it, as I concluded that the virtual universes were in fact true reality and not virtual.



> Computers are billions of years behind brain power... is not about how fast the computer can compute more than a human brain... is about if a little robot can reproduce on it's own with a purpose like a virus can. Show me where a micro robot (not visible to the naked eye) can or a robot in a virtual world can reproduce by it's own like a virus with a purpose, and then I might take that AI theory serious.


Computers have a huge advantage over biological evolution in that they can evolve a lot faster. I wouldn't be surprised to see a computer surpass the human brain this century at the latest. As for self replicating nano robots and such like, it's been done in AI simulations for years and we can probably expect to see it happen in the physical world this century. There is a lot of work going on in this field at the moment.



> Again, why would "evolution" chose to change to a virtual world? This implies that AI is in control in the future when there is someone behind the computer all of the time. Which means that someone will always be in control of AI and that someone is a living soul.
> 
> It does not add up.


As I said, in my theory the virtual world is the real world. AI = I. The intelligence I indicate goes far beyond basic biological beings like humans. I admit it's a theory that you really need to think outside the box on.



> Like I said before and i'll say it again, "scientist" like to jump the gun...


Without speculation we severely limit progress. We need ideas.



> though you "love" your computer don't you


I love technology, progress and devices that make my life easier and more fun.


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## kev

It's an interest, well-crafted argument, but it relies on a lot of assumptions. It also discounts the idea that our universe is not random. I don't think a simple probabilistic argument is going to answer one of the deepest questions of all time. We can't make any assumptions about anything - what makes randomness such an obvious idea? Maybe everything is predetermined. Maybe in another universe, there is no such thing as probability. Or maybe, we are mistaken, and even in our own universe, probability is just an illusion. Maybe our universe turned out exactly the way it did, because that was the only possibility. I'm rambling, but you get my point - I would like a little more convincing that a probabilistic argument is even valid.


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## Kon

kev said:


> It's an interest, well-crafted argument, but it relies on a lot of assumptions. It also discounts the idea that our universe is not random. I don't think a simple probabilistic argument is going to answer one of the deepest questions of all time.


I agree. I think that's the best argument against it. We discussed this in a math/physics forum. Here is the just of it. If one assumes that mind-independent reality transcends mathematical (necessary) truths/logic (e.g. reality is not mathematical), then these types of arguments are arguably not very convincing. I was kind of was sympathetic to the mathematical/probabilistic arguments quoted at start of this thread because they were simple but I agree with you, especially since I lean towards treating mathematical objects as mental stuff. I'm guessing that someone who is more of a Platonist on mathematics (e.g. Tegmark's mathematical universe hypothesis, come to mind) may be more persuaded by the probablistic arguments, I think? One author who takes a very Platonic approach in trying to answer this question is Rickles:

_



The strategy I am advocating is that physics, in becoming more or less completely aligned to mathematics (in terms of content, at least), will be able to penetrate down the ladder of explanation to the very deepest rung of all: existence. We do not have the same kind of problem with the existence of mathematics. Mathematical statements are necessarily true in the sense that if they are true in one world (in the sense of modal logic) then they are true in all worlds. They are not created. They are not located in spacetime. The question of why is there something rather than nothing simply does not make sense if the somethings in question are mathematical.

Click to expand...

_http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Rickles_Rickles_fqxi_2.pdf

But there are problems with this approach due to the following statement by the author:



> so long as we are willing to accept that reality is mathematical


That's a major problem especially for those who view mathematics as mental objects or believe that reality transcends mathematics. I always assumed that qualia/consciousness defies mathematical/formal description so the existence of such stuff seems to seriously raise doubts about whether mathematics can fully describe reality.


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## Milco

Probability really can't be used in that way and with those assumptions.
It's easy to form similar arguments that undermine our existence entirely following the same ideas. For example the idea that in time we'll have enough computing power to simulate countless instances of the universe from Big Bang until the end in just a fraction of a second and so billions and billions of simulated universes would exist, but only one real universe, thus making it very unlikely we live in the real one and aren't merely simulated.
And the argument could also be used to say there is a god.

Mathematics are a tool invented by humans to describe regularity observed in the world.
And from Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem we have that there does not exist a complete and consistent set of axioms for all of mathematics.
If reality is mathematical and mathematics exists out there independent of thought, that seems to violate the Incompleteness Theorem.


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## Kon

Milco said:


> Mathematics are a tool invented by humans to describe regularity observed in the world.
> And from Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem we have that there does not exist a complete and consistent set of axioms for all of mathematics.
> If reality is mathematical and mathematics exists out there independent of thought, that seems to violate the Incompleteness Theorem.


That looks like a good argument, I hope? That was also my argument against Rickle's paper:



> Furthermore, maybe I'm misunderstanding but is Rickle's point that there is no problem concerning Godel's theorem, with respect to his position, valid? He seems to suggest all of the following:
> 
> 1. Godel's theorem does not tell us that there is any problem with mathematical truths per se; only that there is no algorithmic way of generating all such truths. We must distinguish truth and provability.
> 2. Furthermore, there's a distinction between the tools (i.e. theories) we use to represent reality and the reality itself.
> 3. Godel's incompleteness theorem applies to the former alone (theories). Indeed, this does impose a limitation on physics' theoretical prowess in that if reality is a certain way (related to properties of arithmetic) then a complete account using any logico-mathematical representation will prove to be impossible. This is an epistemic limitation rather than a limitation imposed on reality.
> 
> But then he also suggests that for his argument to be valid one has to accept the view that:
> 
> 4. Reality is mathematical.
> 
> Wouldn't that imply that there is no difference between the tools (i.e. theories) and reality so that Godel's incompleteness theorem would apply? Maybe I'm mistaken. I have trouble with these types of arguments.


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## hoddesdon

Kon said:


> 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. http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2009/06/05/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing/*


*

*Yes, it is true that the question why anything exists at all is fundamental. The easiest thing would be for there to be nothing, one would think, because that requires no materials, no effort, no planning, no luck nor any inputs of any kind to bring it about. There is not even a need to bring it about.

There is a linkage with the question whether God exists. God created the universe, and that is why there is not nothing. By posing this question you are suggesting implicitly that God exists, since that is the only answer.


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## Kon

hoddesdon said:


> There is a linkage with the question whether God exists. God created the universe, and that is why there is not nothing. By posing this question you are suggesting implicitly that God exists, since that is the only answer.


Isn't God, a "something"? Well, in that case, why a God rather than nothing?


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## hoddesdon

^ I can't give you an answer to that. I can only look at from the point of view of the physical universe.


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## Kon

hoddesdon said:


> I can only look at from the point of view of the physical universe.


But that seems to go against your argument that "God created the universe".


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## Centrofly

Just a small thought to add to the discussion (I admittedly have not read everything in this thread). While reading _The Fabric of the Cosmos_ by Brian Greene he raised an interesting idea. Consider several centuries ago when everyone believed the world was flat. A popular question at the time may have been, "What is at the edge of the earth?" But in light of our recent scientific discoveries (chiefly, that the earth is a sphere) we find this question outmoded and impossible to answer. The flaw is not in our ability to answer the question, but _the question itself._

I try not to become too perturbed by questions such as, "What happened before the big bang?" or "Why something rather than nothing?" because, like our ancestors before, future scientific discoveries may reveal that we have simply been asking the wrong questions.

This isn't meant as a simplified argument for evading serious cosmological questions. It's just provided as another angle to approach these questions.


----------



## Kon

Milco said:


> Probability really can't be used in that way and with those assumptions.


Here's some interesting arguments supporting your position and against the probabilistic argument presented in original post:


> Van Inwagen, while not himself a cosmologist, addresses a cosmological question. He proposes to answer the question that is "supposed to be the most profound and difficult of all questions": "Why is there anything at all?" The argument is elaborate, so I shall jump to the essential step. Van Inwagen presents the premises that there is only one possible world in which there are no beings but there are infinitely many possible worlds in which there are beings. The latter is arrived at by arguing that there are many ways for beings to be but only one way for them not to be. He then urges that the probability of being actual for each possible universe is the same. (I set aside the problem that this instantly conflicts with the requirement that probability measures normalize to unity.) It now follows that the probability "of there being nothing is 0." It is "as improbable as anything can be" . Hence, no doubt, we are to infer that there being anything at all is as probable as anything can be. Van Inwagen prudently admits that he is "unhappy about the argument...No doubt there is something wrong with it...but I should like to be told what it is". *What is wrong is that it is an instance of the inductive disjunctive fallacy.* *Our background assumptions are near vacuous and provide completely neutral support for the actuality of each possible world*; therefore, they provide completely neutral support for any disjunction of these possibilities. What van Inwagen has done is to represent this neutrality incorrectly by a widely spread probability measure, thereby committing himself fallaciously to the conclusion that a disjunction of all but one of them is strongly supported.


*Cosmic Confusions: Not Supporting versus Supporting Not*
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers...sion_final.pdf



> *If one applies probabilities thoughtlessly, one might try to represent the state of complete ignorance by a broadly spread probability distribution over the outcomes.* Then the probability of the disjunction can be brought close to unity merely by adding more outcomes. Hence one would infer fallaciously to near certainty for a sufficiently large contingent disjunction of outcomes over which we are individually in complete ignorance. The fallacy is surprisingly widespread. A striking example is supplied by van Inwagen [1996] in answer to the cosmic question "Why is there anything at all?" There is, he asserts, one way for no thing to be, but infinitely many ways for different things to be. Distributing probabilities over these outcomes fairly uniformly, we infer that the disjunction representing the infinitely many ways things can be must attract all the probability mass so that we assign probability one to it.


*Challenges to Bayesian Confirmation Theory*
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers...nges_final.pdf

Zinkernagel summarizes this:


> From the perspective of Norton's critique, it is not hard to see what is wrong with the analogy. When you win the lottery ticket it may be reasonable to infer that other people bought a ticket but, in any case, the very idea of winning a lottery presupposes that other tickets exist and that the winning ticket has been drawn more or less randomly from the collection of tickets. By contrast, our universe being the way it is ("winning the lottery") does not presuppose that other universes (with different properties) exist-our evidence is simply neutral in this respect. Furthermore, *we have no a priori right to presuppose that the values of the parameters characterizing our universe are bestowed on it by some random process-and so no right to presuppose a probability distribution (uniform or otherwise) of the outcomes.* Therefore, a judgment of what is natural to infer from our universe being as it is (with us in it) hangs in the air.


*Some trends in the philosophy of physics*
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/8761/


----------



## jg43i9jghy0t4555

Kon said:


> 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?'


*Alien female voice* How very human.


----------



## jg43i9jghy0t4555

hoddesdon said:


> God created the universe, and that is why there is not nothing.


Whoa, whoa, who said anything about God?

We are talking about a reason for the big bang, no?



Kon said:


> That's a major problem especially for those who view mathematics as mental objects or believe that reality transcends mathematics. I always assumed that qualia/consciousness defies mathematical/formal description so the existence of such stuff seems to seriously raise doubts about whether mathematics can fully describe reality.


All of this stuff is just words, highly subjective in interpretation. You won't find any answers about the fundamental meaning of all physical existence without a huge wealth of knowledge in one place (mind).

Humanity, then, needs to focus on building bigger brains.. not coming to a consensus on very broad phrases of words (that are easy to agree with). Communication is something we don't use very well right here and now; how are we going to get these answers? Firstly, by not kidding ourselves with the current very impractical models of meaning we have in society..



Centrofly said:


> I try not to become too perturbed by questions such as, "What happened before the big bang?" or "Why something rather than nothing?" because, like our ancestors before, future scientific discoveries may reveal that we have simply been asking the wrong questions.
> 
> This isn't meant as a simplified argument for evading serious cosmological questions. It's just provided as another angle to approach these questions.


yeah.

Even "the ultimate question" is only the ultimate question if that's what you're interested in. Human value. So..


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## jg43i9jghy0t4555

ugh1979 said:


> Indeed, I discussed it here.


I love how some people take this stuff seriously!! Instead of regurgitating a religious text or something.

You said there that the chances are low- but isn't it the same since the big bang started: whether we had developed computers or not, it's the same thing, and thus, we *_will_ never* be more knowledgeable about a system that is completely external.. until we run these simulations ourselves and discover more about the nature.

But surely to run simulations of the entire laws of the universe you take up a huge amount of computing or processing power. Also we are relating this to computers, a human invention. But does that lower the chances of it being relevant.. maybe not.

Maybe there are alien civilizations that are "flattened" or compressed in terms of space while they simulate other realities (because of taking up near 100% of the space of all things?). But that means there must be a beginning to this. It also presupposes, most strikingly, that an alien civilization has evolved to live ethically like we have and wants the same kind of thing: research for a better quality of life (or maybe, reality TV). But, that's just so very predictable. Far too many details that we have just presupposed are the same as with humans. In a higher/outer layer of reality, the conditions for life could be so different. Gravity, movement, air based diffusion of particles. Different on that level.



ugh1979 said:


> So, with no independent multiuniversal time


It does make a lot of sense that if this is what we are edging towards, ..it should have been done already. It doesn't seem right that we're living in a world where all of this is possible for the first time. But then again, when would we ever be able to tell that. Throughout our history we have been oblivious to insights of this level.

Maybe all of this, like the concept of time, is just something we worry about because we're human and we value the passing of time whereby, in reality, there is no concept of conflict or peace because everything flows by all the same, changes into something else. Maybe we are a small, arrogant fluctuation or development of life that has yet to learn how exactly insignificant we really are. Truly, our human minds are already blown with the concept of how big our galaxy actually is, let alone the possibility net of what we could do with all that over time. We simply have nothing else to compare it with.


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## jg43i9jghy0t4555

ugh1979 said:


> Another interesting 'universe being a computer' theory is to do with holographic universe theory, in which we are actually all holograms generated from 2D surface which is most probably the surface of the bubble that is universe. Maybe we don't actually exist where we think we do.


I thought about that, I liked it, but it must be false. Because the 3rd dimension cannot be generated as just a function of something else. The other components MUST exist to form a 3rd dimension.. even if a 3rd physical axis is influenced by wind or something, that's still a 3rd dimension, a 3rd separate consideration. We have have a 3d space defining our movement, and in the video above it's clear a 3- dimensional world wouldn't make sense if it wasn't really 3d. It's the same thing if we describe the 3rd axis of space with something else; 2 analyses can be true at once.

So you could say we exist in some other space, but that's purely cosmetic.. we don't really care about it because we observe in 3d space. But of course ultimately with higher computation computer AI will have to experience consciousness in higher dimensions. It's all about how our biology is or isn't prepared for reality based observations, huh!


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## Ulysses

I came up with two questions when I was reading through this, one is there a ultimate question, that is is there a point when we answer the be alls or is that too a assumption bounded in our human attempt to place limits on the universe.

Two with regard to constants, and this applies to one of the threads in this section, if the constants on which we base our science are changeable over long enough time scales and spaces, then where in falls predictability over long enough time scales, and following from that is there even a chance at all to answer that classical ultimate question.

I came up with another, we base our probability based on constants discovered in this universe, and within that set it seems to work, how do we know what the actual probability that x occurs, when we only have our own current state to judge it by, maybe what we think is likely is only likely for now and across x lightyears of space.

It kinda reminds me of the arguments for or against life, when people make arguments based on our Earth, and from that make all kinds of conclusions about probability for or against, when one reality is we don't have a good idea for the probability of our own type of life on this Earth, and two one sample tells us nothing about the probability of life out there, either for or against.

It seems to me that the problem is that we humans must have limits on things to make sense, and nothing is just another kinda limit which says thus far and no farther. I don't think though if we could ever prove to a certainty that it even is a nothing as we think of it.


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## hoddesdon

jg43i9jghy0t4555 said:


> Whoa, whoa, who said anything about God?
> 
> We are talking about a reason for the big bang, no?


We are talking about a reason for the big bang, yes. That is how it was caused.

Paul Davies, a well-known British scientist, could only say that first there was nothing, then the matter of which the universe is composed suddenly materialized out of nowhere and then there was the big bang. One of the fundamental laws of the universe is that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Yet if first there was nothing, and then there was something, then that law was flouted in the creation of the universe itself. One might say that sounds like magic. That is no explanation at all. That God created the universe is a more credible explanation.


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## meeps

hoddesdon said:


> We are talking about a reason for the big bang, yes. That is how it was caused.
> 
> Paul Davies, a well-known British scientist, could only say that first there was nothing, then the matter of which the universe is composed suddenly materialized out of nowhere and then there was the big bang. One of the fundamental laws of the universe is that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Yet if first there was nothing, and then there was something, then that law was flouted in the creation of the universe itself. One might say that sounds like magic. That is no explanation at all. That God created the universe is a more credible explanation.


No, it is just as absurd, or maybe even moreso because you are now bringing an all powerful intelligence into the equation.

It was my understanding that before the big bang, the universe was a singularity, not nonexistant.


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## Kon

hoddesdon said:


> Paul Davies, a well-known British scientist, could only say that first there was nothing, then the matter of which the universe is composed suddenly materialized out of nowhere and then there was the big bang. One of the fundamental laws of the universe is that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Yet if first there was nothing, and then there was something, then that law was flouted in the creation of the universe itself. One might say that sounds like magic. That is no explanation at all. That God created the universe is a more credible explanation.


We can't go that far back: 


> In the era around one Planck time, 10-43 seconds, it is projected by present modeling of the fundamental forces that the gravity force begins to differentiate from the other three forces. This is the first of the spontaneous symmetry breaks which lead to the four observed types of interactions in the present universe. Looking backward, the general idea is that back beyond 1 Planck time we can make no meaningful observations within the framework of classical gravitation.


Thus, general relativity theory breaks down below this Planck time. We need a theory of quantum gravity to go beyond Planck time to time zero. No such theory has yet been worked out.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/planck.html

Look at this figure:

*Big Bang Time Line* 
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/timlin.html#c1"

Moreover, how is the existence of a diety a simpler explanation? One could ask the same question regarding the deity. What is its origin/cause?


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## coldsorehighlighter

Kon said:


> Moreover, how is the existence of a diety a simpler explanation? One could ask the same question regarding the deity. What is its origin/cause?


If this deity created space/time and the laws that govern it, wouldn't it make sense to assume this deity doesn't abide by the laws of physics...ya know, since this deity created them. If a deity exists that created space/time, it's safe to assume that said deity doesn't necessarily need a beginning...or an end.


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## luceo

hoddesdon said:


> We are talking about a reason for the big bang, yes. That is how it was caused.
> 
> Paul Davies, a well-known British scientist, could only say that first there was nothing, then the matter of which the universe is composed suddenly materialized out of nowhere and then there was the big bang. One of the fundamental laws of the universe is that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Yet if first there was nothing, and then there was something, then that law was flouted in the creation of the universe itself. One might say that sounds like magic. That is no explanation at all. That God created the universe is a more credible explanation.


One might say that God creating the universe sounds like magic.



the cheat said:


> If this deity created space/time and the laws that govern it, wouldn't it make sense to assume this deity doesn't abide by the laws of physics...ya know, since this deity created them. If a deity exists that created space/time, it's safe to assume that said deity doesn't necessarily need a beginning...or an end.


You mean like how the Big Bang created space/time?


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## hoddesdon

luceo said:


> One might say that God creating the universe sounds like magic.


The point is that the alternate explanation - the universe popping up out of nowhere - also sounds like magic, yet the universe does exist. So if there is no rational alternate explanation, how can the original explanation, subscribed to for millenia, be excluded?


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## arnie

:lol I got a motivational for you guys:










(not trying to start an argument...)


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## luceo

hoddesdon said:


> The point is that the alternate explanation - the universe popping up out of nowhere - also sounds like magic, yet the universe does exist. So if there is no rational alternate explanation, how can the original explanation, subscribed to for millenia, be excluded?


If we believe that god (whichever god that may be), created the universe or initiated the Big Bang, then it logically follows that we must believe in the rest of the stories regarding god and his teachings (or his followers teachings as the case may be). Considering that these have no real evidence backing them and often have evidence against them, it's pretty difficult to even consider it as a possible explanation, let alone the most likely.


