Why is there something rather than nothing?

DiskuteraPhilosophy and Theory

Bara medlemmar i LibraryThing kan skriva.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Denna diskussion är för närvarande "vilande"—det sista inlägget är mer än 90 dagar gammalt. Du kan återstarta det genom att svara på inlägget.

1picklesan
jul 7, 2012, 1:18 am

...a mid-summer musing....

2timspalding
jul 7, 2012, 2:00 am

Somwhere else the question is being asked "why is there nothing rather than something?" … by nobody!

3donbuch1
jul 7, 2012, 10:49 am

The human brain is wired to view opposites as a fundamental way to order perception. "Nothingness" may just be an illusion. However, when dealing in propositions, philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, saw the value of statements of non-entities to make sense of reference in language. Generally however, the issue of nothingness is an age-old paradox that still has not been satisfactorily resolved.

4therealdavidsmith
jul 7, 2012, 10:59 am

Nothingness is as real as the square root of -1, and just as necessary once it is noticed.

5steve.clason
jul 9, 2012, 1:15 pm

Questions Philosophers Ask:
#1-Why Does the World Exist?

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2012/07/monday-poem.html

6donbuch1
Redigerat: jul 10, 2012, 1:06 am

The term "why" presupposes some purpose. Darwin removed this interrogative with "how." So the question can be reformulated: "How did the world come about?" This may seem unsatisfactory to many, but the purpose question may never be answerable--unless you ascribe to some religious dogma.

7timspalding
Redigerat: jul 10, 2012, 2:52 am

The why and the how have always existed side by side. Darwin can't be credited with that distinction, and he certainly has nothing whatsoever to say to the question here. Darwin is an enormously important figure, and he had considerable effect on popular consciousness, but he didn't invent modern science or do anything of necessary consequence to either religion or philosophy.

I'm cheered you say it may not be answerable, as a number of scientists who think they're also philosophers have recently started claiming that we can now explain the something rather than nothing question by explaining now vacuums contain subatomic possibilities, as if that really answered it. On the wrongness of this approach see David Albert's NYT review of Krauss' popular A Universe from Nothing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawren...

The fundamental laws of nature generally take the form of rules concerning which arrangements of that stuff are physically possible and which aren’t, or rules connecting the arrangements of that elementary stuff at later times to its arrangement at earlier times, or something like that. But the laws have no bearing whatsoever on questions of where the elementary stuff came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular elementary stuff it does, as opposed to something else, or to nothing at all.

The fundamental physical laws that Krauss is talking about in “A Universe From Nothing” — the laws of relativistic quantum field theories — are no exception to this. The particular, eternally persisting, elementary physical stuff of the world, according to the standard presentations of relativistic quantum field theories, consists (unsurprisingly) of relativistic quantum fields. And the fundamental laws of this theory take the form of rules concerning which arrangements of those fields are physically possible and which aren’t, and rules connecting the arrangements of those fields at later times to their arrangements at earlier times, and so on — and they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should have consisted of fields at all, or of why there should have been a world in the first place. Period. Case closed. End of story.

8therealdavidsmith
jul 11, 2012, 4:44 am

"Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity."

May i suggest that nothingness is the most special state, conspicuous by its absence. One against infinite others, and impossible to plunder with our something-minds. Why is a poet, How is a mechanic, When is a historian, Which is a religious man, What is a philosopher.

9bertilak
Redigerat: jul 11, 2012, 6:25 am

From the review it sounds like Jim Holt's Why Does the World Exist? will be an interesting read.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/07/kathryn-schulz-on-jim-holt-why-does-the-world-exi...

10jbbarret
jul 11, 2012, 9:38 am

""Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There are lumps in it," said the Philosopher". - The Crock of Gold by James Stephens

11mfd101
jul 12, 2012, 6:46 am

Some have wondered why there is Heidegger rather than nothing.

12cjbanning
jul 12, 2012, 2:37 pm

Because if there were nothing there wouldn't be anyone to ask the question. So we can hardly be surprised there is something.

13rrp
Redigerat: jul 12, 2012, 7:56 pm

That is about as useful an answer as this reply to a man who survived his firing squad.
Q. Why did I survive?
A. That's a silly question. You should not be surprised. If you hadn't survived, you wouldn't be here to ask it.

14nathanielcampbell
jul 13, 2012, 12:19 pm

>7 timspalding:: We saw Krauss on the Colbert Report a few weeks back, and we were fascinated until he felt the need to bash religion. I noticed then that his entire project is founded about a slick bit of rhetorical slippage: he confuses the philosophical notion of "nothing" with physical notions of vacuum and void. The two are not the same thing. A physical vacuum--whether it contains no particles or only elementary particles in potentia--is still some thing, i.e. the term "physical vacuum" refers to something. The point behind a philosophical nothing is that it isn't even some thing, i.e. the term "nothing" has no referent.

