Nothing to something must be possible

So what's really going on?

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bahman
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by bahman »

iambiguous wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:08 pm
bahman wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:52 pm
iambiguous wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 4:19 pm


On the contrary, some here insist that in order to understand the universe that we live in -- and even existence itself -- God is the explanation.

And, as I noted, my interest in cosmogony, religion and morality revolves first and foremost around what I construe to be the inherent dangers of objectivism...the "my way or the highway" mentality. This and what I see to be the inherent limitations of logic in regards to the existential relationship between words and worlds in a No God world.
I already argued against the existence of God. Why are you afraid of the truth? I invite you to read my argument. I am open to helping you if you have difficulty understanding anything.
You really are just the other side of the Immanuel Can coin here, aren't you?

Of course: the "argument" becomes everything. And just as empirically, materially, phenomenologically, IC's argument never actually brings us into contact with the Christian God, your argument never actually brings us into contact empirically, materially, phenomenologically with existence itself. You think it into existence "in your head".
It seems that you don't want to discuss. That is alright with me.
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iambiguous
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by iambiguous »

bahman wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 9:22 pm
iambiguous wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:08 pm
bahman wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 8:52 pm
I already argued against the existence of God. Why are you afraid of the truth? I invite you to read my argument. I am open to helping you if you have difficulty understanding anything.
You really are just the other side of the Immanuel Can coin here, aren't you?

Of course: the "argument" becomes everything. And just as empirically, materially, phenomenologically, IC's argument never actually brings us into contact with the Christian God, your argument never actually brings us into contact empirically, materially, phenomenologically with existence itself. You think it into existence "in your head".
It seems that you don't want to discuss. That is alright with me.
Not to worry. There are plenty of others here who will do the "dueling definition" and the "dueling deduction" exchanges with you up in the didactic clouds. Their "world of words" vs. your "world of words".

And, again, admittedly, when you are dealing with something as profoundly problematical as the existence of existence itself, what else is there but words, right?

After all, it's not like there's an "existence equation" that can be tested. It's not like videos can be posted on YouTube to illustrate the text.

With me, it's the "objectivist" mentality itself that's most concerning. Those who, in regard to things like the Big Questions and religion and morality, divide the world up between "one of us" [the rational few] and "one of them" [the irrational many]
Age
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Age »

iambiguous wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:15 pm
Age wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:37 am
iambiguous wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:07 pm

His/her first post:
Does your, "His/her first post:" comment refer to what the 'puzzle' IS, specifically? (You did respond directly after I posed a question and made a comment).

If yes, then the one who wrote the first post here, in this thread, BELIEVES there is NO 'puzzle' here as it BELIEVES that it has ALREADY 'solved' ANY issue here.

If, however, you are referring to what might be saying is my first post, then maybe if you left out my reply to "bahman" here, and left out the CLARIFYING question I posed to "bahman", then we could just concentrate on my words alone.

iambiguous wrote: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:07 pm Strictly out of curiosity, how did this "something" become the "something" we encounter from him/her now?

And [once again] I'm assuming we simply do not know [definitively] whether something came out of nothing at all or was always around.
1. I suggest NOT ASSUMING absolutely ANY thing, as ASSUMPTIONS interfere with how you then LOOK AT, and SEE 'things'.

Also, if 'you', and/or SOME "others", simply do NOT YET KNOW (definitively) whether 'something' (whatever that ACTUALLY MEANS) came out of nothing AT ALL or is just ALWAYS around, then there is NO ASSUMING NEEDED. EITHER you KNOW this or you do NOT. And, ONLY you KNOW, definitely.

Now, when you say, "something", are you referring to the Universe, Itself?

If yes, then the Universe is made up of some 'thing', which is usually referred to as 'matter', AND, no 'thing', which is the 'nothing', or the 'space', between and around 'matter'. So, the Universe (the 'something') is, literally, made up of some 'thing' AND no 'thing'.

If the Universe is the 'something' you mention here, and you are SERIOUSLY curious about how the Universe became the Universe 'you' encounter from his/her now, then you WILL HAVE TO EXPLAIN what you are talking about and referring to here.

1. Asking, How did the 'something' become 'something'? implies there WAS A BEGINNING. Although VERY SUBTLE this is what is being IMPLIED by those words.