----------



## Meta14

arnie said:


> :lol I got a motivational for you guys:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (not trying to start an argument...)


I read this awesome one which was like:

THE BIG BANG THEORY

In the beginning, there was nothing.... which then exploded.


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## coldsorehighlighter

luceo said:


> One might say that God creating the universe sounds like magic.
> 
> You mean like how the Big Bang created space/time?


I think you have that backwards. Space/time had to exist an instant before any "Big Bang". The Big Bang explains the evolution of the universe after the initial point.


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## Kon

the cheat said:


> If a deity exists that created space/time, it's safe to assume that said deity doesn't necessarily need a beginning...or an end.


Same could be said regarding the universe. It's not clear if there was a beginning or an end. Even if this model is accurate, we can't go far back enough because we don't know what happens at Planck's time. Cosmologists are just as uncertain about the end. They're not even sure if our present models will hold up with future revisions of physics/cosmology. If history is any indication, they are likely to be false on some level. There are even models that assume a cyclical universe and/or bubble universes in eternal inflation universe, etc.:

*From big bang to big bounce*
http://gravity.psu.edu/outreach/articles/bigbounce.pdf​
*Eternal inflation*:






This is an interesting summary of the many different explanations:



> The 27 possible explanations, or ultimate reality generators that follow, are based on criteria that are logically permissible, a logic that for some may seem lenient. I do not, however, confuse speculation with science. Logical possibilities should not be mistaken for scientific theories or even scientific possibilities.A physicist's speculations do not morph, as if by cosmological alchemy or professional courtesy, from metaphysics into established physics. That said, some of the more intriguing metaphysical possibilities are being proffered by physicists.


*Why This Universe? **Toward a Taxonomy of Possible Explanations*​http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/downloads/skeptic13-2_Kuhn.pdf


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## Dr Who

Theres something and nothing which means something.


----------



## The Silent 1

Many posts in this thread seem to be operating off the false belief that the big bang theory states that there was nothing and then there was something, except the big bang theory doesn't state that at all. That picture is equally absurd because it assumes all atheists are asserting this as well.

Part of the problem with this is the concept of "nothing". What is nothing? When scientists like Krauss use the word nothing, they are talking about something. The philosophical "nothing" is as far as we know is a mere concept. Where in the universe can you find and study nothing? Why do you believe that "nothing" is possible? What does that even mean? Why assume there was a state where the universe didn't exist in some form? 

And what do you even mean by universe? This is also important because universe has traditionally meant all things in existence. Yet some theists are claiming there is something outside of that, which just raises more questions. Saying "god did it" and then giving a vague concept of what this god is, doesn't solve the problem at all. One person is saying the origin of the universe is a mystery, and then another is trying to answer that question with a vague, mysterious, nonsensical idea. But if you can't even truly define this god or give good reason for it (other than "I can't think of anything else") then you've only fooled yourself into thinking you have an answer.


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## Kon

The Silent 1 said:


> Part of the problem with this is the concept of "nothing". What is nothing? When scientists like Krauss use the word nothing, they are talking about something. The philosophical "nothing" is as far as we know is a mere concept. Where in the universe can you find and study nothing? Why do you believe that "nothing" is possible? What does that even mean? Why assume there was a state where the universe didn't exist in some form?


There are some that try to argue that it is "logically possible for there to be nothing at all". I'm not sure about how strong this argument is:


> Metaphysical nihilism (MN)
> 
> 1. There is a world with a finite number _n_ of concrete objects (accessible from our own: i.e. possible relative to ours). Call this world wn.
> 2. The existence of any object o in _wn_ is contingent.
> 3. The non-existence of o does not imply the existence of another object o'.
> 4. There is a world, _wn-1, _accessible from wn containing exactly one less object than _wn. _There is a world accessible from _wn-1, w(n-1)-1_, containing exactly one less object than _wn-1._
> 5. By iterating the above procedure (i.e. by repeated 'subtractions') we arrive at a world _wn-m = wmin, _accessible from _wn_, that contains exactly one object.
> 6. Therefore, by steps 2, 3, 4, from _wmin_ there is an accessible world, _wnil = wn-m-1_, containing no objects at all (= MN).


http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Rickles_Rickles_fqxi_2.pdf


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## The Silent 1

Kon said:


> There are some that try to argue that it is "logically possible for there to be nothing at all". I'm not sure about how strong this argument is:


I don't agree with the argument either. Whenever something is destroyed we are just seeing the energy that makes up that something rearranged. For someone to argue for "nothing", they would first need to define exactly what that is. The argument you posted seemed to be talking in terms of objects. The other problem with such arguments is that even if you construct an argument that is logically consistent internally, theres nothing to say that it actually matches reality.


----------



## Kon

The Silent 1 said:


> The other problem with such arguments is that even if you construct an argument that is logically consistent internally, theres nothing to say that it actually matches reality.


I agree but the author is trying to argue with respect to the reasonableness of the concept of "nothing". I don't think this concept is any less reasonable than the concept of "infinite". For example by understanding the "finite" one can extend/extrapolate of infinite. Personally, even assuming the possibility, it seems like "nothing" (non-existence) leads to nothing. But if one assumes that the universe always was/is/will be, that is also very hard to conceptualize.


----------



## Jnmcda0

the cheat said:


> If this deity created space/time and the laws that govern it, wouldn't it make sense to assume this deity doesn't abide by the laws of physics...ya know, since this deity created them. If a deity exists that created space/time, it's safe to assume that said deity doesn't necessarily need a beginning...or an end.


Regardless, the same question could be asked as to why there is a deity rather than no deity.


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## Kon

This was another interesting argument by this author. He considers 3 possible universe views:

1. Null Possibility
2. All Worlds Hypothesis (e.g. Multiverse) 
3. One particular universe

He then argues that option 1 seems less puzzling than option 2 which is less puzzling than option 3:


> *If all these worlds exist*, we can ask why they do. But, compared with most other cosmic possibilities, the All Worlds Hypothesis may leave less that is unexplained. For example, whatever the number of possible worlds that exist, we have the question, 'Why that number?' That question would have been least puzzling if the number that existed were none, and the next least arbitrary possibility seems to be that all these worlds exist. With every other cosmic possibility, we have a further question. *If ours is the only world*, we can ask: 'Out of all the possible local worlds, why is this the one that exists?' On any version of the Many Worlds Hypothesis, we have a similar question: 'Why do just these worlds exist, with these elements and laws?' But, if all these worlds exist, there is no such further question...
> 
> Though the All Worlds Hypothesis avoids certain questions, it is not as simple, or unarbitrary, as the *Null Possibility*...Of all the cosmic possibilities, the Null Possibility would have needed the least explanation. As Leibniz pointed out, it is much the simplest, and the least arbitrary. And it is the easiest to understand. It can seem mysterious, for example, how things could exist without their existence having some cause, but there cannot be a causal explanation of why the whole Universe, or God, exists. The Null Possibility raises no such problem. If nothing had ever existed, that state of affairs would not have needed to be caused.


*Why Anything? Why This?*
http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/phil3600/parfit.pdf


----------



## lonelyjew

I'm a bit late to the game here, and it's 5:20am, so I'll just get to asking is this a why question that is asking how, or is this a why question that is asking for why? The how question is one that is answerable, the why question likely can't be, and may not have any answer at all. The fact of the matter (pun somewhat intentional) is that we do exist, and we couldn't exist in a universe that was even slightly different than the one we have. Questioning why our physical laws and constants have their relationships and values is an interesting thought experiment, but the question's existence doesn't really preclude there being an answer to that question; things may simply be, because they are. 

Hope that this is remotely understandable and has some sort of sense to it, and not just the ramblings of a sleep deprived student.


----------



## ugh1979

lonelyjew said:


> The fact of the matter (pun somewhat intentional) is that we do exist, and we couldn't exist in a universe that was even slightly different than the one we have.


We couldn't exist as we currently are, but that's not to say intelligent life can't evolve in a universe which has different natural laws/physics and then consider the same point.

The idea of a universe apearing to be 'fine tuned' to allow intelligent life could be folly. Any universe that can give rise to matter could be viewed as 'fine tuned' to those who aren't considering that they are mearly a product of their relative universe, so it may not appear to them anything other that 'fine tuned', even though it's actually the result of chance.



> Questioning why our physical laws and constants have their relationships and values is an interesting thought experiment, but the question's existence doesn't really preclude there being an answer to that question;


It is an interesting thought experiment, and one that my current favoured answer to is that there is a multiverse and each universe has different physical laws. Some universes are like ours can give rise to matter and intelligent life (we know this has happened at least once!) but other universes won't as their physical laws won't be suitable.

When you roll a dice enough your chosen number will always come up.



> things may simply be, because they are.


Indeed, or because with infinite chance to arise they are ultimatley inevitable.


----------



## jc22

I disagree. For one thing, laws are finely tuned, we know for a fact if they were slightly different then matter wouldn't arise full stop.

Also the multiverse doesn't answer why there is anything at all. It's just makes the thing a whole lot weirder. I am not against the multiverse as a theory, but it seems like a common answer they give to counter the goldilocks nature of our universe. It's sort of gets into the realm where whatever the answer, it doesn't feel like a good or complete one; there are an infinite number of worlds and that's why we exist OR we just do exist in this one. I don't like the sound of either


----------



## ugh1979

jc22 said:


> I disagree. For one thing, laws are finely tuned, we know for a fact if they were slightly different then matter wouldn't arise full stop.


Yes our universe is highly balanced and therefore changing one law may create significant issues, but in a different universe the laws may be slightly different yet still perfectly balanced and able to give rise to matter.

We simply don't know yet and the issue is currently highly debated.



> Also the multiverse doesn't answer why there is anything at all. It's just makes the thing a whole lot weirder. I am not against the multiverse as a theory, but it seems like a common answer they give to counter the goldilocks nature of our universe. It's sort of gets into the realm where whatever the answer, it doesn't feel like a good or complete one; there are an infinite number of worlds and that's why we exist OR we just do exist in this one. I don't like the sound of either


If reality at its smallest scale is instable (which is what modern physics indicates), then it could be that there is no way there could be nothing. While all energy (positive and negative) may well balance out to zero, an absolute zero value probably doesn't exist anywhere in nature.


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## jc22

But why modern physics at all? That's the question. Why does there have to be no nothing. Why anything? Thats the point of this thread, and it shouldnt be in the science section. Because science can't answer it.

We can run simulations with constants 0.00001 out and they do not give rise to matter. I get your point about their may be other ways to balance the constants, but the ways the constants could be arranged and the size of them, makes it just as unlikely as ever


----------



## ilana

I try not to think so hard about this because it starts to honestly freak me out. Go out shopping, then what? Go running, then what? Get a job, then what? Make friends, then what? Why, why, why. You just have to accept it. That's what I'm trying to drill into my brain anyway...


----------



## ugh1979

jc22 said:


> But why modern physics at all? That's the question.


Because it's modern physics that gives the most probable answers to the question. What field would be better suited to offer answers? :?



> Why does there have to be no nothing. Why anything? Thats the point of this thread, and it shouldnt be in the science section. Because science can't answer it.


Depending on how you look at it, those questions can be like asking where the first point on a circle is.



> We can run simulations with constants 0.00001 out and they do not give rise to matter. I get your point about their may be other ways to balance the constants, but the ways the constants could be arranged and the size of them, makes it just as unlikely as ever


It could well be that universes that give rise to matter are very unlikely. However, if there is one thing we know nature provides is an almost infinite, if not infinite number of chances.

Cosmologically speaking the unlikely can become likely. The same analogy can be used when considering the existence of intelligent life in the universe. It's highly probable that it needs just the right conditions/constants to arise, and is probably relatively rare overall, but due to trillions of planets and tens of billions of years there could be millions of independent intelligent life forms that have appeared or will appear over the course of our universes life.


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## Kon

jc22 said:


> Why anything? Thats the point of this thread, and it shouldnt be in the science section. Because science can't answer it.


The Science section includes: _s__cience, critical thinking, skepticism. _So I'm guessing philosophy of science is fair game. And if a Nobel laureate in physics (see original quote by Weinberg) finds that question interesting, it's probably not that dumb of a question, but you may be right about it's unanswerability by science?


----------



## jc22

ugh1979 said:


> Because it's modern physics that gives the most probable answers to the question. What field would be better suited to offer answers? :?
> 
> Depending on how you look at it, those questions can be like asking where the first point on a circle is.
> 
> It could well be that universes that give rise to matter are very unlikely. However, if there is one thing we know nature provides is an almost infinite, if not infinite number of chances.
> 
> Cosmologically speaking the unlikely can become likely. The same analogy can be used when considering the existence of intelligent life in the universe. It's highly probable that it needs just the right conditions/constants to arise, and is probably relatively rare overall, but due to trillions of planets and tens of billions of years there could be millions of independent intelligent life forms that have appeared or will appear over the course of our universes life.


I am not arguing with you I agree with pretty much what your saying,but Why anything? And i mean, why does modern Physics work? These are just hypothetical questions. Of course I understand about the whole lots of universes thing, the law of large numbers. I'm talking about the question why anything? and that also means why multiverse?mBecause that was basically the beauty of the multiverse, the fact that it got rid of the lucky nature of our universe. But it doesn't even answer that, because why the multiverse? And that question isnt trivial, its the most important, but it seems unanswerable. I love science I have a degree in physics and did a project on quantum coherence, but it can't answer why, only how. 
I am not arguing with you but it's just when I hear people talking, and I'm not talking about you, but I hear people talking about science as if it can answer everything, and can answer fundamentally why we are here etc, but it can and has done more than enough as it is without all that.


----------



## jc22

Kon said:


> The Science section includes: _s__cience, critical thinking, skepticism. _So I'm guessing philosophy of science is fair game. And if a Nobel laureate in physics (see original quote by Weinberg) finds that question interesting, it's probably not that dumb of a question, but you may be right about it's unanswerability by science?


Yeh to be fair it is okay here, and no i don think it is a dumb question, i think its great, but yeah i dont think it can really be answered by science.


----------



## Incedecent

the Universe could bear To be alone any more.


----------



## ugh1979

jc22 said:


> I am not arguing with you I agree with pretty much what your saying,but Why anything? And i mean, why does modern Physics work? These are just hypothetical questions. Of course I understand about the whole lots of universes thing, the law of large numbers. I'm talking about the question why anything? and that also means why multiverse?mBecause that was basically the beauty of the multiverse, the fact that it got rid of the lucky nature of our universe. But it doesn't even answer that, because why the multiverse? And that question isnt trivial, its the most important, but it seems unanswerable. I love science I have a degree in physics and did a project on quantum coherence, but it can't answer why, only how.
> I am not arguing with you but it's just when I hear people talking, and I'm not talking about you, but I hear people talking about science as if it can answer everything, and can answer fundamentally why we are here etc, but it can and has done more than enough as it is without all that.


I'm perfectly content with the answer to the 'why' question being that it's because of the near infinite or infinite number of chances our universe has had to form as it is. The question of 'why' then becomes redundant for me since the answer covers creation and non-creation due to the chance aspect.

That's my current opinion anyway and obviously totally hypothetical.

I can appreciate some people just aren't satisfied with that kind of answer though.


----------



## MachineSupremacist

How would you prove nothing was present in an endless void?


----------



## jc22

ugh1979 said:


> I'm perfectly content with the answer to the 'why' question being that it's because of the near infinite or infinite number of chances our universe has had to form as it is. The question of 'why' then becomes redundant for me since the answer covers creation and non-creation due to the chance aspect.
> 
> That's my current opinion anyway and obviously totally hypothetical.
> 
> I can appreciate some people just aren't satisfied with that kind of answer though.


Hey yeh I get that  sometimes I am content then other times I aren't


----------



## Kon

This model below is pretty interesting. The author tries to reconcile: How is there a universe when the seemingly only 2 options for its lifetime, finite or infinite, both result in contradiction? The reason being is if one argues that the universe is finite, there is the problem of first cause and infinite regress and if one argues that the universe is infinite, then the leads to another type of infinite regress. The author ends up arguing that *time must be cyclic and so* *existence can be both eternal and finite:*

*On a Finite Universe with no Beginning or End *
http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0612/0612053.pdf 



> Many believe that the deep question of "why is there something rather than nothing?" is unanswerable. The universe _just is _and no further explanation for its existence is possible. In this paper I explain why this question must have an answer, and why that answer must establish that physical existence is inescapable and necessary. Based on the conclusion that if the universe is eternal rather than having a beginning some finite time in the past, the universe _has to _exist rather than not because its possible non-existence is never an option, such an explanation is put forward.


*Why there is something rather than nothing-The finite, infinite and eternal* 
http://lanl.arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1205/1205.2720.pdf​


----------



## jc22

Hey, nice, sounds heavy so il read later lol :b


----------



## hoddesdon

jc22 said:


> I am not arguing with you I agree with pretty much what your saying,but Why anything? And i mean, why does modern Physics work? These are just hypothetical questions. Of course I understand about the whole lots of universes thing, the law of large numbers. I'm talking about the question why anything? and that also means why multiverse?mBecause that was basically the beauty of the multiverse, the fact that it got rid of the lucky nature of our universe. But it doesn't even answer that, because why the multiverse? And that question isnt trivial, its the most important, but it seems unanswerable. I love science I have a degree in physics and did a project on quantum coherence, but it can't answer why, only how.
> I am not arguing with you but it's just when I hear people talking, and I'm not talking about you, but I hear people talking about science as if it can answer everything, and can answer fundamentally why we are here etc, but it can and has done more than enough as it is without all that.


That is a good point - that the multiverse itself is just as unlikely as the universe, so it is not really an explanation. It just kicks the can of the improbability of existence down the road.

Did the universes comprising the supposed multiverse all come into existence simultaneously, or consecutively? If simultaneously, that seems rather improbable. If consecutively, then there must have been a very large number of identical events like the big bang, which also defies the law of probability. Since the universes in the multiverse are supposed to be completely separate, or hermetically sealed from each other, then one universe can not spawn another. So every explanation for multiple universes seems improbable.


----------



## Kon

hoddesdon said:


> That is a good point - that the multiverse itself is just as unlikely as the universe, so it is not really an explanation. It just kicks the can of the improbability of existence down the road.


Arguably, a multiverse model does, however, elicit fewer unanswered questions than a single universe model, as pointed out previously. Both models require us to ask why a universe? But whereas a multiverse requires no further questions, with a single universe model we must ask another question: 'Out of all the possible local worlds, why is this the one that exists?'


----------



## hoddesdon

Kon said:


> Arguably, a multiverse model does, however, elicit fewer unanswered questions than a single universe model, as pointed out previously. Both models require us to ask why a universe? But whereas a multiverse requires no further questions, with a single universe model we must ask another question: 'Out of all the possible local worlds, why is this the one that exists?'


Yes, although if a multiverse is just as unlikely as a single universe, then the multiverse theory does not remove the question "Out of all the possible local worlds, why is this the one that exists?" from the equation. If both models are equally likely or unlikely, then it is equally likely that question remains valid as that it is invalid. That was the point of the multiverse theory in the first place, because of the extreme unlikelihood of such a well-constructed universe were it a purely chance phenomenon.


----------



## Kon

hoddesdon said:


> Yes, although if a multiverse is just as unlikely as a single universe, then the multiverse theory does not remove the question "Out of all the possible local worlds, why is this the one that exists?" from the equation.


Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but a multiverse does remove this question since all worlds exist. In a multiverse, we are one of a possibly infinite number of universes as you argued in the latter part of your post. So we don't have to ask, why this universe with these laws versus another one with some other laws, since all universes exist. But if there's only one universe (the one we live in), then one doesn't only have to ask 'why any universe?' but also 'why of all the different possible universes, is this particular universe we live in, the one that actually exists'? That was the author's previous argument linked above.


----------



## hoddesdon

Kon said:


> Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but a multiverse does remove this question since all worlds exist. In a multiverse, we are one of a possibly infinite number of universes as you argued in the latter part of your post. So we don't have to ask, why this universe with these laws versus another one with some other laws, since all universes exist. But if there's only one universe (the one we live in), then one doesn't only have to ask 'why any universe?' but also 'why of all the different possible universes, is this particular universe we live in, the one that actually exists'? That was the author's previous argument linked above.


