Nothing to something must be possible

So what's really going on?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

User avatar
iambiguous
Posts: 7106
Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by iambiguous »

bahman wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:09 pm So we wait for someone who is able to find a flaw in my argument.
Again:
If all one is interested in is noting a "flaw" in the language used to explain something, then the exchange can go on and on and on up in the didactic clouds that revolve around definitions and deductions.

But how is that connected to the physics, the chemistry and [with us] the biology of existence itself?
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 4:13 pm In fact, contemplating this is so utterly mind-boggling, it's still the closest I can now come to God. Him/Her/It being one possible explanation for existence, right? Until, again, you start to wonder if God too popped into existence out of nothing at all or has always existed.
bahman wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:09 pm God could not have always existed. That is regress too. God could not create the universe even if God popped into existence.
I don't doubt that "in your head" the logic of this is impeccable. But, again, I'll wait for the folks in the scientific community to get around to documenting it one way or the other on Nova or on the Science Channel.

Here for example: https://www.sciencechannel.com/show/how ... ks-science

Or here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/genres ... nology/all
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 4:13 pm No, what I question here are the limitations of logic in regard to such things as morality and religion and those really big metaphysical questions.
bahman wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:09 pm There is no limitation in logic. All sorts of knowledge are built on logic. Life in general and especially intelligent life is not possible without logic.
Indeed, in regard to physics and chemistry and geology and biology and and many other scientific disciplines, the precise relationship between words and worlds is astounding. Try getting astronauts on the moon or performing heart transplants or creating smart phones without it.

Instead, I focus more on the relationship between words and world in regard to things like morality and religion and the really, really big questions.

There we find any number of conflicting assumptions. And conflicting conclusions.

Right?

Only, sure, the objectivists among us refuse to accept that. They insist that how they think about these things is how all rational men and women are obligated to think about them in turn. Why? Because they provide us with arguments -- worlds of words -- up in the stratosphere of didactic intellectual exchanges in order to...to prove it.
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 4:13 pm Logic revolves around the rules of language. But human beings themselves...where do they fit into the complete understanding of existence itself? How on Earth can we determine if the human brain is even capable of grasping that?
bahman wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:09 pm Because we have the ability to think.
No, in my view, just because brain matter has acquired the ability to think -- given free will of course -- doesn't necessarily establish that thinking brains have the capacity to grasp how existence itself came into existence. Well, other than by way of arguing a conclusion into existence by arguing -- in a world of words -- that only your own premises count in establishing that.

That is what you are doing here, right?
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 4:13 pm Webster's dictionary: "a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration: the science of the formal principles of reasoning"

A priori and a posteriori, how would we go about validating what we think is logically true here? Again, empirically, materially, phenomenologically.

Mathematics, science, and philosophy all intertwined in the definitive explanation?
bahman wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:09 pm Philosophy sits on top of mathematics and science.
Well, that settles that then.
bahman wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 10:55 pm Does the world of words have any value to you? If not why do you bother with philosophy at all?
Because my main interest in philosophy revolves around how others close the gap between what they think is true "in their head" about things like morality and religion and the Big Questions and what they can demonstrate using the tools of philosophy -- the philosophical equivalent of the scientific method -- all others are obligated to believe in turn if they wish to be thought of as rational men and women.
bahman wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:09 pm I am trying to fill the gaps.
And I'm all for anyone attempting to do that. Instead, the "flaw" in your conclusion is, in my view, the point I raise above about the limitations of logic that far out on the metaphysical limb.

Thus...
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 4:13 pm But how is [your logic] connected to the physics, the chemistry and [with us] the biology of existence itself?

Though I'm the first to admit that my own speculations here seem able to be nothing more than my own "wild-ass guess".
bahman wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:09 pm Everything starts with a guess. A guess could be right or wrong. It is through systematic thinking that we can find the trueness of a guess. In the end, we will solve this big puzzle.
More rather than less educated guesses always work for me.

