Everyone, Hi. My comments on all of today's comments on this thread are below:
o In regard to Jon's below comment: >Pearce later concludes that "if, in all, there is 0, i.e no (net) >>properties whatsoever, then there just isn't anything substantive >>which needs explaining." Jason and Roger, are you satisfied by this >>explanation of why there doesn't need to be a meta-explanation of why >>anything exists? I'm not real sure what you're trying to get at? I'm okay with not needing an explanation of why so called "nothing" is a starting point, but I think we need an explanation for why this so called "nothing" is actually "something" (aka, the empty set). That's what I was trying to do in my paper. I thought that trying to figure out why anything exists was our whole point? But, I'm probably misunderstanding something here? o In regard to Jon's point that: >Also, I think Pearce's idea that reality is constituted (somehow) by empty >sets nested in other empty sets >>supports the following idea of Roger's: "the existent state that is what has >>been previously called "absolute non->existence" has the unique property of >>being able to reproduce itself." Perhaps you guys are saying the same thing >>>just in different words. I would totally agree. My only concern with people saying that the process of getting the integers from nested empty sets can be used as a way for our universe to come into existence is that these people usually don't say what the mechanism is that's doing the nesting. One thing I like about my model is that it provides a mechanism for doing this nesting that's inherent in the property of the existent state that used to be called "nothing". This mechanism being that if this first existent state is there, then there's the "complete lack-of-all" next to it. This "complete lack-of-all" next to it also completely defines the entirety of what is there and is thus also an existent state. This process continues ad infinitum to create more and more existent states (aka, nested empty sets) that constitute the existence around us. o In regard to the idea that so called "nothing" contains all possibilities, I don't think this is right because: - Let's say you have some initial spherical state X and that nothing exists other than that state. There are no locations/positions other than that state X. Now, let's say that this state can create more identical, existent, spherical states all around it. We might think that there's an infinite number of possible locations/positions for these new states to be formed in around initial state X. But, this is incorrect because there are no locations/positions around the first state until after these new states are created. Only once these new states are created are the new locations/positions created and only then can we say, after the fact and incorrectly, that these new states could have been created in any different position. So, I think the idea of saying that nothing has an infinite number of possibilities in it is incorrect because it's really our minds that our putting these possibilities into this so called nothing, after the fact. - It's very important in this whole area to distinguish between our mind's conception of "nothing", in which it seems like there are infinite possibilities, and "nothing" itself, in which neither our minds nor infinite possibilities are there. "Nothing" itself is what we need to focus on, I think. o Whatever people decide for themselves about these issues, I think in the end that there has to be some initial existent state that has some inherent properties that allow it to reproduce itself, create energy and create the larger existence (ie, our universe) we live in. This initial state, its properties and the model for creating existence out of them has to be internally consistent, consistent with what's currently known and eventually be able to make some testable predictions. This is how philosophy can transition into science, IMHO. The people in the digital philosophy/cellular automata area are trying to do this, and this is what I've tried to do in my paper and what I'm still working on. Obviously, we all still have a long way to go, but I think it's important that we don't get too distracted and that we "keep our eyes on the prize". Thank you! Roger https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet/why-things-exist-something-nothing -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