Yes, if the multiverse theory is accepted as valid, then the question is removed.

However, what I am trying to say is that if the issue that "both models require us to ask why a universe?" - as you stated in a previous post - applies equally to the multiverse as to the single universe, then it is not possible to say that the multiverse theory is valid, since that question remains unanswered. If it may not be valid, then the question "Out of all the possible local worlds, why is this the one that exists?" remains in play. Getting around, or being able to invalidate, that question is the whole point of the multiverse theory.


----------



## arnie

Jnmcda0 said:


> We can only ask this question because we are here. If nothing existed, the logical question would be "why isn't there something?", only there would be no one around to ask it.


Yay. Anthropomorphic Argument strikes again. :yay


----------



## hoddesdon

Jnmcda0 said:


> We can only ask this question because we are here. If nothing existed, the logical question would be "why isn't there something?", only there would be no one around to ask it.


If nothing existed, then the question would not be conceived of, since the concept itself of existence would not exist. Not only would no-one exist to ask it, but the question itself would not exist.

Yet, even though it is easier for nothing to exist, something does exist. What is the explanation? That is the point of this thread.


----------



## frank81

Must we confuse ourselves with such a question? It's definitely good for debate but it won't amount to anything. 

Let's view the world from a simpler perspective. Why must we think that the world started from nothing? Just think that the matters in the universe existed in the first place and weren't created (can't be proven) & big bang happened later on, or God(s) existed in the first place (of course can't be proven too) and created the matters that lead to the big bang.

Doesn't it sound a lot simpler?


----------



## ugh1979

hoddesdon said:


> That is a good point - that the multiverse itself is just as unlikely as the universe, so it is not really an explanation. It just kicks the can of the improbability of existence down the road.


Neither are unlikely in the grand scheme of things. You need to take a step back and remove your personal very limited perspective and see the big picture.



> Did the universes comprising the supposed multiverse all come into existence simultaneously, or consecutively? If simultaneously, that seems rather improbable. If consecutively, then there must have been a very large number of identical events like the big bang, which also defies the law of probability.


Again you are trying to imagine it using a time line relative to yourself. There may be no time line outwith our universe and every universe has it's own independant arrow of time. The big picture could be that essentially everything is happening 'now'.

You do realise that laws of probabilty mean that something will happen at some point? Again, remove yourself from equation and realise that the in the grand scheme of things even something with very low probability of happening will happen.



> Since the universes in the multiverse are supposed to be completely separate, or hermetically sealed from each other, then one universe can not spawn another. So every explanation for multiple universes seems improbable.


Who said that universes can't spawn others? There are several good hypotheses which suggest they do. For example, black holes being 'universe generators', or colliding universes on branes floating in higher dimensional hyperspace occasionally colliding and sparking big bangs.

These are ideas that are supported by many eminent scientists so hold weight. Also, as i've already said, stating something is improbable when it comes to cosmology is often moot as the cosmos offers so many chances. In that respect the improbable becomes inevitable, and only improbable from a limited perspective such as your own.


----------



## ugh1979

Kon said:


> Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but a multiverse does remove this question since all worlds exist. In a multiverse, we are one of a possibly infinite number of universes as you argued in the latter part of your post. So we don't have to ask, why this universe with these laws versus another one with some other laws, since all universes exist. But if there's only one universe (the one we live in), then one doesn't only have to ask 'why any universe?' but also 'why of all the different possible universes, is this particular universe we live in, the one that actually exists'? That was the author's previous argument linked above.


Exactly.

I've been over this with hoddesdon before but he doesn't seem to grasp it.


----------



## ugh1979

hoddesdon said:


> Yes, if the multiverse theory is accepted as valid, then the question is removed.
> 
> However, what I am trying to say is that if the issue that "both models require us to ask why a universe?" - as you stated in a previous post - applies equally to the multiverse as to the single universe, then it is not possible to say that the multiverse theory is valid, since that question remains unanswered. If it may not be valid, then the question "Out of all the possible local worlds, why is this the one that exists?" remains in play.


Well multiverse theories are valid hypothesis at this point in time so what's your point?



> Getting around, or being able to invalidate, that question is the whole point of the multiverse theory.


It's not the whole point at all. There are various multiverse theories that address very different questions.


----------



## ugh1979

hoddesdon said:


> Yet, even though it is easier for nothing to exist, something does exist. What is the explanation? That is the point of this thread.


Why do you think it's easier for nothing to exist? Modern physics suggests the opposite in that the unstable nature of reality/quantum fluctuations will give rise to 'something'. We obviously know 'something' exists, but certainly don't know that 'nothing' exists anywhere. We've never detected nothing. Everwhere we look there is something.


----------



## ugh1979

frank81 said:


> Must we confuse ourselves with such a question? It's definitely good for debate but it won't amount to anything.
> 
> Let's view the world from a simpler perspective. Why must we think that the world started from nothing? Just think that the matters in the universe existed in the first place and weren't created (can't be proven) & big bang happened later on, or God(s) existed in the first place (of course can't be proven too) and created the matters that lead to the big bang.
> 
> Doesn't it sound a lot simpler?


If we all thought like that, settling for answers to what is _currently _unknown then we'd never progress.


----------



## frank81

ugh1979 said:


> If we all thought like that, settling for answers to what is _currently _unknown then we'd never progress.


I was suggesting something so that everyone would get less headache trying to figure out something that's out of their league. Even if you keep debating, then can you get an answer out of it?

If you think it's God, then go to a church or some religious people & try to get the answers from them. They consider themselves the experts, right? Else, leave it to the scientists.

Has anyone heard of an old chinese story? And this is how the chinese word "dilemma" came into being.

Seller : I have the ultimate spear that can break any shields. I also have the best shield in the world that can block any attacks.

Customer : Then if I attack you with your ultimate spear and you block it with your ultimate shield, which one wins?

Seller : ?????

Of course this kinda debate is a good method to kill some time.:b


----------



## ugh1979

frank81 said:


> I was suggesting something so that everyone would get less headache trying to figure out something that's out of their league. Even if you keep debating, then can you get an answer out of it?
> 
> If you think it's God, then go to a church or some religious people & try to get the answers from them. They consider themselves the experts, right? Else, leave it to the scientists.


The hypotheses i've shared in this thread have all come from scientists, including some of the finest minds mankind has ever known.

Maybe it is out of their league at the moment, but they are leading the way on the subject. As a group they will never stop questioning it and discovering answers along the way in an attempt to get in to a 'higher league' of understanding as such.


----------



## hoddesdon

ugh1979 said:


> Why do you think it's easier for nothing to exist? Modern physics suggests the opposite in that the unstable nature of reality/quantum fluctuations will give rise to 'something'. We obviously know 'something' exists, but certainly don't know that 'nothing' exists anywhere. *We've never detected nothing. Everwhere we look there is something.*


Well, space is a vacuum, so nothing does exist. Otherwise, trying to find nothing is like proving a negative.


----------



## ugh1979

hoddesdon said:


> Well, space is a vacuum, so nothing does exist.


To the contrary, there is no such thing as a true vacuum. There is latent energy that permeates the apparent vacuum of space. Hence why I said we have never detected 'nothing'.



> Otherwise, trying to find nothing is like proving a negative.


If we found a place where nothing exists it would prove nothing can exist.


----------



## jc22

So why anything at all?


----------



## arnie

hoddesdon said:


> Well, space is a vacuum, so nothing does exist. Otherwise, trying to find nothing is like proving a negative.


That's what you think. In a vacuum, virtual particle - antiparticles pairs are popping in and out of existence all the time.

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


----------



## ugh1979

jc22 said:


> So why anything at all?


Because there being nothing is impossible. The only option is for there to be something.

(Hypothetically speaking)


----------



## jc22

Hoddesdon main point was still, why anything at all? Which is the topic of the thread. It doesn't matter that he got that one little bit wrong


----------



## ugh1979

jc22 said:


> Hoddesdon main point was still, why anything at all? Which is the topic of the thread. It doesn't matter that he got that one little bit wrong


Well, apart from the fact he thought there actually being 'nothing' was possible, when we have no evidence for 'nothing' existing anywhere. It's a key piece of knowledge which more people who ask the question should know.


----------



## jc22

ugh1979 said:


> Because there being nothing is impossible. The only option is for there to be something.
> 
> (Hypothetically speaking)


But this is what I mean.

About using science to answer philosophical questions. Why is it that we have the rule in this world that nothing is impossible? Why are there fields of energy? Why is their quantum fluctuations? I find it exciting that these questions are unanswerable.

Answering why anything at all? with, because these rules say so. Well why not ask, why any rules? Why is energy here? Why mass?


----------



## ugh1979

jc22 said:


> But this is what I mean. About using science to answer philosophical questions. Why is it that we have the rule in this world that nothing is impossible? Why are there fields of energy? Why is their quantum fluctuations? I find it exciting that these questions are unanswerable.


I just don't really find them valid questions to ask, as to me they are like asking where the corner of a circle is.



> Answering why anything at all? with, because these rules say so. Well why not ask, why any rules? Why is energy here? Why mass


Are they really rules though? To me rules indicate there is an option. Again, an analogy is asking why is there a rule that a circle has no corners.


----------



## jc22

But these questions are similar to, why anything at all. yes, maybe there is not a choice in which rules,maybe they just are, or maybe not, but thats philosophy. This is the point i am making, science cant answer why anything at all. Eventually you have to be content with, oh the multiverse just exists, or, those rules just exist, they just do. Which is exactly, totally, the same as someone who doesn't try and an answer with science, when they say "I'm content with the fact that the world just exists". And if its exactly the same, then, whilst those theories are very important in their disciplines, there's literally no point using them like this when they are out of context. That's what I am getting at.


----------



## ugh1979

jc22 said:


> But these questions are similar to, why anything at all. yes, maybe there is not a choice in which rules,maybe they just are, or maybe not, but thats philosophy. This is the point i am making, science cant answer why anything at all. Eventually you have to be content with, oh the multiverse just exists, or, those rules just exist, they just do. Which is exactly, totally, the same as someone who doesn't try and an answer with science, when they say "I'm content with the fact that the world just exists". And if its exactly the same, then, whilst those theories are very important in their disciplines, there's literally no point using them like this when they are out of context. That's what I am getting at.


Science can answer why a circles doesn't have any corners. (using mathematical proof and logic among other methods)

If you aren't content with something like a circle not having any corners then so be it. 

I feel like we are now just going round in circles. :lol


----------



## jc22

I wasn't on about circles lol I was on about the fact that if you try and answer why are we here with a scientific theory, like the multiverse, eventually you have to say, oh that theory just is, which is exactly the same as if you didn't use science. So why use science in the first place to answer that question. Use science where it's meant to be used.

Anyway.. We are going round in circles. I guess you could call it.... Pointless. Damn I wish that joke worked.


----------



## ugh1979

jc22 said:


> I wasn't on about circles lol


I know, hence why I said "something like a circle". It's an easily understood analogy for an often confusing issue.



> I was on about the fact that if you try and answer why are we here with a scientific theory, like the multiverse, eventually you have to say, oh that theory just is, which is exactly the same as if you didn't use science. So why use science in the first place to answer that question. Use science where it's meant to be used.


OK. What if I called it philosophy of science?


----------



## jc22

I understand all what you said and I don't think it's correct. stop talking like that. Do you really think that you can answer why why are here with a scientific theory? That's all I want to know.


----------



## ugh1979

jc22 said:


> I understand all what you said and I don't think it's correct. stop talking like that. Do you really think that you can answer why why are here with a scientific theory? That's all I want to know.


Not a scientific theory no, but I can certainly propose a hypothesis that implements science.

I guess it is philosophy of science.


----------



## Kon

jc22 said:


> I understand all what you said and I don't think it's correct. stop talking like that. Do you really think that you can answer why why are here with a scientific theory? That's all I want to know.


I agree with you. I don't think science/physics will answer all questions. My own personal opinion is that mind-independent reality transcends our mathematical models used in science/physics yet those are still the best cognitive tools we seem to have at our disposal for modeling it. After all we are not Gods, we're linguistic chimps with _cognitive limitations_ like all other organisms as argued in this paper:


> ...so long as the class of accessible concepts is endogenously constrained, there will be thoughts that we are unequipped to think. And, so far, nobody has been able to devise an account of the ontogeny of concepts which does not imply such endogenous constraints. *This conclusion may seem less unbearably depressing if one considers that it is one which we unhesitatingly accept for every other species.* One would presumably not be impressed by a priori arguments intended to prove (e.g.) that the true science must be accessible to spiders.





> What is the relation between the class of humanly accessible theories and the class of true theories? It is possible that the intersection of these classes is quite small, that few true theories are accessible. There is no evolutionary argument to the contrary. Nor is there any reason to accept the traditional doctrine, as expressed by Descartes, that human reason is a "universal instrument which can serve for all contingencies." *Rather, it is a specific biological system, with its potentialities and associated limitations.* It may turn out to have been a lucky accident that the intersection is not null. There is no particular reason to suppose that the science-forming capacities of humans or their mathematical abilities permit them to conceive of theories approximating the truth in every (or any) domain, or to gain insight into the laws of nature.


*Skepticism and Naturalism: Can Philosophical Skepticism be Scientifically Tested?*
http://www.nmsu.edu/~philos/documents/naturalism-and-skepticism.pdf


----------



## ugh1979

Kon said:


> I agree with you. I don't think science/physics will answer all questions. My own personal opinion is that mind-independent reality transcends our mathematical models used in science/physics yet those are still the best cognitive tools we seem to have at our disposal for modeling it.


Fair enough. I personally believe the opposite is true and mathematics transcends the mind.



> After all we are not Gods, we're linguistic chimps with _cognitive limitations_ as suggested in this paper:


Indeed, hence why we use mathematics to make sense of that which is beyond our comprehension.

I support the hypothesis of us existing in an algorithmic/code based universe so describing it with mathematics is ideal.


----------



## Kon

ugh1979 said:


> Fair enough. I personally believe the opposite is true and mathematics transcends the mind.


So you're a Platonist. Max Tegmark holds this position as I'm sure you know. I think one of the most difficult problems for that view is qualia/consciousness. I don't think anything we can ever describe by mathematics or physics is ever likely to gain insight into qualia/experientiality/subjectivity/consciousness, not because of some mysticism but because of our own cogntive limitations. So, I have doubts that any mathematical ontology (a necessity in physics) can ever really give a satisfactory explanation of qualia.

I tend to think that both mathematics and language comes from us (is mental) but it seems mathematics is much more useful as a scaffolding to attach our claims about physical systems. It seems that there is something more to physical reality (or even our models of physical realty) over and above the mathematics. It seems that the mathematical theories/objects are not the same type of entities that appear to exist in the physical world. We can't get to the physical world without using mathematics because non-mathematical versions of scientific theories just seem to be practically very difficult to do. But, even though the mathematics may be indespinsible and the mathematical equations we use ultimately decide what we believe about the physical world there still seems to be this difference between the two and this just adds fuel to many of the interpretative debates in physics, I think.


----------



## hoddesdon

arnie said:


> That's what you think. In a vacuum, virtual particle - antiparticles pairs are popping in and out of existence all the time.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation


Isn't one of the prime laws of physics that matter can be neither created nor destroyed?


----------



## hoddesdon

Kon said:


> So you're a Platonist. Max Tegmark holds this position as I'm sure you know. I think one of the most difficult problems for that view is qualia/consciousness. I don't think anything we can ever describe by mathematics or physics is ever likely to gain insight into qualia/experientiality/subjectivity/consciousness, not because of some mysticism but because of our own cogntive limitations. So, I have doubts that any mathematical ontology (a necessity in physics) can ever really give a satisfactory explanation of qualia.


If the cognitive firepower to understand consciousness does not exist, how can you dogmatically rule out what you are pleased to describe as "mysticism"? Could your dismissal of it itself be a dimension of cognitive limitations?


----------



## jc22

hoddesdon said:


> Isn't one of the prime laws of physics that matter can be neither created nor destroyed?


Yes which is why these particles are destroyed "before the universe finds out" to put it crudely. I cannot remember exactly but it is possible under a very small amount of time, to do with quantum mechanics, it may be Planck time. Anyway, we know for a fact this is true because of a phenomena called Hawking radiation, where two of these virtual particles pop into existence near a black hole, but one crosses over the event horizon, leaving the other free to live on indefinitely, which we have then observed.
This is wildly off topic though and has nothing to do with why we are here I suppose


----------



## hoddesdon

jc22 said:


> Yes which is why these particles are destroyed "before the universe finds out" to put it crudely. I cannot remember exactly but it is possible under a very small amount of time, to do with quantum mechanics, it may be Planck time. Anyway, we know for a fact this is true because of a phenomena called Hawking radiation, where two of these virtual particles pop into existence near a black hole, but one crosses over the event horizon, leaving the other free to live on indefinitely, which we have then observed.
> This is wildly off topic though and has nothing to do with why we are here I suppose


So, referring back to the post to which I was replying (http://www.socialanxietysupport.com...hing-at-all-138278/index5.html#post1060598096), it is true to say that nothingness can exist. If these particles are exterminated "before the universe finds out", because they are "breaking the rules", then that means that the natural state of things is that matter can be neither created nor destroyed, and that nothingness does exist.


----------



## ugh1979

Kon said:


> So you're a Platonist. Max Tegmark holds this position as I'm sure you know. I think one of the most difficult problems for that view is qualia/consciousness. I don't think anything we can ever describe by mathematics or physics is ever likely to gain insight into qualia/experientiality/subjectivity/consciousness, not because of some mysticism but because of our own cogntive limitations. So, I have doubts that any mathematical ontology (a necessity in physics) can ever really give a satisfactory explanation of qualia.


I think in time it will. The recreation of our minds using our technology will be very revealing.



> I tend to think that both mathematics and language comes from us (is mental) but it seems mathematics is much more useful as a scaffolding to attach our claims about physical systems.


We have assigned a lexicon and grammar to mathematics to allow us to use it, but I don't think anyone can suggest mathematics didn't exist before man. However I can appreciate the term mathematics may be construed incorrectly and what I really mean is that reality is mathematical in nature.

Think about it this way, any intelligent extraterrestrials will surely be using the same mathematics albeit in their own respective language. (And probably a lot more developed than our current understanding of it)



> It seems that there is something more to physical reality (or even our models of physical realty) over and above the mathematics. It seems that the mathematical theories/objects are not the same type of entities that appear to exist in the physical world. We can't get to the physical world without using mathematics because non-mathematical versions of scientific theories just seem to be practically very difficult to do. But, even though the mathematics may be indespinsible and the mathematical equations we use ultimately decide what we believe about the physical world there still seems to be this difference between the two and this just adds fuel to many of the interpretative debates in physics, I think.


Could the places where they mathematics doesn't yet appear to apply not just be due to our relatively primitive stage of development, and we still have much to learn about reality?


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## ugh1979

hoddesdon said:


> Isn't one of the prime laws of physics that matter can be neither created nor destroyed?


Not quite, it's actually more fundamental than matter, it's energy that is always conserved. However, sub atomic particles popping in and out of existence doesn't necessarily breach this law as the anti-particle is probably also created so the net energy cost to the universe is zero.


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## ugh1979

hoddesdon said:


> So, referring back to the post to which I was replying (http://www.socialanxietysupport.com...hing-at-all-138278/index5.html#post1060598096), it is true to say that nothingness can exist. If these particles are exterminated "before the universe finds out", because they are "breaking the rules", then that means that the natural state of things is that matter can be neither created nor destroyed, and that nothingness does exist.


No, it would suggest that everything holds either a positive or negative energy value and is never zero indicating there is never 'nothing'.


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## jc22

hoddesdon said:


> So, referring back to the post to which I was replying (http://www.socialanxietysupport.com...hing-at-all-138278/index5.html#post1060598096), it is true to say that nothingness can exist. If these particles are exterminated "before the universe finds out", because they are "breaking the rules", then that means that the natural state of things is that matter can be neither created nor destroyed, and that nothingness does exist.