The 'something' [the Universe] NEVER 'became' 'something' [the Universe] as the 'something' [the Universe] was and is ALWAYS 'something' [the Universe].

Also, I have absolutely NO idea what you are meaning or referring to when you say the 'something' [the Universe], which 'you' encounter now, in the days when this is being written, came from him/her?

There appears to be a fair amount of ASSUMING going on here. Which would explain WHY you have NOT YET SEEN what thee ACTUAL and IRREFUTABLE Truth IS, EXACTLY.

2. If you are REALLY curious and would like to DISCUSS if 'we' can ACTUALLY determine (definitively) if the Universe BEGAN or NOT, then I am more than willing to proceed.

I suggest we FIRST come to an agreement and an acceptance of what 'the something' or 'the Universe' words means, or is referring to, EXACTLY.

THEN we could proceed from there.


Okay, I'll just assume it's a "condition" -- beyond his or her control -- and leave it at that.
You can ASSUME absolutely ANY thing you like, BUT when you do this WILL interfere with the way you LOOK AT and SEE 'things' from then on.

Also, are you even AWARE that I have absolutely NO idea NOR clue AT ALL as to what 'it' IS, EXACTLY, which you are referring to here and which you ASSUME 'it' is a "condition" beyond his or her control. In fact I do NOT KNOW who the 'he' NOR 'she' is that you are talking about here.

So, would like to inform us now of who or what the 'it' word is referring to, EXACTLY, and who the 'he' or 'she' words are referring to, EXACTLY?

If no, then WHY NOT?

You want to CLAIM that you are, allegedly, CURIOUS as to; How did this "something" become the "something" we encounter from him/her now?

Which you can ONLY LEARN the Truth of IF, and WHEN, you DISCLOSE what these 'things' ARE, EXACTLY, that you are referring to here. Is this UNDERSTOOD by you?

What we have here is a CLEAR and PRIME example of just hot MUCH one's own BELIEFS or ASSUMPTIONS INTERFERE with the way that one then LOOKS AT and SEES 'things'.

If this one just, SERIOUSLY, WANTED to LEARN and KNOW HOW the Universe is IN Existence, and/or even WHY the Universe is IN Existence, then all they would have to do is just REMAIN CURIOS and OPEN here, then I could TEACH them.

However, what is PLAINLY OBVIOUS is the Fact their OWN ASSUMPTIONS or BELIEFS are PREVENTING and STOPPING them from LEARNING and becoming WISER.
FrankGSterleJr
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by FrankGSterleJr »

Maybe mainstream journalism has largely become a profession that’s motivated more by a buck and a byline — i.e. a regular company paycheck and a frequently published name with stories — than a genuine strive to challenge the powers-that-be in order to truly comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable in an increasingly unjust global existence.

Also, journalism’s traditional function may have been quietly changed. The adage-description of journalism’s fundamental function can remain the same, but revision of terminological representation is definitely in order. While it remains “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” there has been a notable mainstream-news-media alteration as to what/who constitutes an “afflicted” and “the comfortable”.

For example, an “afflicted” of our contemporary news-media times needing comforting may be an owner of a multi-million-dollar home that’s worth too much, thus taxed higher, and he/she therefore desires tax respite. Or, the new “afflicted” requiring news-media comforting is an already very profitable fossil-fuel-producing corporation that needs more taxpayer-funded subsidies along with our convenient complacency in its multiplying many-fold its diluted bitumen export thus accompanying eco-threats for the sake of even greater profit.

Still, for me, the most compromised news-media are those that also feign balanced coverage and objectivity — unlike openly boisterous slanted outlets, such as Canada’s Sun newspapers (excluding the broadsheet Vancouver Sun) — but upon closer examination their manipulations can be pinpointed; anything from terminology, placement of information attributes or lack thereof, and the story angle (including parameterization). Whether or not it’s intentional, a muddying of waters in effect it indeed is.

Other concerned people would’ve worded it more brazenly: “I would argue that what little ethical and moral foundation the country has is deeply threatened by the crumbling discipline of a fossil-fuel-based economy and the politics it spawns. Nothing requires government supervision in so many areas (and nothing has anything like the influence on government) as this industry. It follows that no other industry remotely requires the amount and kind of honest, wary media surveillance this one does,” the late Rafe Mair aptly wrote in his 2017 book Politically Incorrect, in which he forensically dissects democracy’s decline in Canada and suggests how it may be helped.

