Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not

2012-05-06 Thread meekerdb 

On 5/6/2012 5:47 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On May 6, 4:06 pm, meekerdb  wrote:


Newton, Boyle, Tyndall, Descarte, Laplace,
Kepler,...none of them were from the universities, which were dominated by 
theology.

All of them were still theological thinkers though,


Theological in that the concerned themselves with fundamentals and god (although Laplace 
famously said he had no need of that hypothesis), but all unconventional.  Descarte was on 
the index of prohibited books until the index was abandoned in 1962.  Newton was an Aryan 
heretic.



as were Bacon,
Copernicus, Paracelsus, the Islamic alchemists, etc. If anything, they
were more personally committed to theology than the political
bureaucracies that had been built up through the church.


There are Christian parties, Zionist parties, and Muslim parties and Tea 
parties, but
there is no science party.  So it's pretty clear who is interested in power and 
who in
knowledge.

I wouldn't say that science is apolitical. Just as the church has
traditionally served as a cheerleader for war, academic science now
typically serves to advocate the agendas of the military industrial
complex and big business. Scientific authority is a political
instrument precisely because it is assumed to be apolitical, just as
theological authority was supposed to be.


Theological authority was apolitical while it taught the divine right of kings and 
performed coronations - you've gotta be kidding.  Next you'll claim musical criticism is 
political because it's assumed to be apolitical.


Brent

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Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not

2012-05-06 Thread Craig Weinberg 
On May 6, 4:06 pm, meekerdb  wrote:

> Newton, Boyle, Tyndall, Descarte, Laplace,
> Kepler,...none of them were from the universities, which were dominated by 
> theology.

All of them were still theological thinkers though, as were Bacon,
Copernicus, Paracelsus, the Islamic alchemists, etc. If anything, they
were more personally committed to theology than the political
bureaucracies that had been built up through the church.

> There are Christian parties, Zionist parties, and Muslim parties and Tea 
> parties, but
> there is no science party.  So it's pretty clear who is interested in power 
> and who in
> knowledge.

I wouldn't say that science is apolitical. Just as the church has
traditionally served as a cheerleader for war, academic science now
typically serves to advocate the agendas of the military industrial
complex and big business. Scientific authority is a political
instrument precisely because it is assumed to be apolitical, just as
theological authority was supposed to be.

Craig

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

2012-05-06 Thread Stephen P. King 

On 5/6/2012 3:25 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 06.05.2012 20:04 Stephen P. King said the following:

...


[Side note: This is where we start to see that our words can be such to
sometimes have only other words as referents and sometimes have actual
objects (not words) as referents. (I wish we could get a semiotic theory
expert to join us! Can any one channel Charles S. Peirce
 for us?)]



You will find nowadays even biosemiotics - see four lectures on this 
subject:


http://embryogenesisexplained.com/2012/03/a-short-course-on-biosemiotics-1.html 



Evgenii



Hi Evgenii,

Thanks!

--
Onward!

Stephen

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."
~ Francis Bacon

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Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not

2012-05-06 Thread meekerdb 

On 5/6/2012 10:51 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:

On 05.05.2012 23:34 meekerdb said the following:

On 5/5/2012 1:07 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:


...


According to Prof Hoenen, the logic of trinity was at that time
basically in the blood. He gave several examples including even Marx.
According to Prof Hoenen, the logic in Marx's Capital is the same as
the logic of trinity.


?? Which is to say murky, ambiguous, and contradictory? I think Marx is
a lot clearer than the trinity.


To me the logic of trinity is perverse in the same extent as quantum mechanics.

...



I guess that the reason for the fall of Rome was not Christianity. By
the way, there is a nice book


I would agree with that. Rome fell for other, more material reasons. But
its fall created a power vacuum which was filled by organized
Christianity and Christianity like any dogmatic religion is in conflict
with the skeptical, inquiring, testing nature of science. When the
reformation broke the intellectual monopoly of the Church, science
flowered and for a time it was regarded as an adjunct to theology:
discovering the creator through nature. But that only lasted up till
Darwin.


