|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
EvC Forum active members: 59 (9164 total) |
| |
ChatGPT | |
Total: 916,927 Year: 4,184/9,624 Month: 1,055/974 Week: 14/368 Day: 14/11 Hour: 2/1 |
Thread ▼ Details |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: The Ultimate Question - Why is there something rather than nothing? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: Well, yes it does. The fact that my view doesn't have the problems that your view does pretty clearly indicates that the problem is at your end, not mine.
quote: I'd say that the fact that he doesn't see a logical contradiction is pretty clear evidence that his view is close to mine rather than yours.
quote: I'm pretty sure that finding a way to call a state where no concrete entities exist "something" rather than "nothing" is not the point of the question at all. So far as I can see your arguments are nothing more than the trivial playing of semantic games which go nowhere.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: But misconstruing the question is not a way to get an answer.
quote: Given that you are misconstruing the question in order to create a logical contradiction, it's highly unlikely that he agrees with you.
quote: Of course that isn't true, since I am not adding any "things" at all. All the "adding" comes from your definitions, therefore it's you doing it.
quote: To find out where explanation stops, the most basic level of existence.
quote: Because it is honestly understanding the question rather than twisting it to dismiss it with a trivial "answer" that tells us nothing of any interest.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: THen it follows that you would also agree that any interpretation of the question that leaves it trivially answerable - both in the sense that the answer is obvious, and in the sense that the answer itself is trivial and tells us nothing - should be regarded as highly suspect.
quote: Of course it is NOT a matter of simple disagreement over definitions, it is a disagreement over the definitions to be used in understanding the question. And since your interpretation is highly suspect (see above) there are good grounds for thinking that you do misconstrue the question, and it is certain that your interpretation does lead to a non-productive logical contradiction.
quote: I am certainly not fantasising when I point out that those are the definitions you chose to use.
quote: Certainly I expect physics to provide the most plausible basis for reality, however I am far from certain that physics will succeed in explaining everything. It is too easy to ask "why" questions and logical necessity is too hard to establish (and likely false as discussed here). However, that is a rather odd statement coming from someone who has been using philosophical arguments - and not even good ones - in this discussion.
quote: Simply appealing to "brute fact" without reason would be similar, yes. But pointing out that the only plausible answer is to appeal to brute fact - however much we might wish it otherwise, with reasons why, is quite different.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: I don't think that pointing out the complexities is important - at least not compared with understanding the question correctly and trying to figure out as much as we can about the answer. I think I've done that and not seen much in the way of response.
quote: NO! NO! NO! The choice of definitions should be about understanding the question as it was meant, not going off into confusing philosophy that misses the point entirely.
quote: But you're the one who said that we should look to science rather than philosophy.
quote: No, that's why I kept on telling you that you shouldn't be doing it.
quote: Only if you choose definitions to make it self-contradictory, which is really only a trivial semantic game.
quote: ONLY if it was taken to the lowest possible level of explanation, and maybe not even then. If you think otherwise, then you really, really, fail to understand my position. Appealing to brute fact is the last resort, and I argue that in the end we will be FORCED into it to explain the most basic level of reality,because there is no viable alternative.
quote: Not really. Is science silly ? Because science is all about finding out why things are this way and not some other. Why does taxonomy lead us to classify life as a nested tree, rather than some other structure? Why do we find so many unique species on remote islands rather than the same species found in similar environments elsewhere ? Why does the fossil record show dramatic changes in the fauna and flora of this planet rather than the same species we find today ? That's the thinking that lead Darwin and Wallace to evolution. Do you find that silly?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: If you did, I missed it, although I think the intent is obvious. The question is about the existence of concrete entities, about the ultimate explanation of why such things exist. As I remember it, the question was asked by a scientist originally, and I certainly don't think it was about the complex and confused question of the existence of abstract entities. Which science is never going to answer, anyway.