“What has the media, especially but hardly exclusively the print media, done in response to this immense challenge? It’s joined fortunes with the petroleum industry. And a very large part of it has done so in print and in public. The facts are that the rest of the media have not raised a peep of protest at this unholiest of alliances and that governments contentedly and smugly pretend all that favourable coverage they get proves their efficiency — not that the fix is in and they’re part of that fix. Let me just comment that the difference from 1972 to 2017 in the media’s dealing with governments and politics takes the breath away!” ...

Maybe there's an informal/unspoken agreement amongst the largest mainstream news-media: ‘Don't dump on me, and I won't dump on you.’
Annette Campbell
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Annette Campbell »

The whole known universe was formerly believed to fit within our Milky Way Galaxy. Our universe contains billions of galaxies now, and we can trace its development back to its earliest moments. The Big Bang, an explosion of space, marked the beginning of our cosmos. Space expanded, the cosmos cooled, and the basic elements emerged from a very high density and temperature starting point. The first stars & galaxies were created as a result of gravity progressively drawing stuff together. Groups, clusters, & superclusters formed when galaxies gathered. Supernova explosions caused the death of certain stars, and the chemical residues they left behind helped create new star generations and rocky planets. Life developed into awareness on at least one of these planets. Additionally, it asks, "Where am I from?"
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iambiguous
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

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Annette Campbell wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 8:12 am The whole known universe was formerly believed to fit within our Milky Way Galaxy. Our universe contains billions of galaxies now, and we can trace its development back to its earliest moments. The Big Bang, an explosion of space, marked the beginning of our cosmos. Space expanded, the cosmos cooled, and the basic elements emerged from a very high density and temperature starting point. The first stars & galaxies were created as a result of gravity progressively drawing stuff together. Groups, clusters, & superclusters formed when galaxies gathered. Supernova explosions caused the death of certain stars, and the chemical residues they left behind helped create new star generations and rocky planets. Life developed into awareness on at least one of these planets. Additionally, it asks, "Where am I from?"
An explanation for the existence of existence itself may in fact actually exist. However, all any of us as individuals can do is to think what we do about it based on the experiences that we have had and on the information and the knowledge that we have encountered over the years.

But that brings to our attention all of the experiences that we did not have, and all of the information and knowledge that we did not come across.

Just Google "cosmogony": https://www.google.com/search?q=cosmogo ... nt=gws-wiz

3,020,000 results. Dig into it.

See if, among other things, there is any consensus among the well-educated "experts" about what it all means?

Then the more purely philosophical questions here that revolve around determinism and human brain matter. Or around sim worlds or dreams worlds or blue pill/red pill realities. Or around solipsism. Or around God and religion.

Some of course will resign themselves to just how utterly futile it is for infinitesimally tiny specks of existence like us to spend any time at all trying to think through to the very ontological -- teleological? -- understanding of something coming out of nothing at all or something always having been here.

Let alone why this something and not something else. Let alone why my something and not your something.

Those here of course for whatever personal reasons [the part "I" root in dasein] are just "hooked" on it. For whatever reason the questions just boggle our minds. And probably will all the way to the grave.
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iambiguous
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by iambiguous »

Why Is There Something, Rather Than Nothing?
Sean Carroll
It seems natural to ask why the universe exists at all. Modern physics suggests that the universe can exist all by itself as a self-contained system, without anything external to create or sustain it. But there might not be an absolute answer to why it exists.
Again, forget any answers that some might "think up" to explain it to themselves. The point is how they go about demonstrating to others that their own answer is in fact either the optimal answer or the only possible answer that there is.

All the while acknowledging the gap between what they think is true and all that would need to be known about the universe and/or existence itself in order to actually pin down the definitive answer.

Come on, it is both fascinating and fun to explore things of this sort. But who is kidding whom that their answer really is smack dab in the middle of the cosmogeny bullseye.
I argue that any attempt to account for the existence of something rather than nothing must ultimately bottom out in a set of brute facts; the universe simply is, without ultimate cause or explanation.
The brute facticity rejoinder.