I find the theoretical physics that Krauss works on fascinating, but there's no need for him to jump from there to religion-bashing. Indeed, the religion-bashing turns what should be fascinating science into another breach in the culture wars. If the top scientists of today--Krauss, Hawking, Dawkins--would simply stick to the science and not wander off into denigrating religion, we'd not have nearly so many problems, for example, teaching good science in the public schools.

15cjbanning
jul 13, 2012, 5:14 pm

>13 rrp:

That strikes me as a perfectly reasonable answer--the most perfectly reasonable answer.

16rrp
jul 14, 2012, 1:04 am

#15

Well I suppose there is no accounting for taste. Do you prefer all your causal explanations to be the wrong way around, where the cause always follows after the effect, or do you make a special case in this instance?

17cjbanning
jul 14, 2012, 3:18 pm

I think it's a special case. Normally the mere fact of observing doesn't tell you much about the content of those observations. In these two examples, however, it does.

18rrp
jul 14, 2012, 4:39 pm

... about the content of the observation ...

I agree that if the content of the observation is that "we are here", then it is necessary that "we are here" for the observation to occur. But then question "why", to many, requires more of a causal explanation for the observation rather that simply restating the content of the observation. And you have much work to do to persuade me that the statement "we are here" does, despite the famous song, provide an adequate answer to the question "why are we here?"

19eromsted
Redigerat: jul 14, 2012, 5:17 pm

Ordinarily if we want to answer the question, "why does x occur?" we can compare instances when x occurred to instances when x did not occur and attempt to determine the necessary causes of x. The point of noting, "Because if there were nothing there wouldn't be anyone to ask the question," is that there can be no knowable instances nothing. Therefore, there is no way to determine the causes of something rather than nothing or even whether nothing is a meaningful possible state requiring an explanation of the "something" that does exist.

20cjbanning
jul 14, 2012, 5:47 pm

>18 rrp:

"We are here" seems to be the limiting condition for any observation, not properly speaking an observation in itself. That's why I don't think why is a properly phrased question concerning it.

21rrp
jul 14, 2012, 7:02 pm

#19, #20

This seem unsatisfactory. It is certainly a necessary condition that life started on Earth for us to be here. It is certainly a necessary condition that we human beings are conscious and have language in order to ask the question. We cannot observe instances where those two limiting conditions did not occur. Yet there are many sensible scientists asking the questions "Why did life start on Earth?" and "Why did humans gain consciousness and language?" The answer "well if it/they didn't, there would be nobody to ask the question" quite rightly would not satisfy them. Why is it not reasonable to be unsatisfied at that answer applied to the original question?

22Carnophile
Redigerat: jul 14, 2012, 8:45 pm

If the amounts of matter and antimatter in the universe are equal, then it could be in fact that there IS nothing, in a net accounting.

Of course, that doesn't answer the interesting question of why there is something in a gross accounting.

(I believe the current received wisdom is that there's more of good old normal matter, like Mom used to make, than anti-matter. (That's why it's called "normal matter.") But this is not proven definitively, as far as I know. Maybe there's more anti-matter sequestered off in some odd corner of the universe somewhere by itself (having been sent to "time out" for misbehavior, or something.))

23cjbanning
jul 15, 2012, 5:12 am

>21 rrp:

I might allow "Why am I human rather than a Martian?" as a meaningful question."Why did life start on Earth?" and "Why did humans gain consciousness and language?" would fall into that category--life on Earth is not actually a necessary condition for observation, nor is the fact that humans rather than dolphins managed to gain consciousness and language. But "why am I a rational being capable of observation?" is meaningless, as is "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

We need to start with the a priori truth that we observe, and only then can we ask questions about the content of those observations. But again, the fact that we observe is not itself part of that content, but rather the condition for it.

24rrp
Redigerat: jul 15, 2012, 11:47 am

This is getting gnarly. I do so love a good hypothetical.

So the necessary condition for the question "Why did humans gain consciousness?" to have meaning, is the hypothetical existence of a Martian dolphin with consciousness. I am not, as far a I can tell, a Martian dolphin (you can never be too sure about such things) and I am pretty sure one does not exist, yet still feel the question has meaning.