I just doubt that the puzzle that is existence itself will be solved in our lifetimes.

Then the part where you have managed to think yourself into believing that the existence of "I" transcends death itself or, instead, that's it's oblivion...then all the way back to "star stuff".
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

Sculptor wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 3:06 pm
Age wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 1:33 pm
Sculptor wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 12:50 pm

No.
What, EXACTLY, are you saying 'No' to, here?
Sculptor wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 12:50 pm Please show your working.
Do you BELIEVE that the Universe could NOT be eternal?
"Belief" is not relevant.
Do you BELIEVE this?
Sculptor wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 3:06 pm Some people believe in fairies; others in The Donald.
Please show your working.
I ask you to CLARIFY some things, which it seems are IMPOSSIBLE for you to just ANSWER, OPENLY and Honestly, BUT you EXPECT me to provide you with what you WANT when you WANT IT.

ALSO, when you are MORE SPECIFIC, then I could and would provide you with what you WANT.

For example, If i SAID to you; 'Please show your working', then would you?

If you would, then do it now, okay?
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

iambiguous wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 4:11 pm
bahman wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 10:55 pm
iambiguous wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 9:42 pm

Fair enough.

Again, however, my reaction revolved more around what I perceive to be the dangers of objectivism from either the philosophical, the scientific, the religious or the ethical and political communities.

Noting in particular the clear limitations of logic in regard to what either can or cannot be known here when it basically revolves words defining and defending other words.

After all, some go from arguing that "nothing to something must be possible" to arguing that this particular something that we live in now must be construed as they construe it to be as well. At least theoretically...metaphysically.

Or, for some, theocratically. Or ideologically. Or deontologically.

As for nothing and something, something certainly seems to be the case. Us for example. But to argue that it came from nothing is not nearly the same as demonstrating that there was once nothing and out of it came something. Why not that there was always something?
It could not always be something. That is regress.

There you go again, merely believing this "in your head"..."logically". Much like those on the other side who believe in their heads logically that there was never not something.

I'll stay tuned for the documentary on NOVA that finally settles it. And, with any luck, in our lifetime!!
To SEE, UNDERSTAND, and KNOW that there IS ALWAYS some 'thing' is to just LEARN that there is absolutely NO evidence NOR proof for the idea that the WHOLE Universe came from absolutely NO 'thing'.
iambiguous wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 4:11 pm
iambiguous wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 9:42 pm And how on Earth would any of us go about demonstrating it one way or the other...except in a world of words?
bahman wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 10:55 pmThat is the world of logic.
Oh, indeed. A world of words. Words defining and defending other words. Metaphysically as it were.
When words are defined in a way, which forms One Unified constantly consistent and compatible, IRREFUTABLE Story and/or illuminates, or illustrates, One crystal clear Picture of 'things', then that is HOW what thee ACTUAL and IRREFUTABLE Truth IS 'demonstrated'.

If ANY one would like to SEE this IN ACTION, then let some one have a Truly OPEN and Honest DISCUSSION about what thee ACTUAL and IRREFUTABLE Truth IS with me, in relation to the Universe beginning or being eternal, and/or finite (and expanding or not) or infinite.
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

iambiguous wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 6:48 pm Note...

There was a thread started at ILP that explored these questions: https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194274

And some of the posts contain actual substantive arguments!!! 8)