I am afraid that the conflict between Christianity and science that you describe is not 
consistent with historical facts. According to Prof Hoenen, who is an expert on Middle 
Age, science and theology has been developed rather like a brother and a sister. 


More like a master and slave - until the slaves revolted.  Honen is a professor of 
philosophy and theology who specializes in commenting on theologians of the middle ages: 
Marilius, Boethius, and Albert Magnus.  Although Bruno (not Marchal) was burned at the 
stake and Galileo was put under house arrest, science was allowed as a servant of the 
church up until the Victorian era. Newton, Boyle, Tyndall, Descarte, Laplace, 
Kepler,...none of them were from the universities, which were dominated by theology.  And 
the real break came with Darwin.  To say they developed like brother and sister is to 
suppose theology developed. While science has advance enormously in scope and accuracy, 
theologians now do no better than in the 13th century.


No doubt, that one can observe a fight for the power between different intellectual 
groups (this happens between relatives as well) but this is quite different from what 
your are talking.


There are Christian parties, Zionist parties, and Muslim parties and Tea parties, but 
there is no science party.  So it's pretty clear who is interested in power and who in 
knowledge.


Brent





Lucio Russo. The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC
and Why it Had to Be Reborn

where the author claim that there was another scientific revolution
indeed. Yet, Rome was the reason for its fall. Lucio Russo says that
Rome as such was not interested in scientific revolution.

Let me repeat however what Collingwood has presumably done. His goal
was to find absolute presuppositions related to the statement God exists.


What's his definition of God? Does he really mean "presuppositions", or
does he mean "entailments". I wouldn't think you'd need any
presuppositions to simply assert, "God exists."


I expect that he means "presuppositions", as this is the main theme of his book.

Evgenii



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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

2012-05-06 Thread Evgenii Rudnyi 

On 06.05.2012 20:04 Stephen P. King said the following:

...


[Side note: This is where we start to see that our words can be such to
sometimes have only other words as referents and sometimes have actual
objects (not words) as referents. (I wish we could get a semiotic theory
expert to join us! Can any one channel Charles S. Peirce
 for us?)]



You will find nowadays even biosemiotics - see four lectures on this 
subject:


http://embryogenesisexplained.com/2012/03/a-short-course-on-biosemiotics-1.html

Evgenii

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

2012-05-06 Thread Craig Weinberg 
On May 6, 1:33 pm, John Clark  wrote:
> On Sat, May 5, 2012 Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
> > >> That depends on what you mean by "nothing".
> >>   1) Lack of matter, a vacuum.
> >>   2) Lack of matter and energy
> >>   3) Lack of matter and energy and space
> >>   4) Lack of matter and energy and space and time.
> >>   5) Lack of even the potential to produce something.
>
> > > Without #5 though, the scientific cosmology is no better than any other
> > creation myth.
>
> Good heavens, what a dumb thing to say!

What an irrelevant, ad hominem opinion!

> Even if science can't explain how
> the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics came to be, if it can explain how
> those few simple laws generated time and space and matter and energy and
> life you think that's no better than Greek mythology?

I didn't say that. I say that it is no better than Greek mythology at
explaining the origin of the universe. It may have many many more
practical applications, but as far as explaining where the universe
came from, it's still a 21st century creation myth (really probably a
holdover from 20th century tbh).

>! Idiotic. And what
> the hell do you expect science or religion or anything else to do with #5?
> You define X as something that can not produce Y and then you demand to
> know how X produces Y.  Nuts.

#5 isn't a problem once we understand that sense is primordial.
Nothing nuts about it, although it is unfamiliar to many people.
People who have some degree of expertise with Indian cosmology seem to
find the idea quite agreeable.

>
> > I have explained that causality itself is an epiphenomenon of time which
> > is an emergent property of experience or sense which
>
> Causality is not nothing, neither phenomenon nor epiphenomenon is nothing,
> time is not nothing, experience is not nothing, sense is not nothing, and
> "emergent property" just means X created Y but I don't know how. You really
> haven't explained much now have you.

