|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: The Ultimate Question - Why is there something rather than nothing? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Dr Adequate writes: Everywhere? Like the absence of unicorns? Everywhere is somewhere (or lots of somewheres), and somewhere is something.
Of course, if there was no space, then everywhere and nowhere would be synonymous. Space (and any place) is something. So:
Only nowhere can there be an absence of everything. Time is something, so, even better:
Only nowhere and never can there be an absence of everything. Can we make a case for "necessity" as the answer to the O.P. question? I think it's beginning to look like it.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
PaulK writes: Sure, I have. Aside from the attempts to show that it is logically impossible that no things exist (which seem to generally rely on the error of treating nothing as a thing) the only possible answer seems to be to appeal to a brute fact. I'll certainly agree that nothing, by definition, is not a thing, but no-thing. I've been treating "existence" as a state of things. So there doesn't seem to be a need to treat "nothing" as a thing. Quite the opposite.
Nothing is not a thing, and therefore cannot have the state of existence by definition. Something is necessary.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Dr Adequate writes: bluegenes writes: Only nowhere and never can there be an absence of everything. And if there was, it would be true to say: "Everywhere and at all times there is an absence of everything." The fact that these superficially look like opposites is that you are used to a situation in which space and time do exist, and your use of language reflects that. Carry that thinking through, and it would also be true to say in those hypothetical circumstances "everywhere and at all times there is everything". So, in nothingness, if nowhere becomes everywhere, and no time becomes all times, no-things become everything. Perhaps the problem is that you phrased the O.P. question in space-time language, where things "be", so we have to contemplate the paradox of the being/existence of no-things.
Like Catholic Scientist, you are tacitly taking the syntax and semantics of the English language to be significant to the question. But it really isn't. It would not in fact be self-contradictory for there to be no time or no space. I think that the same problems would exist in all languages, but that you'd have a good point if you said that human languages come from beings in space-time, and we may automatically have a problem in discussing true nothingness. Nowhere men (all the men who exist in nothingness) would have all the necessary words (all the words there) to describe all of it, of course, and all the time necessary to contemplate everything that's there. And all the unicorns would be pink (as well non-pink) as you point out.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
PaulK writes: If nothing is not a thing then there is no need for it to exist as such. Right. So wouldn't "why existence" be a better unanswerable question than the one in the O.P. which seems to imply that nothing could "be"?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
I forgot an earlier question you asked about reality, because someone had said something like "nothing would be the state of reality". I'd say that all adjectives, including real, would have to be irrelevant to true nothingness.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
frako quoting Hawkin writes: Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. Spontaneous creation is something.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
PaulK writes: Then you cannot consider reality to be a thing. "Reality" would be abstract, akin to " truth". I don't see how the first sentence follows from what I said. But anyway, reality and truth are things. Circumstances are things; a state of affairs is a thing. I understand what you're saying when you point out that people on the thread are falling into the trap of describing nothing as something, and also what you mean when you say that nothing itself doesn't have to exist (Tubby's point, which was well attempted). The trouble is that he then went on to describe it as something. The state of reality in which everything is absent. Surely the absence of everything requires the absence of all possible realities. Nothing, therefore, seems impossible because it cannot be a possibility. The idea that nothing (rather than something) could have been an alternative reality doesn't work. The absence of everything can't be anything. It may be that the reason we always end up describing nothing as something is because we're in a something reality and that's all our brains and language can do. But it could also be because it's nonsensical concept. I saw one dictionary definition of nothing that read: "Something that doesn't exist". Talk about getting something out of nothing.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Straggler writes: So - The question boils down to: Why does any form of reality exist rather than absolutely nothing at all? Is that what you are saying? There's a distinct possibility that I'm not really saying anything at all, because that problem is inherent on a thread on which we're literally trying to talk about nothing. But instead of:
"Why does any form of reality exist rather than absolutely nothing at all? Maybe I'm asking:
How can absolutely nothing ever be an alternative reality to this "something reality" when an any alternative reality is itself something, not nothing.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Straggler writes: Is absolute nothingness an "alternative reality"....? I would have thought absolute nothingness would be no reality at all? Which is pretty much what I was saying in the post further up that you replied to. The absence of everything includes the absence of all possible realities. I was saying to Paul that describing nothing as a state of reality is describing nothing as something. {Sorry, BlackCat, that was meant to be a reply to a Straggler post} Nothing also excludes all possibilities, because they are things. So, if "no reality" is a possibility, it gets excluded. So, nothing is impossible. Edited by bluegenes, : Replied to wrong post
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Straggler writes: Possibly........ Nothingness also excludes doubt.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Straggler writes: And certainty too.....? I guess....... Sure. And place and time and its own existence/being and all possible realities, and itself as a state, and itself as an alternative to something. No doubt about all that.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Straggler writes: So what would we call the absence of even the possibility of any states of reality? One of the qualifications of nothingness. Mind you, the absence of everything includes the absence of qualifications. The absence of the possibility of being an alternative to something is one that's interesting, because the O.P. question is: "Why is there something rather than nothing?"
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
PaulK writes: Seems to me that you are assuming a contradiction here, rather than actually finding a genuine problem. If reality isn't a thing then I don't see how it's states can be things either. This may be why we seem to be talking at cross purposes. Reality is definitely a thing, and so are states. The first definition in my O.E.D.: thing - a material or non-material entity, idea, action etc., that is or may be thought about or perceived. "Nothing" is the only concept excluded from that (by its own definition).
PaulK writes: bluegenes writes: The idea that nothing (rather than something) could have been an alternative reality doesn't work. The absence of everything can't be anything. ANd you're back to assuming that nothing is a thing. No. I pointed out in the last post that you are. The nothing state of reality turns nothing into something; hence my second sentence.
PaulK writes: It seems that all you are doing is playing semantic games (which I find rather worrying in someone who wants to claim that existence is a property, since that enables all sorts of semantic games). Did I say property or state? No semantic games, really. I think that the problem is that you're including lots of things in nothing, which should be the absence of everything.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
PaulK writes: And you were wrong then, and you are still wrong now. Don't be shy about explaining why.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
PaulK writes: Because I don't count abstract entities as "things" for the purposes of this discussion. That explains a lot, but doesn't in itself make me wrong, does it? I'd suggest we ask the O.P. writer for his definition of "things" for the purpose of this discussion. The only example Doc A gives in the O.P is god, so we know that both existence and being clearly defined are irrelevant to his definition. But it's clear that our disagreement is due to the fact that the O.P. question "why is there something rather than nothing" means something different to each of us. Let's see how Adequate and other participants define "thing".
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024