Why is there something instead of nothing?
Posted by EarthSky Voices
Lloyd Strickland
Originally published November 11, 2016, in The Conversation
Many earlier thinkers had asked why our universe is the way it is, but Leibniz went a step further, wondering why there is a universe at all. The question is a challenging one because it seems perfectly possible that there might have been nothing whatsoever – no Earth, no stars, no galaxies, no universe. Leibniz even thought that nothing would have been “simpler and easier.” If nothing whatsoever had existed then no explanation would have been needed, not that there would have been anyone around to ask for an explanation, of course, but that’s a different matter.
Oh, indeed, a very different matter. Really, try to imagine nothing existing at all. Or try to imagine something always existing. Either way you are left only with "intellectual" or "philosophical" or "metaphysical" assessments.
WHY do you think or BELIEVE that this is true?
iambiguous wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 6:48 pm
Leibniz thought that the fact that there is something and not nothing requires an explanation. The explanation he gave was that God wanted to create a universe – the best one possible – which makes God the simple reason that there is something rather than nothing.
And the part where God came into existence out of nothing at all...or always existed?

Of course: a leap of faith!
WHY do 'you', human beings, bring up or raise this Truly IDIOTIC and ABSURD CLAIMS by "others"?
iambiguous wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 6:48 pm
In the years since Leibniz’s death, his great question has continued to exercise philosophers and scientists, though in an increasingly secular age it is not surprising that many have been wary of invoking God as the answer to it.
On the other hand, that hasn't stopped some secularists among us from imagining that they themselves are...God: omniscient and able to know if existence popped into existence out of nothing or was always around.

Logically for example.
LOL

This would be like ACCUSING one who was CLAIMING that the sun does NOT revolve around the earth as "imagining "them" 'self' to be God; omniscient and able to KNOW things, which "others" have NOT YET come to LEARN NOR UNDERSTAND".

What thee ACTUAL and IRREFUTABLE Truth IS, in relation to the Universe, Itself, is ALREADY KNOWN, IRREFUTABLY, by some, and this TATIC of ACCUSSING absolutely ANY one, who SAYS and CLAIMS this, as being someone who is IMAGINNING "them" 'self' to be SUPERIOR or MORE INTELLIGENT than "others" is just a VERY OLD TATIC, which was ALREADY PROVEN to NOT WORK.

If one does NOT want to REMAIN OPEN and LISTEN, then so be it, go right on ahead and be that way. But continually 'trying to' HUMILIATE or RIDICULE the "other" will ALWAYS end up BACKFIRING onto the ACCUSER.

The Truly WISE are OPEN and CURIOS.

The Truly STUPID are CLOSED and BELIEVE that they ALREADY KNOW the Truth, WITHOUT ACTUAL PROOF.
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:16 pm
Age wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 12:00 pm
bahman wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 3:13 pm
What does infinity mean to you?
Limitless or endless in size or spatially.
bahman wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 3:13 pm To me, time has either a beginning, which means the time duration between the beginning of time and now is finite, or it does not have any beginning, which means the time duration between any point in the infinite past and now is infinite.
Is an endless or limitless thing reachable?
'Reachable' to who or what, EXACTLY?
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:21 pm
Age wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 12:18 pm
bahman wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 4:45 pm
So one cannot reach from the eternal past to now. Agree?
One 'what', EXACTLY?

One, Universe, CAN and HAS so-called 'REACHED' from the eternal past to the NOW. (But this is just because it is the NOW, which is eternal anyway).

One, human being, for example, however, OBVIOUSLY, could NOT reach from the eternal past to now. But this is just SO OBVIOUS it would NOT be necessary to even mention it.
We are not talking about humans and whether they can reach infinity.
'you', "bahman", was the one who SAID and WROTE: "So one can NOT reach from the eternal past to now".
bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:21 pm Infinity opposite to finite is unreachable.
To WHO and/or WHAT, EXACTLY?

You seem to LIKE MAKING CLAIMS, but you seem to NOT LIKE ANSWERING CLARIFYING QUESTIONS.
bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:21 pm You don't need an observer to see the evolution of the universe.
HOW can some thing be SEEN, or OBSERVED, WITHOUT a SEER, nor OBSERVER?

"your" REALLY do say Truly WIERD and ABSURD things "bahman", sometimes.
bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:21 pm You need to think about the process of evolution of the universe.
What are you ON ABOUT here now?