In fact the more you think about it, the less implausible the God explanation seems to be. If you need a single source, an omniscient and omnipotent entity would seem to fit the bill. And that you obtain immortality and salvation along with it is all the more reason to join the flock.
As you can see, my basic tack hasn’t changed: this kind of question might be the kind of thing that doesn’t have a sensible answer. In our everyday lives, it makes sense to ask “why” this or that event occurs, but such questions have answers only because they are embedded in a larger explanatory context. In particular, because the world of our everyday experience is an emergent approximation with an extremely strong arrow of time, such that we can safely associate “causes” with subsequent “effects.”
This is often my point. That some provide answers to the questions "why something instead of nothing?", "why this something and not something else?" "Did something come into existence out of nothing at all?" as though it is something that can be tackled given our everyday experiences. As though we can arrive at the same sort of "explanation" in regard to existence itself.
The universe, considered as all of reality (i.e. let’s include the multiverse, if any), isn’t like that. The right question to ask isn’t “Why did this happen?”, but “Could this have happened in accordance with the laws of physics?” As far as the universe and our current knowledge of the laws of physics is concerned, the answer is a resounding “Yes.” The demand for something more — a reason why the universe exists at all — is a relic piece of metaphysical baggage we would be better off to discard.
Right. Like this conclusion in and of itself is not but another component of the staggering mystery of existence itself. Like the "laws of physics" themselves can be grasped ontologically. And teleologically?

That's the really Big Question, isn't it? Not whether everything there is came into existence out of nothing at all...but whether "behind" everything there is, there is a meaning and a purpose. God stuff to most of us.

But what if it is actually other than God?
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iambiguous
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

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Why Is There Something, Rather Than Nothing?
Sean Carroll
This perspective [above] gets pushback from two different sides. On the one hand we have theists, who believe that they can answer why the universe exists, and the answer is God. As we all know, this raises the question of why God exists; but aha, say the theists, that’s different, because God necessarily exists, unlike the universe which could plausibly have not.
More to the point, once you take a leap of faith to God, you can always fall back on that. You don't have an answer but of course you are not expected to have one. Hense the leap of faith. Or, nearing the end of your life, a wager.

In other words, we are not in the realm of philosophy anymore but of relying on the ecclesiastics to explain it all theologically. There's usually a Scripture here which again we take on faith is the word of God.

Then around and around they go.
The problem with that is that nothing exists necessarily, so the move is pretty obviously a cheat.
No, the problem with that is we cannot possibly know as mere mortals that nothing exists necessarily. That's the beauty of religion. Since neither science nor philosophy can explain the existence of existence itself, why not a God, the God, my God. Here the atheists are no less entangled in the sheer mind-boggling mystery of reality itself.
I didn’t have a lot of room in the paper to discuss this in detail (in what after all was meant as a contribution to a volume on the philosophy of physics, not the philosophy of religion), but the basic idea is there. Whether or not you want to invoke God, you will be left with certain features of reality that have to be explained by “and that’s just the way it is.” (Theism could possibly offer a better account of the nature of reality than naturalism — that’s a different question — but it doesn’t let you wiggle out of positing some brute facts about what exists.)
That's just the way it is.

Sooner or later, both the physicists and the ecclesiastics will come around to this. It's just that there is no equivalent among the theologians of the scientific method. The God folks are always more inclined to quote Scripture. Or to "think up" arguments like these: https://www.edge.org/conversation/rebec ... nce-of-god

God [and thus reality itself] defined and then deduced into existence.
promethean75
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by promethean75 »

Those arguments (the 'flaws') were not 'thought up', biggs, but logical responses to premises and conclusions put forth by theists over the centuries. In fact, Becky put that work in son, and i'aint seen such a good goddamn collection of well written arguments like that inna long time.

You see how she ends up at Spinoza, yeah? Tryna tell you; when you run a thorough enough examination of the classical 'proofs' of 'god', the only nigga left standin' is Spinz, the original OG.
promethean75
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by promethean75 »

Wait a min. Is Becky pushing the arguments for or against 'god'? Who's the one writing the 'flaws' to each of the arguments? Jesus this is confusing. I refuse to read the whole thing so I just scrolled to the middle where it got good.