Sense is not nothing. Nothing comes from sense. Sense is primary. You
are too busy spitting and condescending to notice that I have
explained everything that I claim to.

>
> >> BULLSHIT! Anybody who says these are "incredibly shallow questions" is a
> >> fool. Full stop.
>
> > > They are shallow to me. I'm not an engineer.
>
> I know, that's part of the problem.

I think it's part of the solution. As the saying goes, if all you have
is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

>
> >I don't care about the mechanism of the universe, I care only about the
> > biggest possible picture.
>
> You think you can answer the deepest question in the universe but you don't
> even bother to glance at the many many profound questions that science
> already has answers to, many found centuries ago.

What specifically are you talking about that you accuse me of being
ignorant of?

> Gaining wisdom takes work
> but you are not willing to put in the time, and so as a result you have no
> more knowledge of how the universe actually operates than your average
> 18'th century gentleman. You Sir are a dilettante.

You confuse inner wisdom with external information. Your argument
continues to be ad hominem fallacy.

>
> > Sorry that was a typo. It should be nothing instead of something.
>
> Easy mistake to make, the difference between the two is so small.

It can seem that way sometimes.

Craig

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

2012-05-06 Thread Craig Weinberg 
On May 6, 1:06 pm, R AM  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

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

2012-05-06 Thread Stephen P. King 

On 5/6/2012 1:06 PM, R AM wrote:

Some thoughts about "nothing":


Hi Ricardo,

I like these thoughts (as they imply questions!)!



- 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".


Can nothing be treated as an object itself? Can we "hang" 
properties on it? Are we actually talking about "substance" as 
synonomous with what the philosophers of old used to use as the object 
minus its properties? I like to use the word "Existence" in this case, 
as it would seen to naturally include "nothing" and "something" as its 
most trivial dual categories.


   [Side note: This is where we start to see that our words can be such 
to sometimes have only other words as referents and sometimes have 
actual objects (not words) as referents.  (I wish we could get a 
semiotic theory expert to join us! Can any one channel Charles S. Peirce 
 for us?)]




- 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.


Does Nothingness exist? Can Nothingness non-exist? At what point 
are we playing games with words and at what point are we being 
meaningful? You are pointing out how "possibility" seems to be 
implicitly tied to the relation between something and nothing. In my 
reasoning this is why I consider existence as "necessary possibility". 
Unfortunately, this consideration suffers from the ambiguity inherent in 
semiotics known as the figure-frame relation 
. 
Is the word we use to denote 
 or connote 
 a referent? What 
if we mean to use both denotative and connotative uses?




- Why should "nothing" be the default state? 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".


I agree. We might even think or intuit "nothing" as the absolute 
absence of 'everything' : the sum of all particulars that piece-wise and 
collection-wise are not-nothing; whereas 'something' is a special case 
of 'everything'; a particular case of everything.




- There are many ways something can exist, but just one of nothing 
existing. Therefore, "nothing" is less likely :-)


But this statement implicitly assumes a measure that itself, then, 
implies a common basis for comparison. Is there a set, class, category 
or other 'collection' that has all of the forms, modalities, aspects, 
etc. of something along with nothing? Would this set, class, category, 
etc. have a denotative/connotative name? At what point does it become 
impossible to 'name' something?




- 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?


And it is "explanations' that we are interested in here and thus we 
spend time and thought here on these words. ;-) I would like to point 
out that 'nothing' does seem to require a lot less explanation simply 
because it is defined in terms of the negation of what is already 
potentially in the mind of the reader of the word and thus using a is a 
connotative definition. We tend not to think much of it, but 'Nothing' = 
Sum of {not a cat, not a dot, not a fist, not a person, not a word, ... }
We require concepts like the complement of a set in our very 
thoughts... I like to use the concept of an equivalence class to 
consider these questions. We could say that Nothing is the equivalence 
relation on the class of {not a cat, not a dot, not a fist, not a 
person, not a word, ... }




- I think that the important question is why this universe instead of 
any other universe? (including "nothing").


I suspect that the answer to this question is trivial: We see this 
universe because it is the only one that is minimally (?) consistent 
with our ability to _both_ observe it and communicate with each other 
about it.