What do I NEED to think about the process of evolution of the Universe FOR, EXACTLY?

Also, WHEN I do think about the process of evolution of the Universe, I arrive at pondering HOW, EXACTLY, COULD the Universe, and thus evolution, BEGIN from absolutely NO thing AT ALL?

And then I am left with absoutely NO thing AT ALL for 'evidence' NOR PROOF.
uwot
Posts: 6093
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:21 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by uwot »

Age wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 1:19 amThe Truly STUPID are CLOSED and BELIEVE that they ALREADY KNOW the Truth, WITHOUT ACTUAL PROOF.
lol
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

Dontaskme wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:25 pm
attofishpi wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 11:23 pm

What is wrong with regress in a cyclic universe?
bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:13 pm Each cycle is finite but there are unlimited numbers of them.
That's the duality of a nondual universe.

Atto is right, and so are you.
When some one ASKS a CLARIFYING QUESTION then HOW, EXACTLY, could they be either right OR wrong?

When one is just ASKING a question they are NOT making A STATEMENT, NOR CLAIMING absolutely ANY thing , therefore they are NOT SAYING absolutely ANY thing that could be right OR wrong. They are ASKING FOR what is right or wrong.
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:28 pm
iambiguous wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 4:11 pm
bahman wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 10:55 pm
It could not always be something. That is regress.
There you go again, merely believing this "in your head"..."logically". Much like those on the other side who believe in their heads logically that there was never not something.

I'll stay tuned for the documentary on NOVA that finally settles it. And, with any luck, in our lifetime!!
I have the right to think that my argument is right unless someone shows a flaw in it.
You have the so-called 'right' to SAY or DO absolutely ANY thing you like. AS LONG AS you are NOT abusing absolutely ANY thing in the process.

HOWEVER, the WAY you 'think' your 'argument' is 'right' you have SHOWN, consistently, that you are NOT OPEN to SEEING the FLAWS in them that have been SHOWN to you OVER and OVER AGAIN, and AGAIN.
bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:28 pm
iambiguous wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 9:42 pm
iambiguous wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 9:42 pm And how on Earth would any of us go about demonstrating it one way or the other...except in a world of words?
bahman wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 10:55 pmThat is the world of logic.
Oh, indeed. A world of words. Words defining and defending other words. Metaphysically as it were.
Does the world of words have any value to you? If not why do you bother with philosophy at all?
GREAT CLARIFYING QUESTIONS here "bahman".

Let us SEE if Truly OPEN and Honest answers, and thus CLARITY, follow on from them.
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

CHNOPS wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:42 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:13 pm
attofishpi wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 11:23 pm

What is wrong with regress in a cyclic universe?
Each cycle is finite but there are unlimited numbers of them.
There are unlimited cycles, but we cant say that.

If the universe start from nothing, then, where is the "counter" that says "one, two, three, four...." ? There isnt one.

You know the arrow of the hours on the clock have turned one cycle (1 hour) because you compare that arrow with other, the minute one.

If you only have one arrow... how do you know how many times is the arrow turned around?
With numbers.
CHNOPS wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:42 pm You cant know it. And is not that there is a limit of knowledge, it just that it not a new cycle....


"unlimited numbers of cycles where each of them are the first cycle..."

Is a contradiction, but that is what happens.
", but that is what happen" WHERE and in relation to WHAT, EXACTLY?
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

bobmax wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:44 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:11 pm The act of creation is impossible because there is nothing to create something, knowledge is something that is a concept which is also known to be as empty as space itself, so in reality creation is not happening, it's an illusion, because there is nothing to make anything with.
But non-duality is above all an ethical necessity.

If reality were truly dual, hell would be equally real and inevitable for everyone.