No that was just a figure of speech they are still there only for a very short amount of time. There are fields of energy pervading space at all times. Nothingness doesn't exist, its a strongly held view in science


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## Kon

hoddesdon said:


> If the cognitive firepower to understand consciousness does not exist, how can you dogmatically rule out what you are pleased to describe as "mysticism"? Could your dismissal of it itself be a dimension of cognitive limitations?


We know consciousness/qualia/mental stuff exists with absolute certainty. I have thoughts/experiences/qualia as I expect you do too. The problem is to understand how something "physical" like neural stuff/brain can spit it out experiential/qualia/mental stuff. Mysticism is a different thing altogether and makes no sense to me:


> A (purportedly) super sense-perceptual or sub sense-perceptual experience granting acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of sense perception, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection.


So mysticism, as I understand it, implies that one can have direct access to "mind-independent reality", so that somehow some can transcend our cognitive limitations.


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## hoddesdon

Kon said:


> We know consciousness/qualia/mental stuff exists with absolute certainty. I have thoughts/experiences/qualia as I expect you do too. The problem is to understand how something "physical" like neural stuff/brain can spit it out experiential/qualia/mental stuff. Mysticism is a different thing altogether and makes no sense to me:
> 
> So mysticism, as I understand it, implies that one can have direct access to "mind-independent reality", so that somehow some can transcend our cognitive limitations.


So if "understand how something "physical" like neural stuff/brain can spit it out experiential/qualia/mental stuff", then it is logical to consider unaccounted-for or unrecognized factors. That leads on to the point that the explanation of mysticism above may be the same as spiritual experiences (the explanation is not clear to me). Persons on this site have mentioned having spiritual experiences. If you do not accept them, then are you suggesting that they are making it all up?


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## Kon

hoddesdon said:


> So if "understand how something "physical" like neural stuff/brain can spit it out experiential/qualia/mental stuff", then it is logical to consider unaccounted-for or unrecognized factors. That leads on to the point that the explanation of mysticism above may be the same as spiritual experiences (the explanation is not clear to me). Persons on this site have mentioned having spiritual experiences. If you do not accept them, then are you suggesting that they are making it all up?


Of course, I accept them but I think they have nothing to do with mind-independent reality and I'm skeptical that anything of that sort (e.g. mysticism, religion, mythology) will help us gain insight in how to unify the mental with the physical. Despite it's limitations, most of the progress in understanding the natural world around us came from the scientific method not from mysticism/religion/mythology. I don't see that changing whether we are studying the "physical" stuff or the "mental" stuff.


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## jc22

As long as we keep an open mind and are intellectually honest, it shouldn't matter. If we find data that hints at separate consciousness then we take a look e.g. 
That's it


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## Starstuff13




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## jc22

Starstuff13 said:


>


That is a great video and his book may describe a beautiful theory scientifically, and I really like it. Probably to a really geeky extent. But, in it, he makes sure to say that the universe isn't actually coming from 'nothing', it's just the lowest quantum state, and that this nothing is subjected to laws that we do not know the origin of. And the fact that that is definitely not nothing, and yet it's hiding behind the label 'nothing', taints the whole idea, even though it is still a great theory in of itself. 
This, and questions like 'what breathed fire into these equations that govern our world?', are not nitpicking. This sort of thing is firmly in the realm of philosophy and its blatantly obvious to philosphers what this book is doing. He's trying to stretch science to things it can't do and he's made a lot of money out of it. Philosophy is still the place to discuss this.


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## Kon

ugh1979 said:


> I support the hypothesis of us existing in an algorithmic/code based universe so describing it with mathematics is ideal.


This paper was published today. You might find it interesting, I think. I think these ideas are way "out" there (e.g confusing the map for the territory) but that's just my opinion:



> The concept that current humanity could possibly be living in a computer simulation comes from a 2003 paper published in_ Philosophical Quarterly_ by Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford. In the paper, he argued that *at least one of three possibilities* is true:
> 
> The human species is likely to go extinct before reaching a "posthuman" stage.
> Any posthuman civilization is very unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of its evolutionary history.
> We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation."If you make the simulations big enough, something like our universe should emerge," Savage said. Then it would be a matter of looking for a "signature" in our universe that has an analog in the current small-scale simulations.


*Do We Live in a Computer Simulation Run by Our Descendants? Researchers Say Idea Can Be Tested*
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121210132752.htm



> In this work, we have taken seriously the possibility that our universe is a numerical simulation. In particular, we have explored a number of observables that may reveal the underlying structure of a simulation performed with a rigid hyper-cubic space-time grid...Nevertheless, assuming that the universe is finite and therefore the resources of potential simulators are finite, then a volume containing a simulation will be finite and a lattice spacing must be non-zero, and *therefore in principle there always remains the possibility for the simulated to discover the simulators.*



*Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation*
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.1847v2.pdf​


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## Starstuff13

jc22 said:


> That is a great video and his book may describe a beautiful theory scientifically, and I really like it. Probably to a really geeky extent. But, in it, he makes sure to say that the universe isn't actually coming from 'nothing', it's just the lowest quantum state, and that this nothing is subjected to laws that we do not know the origin of. And the fact that that is definitely not nothing, and yet it's hiding behind the label 'nothing', taints the whole idea, even though it is still a great theory in of itself.
> This, and questions like 'what breathed fire into these equations that govern our world?', are not nitpicking. This sort of thing is firmly in the realm of philosophy and its blatantly obvious to philosphers what this book is doing. He's trying to stretch science to things it can't do and he's made a lot of money out of it. Philosophy is still the place to discuss this.


I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but not all. By the way, the book is very good. Obviously he goes into much greater detail and it's quite funny too. Well that very well could be nothing. As he also says, science may redefine what nothing is. So you can either go with what Greek philosophers thought was nothing many centuries ago, or with what the most recent evidence is defining it as. Nothing wrong with a scientist making money for a change, instead of your typical power hungry, borderline psychopathic CEO. And I don't quite agree that philosophy is the only realm where this should be discussed. Sure, let them discuss it, and along the way give some new interesting insights on their opinions. But ultimately every philosophical question will be answered by science. Just look how much more we have progressed since the scientific method was introduced. In my opinion, for whatever it's worth, philosophy has taken a back seat and it's almost beginning to look like we don't need it. Although I think it would be a waste to completely get rid of something that has contributed so much before the time of science. In the time where the closest thing to science was natural philosophy, there were no scientists. They were all philosophers. But now those people who want to make the biggest contributions are all scientists. This is why many people say that philosophy is dead. Not that I completely agree.


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## jc22

Starstuff13 said:


> I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but not all. By the way, the book is very good. Obviously he goes into much greater detail and it's quite funny too. Well that very well could be nothing. As he also says, science may redefine what nothing is. So you can either go with what Greek philosophers thought was nothing many centuries ago, or with what the most recent evidence is defining it as. Nothing wrong with a scientist making money for a change, instead of your typical power hungry, borderline psychopathic CEO. And I don't quite agree that philosophy is the only realm where this should be discussed. Sure, let them discuss it, and along the way give some new interesting insights on their opinions. But ultimately every philosophical question will be answered by science. Just look how much more we have progressed since the scientific method was introduced. In my opinion, for whatever it's worth, philosophy has taken a back seat and it's almost beginning to look like we don't need it. Although I think it would be a waste to completely get rid of something that has contributed so much before the time of science. In the time where the closest thing to science was natural philosophy, there were no scientists. They were all philosophers. But now those people who want to make the biggest contributions are all scientists. This is why many people say that philosophy is dead. Not that I completely agree.


I respect what you are saying and seems like we agree on a lot of things. But In my view I think you misunderstand what science can answer, only very slightly. Science has done much, and is importantly very pro activem and helpful, and answered things that once were the realms of other subjects, but it will never answer why this universe exists, science cannot answer that. Even Richard Dawkins admits this, who I like aswell. It's impossible to even imagine a theory that could answer why we are here.
The fact is that these laws are definitely not nothing. Scientific laws are not nothing. Of course they aren't. And yet they existed before the Big Bang. So what created these laws? And what created that? I am not rubbishing science by asking this, I am just placing science where it is meant to be. I think Lawrence knows all this, I can find an interview where he says you shouldn't take his book title literally. I still am glad scientists are making money I agree with you there.

I just like humble scientists and honesty where you say, "we don't know fundamentally why we are here or the purpose of the universe, or why anything at all, and that also seems unanswerable". Which most scientists say.


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## Starstuff13

jc22 said:


> I respect what you are saying and seems like we agree on a lot of things. But In my view I think you misunderstand what science can answer, only very slightly. Science has done much, and is importantly very pro activem and helpful, and answered things that once were the realms of other subjects, but it will never answer why this universe exists, science cannot answer that. Even Richard Dawkins admits this, who I like aswell. It's impossible to even imagine a theory that could answer why we are here.
> The fact is that these laws are definitely not nothing. Scientific laws are not nothing. Of course they aren't. And yet they existed before the Big Bang. So what created these laws? And what created that? I am not rubbishing science by asking this, I am just placing science where it is meant to be. I think Lawrence knows all this, I can find an interview where he says you shouldn't take his book title literally. I still am glad scientists are making money I agree with you there.
> 
> I just like humble scientists and honesty where you say, "we don't know fundamentally why we are here or the purpose of the universe, or why anything at all, and that also seems unanswerable". Which most scientists say.


Yes I agree that science will always have trouble answering those "why" questions. And obviously, most of those it can't answer at all. The only problem I have with that is that most "why" questions are really "how" questions, just in a clever disguise. Why questions all have one thing in common. They reek of purpose. And although no scientist can say the universe has no purpose, they can say that is sure looks that way. That might be the main reason why people like Richard Dawkins says it can't answer those questions. guys like him don't even think some of those "why" questions are questions. For example, let me steal a clever quote from Neil DeGrasse Tyson. (verbatim) "Not all questions are in fact, questions. You can ask what is the square root of a coffee table? But is that a question? Questions should be able to be answered." I'm too lazy to find the real quote but you get the idea. Why questions (because of there implication of purpose) might just not be answerable. This is why they are really "how" questions.

I agree with everything else you said in the last two paragraphs. Most scientists are humble to the core. They are extremely hesitant to answer absolutely anything with certainty. You will never hear anyone say "I don't know" more than a scientist. The only thing I can say to your questions regarding what created the universe and the laws that govern it, is that I don't know! As Mr. Krauss might say, anyone who tells you they do is either religious, or a string theorist. All I would say is be patient. History has had many times of sheer ignorance where some questions seemed impossible to answer, only to have them answered later on. We are down to the final BIG questions (the ones you have), which means they will be the most difficult to answer. But if they are truly questions, then I think science will eventually answer them.


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## jc22

Starstuff13 said:


> Yes I agree that science will always have trouble answering those "why" questions. And obviously, most of those it can't answer at all. The only problem I have with that is that most "why" questions are really "how" questions, just in a clever disguise. Why questions all have one thing in common. They reek of purpose. And although no scientist can say the universe has no purpose, they can say that is sure looks that way. That might be the main reason why people like Richard Dawkins says it can't answer those questions. guys like him don't even think some of those "why" questions are questions. For example, let me steal a clever quote from Neil DeGrasse Tyson. (verbatim) "Not all questions are in fact, questions. You can ask what is the square root of a coffee table? But is that a question? Questions should be able to be answered." I'm too lazy to find the real quote but you get the idea. Why questions (because of there implication of purpose) might just not be answerable. This is why they are really "how" questions.
> 
> I agree with everything else you said in the last two paragraphs. Most scientists are humble to the core. They are extremely hesitant to answer absolutely anything with certainty. You will never hear anyone say "I don't know" more than a scientist. The only thing I can say to your questions regarding what created the universe and the laws that govern it, is that I don't know! As Mr. Krauss might say, anyone who tells you they do is either religious, or a string theorist. All I would say is be patient. History has had many times of sheer ignorance where some questions seemed impossible to answer, only to have them answered later on. We are down to the final BIG questions (the ones you have), which means they will be the most difficult to answer. But if they are truly questions, then I think science will eventually answer them.


I have just watched a debate on if the universe has a purpose which is quite strange, maybe we are thinking along similar lines. (In fact I think the questions of a God or not falls down to a question of an ultimate purpose or not.)

It had Dawkins on one side with two other "new atheists" and Christians on the other. It seemed to have some sort of agnostic scientists, or maybe some theists too, in the middle, some of whom condemned the atheists more than others.

I find it interesting and true of your view of "why" questions really turning into how, and of course that is true for trivial questions in science, or atleast ones that are more down to earth, that don't concern the big problems of theology or philosophy or whatever you want to call it.

I listened to Dawkins say what you just said and I pretty much agree with him. And of your questions that aren't really questions, I find it somehow reminding me of the book zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

I basically agree with you completely, although the end where you say be patient, i think there is no need to be. Its too strong a held view of mine to think that science could answer the big questions, and of course maybe they aren't viable questions at all like you say. But asking why anything at all or for what purpose, in terms of importance and relevance, is the antithesis of questions Tyson proposed. Granted it does not make them more true. But things like viability and purpose and all these things are philosophical questions.


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## Starstuff13

jc22 said:


> I have just watched a debate on if the universe has a purpose which is quite strange, maybe we are thinking along similar lines. (In fact I think the questions of a God or not falls down to a question of an ultimate purpose or not.)
> 
> It had Dawkins on one side with two other "new atheists" and Christians on the other. It seemed to have some sort of agnostic scientists, or maybe some theists too, in the middle, some of whom condemned the atheists more than others.
> 
> I find it interesting and true of your view of "why" questions really turning into how, and of course that is true for trivial questions in science, or atleast ones that are more down to earth, that don't concern the big problems of theology or philosophy or whatever you want to call it.
> 
> I listened to Dawkins say what you just said and I pretty much agree with him. And of your questions that aren't really questions, I find it somehow reminding me of the book zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.
> 
> I basically agree with you completely, although the end where you say be patient, i think there is no need to be. Its too strong a held view of mine to think that science could answer the big questions, and of course maybe they aren't viable questions at all like you say. But asking why anything at all or for what purpose, in terms of importance and relevance, is the antithesis of questions Tyson proposed. Granted it does not make them more true. But things like viability and purpose and all these things are philosophical questions.


haha I watched that same debate quite some time ago! In fact, that was the first religious debate I ever watched on youtube. That ****ing moderator was ridiculous! Yes, Michu Kaku (forgive my spelling) was one of the agnostic scientists you were speaking of (also a string theorist). Although his argument against the atheist side was ridiculous. He said something like "how could you know there is no god." And is right by saying that, but none of the atheists said anything along those lines. No atheist does, you can't disprove a negative, they just say they find it so implausible that you might as well say you're an atheist. In that sense, Michu Kaku is in the exact same boat as them.
Yes, most of those questions should be how questions. Galileo (or Copernicus, I forgot which one, but that's irrelevant) used to ask "why does the earth revolve around the sun?" They never found an answer because they were asking the wrong question. It should have started with a how. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance? Is it worth reading?
Your argument is sound, and I agree that if there is indeed a purpose, then those are not scientific questions, but philosophical questions like you said. But if there is no ultimate purpose (which seems to me to be the case) then we need not ask those questions. Also, don't hold too strong a view, like you said, to anything! Always be open to being wrong, and learning something completely new. And who knows, if string theory turns out to be correct, (a big if atm) then we will have that answer on how our universe was created. But that's a topic for an entire new discussion.
By the way, I noticed you sent me a friend request. I used to have an account on here but deleted it, along with my friends. After a several months off I decided to rejoin. But this time I didn't want any friends, just wanted to participate in the forums. However, feel free to message me anytime. I am open to that. This was a nice discussion. By the way, i noticed when I saw your request that the friends I deleted were still there. But when I view my profile it shows no friends and says I have none. When you view my profile what does it say?


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## jc22

Starstuff13 said:


> haha I watched that same debate quite some time ago! In fact, that was the first religious debate I ever watched on youtube. That ****ing moderator was ridiculous! Yes, Michu Kaku (forgive my spelling) was one of the agnostic scientists you were speaking of (also a string theorist). Although his argument against the atheist side was ridiculous. He said something like "how could you know there is no god." And is right by saying that, but none of the atheists said anything along those lines. No atheist does, you can't disprove a negative, they just say they find it so implausible that you might as well say you're an atheist. In that sense, Michu Kaku is in the exact same boat as them.
> Yes, most of those questions should be how questions. Galileo (or Copernicus, I forgot which one, but that's irrelevant) used to ask "why does the earth revolve around the sun?" They never found an answer because they were asking the wrong question. It should have started with a how. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance? Is it worth reading?
> Your argument is sound, and I agree that if there is indeed a purpose, then those are not scientific questions, but philosophical questions like you said. But if there is no ultimate purpose (which seems to me to be the case) then we need not ask those questions. Also, don't hold too strong a view, like you said, to anything! Always be open to being wrong, and learning something completely new. And who knows, if string theory turns out to be correct, (a big if atm) then we will have that answer on how our universe was created. But that's a topic for an entire new discussion.
> By the way, I noticed you sent me a friend request. I used to have an account on here but deleted it, along with my friends. After a several months off I decided to rejoin. But this time I didn't want any friends, just wanted to participate in the forums. However, feel free to message me anytime. I am open to that. This was a nice discussion. By the way, i noticed when I saw your request that the friends I deleted were still there. But when I view my profile it shows no friends and says I have none. When you view my profile what does it say?


About the Michu Kaku thing, I agree, I mean he was true in what he said but he seemed to be wanting brownie points from the audience haha. I think that the atheists are so close to agnosticism that to say they are equally as fundementalist as the religious is ridiculous. I mean him and the atheists are basically the same compared to the cataclysmic distance of those religious guys. I hate William Craig aswell, I think that's his name, because he can argue very well it's very hard to corner him in a debate in a way that seems obvious to the audience. The one with him and Sam Harris is really annoying because as much as I like Sam he is not the most effective debater.

The Zen book, I read it ages ago, I remember it being very difficult to read and to do with philosophy and truth and what reasoning can really answer. It's a novel aswell, it's a good read.

I will message you now instead of talking on here.

Edit: I liked this discussion aswell, I think its a change from most Internet forum discussions haha


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## Starstuff13

jc22 said:


> About the Michu Kaku thing, I agree, I mean he was true in what he said but he seemed to be wanting brownie points from the audience haha. I think that the atheists are so close to agnosticism that to say they are equally as fundementalist as the religious is ridiculous. I mean him and the atheists are basically the same compared to the cataclysmic distance of those religious guys. I hate William Craig aswell, I think that's his name, because he can argue very well it's very hard to corner him in a debate in a way that seems obvious to the audience. The one with him and Sam Harris is really annoying because as much as I like Sam he is not the most effective debater.
> 
> The Zen book, I read it ages ago, I remember it being very difficult to read and to do with philosophy and truth and what reasoning can really answer. It's a novel aswell, it's a good read.
> 
> I will message you now instead of talking on here.
> 
> Edit: I liked this discussion aswell, I think its a change from most Internet forum discussions haha


Yes, that is exactly what Michu Kaku was doing. A cheap point that almost guarantees an applause. I too despise William Craig. He is an effective debater, and that probably translates well to certain audiences. But that's all he is, a good debater. Some of the religious apologists at least try to engage in an intellectual discussion, he just seems to play an audience like a politician. If you want to see him lose to a more worthy opponent, watch him battle the late great Christopher Hitchens. 
I will look for that book the next time I'm at the book store. Sounds good, our next discussion will be via message then.


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## ugh1979

hoddesdon said:


> Persons on this site have mentioned having spiritual experiences. If you do not accept them, then are you suggesting that they are making it all up?


People can have so called spiritual experiences which may _appear _to come from outwith their own minds but in fact don't, and are just forms of hallucinations.

I've personally experienced this with recreational drug use, and we know of conditions like temporal lobe epilepsy which people can suddenly contract due to a brain injury, and then start having intense spiritual experiences.