quote: You could at least try to be consistent. If the problem is only going to be answered by science, then taking a purely philosophical approach and asking purely philosophical questions, outside of science is not going to be much help.
quote: Then really, it's a strawman. There really is a serious question here, not a fantasy.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: No. Abstract entities can't cause anything, therefore it would be silly to propose an abstract entity as an explanation of why anything exists. And to be perfectly honest in my view anyone who describes an abstract entity as God is an atheist trying not to admit to it.
quote: Maybe you should answer that one yourself, since it seems to be central to your argument.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
So I did answer the question you actually asked. So why the unnecessary nastiness over it?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: You are really, really wrong here. If abstract entities couldn't exist without concrete entities I wouldn't HAVE to make the distinction! The absence of concrete entities would entail the non-existence of abstracts, too. You're the one appealing to abstracts like "reality", "states" or "existence"
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: But there's no reason why there at all. You just do it again and try to claim that I'm doing it. Remember that my understanding of the question just ignores the question of abstracts, and I have given very good reasons for doing just that. That is why the existence of abstracts isn't relevant to my position but it is VERY relevant to yours - you drag up all these abstracta just so that you can say that nothing is something.
quote: States are abstract, not concrete, so there you just have it again. All you are doing is appealing to the existence of abstractions to try to deny the possibility of nothingness. But it doesn't help you because you are misunderstanding the question. Look back to the definition of "thing" I provided earlier - you will see that your "state" does not come close to fitting it at all.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: That's somewhat exaggerating. You don't really know what was going on in my thinking before I replied to you. But again, your chosen definitions cause problems, making the question incoherent, while my understanding avoids those problems and leaves us with an interesting and relevant question, that a scientist might appreciate.
quote: IMHO the idea of spacetime as a concrete thing is one of the areas where science has outpaced philosophy that Cavediver referred to. Perhaps the prime example. Virtual particles, while they exist, are particles and thus clearly concrete.
quote: But it does show that you are the one who keeps invoking abstracta, which was the point.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: I see it very differently. The question is not on the lines of "could things actually have been different", but "why are things this way ?", a quite different question. In fact by taking the question the way you are, you are stepping rather closer to writing off the question with "brute fact" then I ever did.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: But surely you can see that by focussing on the "alternative realities" formulation you are trying to minimise the importance of a very important question. It's a bit like saying that the origin of life isn't an important question because it's just postulating a case where life doesn't exist, but life does exist and there are many different alternative lifeforms that could exist - and many places where life could form.
quote: No, I didn't. I compared it to the urge to go out and find out more, rather than being content with conventional wisdom which offered no real explanation.
quote: It might be traditional (although I haven't seen it), but it is better said to be based on guessing since there's no way to estimate the probabilities that's worth anything.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: So you're inconsistent. Physics can't deal with your abstractions and you're just admitting that your attempt to write off the problem as simply fantasising an alternative reality doesn't work.
quote: But you weren't really, were you ? Instead you went and dragged the problem of abstract entities into it, ending up with just a mess.
quote: When the only effect is to make an important question look unimportant, so it can be dismissed it is hardly productive.
quote: I'll grant you that religious apologists (Creationists or not) will try to abuse the question, but that's hardly unique. Witness GDR's abuse of Dark Matter to try to "support" the idea of God based on no more than a weak similarity. The OP does not go into any sort of analysis of the sociology - it's firmly based on looking at the question and considering the issue of whether the real answer is helpful to religion.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: That's irrelevant.
quote: As I have argued, that is your misunderstanding of the question.
quote: Because it is an irrelevant difference, in a comparison I did not claim to be exact.
quote: I don't see it as relevant. So far as I can tell it was just dragged in to support your dismissal of the question, based on your reframing of the question. Since I regard that reframing as dishonest spin, why should I care about any argument that relies on it ?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: I think it's pretty poor. Like you he reformulates the question, and in his case his main point (everything is contingent) is present in his formulation but NOT in the original question ! So his big difference is based on a misrepresentation.
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024