Instead, hell is only tasted, as a possibility of eternal damnation.
Perhaps this being lost forever to evil is necessary to return home.
Here is a PRIME EXAMPLE of just HOW LOST and CONFUSED the human beings, in the days when this was being written, REALLY WERE in relation to 'hell' AND 'heaven', and to 'eternity'.
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:54 pm
iambiguous wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 6:48 pm Note...

There was a thread started at ILP that explored these questions: https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194274

And some of the posts contain actual substantive arguments!!! 8)

Why is there something instead of nothing?
Posted by EarthSky Voices
Lloyd Strickland
Originally published November 11, 2016, in The Conversation
Many earlier thinkers had asked why our universe is the way it is, but Leibniz went a step further, wondering why there is a universe at all. The question is a challenging one because it seems perfectly possible that there might have been nothing whatsoever – no Earth, no stars, no galaxies, no universe. Leibniz even thought that nothing would have been “simpler and easier.” If nothing whatsoever had existed then no explanation would have been needed, not that there would have been anyone around to ask for an explanation, of course, but that’s a different matter.
Oh, indeed, a very different matter. Really, try to imagine nothing existing at all. Or try to imagine something always existing. Either way you are left only with "intellectual" or "philosophical" or "metaphysical" assessments.
Leibniz thought that the fact that there is something and not nothing requires an explanation. The explanation he gave was that God wanted to create a universe – the best one possible – which makes God the simple reason that there is something rather than nothing.
And the part where God came into existence out of nothing at all...or always existed?

Of course: a leap of faith!
In the years since Leibniz’s death, his great question has continued to exercise philosophers and scientists, though in an increasingly secular age it is not surprising that many have been wary of invoking God as the answer to it.
On the other hand, that hasn't stopped some secularists among us from imagining that they themselves are...God: omniscient and able to know if existence popped into existence out of nothing or was always around.

Logically for example.
If one shows that nothing to something must be possible and there was a beginning then the question of why there is something instead of nothing has no relevance.
It is NOT possible to show that 'nothing to something' MUST BE POSSIBLE, BECAUSE this is NOT what happen AND could NOT have happened. As CAN BE and WILL BE SHOWN, and PROVED True.
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

bobmax wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 8:15 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:59 pm Dont forget, these concepts known as hell or heaven are the duality of knowledge. Conceptual Knowledge is only pointing to the illusory dream of separation which appears, as apparently real.
Hell and heaven belong to duality.

However, they are not concepts but real places, available here and now.
They are places of the soul.
What IS the 'soul', EXACTLY?
bobmax wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 8:15 pm The "truth" of hell surpasses any other possible truth accessible in duality.
Hell is in fact the possible breaking point of the dream of duality.

But if you indulge in Nihilism you don't go to hell.
And so one remains imprisoned in duality
How do you KNOW this, EXACTLY?
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

Dontaskme wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 8:19 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 8:03 pm What if one claims that there was a knower, so-called God, in the beginning?
A God would be an object of knowing..the object would first have to exist for it to be possible to be known....so again, the object of knowing can only exist as a concept known within the dream of separation, the realm that is the duality of mental constructions...aka concepts.

In reality, conceptual projections are illusory images aka (somethings) of the imageless (nothing) which is the same one reality, appearing as a duality within knowledge.

Illusory doesn't mean somethings do not exist, it just means they are not what they appear to be.
But 'illusory' to some people can mean that some thing does not ACTUALLY exist.

Also, will you provide any examples of what 'they' ARE, which 'they' ARE NOT what 'they' appear to be?
Age
Posts: 20043
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:17 am

Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 8:47 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 8:19 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 8:03 pm What if one claims that there was a knower, so-called God, in the beginning?
A God would be an object of knowing..the object would first have to exist for it to be possible to be known....so again, the object of knowing can only exist as a concept known within the dream of separation, the realm that is the duality of mental constructions...aka concepts.
God exists in the first place and God knows things. How about this?
WHERE IS and/or WHAT IS 'the first place'?

AND, WHAT WAS BEFORE 'that place'?
Post Reply