So, we know spiritual experiences can be generated entirely from changes/problems in the brain. Due to the cultural differences reported in the experiences the evidence certainly points to them being personal hallucinations rather than revealing any external truth.


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## ugh1979

Kon said:


> This paper was published today. You might find it interesting, I think. I think these ideas are way "out" there (e.g confusing the map for the territory) but that's just my opinion:
> 
> *Do We Live in a Computer Simulation Run by Our Descendants? Researchers Say Idea Can Be Tested*
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121210132752.htm
> 
> 
> *Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation*
> http://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.1847v2.pdf​


That paper is a bit heavy for me but i'm sure i'll come across a more digestable article based on it soon as i'm always on the lookout for pieces on the subject. Thanks though.


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## ugh1979

jc22 said:


> The fact is that these laws are definitely not nothing. Scientific laws are not nothing. Of course they aren't. And yet they existed before the Big Bang. So what created these laws? And what created that?


Maybe there were no set laws prior to the big bang and we only have set laws particular to this universe post big bang? Maybe all that existed before was the potential for everything to exist? Of course even using terms like 'before the big bang' could be folly, as maybe everything is essentially simultaneously happening 'now' and the arrow of time is totally independent for each universe?


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## Kon

Starstuff13 said:


> I But ultimately every philosophical question will be answered by science. Just look how much more we have progressed since the scientific method was introduced. In my opinion, for whatever it's worth, philosophy has taken a back seat and it's almost beginning to look like we don't need it.


I tend to agree with Mcginn on this topic, that, in general, philosophy deals with many questions that may be, in principle, unanswerable (beyond our cognitive grasp). When we begin to understand some of these they move to the realm of science. But there are questions that appear reasonable/real/legitimate and yet we have made zero progress. Consider stuff like free will, hard problem of consciousness, etc. Same arguments, same debates for over 2000 years with essentially zero progress. McGinn writes:


> And now my point is just this: large parts of what is called 'philosophy' exemplify the above general description, so that the hypothesis of cognitive transcendence is at least a reasonable conjecture. If this hypothesis were right, then the search for philosophical knowledge would be *an attempt to do with our epistemic capacities what cannot be done with them.* Our minds would be to philosophical truth what our bodies are to flying: wrongly designed and structured for the task in question. Let me emphasise that this is a hypothesis: it is to be viewed as the most plausible explanation of the data, compared to other proposed explanations, and it fits our best picture of the kind of thing the knowing organism is...
> 
> In such a case...there comes to be a subject called 'philosophy', with its peculiar addiction to insoluble mysteries. Minds that were better tuned to the requisite theories would have no use for the category of the philosophical, or might perhaps include a quite different set of problems within it. Science, then, might be aptly characterised as that set of questions...where our cognitive faculties allow us to form the necessary concepts and theories. *The distinction between science and philosophy is, on this view, at root a reflection of the cognitive powers we happen to possess or lack*, and is therefore creature-relative: it does not correspond to any interesting real division within objective reality. Conceivable creatures might invert the classifications we make with these concepts, finding consciousness and free will easy to penetrate and explain scientifically, while being quite mystified by the movement of the planets or the nature of digestion. For it is not...intrinsic to consciousness and free will that they should occasion the kind of perplexity they do in minds like ours; such perplexity results, rather, from the interaction between a certain natural phenomenon and a certain type of cognitive set-up. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that our brains would have to be made of something other than neurons in order for us to have the kinds of cognitive powers needed to solve the problems philosophy poses; at any rate... Evolution selected neural tissue, suitably arranged, as the machinery for making intelligence, but that decision is surely substantive; perhaps other materials are used elsewhere in the universe, producing different sorts of intelligence from the earthly kind. The hardness of philosophy is thus an upshot of the particular way that natural selection has built our thinking organ, not an objective trait of the subject-matter of philosophical questions.


*The Problem of Philosophy*
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/consciousness97/papers/ProblemOfPhilosophy.html


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## jc22

ugh1979 said:


> Maybe there were no set laws prior to the big bang and we only have set laws particular to this universe post big bang? Maybe all that existed before was the potential for everything to exist? Of course even using terms like 'before the big bang' could be folly, as maybe everything is essentially simultaneously happening 'now' and the arrow of time is totally independent for each universe?


You keep misunderstanding, I am only using those questions to show my point. We are going over old ground now. Maybe I am **** at describing what my point is. But of course all of what you said is true. But at some point you have to admit that the regress of explanations we choose eventually comes down to a self sustaining idea. The " theory of everything" of physics would be a good example. Of course to ask why this theory exists may not even be a valid question, but that's what people are trying to make out science can answer. I do not know if you are one of these people and you might not be, I am not arguing with you. I am just showing that what I just said is probably true.


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## ugh1979

jc22 said:


> You keep misunderstanding, I am only using those questions to show my point. We are going over old ground now. Maybe I am **** at describing what my point is. But of course all of what you said is true. But at some point you have to admit that the regress of explanations we choose eventually comes down to a self sustaining idea. The " theory of everything" of physics would be a good example. Of course to ask why this theory exists may not even be a valid question, but that's what people are trying to make out science can answer. I do not know if you are one of these people and you might not be, I am not arguing with you. I am just showing that what I just said is probably true.


If you had said regarding the laws, "They might have existed before the Big Bang", rather than stating, "And yet they existed before the Big Bang.", I wouldn't have said anything.

It was just your claim of pre-Big Bang knowledge that I was responding to.


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## whattothink

What enlightened yogis have been saying for ages: infinity.


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## Starstuff13

Kon said:


> I tend to agree with Mcginn on this topic, that, in general, philosophy deals with many questions that may be, in principle, unanswerable (beyond our cognitive grasp). When we begin to understand some of these they move to the realm of science. But there are questions that appear reasonable/real/legitimate and yet we have made zero progress. Consider stuff like free will, hard problem of consciousness, etc. Same arguments, same debates for over 2000 years with essentially zero progress. McGinn writes:


Sorry man, but I do not have the time or patience to read that paper by Mcginn on that link. So you probably won't get the response you're looking for. I totally understand where you are coming from. I guess that is why I don't like philosophy as a tool for understanding. Like you said, it deals with questions that are unanswerable. One could say that means it's pointless! All I can say about certain problems appearing impossible (or extremely difficult) to answer, is that there have been many of those throughout the ages and ultimately they were answered by science, by standing on the shoulders of giants. Maybe we just need another giant or two to come on the scene. But like you said, some problems have had zero progress, so that could suggest that science has nothing to say. Or that they are just really difficult problems, and naturally easy problems fall by the wayside first, and the most difficult ones are last to be answered. 
Yes science has not even brought a good theory to the table about consciousness. In your opinion this might be one of those impossible questions to answer that only should be discussed philosophically, and at the moment you appear to be right. However, I do feel like this one day could be explained scientifically. I just have the opinion that it's one of those difficult questions that still remains, but don't see why it can't ever be explained. 
Now on to free will. Science has had something to say about this one, although many people have much difficulty accepting this. Free will is probably just an illusion. Many people hate hearing this, and for that reason alone refuse to believe it. It's one of those cosmic demotions that further pulls us away from the center of the universe. If all we know about physics is correct, then we really are just a bundle of particles. No special stuff included. This doesn't bother me, and I don't think it should bother anyone else. Who cares. As far as I can tell, I am doing what I want and making up my own mind. If that's what life really is, then that's what life really is. So any other way wouldn't be life, if that makes any sense. 
He might be right about our brains being limited to only answer certain questions. That is a good point. The only loop hole to that I can find is that science makes much of its progress not by pure, deep thought by someone sitting in a room, but from technology doing the thinking for us. Technology will inevitably progress, so some future machine might just be the brain that answers these questions, if they are in fact real questions. Sorry if I did not fully answer your questions though.


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## Kon

Starstuff13 said:


> Yes science has not even brought a good theory to the table about consciousness. In your opinion this might be one of those impossible questions to answer that only should be discussed philosophically, and at the moment you appear to be right. However, I do feel like this one day could be explained scientifically. I just have the opinion that it's one of those difficult questions that still remains, but don't see why it can't ever be explained....Now on to free will. Science has had something to say about this one, although many people have much difficulty accepting this. Free will is probably just an illusion. .


I agree with you that the "hard problem of consciousness" seems somewhat more approachable/formulable via science but I think the free will question has not been solved and I'm aware of some of the research in this area from the science side (my first degree was in neuroscience) that argues againt free will but a lot of the conclusions drawn from some of those "free will experiments" are very questionable. A nice review of most of these criticisms can be found here, if you're interested:


> The notion that free will is an illusion has achieved such wide acceptance among philosophers and neuroscientists that it seems to be acquiring the status of dogma. Nonetheless, research in this area continues, and this review offers a new analysis of the design limitations and data interpretations of free-will experiments. This review presents 12 categories of questionable conclusions that some scholars use to promote the idea that free will is an illusion. The next generation of less ambiguous experiments is proposed...
> 
> Nonetheless, there is a growing body of scientists and philosophers, many of whom are acknowledged as scholars of the first rank who acknowledge consciousness as a distinct mental state, yet conclude that free will is an illusion, a trick played on us by the brain. This view dates back for hundreds of years, but in our time the debate has intensified, in large part because of what I think is misinterpreted research.


*Free will debates: **Simple experiments are not **so simple*
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2942748/


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## hoddesdon

Starstuff13 said:


> Now on to free will. Science has had something to say about this one, although many people have much difficulty accepting this. *Free will is probably just an illusion.* Many people hate hearing this, and for that reason alone refuse to believe it. It's one of those cosmic demotions that further pulls us away from the center of the universe. *If all we know about physics is correct, then we really are just a bundle of particles. No special stuff included.* This doesn't bother me, and I don't think it should bother anyone else. Who cares. *As far as I can tell, I am doing what I want and making up my own mind.*


If free will is just an illusion, then how do you know that you really think that free will is an illusion?

If you think that you have free will, but you really do not, how do you know that your perception that free will is an illusion is not also an illusion?

If free will does exist, then since physics says we are just a bundle of particles, would that not show that the spiritual realm exists?


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## Kon

hoddesdon said:


> If free will does exist, then since physics says *we are just a bundle of particles*, would that not show that the spiritual realm exists?


Physics doesn't say this. Whatever interpretation of quantum mechanics one has, quantum particles are not just "particles" in the classical/Newtonian sense(e.g. localized in space). See links below. Quantum fields are not classical fields, either (see second link). Physicists aren't sure what the most fundamental entity (e.g. wave function) is. But whatever, it's nature, it doesn't appear to be a spatial entity (at least, before measurement occurs). So basically, we don't know what the most fundamental objects in physics are, although there are a number of different interpretations. So our conception of the "physical" is not limited by analogies with miniture "billiard-ball" objects moving around in space via contact mechanics.

*There are no particles, there are only fields*
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1204/1204.4616.pdf



> The majority of physicists do certainly agree that quantum "particles" are not really particles, as they fail to possess all the required corpuscular attributes. However, can we affirm that so-called quantum "fields" are fields, as Hobson suggests? In fact, as we shall briefly explain in the present comment, quantum "fields" are no more fields than quantum "particles" are particles, so that the replacement of a particle ontology (or particle and field ontology) by an all-field ontology, will not solve the typical quantum interpretational problems.


*Quantum "fields" are not fields. Comment on "There are no particles, there are only **fields," by Art Hobson*
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.6384v1.pdf​


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## Starstuff13

hoddesdon said:


> If free will is just an illusion, then how do you know that you really think that free will is an illusion?
> 
> If you think that you have free will, but you really do not, how do you know that your perception that free will is an illusion is not also an illusion?
> 
> If free will does exist, then since physics says we are just a bundle of particles, would that not show that the spiritual realm exists?


damn it Kon you beat me to it! I'll just add a little bit to what he said. I don't know if a series of "funny" questions is the greatest counter argument to free will not existing. Kon studied neuroscience so he can probably speak about this better than me, but I'll attempt to answer those questions. First of all, don't we have trillions of cells in our bodies doing whatever they want all the time? We have no control over what they do. Also, studies in neuroscience have found that we make a lot of our decisions, before we are even conscientiously aware that we made a decision. I find that mind-blowing to think about. We are influenced by stimuli in the physical world, causes that we are not, or were not aware of. Here is a good video based on neuroscientist Sam Harris's book called "free will."


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## whattothink

The origin of consciousness is not explained by science at this time.


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## ugh1979

Kon said:


> Physics doesn't say this. Whatever interpretation of quantum mechanics one has, quantum particles are not just "particles" in the classical/Newtonian sense(e.g. localized in space). See links below. Quantum fields are not classical fields, either (see second link). Physicists aren't sure what the most fundamental entity (e.g. wave function) is. But whatever, it's nature, it doesn't appear to be a spatial entity (at least, before measurement occurs). So basically, we don't know what the most fundamental objects in physics are, although there are a number of different interpretations. So our conception of the "physical" is not limited by analogies with miniture "billiard-ball" objects moving around in space via contact mechanics.
> 
> *There are no particles, there are only fields*
> http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1204/1204.4616.pdf
> 
> *Quantum "fields" are not fields. Comment on "There are no particles, there are only **fields," by Art Hobson*
> http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.6384v1.pdf​


Indeed. The most viable fundamental description of reality i've heard to date is that everything stems from fluctuations of the quantum vacuum.


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## ugh1979

whattothink said:


> The origin of consciousness is not explained by science at this time.


Nobody has said it has been.


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## whattothink

ugh1979 said:


> Nobody has said it has been.





> *If all we know about physics is correct, then we really are just a bundle of particles.*


Given the context, this statement implies a physical explanation of consciousness that doesn't exist.


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## ugh1979

whattothink said:


> Given the context, this statement implies a physical explanation of consciousness that doesn't exist.


I think that statement was actually taken out of context, and I know it's not what he beleives.


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## Starstuff13

whattothink said:


> Given the context, this statement implies a physical explanation of consciousness that doesn't exist.


Wildly taken out of context. You can read what I said again. Before I said that, I also said that science has not even put forth a good theory about consciousness. So I don't know how you came up with that. I was talking about free will, but I'm already discussing that issue with two others in this post so please don't start.


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## hoddesdon

Starstuff13 said:


> studies in neuroscience have found that we make a lot of our decisions, before we are even conscientiously aware that we made a decision. I find that mind-blowing to think about.


Just because the decision is made in the subconscious, and that there is a gap before the conscious mind is aware of it, does not mean that free will is not being exercised.


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## ugh1979

hoddesdon said:


> Just because the decision is made in the subconscious, and that there is a gap before the conscious mind is aware of it, does not mean that free will is not being exercised.


I'll actually side with you on that one in that the sub-concious could still be considered "you", so it's still "your" will, even though the concious part of the brain appears to lag behind.

However i'm well aware not everyone is happy with that definition of "you".


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## hoddesdon

ugh1979 said:


> *I'll actually side with you on that one* in that the sub-concious could still be considered "you", so it's still "your" will, even though the concious part of the brain appears to lag behind.
> 
> However i'm well aware not everyone is happy with that definition of "you".


The end of the world is nigh .....


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## Kon

There are some arguments by some cosmologists who favour the "Block Universe" model that this question is meaningless as summarized here:


> *The universe did not "emerge from nothing".* It is meaningless to talk of the "start" of the universe, or the "emergence of the universe from nothing", or any other term which implies change of the entire block universe structure over time. The entire spacetime block is laid out as one unchanging structure. Here's a quote from Stephen Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time": _"If the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be."_
> 
> This means that any theory which attempts to explain the existence of the universe solely in terms of events which happened at the Big Bang would appear to be plain wrong. This includes any theory which suggests the reason for the existence of the universe is because the universe "emerged from nothing" (so-called _ex nihilo_ solutions).


*Time and the Block Universe*
*http://www.ipod.org.uk/reality/reality_block_universe.asp*


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## ugh1979

hoddesdon said:


> The end of the world is nigh .....


Yeah it's not often we agree.


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## ugh1979

Kon said:


> There are some arguments by some cosmologists who favour the "Block Universe" model that this question is meaningless as summarized here:
> 
> *Time and the Block Universe*
> *http://www.ipod.org.uk/reality/reality_block_universe.asp*


Interesting. I've also heard this block universe idea called "the bulk" where the multiverse exists.


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## Kon

ugh1979 said:


> Interesting. I've also heard this block universe idea called "the bulk" where the multiverse exists.


Yes, but it seems very strange to treat time as laid-out out just like the spatial dimension. So there's still a baby "me" (and many me) still "there" in the universe and there's future "me" already there, in a sense. So I guess we are all immortal if one subscribes to that model. It just feels like there is special "now" and time is different than space. So, I guess I just find the block universe/multiverse a bit hard to swallow even though it's a popular model.


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## Starstuff13

hoddesdon said:


> Just because the decision is made in the subconscious, and that there is a gap before the conscious mind is aware of it, does not mean that free will is not being exercised.


True, that itself doesn't solve the riddle, it's just awfully suggestive. But to imply we have free will means that we have to think of a thought before we think of it. It seems so random to me how thoughts enter the brain out of nowhere. You have no choice in the matter of what pops into your head. I would recommend to try and be aware of that. I understand where you guys are coming from, but I find it quite strange that I'm getting slammed for this, considering at the present moment, that is what the science suggests. Am I really the only one here that thinks free will is an illusion?


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## Kon

Starstuff13 said:


> Am I really the only one here that thinks free will is an illusion?


I agree that there are scientists/philosophers/physicists supporting both sides for various different reasons but why do you personally believe that "free will" must be an illusion? The basic argument for free will is that "we could have done otherwise" if we wanted to. Most people feel like they are freely choosing among some alternatives. Let's say you decide to read my post. Do you not feel that you could have just as easily chosen not to read it, if you wanted to? If not, why?
Do you believe that free will is incompatible with something known to be certain in science/physics?
If you do, what particular _known_ scientific or philosophical/logical principle does not allow for the possibility of free will, in your opinion? For example, is it determinism, etc.


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## Starstuff13

Kon said:


> I agree that there are scientists/philosophers/physicists supporting both sides for various different reasons but why do you personally believe that "free will" must be an illusion? The basic argument for free will is that "we could have done otherwise" if we wanted to. Most people feel like they are freely choosing among some alternatives. Let's say you decide to read my post. Do you not feel that you could have just as easily chosen not to read it, if you wanted to? If not, why?
> Do you believe that free will is incompatible with something known to be certain in science/physics?
> If you do, what particular _known_ scientific or philosophical/logical principle does not allow for the possibility of free will, in your opinion? For example, is it determinism, etc.


I am not saying it absolutely must be an illusion, but I do think that it is most likely an illusion. I guess the bluntest reason I can give you is that we are simply a bundle of particles governed by the laws of physics. Free will doesn't seem to have a fit in this picture. Sam Harris wrote a book called free will (a very short and to the point book) which I highly recommend, and it answers all of your questions. I will try to. My choice to read your post rather than another was determined by neurophysiological effects in my brain, determined by prior causes (genes etc&#8230. Like I said earlier, thoughts pop into your head out of nowhere. You don't know how this happens. Free will implies that this doesn't happen, and you think your thoughts before you think them. Here is a thought experiment for you that he poses in his book, so get ready. I am about to give you the opportunity to make a choice, you are going to have many options to choose from. I want you to think of a city&#8230;Got it?... Did you notice how that city popped in your head? Did you have full control over that thought? Why didn't you pick some other city you are fully aware of? Thoughts emerge in consciousness, we are not authoring them. Try to be aware of that. I hope this answers your questions in an indirect way.


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## ugh1979

Starstuff13 said:


> I am not saying it absolutely must be an illusion, but I do think that it is most likely an illusion. I guess the bluntest reason I can give you is that we are simply a bundle of particles governed by the laws of physics. Free will doesn't seem to have a fit in this picture. Sam Harris wrote a book called free will (a very short and to the point book) which I highly recommend, and it answers all of your questions. I will try to. My choice to read your post rather than another was determined by neurophysiological effects in my brain, determined by prior causes (genes etc&#8230. Like I said earlier, thoughts pop into your head out of nowhere. You don't know how this happens. Free will implies that this doesn't happen, and you think your thoughts before you think them. Here is a thought experiment for you that he poses in his book, so get ready. I am about to give you the opportunity to make a choice, you are going to have many options to choose from. I want you to think of a city&#8230;Got it?... Did you notice how that city popped in your head? Did you have full control over that thought? Why didn't you pick some other city you are fully aware of? Thoughts emerge in consciousness, we are not authoring them. Try to be aware of that. I hope this answers your questions in an indirect way.