How about this hypothetical. The setting is the joint Earth-Mars Department of Astro-Biology. The Professor of Astro-Anthropology (a dolphin who has long objected to the "Anthro" part of his title, but hey, he who pays the piper...) enters (swims into?) the office of the Professor of Cosmology. He says, "I am sorry Professor, we have just catalogued what we are sure is the last conscious species in the Universe. Although, yesterday, your research was meaningful, now that the existence of other sentient beings is no longer hypothetical, your life's work has become meaningless. I am sorry but we are canceling your grant.

25Carnophile
Redigerat: nov 20, 2017, 4:22 pm

>23 cjbanning:

"(W)hy am I a rational being capable of observation?" is meaningless

"Meaningless?" Seriously, meaningless?

I don't think that's the word you want. I don't think even hard-core 20th-century positivists would have said that question is meaningless.

I suspect you intend to object to the question on some other grounds. Like, "It questions a condition that is a presupposition of asking the question itself," or something along those lines. (Though what's wrong with that, anyway?) But semantically vacuous the question is not.

Suppose chemical X in our nervous system is a necessary condition for intelligence. "How did humans come to possess chemical X?" is not a meaningless question.

26Carnophile
jul 15, 2012, 12:06 pm

If it is, then any delving into evolutionary history is meaningless.

You've just redlined a large part of Biology.

27timspalding
jul 15, 2012, 8:23 pm

I noticed then that his entire project is founded about a slick bit of rhetorical slippage: he confuses the philosophical notion of "nothing" with physical notions of vacuum and void.

Exactly so. It's not even slick. Nor is it confined to popular writers. Physicists too are making these claims. It is, perhaps, just revenge for the many centuries that religion claimed to not just comprehend but easily explain everything, but there's nothing more irritating than scientists making idiotic error after idiotic error, confidence that they've done an end run around all other sorts of knowledge.

28cjbanning
jul 15, 2012, 8:35 pm

>25 Carnophile:

Perhaps meaningless is the wrong term. Nonsensical, then, in the sense Wittgenstein would have used. Unsinnig.

29cjbanning
Redigerat: jul 15, 2012, 8:40 pm

>25 Carnophile:

Perhaps meaningless is the wrong term. Nonsensical, then, in the sense Wittgenstein would have used. Unsinnig.

"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 6.44

30LesMiserables
okt 17, 2012, 6:09 am

Nothingness cannot exist without something.

31bertilak
okt 17, 2012, 8:34 am

>30 LesMiserables:

Nothingness does not exist, by definition.

32paradoxosalpha
okt 17, 2012, 3:52 pm

> 22

It certainly appeals to my sense of parsimony and aesthetics that the universe (or the total aggregate of universes) should be a "net nothing," when matter, energy, space, time, and even thought are fully and accurately accounted. In that case, we might still say that everything is a disturbed nothing.

Thus restating the original question: "What is it that disturbs our nothingness?"

33Gail.C.Bull
Redigerat: okt 17, 2012, 6:48 pm

>32 paradoxosalpha: quote: "What is it that disturbs our nothingness?"

Everything!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

34paradoxosalpha
Redigerat: okt 17, 2012, 8:39 pm

>33 Gail.C.Bull:

We've almost reached the mystical hot dog order.

35rolandperkins
okt 30, 2012, 2:13 am

Would you rather
know (A) "everything about nothing", OR
B. know "nothing about everything" ?

A question evoked by philosopher Ralph Barton Perry's definition* of (A.) a
specialist and (B.) a generalist. I'm definitely for (B.), because then at least I would know there is an everything to "know nothing" about.
Perry's remark on the fate of the specialist used to
be often quoted, the remark on the generalist -- hardly ever.

*Well not a definition, exactly, but his idea of the inevitable end of each -- what they "end up knowing".

36rolandperkins
Redigerat: okt 31, 2012, 5:54 pm

"Nothingness does not exist -- by definition" (31)

I would like to hear a debate between you and a
member of my 'Atenisi U.
Faculty back ca. 1984 (Dennis)*:
I remember him saying that
"Nothing is more interesting THAN . . .Nothing!" (It was said in connection with his
partiality to deserts. I'm no ecological expert, but I'm pretty sure that a desert is definitely a "Something", not a "Nothing". So I didn't regard it as a good analogy.)
He didn't use the
suffix "-ness" --just plain "nothing". HE didn't say that such a thing as "Nothing" exists, but he certainly implied it.

*I've forgotten his surname! (In Tonga, surnames are not much used --only forenames.)
He was born in Moldava, and had lived in Israel, New Zealand, and Tonga. HIs field: Veterinary Science.

37LesMiserables
okt 31, 2012, 7:01 am

>31 bertilak:

But it does exist and is supported by your denial, surely?

