On May 6, 1:06 pm, R AM <ramra...@gmail.com> wrote: > Some thoughts about "nothing": > > - If nothing has no properties, and a limitation is considered a property, > then "nothing" cannot have any limitations, including the limitation of > generating "something". Therefore, "something" may come from "nothing".
Nice one, but I think it breaks because of the symbol grounding problem. The lack of a reason to prevent something doesn't create it out of nothing though. Properties don't actually exist independently of things and experiences. They are not causally efficacious at all, only a way we can understand our experiences. Categories, associations, groups, properties, etc are pattern recognition events of an analytical mind, not actual principles which constrain reality. If nothing can generate something because there is no law against it, then it can also not generate anything since there is no law against the impossibility of something either. To me, this is a good example of why computation cannot precede awareness. The rules of arithmetic would have to come from more rules that are ultimately no more likely to make sense as no sense...unless you first have a such thing as sense-making to guide the rules. > > - Given that something exists, it is possible that something exists > (obviously). The later would be true even if "nothing" was the case. > Therefore, we should envision the state of "nothing" co-existing with the > possibility of "something" existing, which is rather bizarre. > > - Why should "nothing" be the default state? Yes! That's what I'm saying. If there is a default state, I nominate everythingness, out of which a virtual nothingness (time and space) can emerge. Sense is the diffraction between the default state and the innumerable diffracted states within states. If you turn your original assertion upside down, you might see that in the context of everythingness or totality/singularity, it would be correct to say that since there is nothing stopping everything from existing eternally outside of time if time were only a relativistic perception, then we should hypothesize that it does. > I think this is based on the > intuition that "nothing" would require no explanation, whereas "something" > requires an explanation. However, given that the possibility of something > existing is necessarily true, an explanation would be required for why > there is "nothing" instead of "something". Right. It's an illogical jump. But 'nothing' as a bubble in the totality/singularity makes perfect sense as space (vacuum) and time (memory, or 'not-now'). Nothing is symmetrically expressed as a spatial gap between objects and an enfolding of temporal subjects. > > - There are many ways something can exist, but just one of nothing > existing. Therefore, "nothing" is less likely :-) > > - I think the intuition that "nothing" requires less explanation than the > universe we observe is based on a generalization of the idea of classical > empty space. However, this intuition is based on what we know about *this* > universe (i.e. empty space is simpler than things existing in it). But why > this intuition about *our* reality should be extrapolated to metaphysics? > > - I think that the important question is why this universe instead of any > other universe? (including "nothing"). Yes. My answer is that it is a human universe for us because humans are who we happen to be. I don't think that this anthropic view supports an MWI type inevitability of all universes necessarily though. I think the whole thing is guided by sense, significance, and entropy. Craig -- 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.