I understand what you are saying but I don't feel it contradicts what I said about our sub-conscious driving us and our conscious lagging slightly behind and really just being a manifestation of our sub-concious. A crude analogy is like how a computer displays its output visually on a screen and audibly out its speakers. Our concious minds eye is like the images on the screen and the audio from the speakers like our internal monologue. However, the actual processing is done in the CPU/GPU which is akin to our sub-concious.

This analogy hold up as well when you consider that being unconscious (but not dreaming) can just be like turning the screen and speakers off while leaving the actual computer on to self maintain itself.

The important part is that it's all one integrated system and the whole forms 'you' so it's *your *free will. It's not like your sub-conscious is being controlled by anyone else. (There are of course conditions such as schizophrenia where peoples brains malfunction and their sub-concious gives their concious the illusion of someone other than themselves being in control of their mind)


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## hoddesdon

Starstuff13 said:


> True, that itself doesn't solve the riddle, it's just awfully suggestive. But to imply we have free will means that we have to think of a thought before we think of it. It seems so random to me how thoughts enter the brain out of nowhere. You have no choice in the matter of what pops into your head. I would recommend to try and be aware of that. I understand where you guys are coming from, but I find it quite strange that I'm getting slammed for this, considering at the present moment, that is what the science suggests. Am I really the only one here that thinks free will is an illusion?


If free will is just an illusion, how do you know that you really think that it is an illusion, or that such belief is based on firm ground? - it could just be an automatic response divorced from the facts.


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## Kon

Starstuff13 said:


> Like I said earlier, thoughts pop into your head out of nowhere. You don't know how this happens. Free will implies that this doesn't happen, and you think your thoughts before you think them. Here is a thought experiment for you that he poses in his book, so get ready. I am about to give you the opportunity to make a choice, you are going to have many options to choose from. I want you to think of a city&#8230;Got it?... Did you notice how that city popped in your head? Did you have full control over that thought? Why didn't you pick some other city you are fully aware of? Thoughts emerge in consciousness, we are not authoring them. Try to be aware of that. I hope this answers your questions in an indirect way.


That's not how I understand free will. As I understand it, for us to have free will requires that we are aware of a variety of options and are able to weigh them up in some fashion so we pick/choose the course of action that is, by some criteria "the best"/desired for us, etc. Even if things pop up without our awareness, that doesn't imply there is no free will, afterwards. See diagram with quotes (taken from previous link on free will):


> Emergence of free will from brain operations - a traditional view. Unconscious mind, originating in the spinal cord and brainstem, forms a substrate for developing a subconscious mind (white arrows and dotted line), which in turn can yield a conscious mind from which free will can emanate. Note that conscious mind is shown as the "tip of an ice berg," beneath which lie more basic neural processes.





> Embodied brain deals with external and internal information through joint action of subconscious and conscious operations, with the preponderant influence determined by the nature of the task. Simple, well learned, or habitual tasks may not require much freely willed influence. However, complex or novel tasks may not be possible without conscious "free-will" guidance


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## Starstuff13

ugh1979 said:


> I understand what you are saying but I don't feel it contradicts what I said about our sub-conscious driving us and our conscious lagging slightly behind and really just being a manifestation of our sub-concious. A crude analogy is like how a computer displays its output visually on a screen and audibly out its speakers. Our concious minds eye is like the images on the screen and the audio from the speakers like our internal monologue. However, the actual processing is done in the CPU/GPU which is akin to our sub-concious.
> 
> This analogy hold up as well when you consider that being unconscious (but not dreaming) can just be like turning the screen and speakers off while leaving the actual computer on to self maintain itself.
> 
> The important part is that it's all one integrated system and the whole forms 'you' so it's *your *free will. It's not like your sub-conscious is being controlled by anyone else. (There are of course conditions such as schizophrenia where peoples brains malfunction and their sub-concious gives their concious the illusion of someone other than themselves being in control of their mind)


To me that sounds like a cop out. Of course it's you that had a thought pop in your head. But you can't explain how or why that thought has arisen. But if you had no choice in the matter (which is the whole point) than free will is merely an illusion. So what if it was your sub-conscious. I urge you to start trying to really pay attention to how these thoughts simply pop in your head during consciousness, and how you have no control as to what arises in your head. This is usually the last thing a skeptic has trouble accepting, but I'm confident you will someday.


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## Starstuff13

hoddesdon said:


> If free will is just an illusion, how do you know that you really think that it is an illusion, or that such belief is based on firm ground? - it could just be an automatic response divorced from the facts.


I really hate questions like this. If we are going to go there, then we might as well start saying "how do i know I even exist?" "How do i know the world isn't just a big sims game?" Or I could just ask you the same question, but I would hate to use such a tactic. Maybe I "know" because when i think about answering this question, I am paying enough attention to notice how my answer (and i have several answers to choose from) simply pops into my brain out of nowhere, and I can't explain how that happened. Anyways, now I have to move on to the others that have a problem with this illusion.


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## Starstuff13

Kon said:


> That's not how I understand free will. As I understand it, for us to have free will requires that we are aware of a variety of options and are able to weigh them up in some fashion so we pick/choose the course of action that is, by some criteria "the best"/desired for us, etc. Even if things pop up without our awareness, that doesn't imply there is no free will, after. See diagram with quotes (taken from previous link on free will):


I know that's not how you understand it. That is why we are having this debate. Everything you just said describes exactly what I and many other skeptics see as an illusion. This very tempting and egocentric illusion of choice. We have trillions of neurons and synapses working at all times and we are always ignorant and out of control when it comes to what they are doing. I simply believe that we are a product made of genes, and we are shaped by them and prior events in our life that make up who we are. No special stuff whatsoever. If you agree with this, then I find it hard to believe that you really believe we have free will. It's impossible for a religious person to accept this as an illusion, but it is even hard for many skeptics to accept. I really urge you to hear the other side of the debate. I might have to recruit some others so I'm not battling four people all alone!


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## ugh1979

Starstuff13 said:


> To me that sounds like a cop out. Of course it's you that had a thought pop in your head. But you can't explain how or why that thought has arisen. But if you had no choice in the matter (which is the whole point) than free will is merely an illusion.


I think you have misunderstood me. I am saying that our conscious decisions are in a way an illusion as it's actually our subconscious that is making the decisions.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you and you are saying our decisions are made externally and we are in effect remote controlled? :?



> So what if it was your sub-conscious.


Well then it could explain why we have the thoughts we do!



> I urge you to start trying to really pay attention to how these thoughts simply pop in your head during consciousness, and how you have no control as to what arises in your head. This is usually the last thing a skeptic has trouble accepting, but I'm confident you will someday.


I think they are probably placed into my conscious mind by my sub-conscious brain which is pulling all the strings. The decisions and thoughts we have are often triggered by a stream of external stimuli and other thoughts themselves.

What exactly is it you think we disagree on? I'm not totally sure!


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## Kon

Starstuff13 said:


> Everything you just said describes exactly what I and many other skeptics see as an illusion. This very tempting and egocentric illusion of choice.


Are you arguing for superdeterminism?


> There is a way to escape the inference of supeluminal speeds and spooky action at a distance. But it involves *absolute determinism in the universe, the complete absence of free will.* Suppose the world is super-deterministic, with not just inanimate nature running on behind-the-scenes clockwork, but with our behavior, including our belief that we are free to choose to do one experiment rather than another, absolutely predetermined, including the "decision" by the experimenter to carry out one set of measurements rather than another, the difficulty disappears. There is no need for a faster than light signal to tell particle A what measurement has been carried out on particle B, because the universe, including particle A, already "knows" what that measurement, and its outcome, will be.


*Superdeterminism*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism


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## Starstuff13

Dear Kon and ugh1979,

This has been fun but I feel like it's going nowhere. We have such a similar point of view, with a few key differences so this is becoming hard to argue. This reminds me of arguing with sophisticated, liberal Christians. We agree that most of the Bible is BS so there isn't much to argue about. They just need to go one step further and say there is no god, and you need to say there is no free will. Please don't take that the wrong way, I'm just comparing arguments, not minds. You guys seem to think that conscious decisions are illusions, because we are really making them in our sub-conscious minds. How could you know that? If thoughts emerge into our brains in our conscious minds out of nowhere, then I don't think it's a stretch to suggest the same happens in our sub-conscious. I think the process can be explained by the interactions of brain activity we have no control over, based on prior life experience and genetics. We are our thoughts in a sense, but not the authors of them. We make choices by how our brain is shaped. It is shaped by both genetics (which you have no control over) and by external experiences you went through earlier in life that gives rise to opinions, tastes, attitudes etc... So when you get the choice to pick between ice cream and a salad, and you pick the salad, it seems like you just exercised free will. However, it is actually your social conditioning that lead you to this decision. Your doctor told you to stop eating this, you feel bad when you eat unhealthy, you read an article in a magazine about what unhealthy choices do to your body. You deny yourself the ice cream due to external inputs over which you had no control. If you were exposed to different inputs, maybe you would reject the salad. You have no control over your genetic and social inputs, meaning you had no free will in that decision even though it seems like you did. This is the illusion. I simply think it is social conditioning and genetics that make us who we are. We are governed by the laws of physics, nothing else. 
I have to say congratulations to you Kon. It is quite rare that a science thread on here exceeds 20 posts. You started this one with a completely different topic (in which I also argued about) and now we are nearly at 200! Great job sir.


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## Starstuff13

"Think of someone that you dislike. Let’s call this person X. Now, imagine that you were born with X’s “genetic material.” That is, imagine that you had X’s looks, body odor, inherent tastes, intelligence, aptitudes, etc. Imagine, further, that you had X’s upbringing and life-experiences as well; so, imagine that you had X’s parents growing up, and that you grew up in the same country, city, and neighborhood in which X grew up, etc...Would you behave any differently from how X behaves?"


No!!!


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## simian4455

Starstuff13 said:


> "Think of someone that you dislike. Let's call this person X. Now, imagine that you were born with X's "genetic material." That is, imagine that you had X's looks, body odor, inherent tastes, intelligence, aptitudes, etc. Imagine, further, that you had X's upbringing and life-experiences as well; so, imagine that you had X's parents growing up, and that you grew up in the same country, city, and neighborhood in which X grew up, etc...Would you behave any differently from how X behaves?"
> 
> No!!!


That really gives a license to criminals to do what they do ...


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## Starstuff13

simian4455 said:


> That really gives a license to criminals to do what they do ...


Yes, it does to a certain extent. They are basically just very unlucky. But I'm not arguing whether or not having free will is a good or bad thing. Just whether or not it is an illusion. However, if we get to the point where people accept free will as an illusion, then we still have to do something about murderers. Sorry, guy who kills people, I know it must have not helped to have Saddam Hussein as a father, but raping brides on their wedding day and killing them after is just not cool. Even if we realize that they are quite unlucky in becoming a psychopath, we still have the obligation as a society to take care of them.


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## ugh1979

Starstuff13 said:


> Dear Kon and ugh1979,
> 
> This has been fun but I feel like it's going nowhere. We have such a similar point of view, with a few key differences so this is becoming hard to argue. This reminds me of arguing with sophisticated, liberal Christians. We agree that most of the Bible is BS so there isn't much to argue about. They just need to go one step further and say there is no god, and you need to say there is no free will. Please don't take that the wrong way, I'm just comparing arguments, not minds. You guys seem to think that conscious decisions are illusions, because we are really making them in our sub-conscious minds. How could you know that?


I don't think Kon or myself have taken positions of knowledge on if we do or don't have free will. I know i'm currently agnostic on the subject and simply discussed some alternatives to your claim. It's actually you who has claimed a position of knowledge on the subject, so the sophisticated, liberal Christian label is better suited for yourself. :b



> If thoughts emerge into our brains in our conscious minds out of nowhere, then I don't think it's a stretch to suggest the same happens in our sub-conscious.


Or maybe not "nowhere" as you offer an explanation of the process below.



> I think the process can be explained by the interactions of brain activity we have no control over, based on prior life experience and genetics. We are our thoughts in a sense, but not the authors of them. We make choices by how our brain is shaped. It is shaped by both genetics (which you have no control over) and by external experiences you went through earlier in life that gives rise to opinions, tastes, attitudes etc... So when you get the choice to pick between ice cream and a salad, and you pick the salad, it seems like you just exercised free will. However, it is actually your social conditioning that lead you to this decision. Your doctor told you to stop eating this, you feel bad when you eat unhealthy, you read an article in a magazine about what unhealthy choices do to your body. You deny yourself the ice cream due to external inputs over which you had no control. If you were exposed to different inputs, maybe you would reject the salad.


I've already said this. Are we now disagreeing that we agree? 



> You have no control over your genetic and social inputs, meaning you had no free will in that decision even though it seems like you did. This is the illusion. I simply think it is social conditioning and genetics that make us who we are. We are governed by the laws of physics, nothing else.


While this could be the case i'm not totally sold on it. I think that while much of what shapes our choices is based on genetics and social inputs there is still capacity for the mind (even if it's just the sub-concious mind) to have some scope for choice.

If you don't agree that could be possible then fine, we will have to agree to disagree on that point.

Very interesting debate though.


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## Starstuff13

hah! I am not taking the position of knowledge. And I didn't say you were either. I was simply saying that it's like arguing with someone you mostly agree with, with a few subtle differences. I have said several times that I do not know if it is an illusion, but I think it most likely is. After that, I was explaining how it most likely is an illusion, and was responding directly to questions asked of me. When I was explaining the process of what's going on when we face choices etc, I made sure to start off the explanation with "I think", not "I know." Yes we are disagreeing that we agree, this is why I stated that analogy earlier. We agree about much of this, which is why I'm so befuddled as to why you think we probably have free will. You agree that much of our choices are based on genetics and social inputs, all I'm saying is at the present time that is all we know. So I don't mind you hypothesizing that there could be something more, but right now we don't have evidence to believe that. Based on what we know, it just seems unlikely. Not impossible, just improbable. I am totally fine agreeing to disagree though. It was an interesting debate. Usually when I'm debating on here it's with a religious nut. This actually made me think, and I hope it made you think too.


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## ugh1979

Starstuff13 said:


> hah! I am not taking the position of knowledge. And I didn't say you were either. I was simply saying that it's like arguing with someone you mostly agree with, with a few subtle differences. I have said several times that I do not know if it is an illusion, but I think it most likely is. After that, I was explaining how it most likely is an illusion, and was responding directly to questions asked of me. When I was explaining the process of what's going on when we face choices etc, I made sure to start off the explanation with "I think", not "I know." Yes we are disagreeing that we agree, this is why I stated that analogy earlier. We agree about much of this, which is why I'm so befuddled as to why you think we probably have free will. You agree that much of our choices are based on genetics and social inputs, all I'm saying is at the present time that is all we know. So I don't mind you hypothesizing that there could be something more, but right now we don't have evidence to believe that. Based on what we know, it just seems unlikely. Not impossible, just improbable. I am totally fine agreeing to disagree though. It was an interesting debate. Usually when I'm debating on here it's with a religious nut. This actually made me think, and I hope it made you think too.


I'm totally on the fence about it so would just say it's possible rather than siding on the unprobable or probable.

I has made me think more deeply about the issue. That's why I like getting in to these debates as it challenges and augments my thoughts on the subject.


----------



## Kon

Starstuff13 said:


> You guys seem to think that conscious decisions are illusions, because we are really making them in our sub-conscious minds. How could you know that?


We know that many of our decisions occur at the sub-conscious level from split-brain studies. But nobody is claiming that all decisions are made at that level. As mentioned in the diagram, some tasks (particularly complex/novel ones) are made at the conscious level. We can anticipate what will happen in the future given some choice and choose accordingly and make a decision based on many different factors and these do occur at the conscious level. And it is here where free choice occurs. There are claims by superdeterminists that this is an illusion and basically everything was determined from the initial big bang and there is no choice. So basically, my decision to post this thread and for you to read it, etc. was "set in stone" from the initial big bang. This view known as superdeterminism is not favoured by most physicists. 


Starstuff13 said:


> I simply think it is social conditioning and genetics that make us who we are. We are governed by the laws of physics, nothing else.


I think that's a vacous statement because there is nothing in physics that is incompatible with free will, particularly in modern physics. And I'm not saying here that QM implies free will. It doesn't imply anything pro or anti-free will. That is the whole point I was arguing for. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of physicists would agree with this.There's no evidence in either direction. But you seem to be claiming that physics/science/physical is incompatible with free will. This is not accurate, in my opinion. And I can cite many physicists and neuroscientist/linguists/cognitive scientists who are leading researchers in their fields who would agree with this. So the most honest position to take on the question of free will is to be agnostic, in my opinion as argued here also:



> There is no proof as far as physics is concerned. Physics is simply unable to resolve the question of free will...The most honest position for a scientist on the question of free will is definitely agnostic: I simply do not know.


*Is the Universe deterministic?*
http://www.vlatkovedral.org/old/articles/determinism.pdf


----------



## Slogger

How could anyone get to the bottom of this nothingness question by futzing around with ideas?


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## ugh1979

Slogger said:


> How could anyone get to the bottom of this nothingness question by futzing around with ideas?


From futzing around with, to pondering, to investigating via scientific method, in that order. That's how new knowledge often emerges.

The loose concept usually needs to come first before being fleshed out and tested. This is a subject that is very difficult to apply scientific method to at this point in time (has been for a long time) so it's largely hypothetical and consinged to thought experiments. Therefore it's a valid subject to futz around with, since little serious scientific work can be done on it at the moment.


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## Broshious2

Interesting, if now dated, article on the subject at hand:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm


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## Kon

Broshious2 said:


> Interesting, if now dated, article on the subject at hand:
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm


That study (Soon C. S., Brass M., Heinze H.-J., Haynes) and more recent ones and problems with the interpretation and misinterpreation is discussed in the review article I posted above:



> Increased activity in the other areas prior to awareness can be interpreted in more than one way. Most people, especially the lay press, assume that these other areas are subconsciously processing the decision to move and thus indicate absence of free will because they occur before subjects think they willed a movement. The authors were more restrained in wording their conclusion; namely, that the frontal and parietal cortical areas "influenced" the decision making up to 10 s before conscious decision to press one of the two buttons was realized. They view this early, pre-conscious activity as preparatory and also as a specific predictor of which button was to be pressed, but they did not choose to speculate further...To me, an obvious interpretation is that frontal and cingulate cortex could have been processing the "rules of the game" and the free-will intent to move. The overlap with SMA activity seems inevitable in that rules of the game form a conscious context in which a willed act could occur at any moment. Obviously, rules of the game have to be processed initially in consciousness. However, once well-rehearsed, implementing intentions may be done without conscious awareness. However, a recent test of this issue by Bongers, Dijksterhuis, and Spears (2010) revealed that people do become aware of their goals and intents when pursuing a complex goal. It remains an open question whether this might apply to the Soon studies.