38bertilak
okt 31, 2012, 9:32 am

> 37

Surely not. Circular triangles do not exist, by definition, and denying their existence does not support their existence.

This is why I cannot take such discussions seriously.

39LesMiserables
okt 31, 2012, 4:53 pm

> 38

Good example. But I'm not sure your argument works universally.

40rolandperkins
okt 31, 2012, 5:57 pm

"denying their existence does not suppoprt their
existence" (31>38)

RIght, Bertilak. Nor does it confirm their non-existence.

41bertilak
nov 1, 2012, 9:21 am

> 39

Here goes: denying the existence of X requires use of the term 'X' which refers to X. Terms exist if they are uttered: there is no other requirement for them to exist.

It is pretty long-winded, but one may describe the use of 'X' by uttering 'X' as "supporting the existence of 'X'"; such support is about 'X' only and has no bearing on the question of the existence of X.

42Mr.Durick
nov 1, 2012, 4:18 pm

The existence of the term is independent of the existence of the referent.

Robert

43LesMiserables
nov 1, 2012, 4:57 pm

> 42

Not in this case: if a term like "nothing' exists then it logically follows that it is dependant on something to conceptualise it. That is quite different from saying for instance that god exists because I imagine it to be so.

44vy0123
nov 1, 2012, 5:07 pm

nothing ~ no thing ?

45Mr.Durick
Redigerat: nov 1, 2012, 6:07 pm

Halicarnassus, please show that logical dependence.

Robert

46LesMiserables
nov 2, 2012, 2:31 am

P1. The Devil is greater than nothing.
P2. Nothing is greater than God.
C1. Therefore, the Devil is greater than God

Love, Mr Wiki xxx :-)

47Mr.Durick
nov 2, 2012, 4:00 am

That's not properly quantified. I had always heard that example with a ham sandwich in the place of the devil. I like ham sandwiches; I suppose a compromise could be reached with deviled ham.

Robert

48LesMiserables
nov 2, 2012, 7:48 am

> Using a fork? :-)

49nathanielcampbell
nov 2, 2012, 10:26 am

>46 LesMiserables:: You do understand that my freshmen could pick apart the illogic of your syllogism, right? The terms of the syllogism have to be consistent throughout in order for the conclusion to follow. You, however, have used two different meanings of "nothing" (and arguably two different meanings of "greater").

50rolandperkins
nov 2, 2012, 5:22 pm

P2 of #46 will work only if you treat
"nothing" as following ordinary syntactical* rules. And it normally doesn't.
Why not? I haven't got the anwer.

*perhaps "rules of Logic" is applicable here, as I think nathaniel has well pointed out in #49.
My criticsim is purely linguitic/semantic.

51Mr.Durick
nov 2, 2012, 6:43 pm

And my objection is fully logical. You need to quantify with something like for all x it is not the case that x is greater than God.

Robert

52LesMiserables
nov 2, 2012, 10:17 pm

> 49

Not mine. Wiki's.

The intent was humour not accuracy.

My oh my.

53nathanielcampbell
nov 3, 2012, 10:09 am

>52 LesMiserables:: (We just had this discussion in class yesterday.) When you allow Google and Wiki to replace your own intellectual faculties, you are doomed to stupidity and ignorance.

54LesMiserables
nov 3, 2012, 5:31 pm

> 53

Well I had not allowed google or wiki to replace my intellectual faculties. I had injected a bit of humour into the conversation knowing it to be ridiculous.

Then again you cannot account for those who would be rude and socially inept (or indeed perhaps incapable to discern) for donning the Internet warrior persona.

Ciao

55timspalding
nov 5, 2012, 2:00 am

>53 nathanielcampbell:

An interesting question for another thread perhaps—how to use tools to augment your learning and intellect, without being doomed.

56LesMiserables
nov 5, 2012, 2:53 am

> 55

...and how to discern humour from sober argument. Many on here don't get it.

57nathanielcampbell
nov 5, 2012, 9:53 am

>54 LesMiserables: and 56: I've long known that I have a severe deficiency in perceiving sarcasm and dry humor in electronic communication. The problem isn't that I can't discern humor from sober argument; it's that the normal communicative cues that allow one to make that discernment aren't available in electronic communication, i.e. body language, intonation, etc.

On reflection, I suppose "Love, Mr Wiki xxx :-)" should have been sufficient indication, but alas, it has become customary for so many on the Internet to use such conventions in all seriousness.

I apologize for not perceiving the humor.

58carusmm
maj 19, 2016, 4:19 am

Detta konto har stängts av för spammande.