Edit: alright I guess the John Brockman guy only does an introduction and it's Becky from then on.
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iambiguous
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by iambiguous »

Why Is There Something, Rather Than Nothing?
Sean Carroll
The other side are those scientists who think that modern physics explains why the universe exists. It doesn’t! One purported answer — “because Nothing is unstable” — was never even supposed to explain why the universe exists; it was suggested by Frank Wilczek as a way of explaining why there is more matter than antimatter. But any such line of reasoning has to start by assuming a certain set of laws of physics in the first place.
Yes, the objectivists within the scientific community. As though because they engage the "scientific method" in exploring questions all the way out at the very end of the metaphysical limb this enables them to come up with the optimal [empirical] answers. The scientific equivalent of philosophers here who employ logic in order to accomplish the same thing: resolve it.

Meanwhile, the ontological relationship between something and nothing would seem to remain as elusive as ever. And, in the absence of God, how can there even be a teleological component?
Why is there even a universe that obeys those laws? This, I argue, is not a question to which science is ever going to provide a snappy and convincing answer. The right response is “that’s just the way things are.” It’s up to us as a species to cultivate the intellectual maturity to accept that some questions don’t have the kinds of answers that are designed to make us feel satisfied.
Then those who insist, "that's just the way things are...but this is the way things ought to be instead." And not just in regard to the is/ought world!

But "feeling satisfied" is what I always come back to myself. The part where what we believe is intimately -- and existentially -- intertwined in what comforts and consoles us. And that's the part that gets entangled further in the subconscious and unconscious components of the human mind. And who is to say where the brain ends and the mind begins there. Even assuming human autonomy.
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iambiguous
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by iambiguous »

Why there’s something rather than nothing
By Joel Achenbach at the Washington Post
In the late 1990s I made a list of the 5 biggest unanswered questions in science. All obvious stuff, like how did life originate and how does consciousness emerge from the brain. But number one, the foremost mind-boggler, the ultimate question, was: Why is there something rather than nothing?
That has to be it, right? Even for those who plug a God, the God, their God, they can't really get around pondering if there might have been nothing before God. Other than through yet another leap of faith.

And "mind-boggling" indeed. Especially when you consider that [presumably] whatever our something is, it had been around for billions of years before minds here on planet Earth could juxtapose it to nothing at all. We don't even know for sure [in a free will world] if human minds are capable of grasping "all there is". Before it was nothing at all?
I’d actually tried to do that as a “Why Things Are” item a few years earlier, in about 1995, but my editor thought it too incomprehensible and abstract for a syndicated column. Somewhere in my files is that unpublished WTA item and I wish I could find it, because I want to know the answer to the question. Or at least know why there was something rather than nothing in 1995.
Of course, to ask "why things are" introduces the element of teleology. Okay, we figure out that everything there is came into existence out of nothing at all. Or we figure out that everything there is has always been around. But why? Is there someone or something in nature that can provide us with a meaning for existence...or a purpose?

And even if the author finds that column what are the odds that his answer to the question is the right one?
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Advocate »

[quote=iambiguous post_id=586260 time=1658952230 user_id=4948]
Of course, to ask "why things are" introduces the element of teleology. Okay, we figure out that everything there is came into existence out of nothing at all. Or we figure out that everything there is has always been around. But why? Is there someone or something in nature that can provide us with a meaning for existence...or a purpose?

And even if the author finds that column what are the odds that his answer to the question is the right one?
[/quote]

Why questions are of two kinds,

How? -; which is scientific, or,
From what intent/to what end? - which requires a pre-existing mind.
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iambiguous
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by iambiguous »

Advocate wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 5:59 pm
iambiguous wrote: Wed Jul 27, 2022 9:03 pm Of course, to ask "why things are" introduces the element of teleology. Okay, we figure out that everything there is came into existence out of nothing at all. Or we figure out that everything there is has always been around. But why? Is there someone or something in nature that can provide us with a meaning for existence...or a purpose?

And even if the author finds that column what are the odds that his answer to the question is the right one?
Why questions are of two kinds,

How? -; which is scientific, or,
From what intent/to what end? - which requires a pre-existing mind.
Let's take that here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=35382
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Harbal
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Re: Nothing to something must be possible

Post by Harbal »

bahman wrote: Sun Jun 12, 2022 3:19 pm To show this I have to show three things: (1) The universe cannot be eternal, (2) the universe has a beginning, and (3) the act of creation is logically impossible.
Nobody has ever been able to conclusively show any of those things, bahman, what on earth has made you think you are going to be the first to do it.
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