*Free will debates: **Simple experiments are not **so simple*
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2942748/


----------



## Starstuff13

Kon said:


> We know that many of our decisions occur at the sub-conscious level from split-brain studies. But nobody is claiming that all decisions are made at that level. As mentioned in the diagram, some tasks (particularly complex/novel ones) are made at the conscious level. We can anticipate what will happen in the future given some choice and choose accordingly and make a decision based on many different factors and these do occur at the conscious level. And it is here where free choice occurs. There are claims by superdeterminists that this is an illusion and basically everything was determined from the initial big bang and there is no choice. So basically, my decision to post this thread and for you to read it, etc. was "set in stone" from the initial big bang. This view known as superdeterminism is not favoured by most physicists.
> 
> I think that's a vacous statement because there is nothing in physics that is incompatible with free will, particularly in modern physics. And I'm not saying here that QM implies free will. It doesn't imply anything pro or anti-free will. That is the whole point I was arguing for. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of physicists would agree with this.There's no evidence in either direction. But you seem to be claiming that physics/science/physical is incompatible with free will. This is not accurate, in my opinion. And I can cite many physicists and neuroscientist/linguists/cognitive scientists who are leading researchers in their fields who would agree with this. So the most honest position to take on the question of free will is to be agnostic, in my opinion as argued here also:
> 
> *Is the Universe deterministic?*
> http://www.vlatkovedral.org/old/articles/determinism.pdf


I agree the most honest position to take is agnosticism. You seem to think I am completely sold on the idea that it is an illusion, simply because I have the counter point of view. I keep saying I think it most likely is. Not I know. You are the one who said "this is where free choice occurs." You seem to have a stronger opinion that it is a real phenomena than I do that it's an illusion. I am sure you can cite many scientists that are on your side. Trust me, I can name a multitude that are on mine. And I really don't think that's true that most physicists think we have free will. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure most scientists think it's an illusion. But I don't think an effective argument would be for us to start scouring the internet for relevant scientists who agree with us, and posting their names on here. So we are both agnostic on the issue, but lets be honest. You took one position (we have free will), and I took the other (illusion). Like I said earlier, and like the article you told me to read said, at the moment, it seems the universe is deterministic. Yes, we don't know that it's an illusion, (and I'm not saying I do) but it sure seems that way. That is all I am saying. I think we are shaped by genetics and social inputs, that is it. If you find that impossible to believe, then this is clearly going nowhere. Fun and interesting debate, but I don't think either one of us is going to the other side.


----------



## EverydayBattle

Kon said:


> Does the argument below sound convincing?
> 
> *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.
> 
> [URL]http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2009/06/05/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing/[/URL]


...So... Why does probability HAVE to occur? I understand Nothing has the equal probability as any other possible outcome, and that Nothing is infinitly outnumbered by the sum of all other possible outcomes, but why is any outcome chosen to manifest?

This theory suggests that Nothing IS something, so instead, we need to ask why does probability even exist? If I place bingo balls in a bag, reach in and blindly choose one, whatever I draw happens because I chose to create this probable scenario. So what creates the Universe's (or multi-verse's) scenarios?

Probability can suggest that probability will occur, but that doesn't CAUSE probability to occur.


----------



## Kon

Starstuff13 said:


> You seem to have a stronger opinion that it is a real phenomena than I do that it's an illusion. I am sure you can cite many scientists that are on your side. Trust me, I can name a multitude that are on mine. And I really don't think that's true that most physicists think we have free will.


I didn't say that most scientists believe in free will. I said:


> ...there is nothing in physics that is incompatible with free will, particularly in modern physics...I'm pretty sure the vast majority of physicists would agree with this.


I'm also an innatist and determinist (even though many physicists do feel that QM implies indeterminism), but again I'm not convinced that this is incompatible with free will. Whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic isn't the issue, in my opinion. Contrary to some arguments, I can't see how a indeterministic universe would help the "free will" position anymore than a deterministic universe. It seems that would just lead to a "random will" not "free will". I've posted in previous posts what I think is necessary for free will to occur: positions that are able to challenge the following premise:


> The presumption in favor of upward causation and explanation (from microphysical to macrophysical) that comes with causal completeness is what cuts free agency out of the picture, whether this causation is deterministic or partly random.


And just to be clear, while I do believe in free will, I think science has zilch to say on the topic, one way or another. That's what I'm arguing about. One shouldn't use science to argue for or against free will.


----------



## Kon

EverydayBattle said:


> This theory suggests that Nothing IS something, so instead, we need to ask why does probability even exist? If I place bingo balls in a bag, reach in and blindly choose one, whatever I draw happens because I chose to create this probable scenario. So what creates the Universe's (or multi-verse's) scenarios?


If I'm understanding you, I guess you are making similar arguments to the authors linked in post # 37. If that's the case, I agree with you:


> ...it is not hard to see what is wrong with the analogy. When you win the lottery ticket it may be reasonable to infer that other people bought a ticket but, in any case, the very idea of winning a lottery presupposes that other tickets exist and that the winning ticket has been drawn more or less randomly from the collection of tickets. By contrast, our universe being the way it is ("winning the lottery") does not presuppose that other universes (with different properties) exist-our evidence is simply neutral in this respect. Furthermore, *we have no a priori right to presuppose that the values of the parameters characterizing our universe are bestowed on it by some random process-and so no right to presuppose a probability distribution (uniform or otherwise) of the outcomes.* Therefore, a judgment of what is natural to infer from our universe being as it is (with us in it) hangs in the air.


----------



## ugh1979

EverydayBattle said:


> ...So... Why does probability HAVE to occur? I understand Nothing has the equal probability as any other possible outcome, and that Nothing is infinitly outnumbered by the sum of all other possible outcomes, but why is any outcome chosen to manifest?
> 
> This theory suggests that Nothing IS something, so instead, we need to ask why does probability even exist? If I place bingo balls in a bag, reach in and blindly choose one, whatever I draw happens because I chose to create this probable scenario. So what creates the Universe's (or multi-verse's) scenarios?
> 
> Probability can suggest that probability will occur, but that doesn't CAUSE probability to occur.


I currently like the hypothesis of quantum foam interacting with itself giving rise to matter. The "bottom up" formation rather than the "top down" approach of intelligent design/theism.


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## whattothink

Slogger said:


> How could anyone get to the bottom of this nothingness question by futzing around with ideas?


They won't


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## Nightless

This reminds me of a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's book, Slaughterhouse-Five.
_
"Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?"
"That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"
"Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.
"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why."_


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## Slogger

whattothink said:


> They won't


:clap


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## Kon

ugh1979 said:


> I currently like the hypothesis of quantum foam interacting with itself giving rise to matter. The "bottom up" formation rather than the "top down" approach of intelligent design/theism.


But that still doesn't answer Weinberg's question quoted in the original post of this thread:


> 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?*


With respect to the bottom up (e.g. reductionism) versus top-down causation/constraint, it seems no-go theorems like Bell's and Kochen-Specker have kind of forced us to accept some form of bi-directional causality or holism so as some argue, "it is not just that the whole is more than the sum of the parts but that the parts can't even be defined apart from the whole.":


> Such a wave-function can't be broken down into individual three-dimensional wave-functions, corresponding to what we think of as particles in three-dimensional space. That would leave out information about correlations among different parts of the system, correlations that are experimentally observed. Only the entire wave-function, defined over the entire high-dimensional space, contains all the information that factors into the future evolution of quantum mechanical systems


*The Structure of a QuantumWorld*
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9347/1/Final_QM_for_volume.pdf



> One of the basic assumptions implicit in the way physics is usually done is that all causation flows in a bottom up fashion, from micro to macro scales. However this is wrong in many cases in biology, and in particular in the way the brain functions. Here I make the case that it is also wrong in the case of digital computers - the paradigm of mechanistic algorithmic causation - and in many cases in physics, ranging from the origin of the arrow of time to the process of quantum state preparation. I consider some examples from classical physics; from quantum physics; and the case of digital computers, and then explain why it this possible without contradicting the causal powers of the underlying micro physics. Understanding the emergence of genuine complexity out of the underlying physics depends on recognising this kind of causation. It is a missing ingredient in present day theory; and taking it into account may help understand such mysteries as the measurement problem in quantum mechanics.


​​​​*Recognising Top-Down Causation*​http://lanl.arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1212/1212.2275.pdf


----------



## Starstuff13

Kon said:


> I didn't say that most scientists believe in free will. I said:
> 
> I'm also an innatist and determinist (even though many physicists do feel that QM implies indeterminism), but again I'm not convinced that this is incompatible with free will. Whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic isn't the issue, in my opinion. Contrary to some arguments, I can't see how a indeterministic universe would help the "free will" position anymore than a deterministic universe. It seems that would just lead to a "random will" not "free will". I've posted in previous posts what I think is necessary for free will to occur: positions that are able to challenge the following premise:
> 
> And just to be clear, while I do believe in free will, I think science has zilch to say on the topic, one way or another. That's what I'm arguing about. One shouldn't use science to argue for or against free will.


Sorry I left you hanging. I haven't logged on the last couple of days. OK fair enough. I now fully get where you're coming from. It is an honest position. And considering how this issue is still shrouded in much ignorance, it is hard to argue that point of view. I obviously disagree that we have free will, but it is clear that neither one of us can say for sure we are right. Science certainly has not proven free will is an illusion to a factual level. But I do disagree that it has said zilch on the issue. Regardless, this is a good point to agree to disagree. Enlightening debate, look forward to the next one.


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## Starstuff13

We have had some good debates in this thread about "nothing." But there will be a better debate on March 30th. The 13th annual Issac Asimov debate, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson is titled "The existence of nothing." They have a great panel which includes: Lawrence Krauss, Lyn Evans (project leader of LHC), David Albert, Eva Silverstein, and Charles Seife. If you have seen any of their past debates, you know it will be good. It will be streaming live!


----------



## Kon

Starstuff13 said:


> The 13th annual Issac Asimov debate, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson is titled "The existence of nothing." They have a great panel which includes: Lawrence Krauss, Lyn Evans (project leader of LHC), David Albert, Eva Silverstein, and Charles Seife. If you have seen any of their past debates, you know it will be good. It will be streaming live!


That looks very interesting and I'm looking forward to it. There was also a conference fairly recently at Yale on this topic:

*Why is there anything*
http://whyisthereanything.org/

And a blog of the proceedings can be found here:
http://whyisthereanything.org/blog/?paged=2

It's difficult to disagree with this point in that blog made by Heller/Ellis:


> Heller concluded by saying that if we truly tried to construct a physical model from absolute nothing, we would not be able to move one step forward. *That's why the "Why is the anything?" question is so persistent...we cannot get off the ground in explaining the universe if we start with nothing*...


----------



## hoddesdon

^ Well, exactly. So ultimately science has no explanation. Therefore an explanation outside science as we know it can not be excluded.


----------



## Owl-99

One thing is for sure man does not have the answers to the eternal questions, and he never will.


----------



## Kon

hoddesdon said:


> Well, exactly. So ultimately science has no explanation. Therefore an explanation outside science as we know it can not be excluded.


I think the only thing it shows is that we have limitations like all other biological organisms. So it's not so much that there is some other better method than science to get to "mind-independent reality" but only that the science open to our cognitive make-up is limited. Strong arguments (in my opinion) taking this skeptical position that I've come across are those offered by Fodor and Chomsky respectively, as quoted below:


> ...so long as the class of accessible concepts is endogenously constrained, there will be thoughts that we are unequipped to think. And, so far, nobody has been able to devise an account of the ontogeny of concepts which does not imply such endogenous constraints. *This conclusion may seem less unbearably depressing if one considers that it is one which we unhesitatingly accept for every other species. One would presumably not be impressed by a priori arguments intended to prove (e.g.) that the true science must be accessible to spiders.*





> What is the relation between the class of humanly accessible theories and the class of true theories? It is possible that the intersection of these classes is quite small, that few true theories are accessible. There is no evolutionary argument to the contrary. Nor is there any reason to accept the traditional doctrine, as expressed by Descartes, that human reason is a "universal instrument which can serve for all contingencies." *Rather, it is a specific biological system, with its potentialities and associated limitations.* It may turn out to have been a lucky accident that the intersection is not null. There is no particular reason to suppose that the science-forming capacities of humans or their mathematical abilities permit them to conceive of theories approximating the truth in every (or any) domain, or to gain insight into the laws of nature.


*Skepticism and Naturalism: Can Philosophical Skepticism be Scientifically Tested?*
*http://www.nmsu.edu/~philos/documents/naturalism-and-skepticism.pdf*


----------



## whattothink

hoddesdon said:


> ^ Well, exactly. So ultimately science has no explanation. Therefore an explanation outside science as we know it can not be excluded.


I agree


----------



## hoddesdon

Kon said:


> Does the argument below sound convincing?
> 
> *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.com/2009/06/05/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing/


The flaw in this argument is that nothing is not equally as likely as something. This is not comparing apples with apples. Something is clearly more complex, and requiring more concurrent or consecutive events to occur, even if something were completely dysfunctional. Just the Big Bang itself is more complex than nothing. That is like saying that there is an equal probability of learning marbles in a given period as learning chess.


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## BabyBlueGamer

With existence existing the nonexistnt dosent exist but if the existent quits existing, then the non existent can exist but maybe the both could reach a middle ground in conflict. Lol I felt this was appropriate:sus


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## Starstuff13

BabyBlueGamer said:


> With existence existing the nonexistnt dosent exist but if the existent quits existing, then the non existent can exist but maybe the both could reach a middle ground in conflict. Lol I felt this was appropriate:sus


That sounds like something Deepak Chopra would say.


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## ugh1979

Starstuff13 said:


> We have had some good debates in this thread about "nothing." But there will be a better debate on March 30th. The 13th annual Issac Asimov debate, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson is titled "The existence of nothing." They have a great panel which includes: Lawrence Krauss, Lyn Evans (project leader of LHC), David Albert, Eva Silverstein, and Charles Seife. If you have seen any of their past debates, you know it will be good. It will be streaming live!


Interesting. If you remember, please post a link in this thread to a recording of it after the event.


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## ugh1979

hoddesdon said:


> The flaw in this argument is that nothing is not equally as likely as something. This is not comparing apples with apples. Something is clearly more complex, and requiring more concurrent or consecutive events to occur, even if something were completely dysfunctional. Just the Big Bang itself is more complex than nothing. That is like saying that there is an equal probability of learning marbles in a given period as learning chess.


"Something" doesn't need to be more more complex than "nothing" at its root.

"1" isn't neccesarily more complex than "0".


----------



## ugh1979

Kon said:


> But that still doesn't answer Weinberg's question quoted in the original post of this thread:
> 
> With respect to the bottom up (e.g. reductionism) versus top-down causation/constraint, it seems no-go theorems like Bell's and Kochen-Specker have kind of forced us to accept some form of bi-directional causality or holism so as some argue, "it is not just that the whole is more than the sum of the parts but that the parts can't even be defined apart from the whole.":
> 
> *The Structure of a QuantumWorld*
> http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9347/1/Final_QM_for_volume.pdf
> 
> *Recognising Top-Down Causation*​http://lanl.arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1212/1212.2275.pdf


Interesting, but the apparent top down causality mentioned in some systems is akin to the apparent reduction in entropy in those same or similar systems. However, we know with some certainty that entropy only increases, and the apparent decrease in entropy observed in some systems is in fact confined to their respective local systems, and doesn't actually contradict the ever increasing entropy of the entire system.

I think the same thing may be in place with regards to causation being ultimately bottom up with only localised apparent top down action.


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## jc22

Why are these things ever going to answer'why anything'? 

They aren't


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## Starstuff13

ugh1979 said:


> Interesting. If you remember, please post a link in this thread to a recording of it after the event.


Oh I won't forget. I will remind everyone a few days before the event to watch the live stream. After the event, I'll post a recording as well.


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## hoddesdon

ugh1979 said:


> "Something" doesn't need to be more more complex than "nothing" at its root.
> 
> "1" isn't neccesarily more complex than "0".


Of course not, since "1" and "0" are both numbers. If they are being used to represent "something" and "nothing", then are just the labels for "something" and "nothing", not what they represent. Something must have sort of organization, or substance composed of atoms in a structure, whereas nothing does not. So something is more complex than nothing.


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## ugh1979

hoddesdon said:


> Of course not, since "1" and "0" are both numbers. If they are being used to represent "something" and "nothing", then are just the labels for "something" and "nothing", not what they represent. Something must have sort of organization, or substance composed of atoms in a structure, whereas nothing does not. So something is more complex than nothing.


Not if it only consists of "1 bit" of information. Then it's just as simple as "0 bit" information.

Only >1 bit would require organisation and structure.


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## whattothink

ugh1979 said:


> Not if it only consists of "1 bit" of information. Then it's just as simple as "0 bit" information.
> 
> Only >1 bit would require organisation and structure.


Nothing would be the absence of information


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## Kon

hoddesdon said:


> The flaw in this argument is that nothing is not equally as likely as something.


Yes, that is the kind of argument linked in posts 34 and 183:


> Furthermore, we have no a priori right to presuppose that the values of the parameters characterizing our universe are bestowed on it by some random process-and so no right to presuppose a probability distribution (uniform or otherwise) of the outcomes.


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## ugh1979

whattothink said:


> Nothing would be the absence of information


No it isn't, it's a state that is giving information that it's value is zero.


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## Kon

jc22 said:


> Why are these things ever going to answer'why anything'? They aren't


Sure, it seems like the answer will always be a "mystery" for us (e.g. beyond our mental capacities as humans), just like the issue of "free will" and so-called "hard" problem of consciousness, etc. but I think it's natural to try to answer them because we can't know with absolute certainty that the answer is beyond us. It may be a "mystery" forever beyond our reach but then again it might be just another "problem" that is potentially within our understanding/grasp. Consider previous scientific mysteries that turned out to be problems. So it doesn't make sense to give up as argued here:


> "Failure", in the case of scientific or epistemological problems, often constitutes an assessment that some pursuit or project is no longer worth the effort, given the predicted likelihood of completion or some other favourable outcome. In other words, it constitutes a judgement about the probability of future success or failure, or an inductive inference to the best explanation. Failure in inquiry does not have the same finality as, say, producing conclusive results for a theory, finishing a jigsaw puzzle or cross-word, or solving an equation, all of which have a clear mark of completion. Failure to solve a problem of inquiry, on the other hand, is characterised by _in_completion without any relation to a given fixed and identifiable aim, and so necessarily cannot be measured against an equivalent inevitable arrival or finishing post in the same way. We might say (for the sake of underlining this point) that to solve a problem is something we do, but to declare failure is something about which we make a decision_. _


*"Revised Kantian Naturalism: Cognition and the Limits of Inquiry"*
https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/33046/1/2011RoxburghFCPhD.pdf​


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## whattothink

ugh1979 said:


> it's a state that is giving information


That's correct... nothing doesn't do anything...

What you're referring to is binary, which can't demonstrate absolute nothingness


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## ugh1979

whattothink said:


> That's correct... nothing doesn't do anything...


Apart from give us information that it's state is "nothing", and probably being necessary to define and give form to "something".



> What you're referring to is binary, which can't demonstrate absolute nothingness


No you are confusing my very simple analogy for binary. 0 doesn't represent 0 in binary.


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## whattothink

ugh1979 said:


> No you are confusing my very simple analogy for binary.


When someone begins using 1's and 0's, and bits, the logical assumption would be binary.

Indeed your very simple analogy is also non-applicable; trying to represent nothing with something precludes nothing from being demonstrated. There are no "bits of information" in nothingness. Nothing doesn't exist. We can't imagine it or describe it.

Your claim that it's "a state of giving information" shows that you are assigning something to nothing. Nothing cannot be conceptualized. Therefore any attempt to understand it will fail.


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## ugh1979

Kon said:


> Sure, it seems like the answer will always be a "mystery" for us (e.g. beyond our mental capacities as humans), just like the issue of "free will" and so-called "hard" problem of consciousness, etc. but I think it's natural to try to answer them because we can't know with absolute certainty that the answer is beyond us. It may be a "mystery" forever beyond our reach but then again it might be just another "problem" that is potentially within our understanding/grasp. Consider previous scientific mysteries that turned out to be problems. So it doesn't make sense to give up as argued here:
> 
> *"Revised Kantian Naturalism: Cognition and the Limits of Inquiry"*
> https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/33046/1/2011RoxburghFCPhD.pdf​


Exactly. Continued enquiry in is rarely futile. There can of course be a case made for prioritising problems based on the how difficult they are and the chance of answering them at a given point in time, but there is no need to completely dismiss questions that there aren't currently good answers for.


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## ugh1979

whattothink said:


> When someone begins using 1's and 0's to represent pieces of information, the most logical connotation would be binary.


That's like coming to the conclusion that because I'm using Arabic numerals that I must be speaking Arabic. :?



> Indeed your very simple analogy is also non-applicable; trying to represent nothing with something precludes nothing from being demonstrated. Nothing cannot be conceptualized. It doesn't exist.


To the contrary, algebra/mathematics is the ideal method for manipulating what can not be conceptualised. That's why we use it to model the universe, such as the suggested higher dimensions which which we can't mentally visualise.


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## whattothink

ugh1979 said:


> To the contrary, algebra/mathematics is the ideal method for manipulating what can not be conceptualised. That's why we use it to model the universe, such as the suggested higher dimensions which which we can't mentally visualise.


We aren't discussing mathematical constructs or intangible concepts, we're discussing nothingness. This is entirely separate from what you've just described. True 'nothingness' is outside the realm of human understanding and mathematics.


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## ugh1979

whattothink said:


> We aren't discussing mathematical constructs or intangible concepts, we're discussing nothingness. This is entirely separate from what you've just described. True 'nothingness' is outside the realm of human understanding and mathematics.


So despite the fact you said "Nothing cannot be conceptualized" in your last post, we aren't discussing intangible concepts? :?

I see no reason why "nothingness" has to be out with the realm of human understanding and mathematics.

We might just need to agree to disagree on that point. Interesting discussion no less.


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## Kon

whattothink said:


> We aren't discussing mathematical constructs or intangible concepts, we're discussing nothingness. This is entirely separate from what you've just described. True 'nothingness' is outside the realm of human understanding and mathematics.


I'm not sure I agree with this. What do you think about this argument below. The author is trying to argue with respect to the reasonableness of our understanding of the concept of "nothing" kind of like our understanding of "infinite". For example, by understanding the "finite" one can extend/extrapolate to our understanding of the "infinite". Similarily by 'substraction' we can understand "nothingness" (see p. 5): 


> Metaphysical nihilism [MN] is the view that there could have been nothing at all...
> 
> 1. There is a world with a finite number _n_ of concrete objects (accessible from our own: i.e. possible relative to ours). Call this world wn.
> 2. The existence of any object_ o_ in _wn_ is contingent.
> 3. The non-existence of _o_ does not imply the existence of another object _o'_.
> 4. There is a world, _wn-1, _accessible from wn containing exactly one less object than _wn. _There is a world accessible from _wn-1, w(n-1)-1_, containing exactly one less object than _wn-1._
> 5. By iterating the above procedure (i.e. by repeated 'subtractions') we arrive at a world _wn-m = wmin, _accessible from _wn_, that contains exactly one object.
> 6. Therefore, by steps 2, 3, 4, from _wmin_ there is an accessible world, _wnil = wn-m-1_, containing no objects at all (= MN).


*On explaining existence*
http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Rickles_Rickles_fqxi_2.pdf


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## jc22

All the scientific stuff you posted here is in no way near an answer to this question, that's what I was questioning. And to think it can be answered I think is fundamentally wrong.


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## Kon

jc22 said:


> All the scientific stuff you posted here is in no way near an answer to this question, that's what I was questioning. And to think it can be answered I think is fundamentally wrong.


I guess my counter-argument is the claim to know this with absolute certainty seems fundamentally wrong to me. We can't know with absolute certainty what a future science/physics holds. But I do agree with you that the answer does seem to lie beyond us (same with the "hard" problem) but I guess I'm an optimistic skeptic. Nevertheless, it's enjoyable reading the arguments put forth on this topic in the links provided.


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## jc22

Kon said:


> I guess my counter-argument is the claim to know this with absolute certainty seems fundamentally wrong to me. We can't know with absolute certainty what a future science/physics holds. But I do agree with you that the answer does seem to lie beyond us (same with the "hard" problem) but I guess I'm an optimistic skeptic. Nevertheless, it's enjoyable reading the arguments put forth on this topic in the links provided.


Oh yeh of course. I think with the vagueness of semantics and my laziness to look up the whole thread, I don't know the whole argument here specifically


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## probably offline

5.32 AM...

I just spent like 3 hours reading this thread. It was very interesting. I thought about quoting and replying a few times, but I changed my mind because I don't seem to have nearly as much knowledge about mathematics and physics as most of you guys(and I don't want to make an *** of myself). I had to keep Google handy, hehe. I find this topic stimulating from a philosophical point of view so I don't feel like I've wasted my time, anyway

I shall return to lurk. Thanks.


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## enfield

probably offline said:


> 5.32 AM...
> 
> I just spent like 3 hours reading this thread. It was very interesting. I thought about quoting and replying a few times, but I changed my mind because I don't seem to have nearly as much knowledge about mathematics and physics as most of you guys(and I don't want to make an *** of myself). I had to keep Google handy, hehe. I find this topic stimulating from a philosophical point of view so I don't feel like I've wasted my time, anyway
> 
> I shall return to lurk. Thanks.


haha part of me wants to try reading it now. that's interesting that you read the whole thing.


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## ugh1979

Kon said:


> I guess my counter-argument is the claim to know this with absolute certainty seems fundamentally wrong to me. We can't know with absolute certainty what a future science/physics holds. But I do agree with you that the answer does seem to lie beyond us (same with the "hard" problem) but I guess I'm an optimistic skeptic. Nevertheless, it's enjoyable reading the arguments put forth on this topic in the links provided.


ditto, and as an optimistic skeptic I like to think that while the answers are currently beyond us, they might not always be.


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## ugh1979

probably offline said:


> 5.32 AM...
> 
> I just spent like 3 hours reading this thread. It was very interesting. I thought about quoting and replying a few times, but I changed my mind because I don't seem to have nearly as much knowledge about mathematics and physics as most of you guys(and I don't want to make an *** of myself). I had to keep Google handy, hehe. I find this topic stimulating from a philosophical point of view so I don't feel like I've wasted my time, anyway
> 
> I shall return to lurk. Thanks.


Glad you enjoyed it.


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## nullptr

42. No but really when the OP is assuming there's a 0% chance of each world existing. Our multiverse's chances of existing are infinitesimally small. However if we can assume a near infinite number of universes are being created constantly the probability that our universe is created becomes incredibly high.


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## Kon

galacticsenator said:


> However if we can assume a near infinite number of universes are being created constantly the probability that our universe is created becomes incredibly high.


There are 2 problems with this argument:

1. We have no a priori right to presuppose that the values of the parameters characterizing our universe are bestowed on it by some random process-and so no right to presuppose a probability distribution (uniform or otherwise) of the outcomes (from link above).

2. Even if one assumes universe creation to be some process of creation of all possible universes, does a multiverse (e.g. an infinite number of universes) really offer a simpler explanation than the _null possibility_ (e.g. possibility that nothing existed)? Even with an infinite number of universes, it seems we can still ask why do all these universes exist? Consider this argument below arguing that a N_ull possibility_ ("non-existence") offers a simpler explanation than an infinity of universes:



> We should not claim that, if nothing had ever existed, there would have been nothing to be explained. But we can claim something less. *Of all the cosmic possibilities, the Null **Possibility would have needed the least explanation.* As Leibniz pointed out, it is much the simplest, and the least arbitrary. And it is the easiest to understand. It can seem mysterious, for example, how things could exist without their existence having some cause, but there cannot be a causal explanation of why the whole Universe...exists. *The **Null Possibility raises no such problem. If nothing had ever existed, that state of affairs would not have needed to be caused.*


*Why Anything? Why This?*
http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/phil3600/parfit.pdf​
There are ways to avoid these problems by accepting models like these:

_Block Universe model_ where time is treated like space and the past, present and future are always existing (e.g. it's all there at once) analogous to the way the projector of the movie is to the sequence of frames on the film (see post 153 and image below).​
_Peter Lynd's model_ where time is cyclic and so existence can be both eternal and finite (see post 75).​


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## James1311

Kon said:


> Think of all the possible ways that the world might be, down to every detail. There are infinitely many such possible ways.


I don't think I agree with that. If you believe in determinism theres only ever 1 outcome.


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## Kon

James1311 said:


> I don't think I agree with that. If you believe in determinism theres only ever 1 outcome.


This isn't true. The many worlds interpretation is fully deterministic but all worlds/possibilities exist:


> Before many-worlds, reality had always been viewed as a single unfolding history. Many-worlds, however, views reality as a many-branched tree, wherein every possible quantum outcome is realised. Many-worlds claims to reconcile the observation of non-deterministic events, such as the random radioactive decay, with the fully deterministic equations of quantum mechanics.


*Many-worlds interpretation*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation


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## minimum

I tend to agree with what G.K. Chesterton wrote in _The Everlasting Man_, "Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying 'In the beginning God created heaven and earth' even if you only mean 'In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.' For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could create one."

Here's something worth reading, about St. Thomas Aquinas who had philosophized about causes. http://www.ucatholic.com/studies/aquinas-vs-dawkins/


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## Isabelle50

This thread makes me feel....









But in a good way, like I can actually feel my brain learning things about stuff. Keep up the good work being so smart, smart guys!


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## ThatGuy11200

I haven't read the thread, just the last page, but why do you all assume that probability existed before the Universe?


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## ugh1979

ThatGuy11200 said:


> I haven't read the thread, just the last page, but why do you all assume that probability existed before the Universe?


Read the thread and find out. We've already discussed it at length.


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## Terry1985

I believe everything has always existed, in one form or another.


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## James1311

Kon said:


> This isn't true. The many worlds interpretation is fully deterministic but all worlds/possibilities exist:
> 
> *Many-worlds interpretation*
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation


It could be true though. The many worlds thing is just a possible theory.


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## Kon

James1311 said:


> It could be true though. The many worlds thing is just a possible theory.


You argued:


> If you believe in determinism theres only ever 1 outcome.


Whether the many world model is true or not, is not what the argument hinges on. The fact that determinism is logically compatible with more than 1 outcome (in, fact, possibly infinite outcomes/worlds) suffices. As an aside there was a recent paper discussing some of the arguably less well-known criticisms against MWI (multiple world interpretation):


> The Many World Interpretation is therefore rather a No World Interpretation (according to the simple factorization), or a Many Many Worlds Interpretation (because each of the arbitrary more complicated factorizations tells a different story about Many Worlds...The state vector of the universe in the EI (Everett Interpretation)has no environment or observer it can relate to, and is therefore completely meaningless. The appearance of interacting subsystems of the universe are only due to a choice of a "samsara" basis, which is however completely arbitrary, just like a slicing of Minkowski spacetime is possible, which makes it look like an expanding universe . One has to add something to give the state vector and QM a meaning.


*Nothing happens in the Universe of the Everett Interpretation*
http://lanl.arxiv.org/pdf/1210.8447.pdf

A summary of this paper from one of the physicists on the physics forum: 


> To define separate worlds of MWI, one needs a preferred basis, which is an old well-known problem of MWI. In modern literature, one often finds the claim that the basis problem is solved by decoherence. What J-M Schwindt points out is that decoherence is not enough. Namely, decoherence solves the basis problem only if it is already known how to split the system into subsystems (typically, the measured system and the environment). But if the state in the Hilbert space is all what exists, then such a split is not unique. *Therefore, MWI claiming that state in the Hilbert space is all what exists cannot resolve the basis problem, and thus cannot define separate worlds. Period! One needs some additional structure not present in the states of the Hilbert space themselves...But whatever the additional structure is, it is no longer pure MWI. It is MWI with an additional structure, which may be fine, but then one cannot use the typical MWI argument that it is the simplest interpretation without an additional structure, period*...As reasonable possibilities for the additional structure, he mentions observers of the Copenhagen interpretation, particles of the Bohmian interpretation, and the possibility that quantum mechanics is not fundamental at all.


*Problems with Many Worlds Interpretation*
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=522754&highlight=many+worlds&page=47


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## James1311

I suppose the many outcomes is compatible determinism, just its now determinism in a more expansive way.


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## VanGogh

Jnmcda0 said:


> We can only ask this question because we are here. If nothing existed, the logical question would be "why isn't there something?", only there would be no one around to ask it.


This.


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## Kon

Jnmcda0 said:


> We can only ask this question because we are here. If nothing existed, the logical question would be "why isn't there something?", only there would be no one around to ask it.


Others disagree arguing that the simple fact of Being cannot, in itself, be used as evidence for a Theory of Being-anyone's theory of being. Supporting evidence would have to come from somewhere other than what is being explained.

*Why Does the World Exist?*
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1478


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## hoddesdon

Jnmcda0 said:


> We can only ask this question because we are here. If nothing existed, the logical question would be "why isn't there something?", only there would be no one around to ask it.


The corollary of that is that if you exist, then you should not ask why you exist.


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## AngelClare

Wow, awesome thread! This is a question I used to think about a lot. It's 1:36am here so no time to read everything in this thread.

I'm an idealist. I don't believe in matter. The concept of matter existing apart from conscious beings is full of contradictions. It's full of logical inconsistencies. 

Where do the laws of that govern matter exist? That question alone led me to reject materialism.


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## ugh1979

AngelClare said:


> Wow, awesome thread! This is a question I used to think about a lot. It's 1:36am here so no time to read everything in this thread.


Yes it has been interesting. 



> I'm an idealist. I don't believe in matter. The concept of matter existing apart from conscious beings is full of contradictions. It's full of logical inconsistencies.


For me the concept of consciousness existing apart from matter is full of logical inconsistencies hence why i'm a materialist.

For me everything is just energy vibrating at different rates, playing an orchestra that gives rise to the universe.



> Where do the laws of that govern matter exist? That question alone led me to reject materialism.


Where do the laws that govern anything exist? Is asking "where" even valid, as that contradicts quantum mechanics where nothing on that scale is in a fixed "where" unless measured.

Can the laws maybe not just exist everywhere? (At least in this universe, but probably randomly different in other universes if they exist)


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## Kon

ugh1979 said:


> For me the concept of consciousness existing apart from matter is full of logical inconsistencies hence why i'm a *materialist*.


_Materialism_ is kind of a meaningless term because it posits that the only thing that exists is matter/energy. The problem is we don't know what matter is as physics is not finished; that is, our definition of material/physical/body is open and evolving. Given that we don't have a precise definition of matter/physical/body (physics is always been revised/updated) we can't ask if some phenomena like consciousness/the mental falls outside it's scope. This was pointed out in the following quote:


> The notion of "physical world" is open and evolving. No one believes that bodies are Cartesian automata...or that physical systems are subject to the constraints of Cartesian mechanism, or that physics has come to an end. It may be that contemporary natural science already provides principles adequate for the understanding of mind. Or perhaps principles now unknown enter into the functioning of the human or animal minds, in which case the notion of "physical body" must be extended, as has often happened in the past, to incorporate entities and principles of hitherto unrecognized character. Then much of the so-called "mind-body problem" will be solved in something like the way in which the problem of the motion of the heavenly bodies was solved, by invoking principles that seemed incomprehensible or even abhorrent to the scientific imagination of an earlier generation.


He gives an analogy of trying to fit/unify chemistry into physics in the early 1900s before quantum mechanics. At that time physicists dismissed a lot of the models the chemists had developed as "fictions" (non-real) because they could not be accomodated with Newtonian physics. The problem was not so much that the chemists' models were "wrong" but the reduction base itself (e.g. physics) was simply wrong. It was only after Newtoniam physics was superceded by quantum mechanics, unification of chemistry with physics occurred: 


> Well into the twentieth century the failure of reduction of chemistry to physics was interpreted by prominent scientists as a critically important explanatory gap, showing that chemistry provides "merely classificatory symbols that summarized the observed course of a reaction," to quote Brock's standard history. Kekulé, whose structural chemistry was an important step towards eventual unification of chemistry and physics, doubted that "absolute constitutions of organic molecules could ever be given"; his models and analysis of valency were to have an instrumental interpretation only, as calculating devices.
> 
> Lavoisier before him believed that "the number and nature of elements [is] an unsolvable problem, capable of an infinity of solutions none of which probably accord with Nature"; "It seems extremely probable that we know nothing at all about &#8230;[the]&#8230; indivisible atoms of which matter is composed," and never will, he believed. Kekulé seems to be saying that there is not a problem to be solved; the structural formulas are useful or not, but there is no truth of the matter. Large parts of physics were understood the same way. Poincaré went so far as to say that we adopt the molecular theory of gases only because we are familiar with the game of billiards. Boltzmann's scientific biographer speculates that he committed suicide because of his failure to convince the scientific community to regard his theoretical account of these matters as more than a calculating system-ironically, shortly after Einstein's work on Brownian motion and broader issues had convinced physicists of the reality of the entities he postulated.
> 
> Bohr's model of the atom was also regarded as lacking "physical reality" by eminent scientists. In the 1920s, America's first Nobel Prize-winning chemist dismissed talk about the real nature of chemical bonds as metaphysical "twaddle": they are nothing more than "a very crude method of representing certain known facts about chemical reactions, a mode of representation" only, because the concept could not be reduced to physics. The rejection of that skepticism by a few leading scientists, whose views were condemned at the time as a conceptual absurdity, paved the way for the eventual unification of chemistry and physics, with Linus Pauling's quantum-theoretic account of the chemical bond seventy years ago.


*The mysteries of nature: how deeply hidden?*
http://www.pdcnet.org/collection/sho...&file_type=pdf

The same may be occuring today. We have some stuff like the mental/qualia/consciousness that can't be unified with present-day physics. That doesn't mean that the mental/qualia is fiction; it means only that our conception of physical/material/body (e.g. physics) may need to be changed (assuming it can be done) before unification can occur (just like physics had to be changed to accomodate chemical phenomena in the example above). Given the unification of chemistry with QM and the unification of molecular biology with chemistry (more recently), the question that arises is whether there is any hope/hint of similar unification of mental phenomena with present-day physics or is it already obvious that such unification cannot happen until major changes occur in a future physics (assuming this can ever happen)? Almost everyone agrees that unification cannot occur with what we presently conceive as "matter". About any future revisions of phyics that is more debatable, but unlikely at least with respect to the "hard" problem. But either way, materialism, dualism, idealism, monism are relatively meaningless terms because we don't have a definite conception of "matter" and/or "physical'.


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## ugh1979

Kon said:


> _Materialism_ is kind of a meaningless term because it posits that the only thing that exists is matter/energy. The problem is we don't know what matter is as physics is not finished; that is, our definition of material/physical/body is open and evolving. Given that we don't have a precise definition of matter/physical/body (physics is always been revised/updated) we can't ask if some phenomena like consciousness/the mental falls outside it's scope. This was pointed out in the following quote:
> 
> He gives an analogy of trying to fit/unify chemistry into physics in the early 1900s before quantum mechanics. At that time physicists dismissed a lot of the models the chemists had developed as "fictions" (non-real) because they could not be accomodated with Newtonian physics. The problem was not so much that the chemists' models were "wrong" but the reduction base itself (e.g. physics) was simply wrong. It was only after Newtoniam physics was superceded by quantum mechanics, unification of chemistry with physics occurred:
> 
> *The mysteries of nature: how deeply hidden?*
> http://www.pdcnet.org/collection/sho...&file_type=pdf
> 
> The same may be occuring today. We have some stuff like the mental/qualia/consciousness that can't be unified with present-day physics. That doesn't mean that the mental/qualia is fiction; it means only that our conception of physical/material/body (e.g. physics) may need to be changed (assuming it can be done) before unification can occur (just like physics had to be changed to accomodate chemical phenomena in the example above). Given the unification of chemistry with QM and the unification of molecular biology with chemistry (more recently), the question that arises is whether there is any hope/hint of similar unification of mental phenomena with present-day physics or is it already obvious that such unification cannot happen until major changes occur in a future physics (assuming this can ever happen)? Almost everyone agrees that unification cannot occur with what we presently conceive as "matter". About any future revisions of phyics that is more debatable, but unlikely at least with respect to the "hard" problem. But either way, materialism, dualism, idealism, monism are relatively meaningless terms because we don't have a definite conception of "matter" and/or "physical'.


All good points.

However I say i'm a materialist for the very reasons you mention as it leaves huge scope for what we don't yet know about energy. In that respect it's an ideal postion to take in the ever changing landscape of physics.

It's not a term I use to describe myself often as it doesn't actaully say all that much as you correctly note, but I deemed it appropriate in reply to AngelClare.


----------