Ricardo.

On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 6:24 PM, John Clark > wrote:


On Sat, May 5, 2012  John Mikes mailto:jami...@gmail.com>> wrote:

> Is it so hard to understand a "word"?


Y

Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not

2012-05-06 Thread Evgenii Rudnyi 

On 05.05.2012 23:34 meekerdb said the following:

On 5/5/2012 1:07 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:


...


According to Prof Hoenen, the logic of trinity was at that time
basically in the blood. He gave several examples including even Marx.
According to Prof Hoenen, the logic in Marx's Capital is the same as
the logic of trinity.


?? Which is to say murky, ambiguous, and contradictory? I think Marx is
a lot clearer than the trinity.


To me the logic of trinity is perverse in the same extent as quantum 
mechanics.


...



I guess that the reason for the fall of Rome was not Christianity. By
the way, there is a nice book


I would agree with that. Rome fell for other, more material reasons. But
its fall created a power vacuum which was filled by organized
Christianity and Christianity like any dogmatic religion is in conflict
with the skeptical, inquiring, testing nature of science. When the
reformation broke the intellectual monopoly of the Church, science
flowered and for a time it was regarded as an adjunct to theology:
discovering the creator through nature. But that only lasted up till
Darwin.


I am afraid that the conflict between Christianity and science that you 
describe is not consistent with historical facts. According to Prof 
Hoenen, who is an expert on Middle Age, science and theology has been 
developed rather like a brother and a sister. No doubt, that one can 
observe a fight for the power between different intellectual groups 
(this happens between relatives as well) but this is quite different 
from what your are talking.




Lucio Russo. The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC
and Why it Had to Be Reborn

where the author claim that there was another scientific revolution
indeed. Yet, Rome was the reason for its fall. Lucio Russo says that
Rome as such was not interested in scientific revolution.

Let me repeat however what Collingwood has presumably done. His goal
was to find absolute presuppositions related to the statement God exists.


What's his definition of God? Does he really mean "presuppositions", or
does he mean "entailments". I wouldn't think you'd need any
presuppositions to simply assert, "God exists."


I expect that he means "presuppositions", as this is the main theme of 
his book.


Evgenii

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

2012-05-06 Thread John Clark 
On Sun, May 6, 2012   wrote:

> There are many ways something can exist, but just one of nothing
> existing. Therefore, "nothing" is less likely :-)
>

EXCELLENT!  I wish I'd said that; Picasso said good artists borrow but
great artists steal, so no doubt some day I will indeed say that.

  John K Clark

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

2012-05-06 Thread John Clark 
On Sat, May 5, 2012 Craig Weinberg  wrote:


> >> That depends on what you mean by "nothing".
>>   1) Lack of matter, a vacuum.
>>   2) Lack of matter and energy
>>   3) Lack of matter and energy and space
>>   4) Lack of matter and energy and space and time.
>>   5) Lack of even the potential to produce something.
>>
>
> > Without #5 though, the scientific cosmology is no better than any other
> creation myth.
>

Good heavens, what a dumb thing to say!  Even if science can't explain how
the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics came to be, if it can explain how
those few simple laws generated time and space and matter and energy and
life you think that's no better than Greek mythology?! Idiotic. And what
the hell do you expect science or religion or anything else to do with #5?
You define X as something that can not produce Y and then you demand to
know how X produces Y.  Nuts.

> I have explained that causality itself is an epiphenomenon of time which
> is an emergent property of experience or sense which


Causality is not nothing, neither phenomenon nor epiphenomenon is nothing,
time is not nothing, experience is not nothing, sense is not nothing, and
"emergent property" just means X created Y but I don't know how. You really
haven't explained much now have you.

>> BULLSHIT! Anybody who says these are "incredibly shallow questions" is a
>> fool. Full stop.
>>
>
> > They are shallow to me. I'm not an engineer.


I know, that's part of the problem.

>I don't care about the mechanism of the universe, I care only about the
> biggest possible picture.


You think you can answer the deepest question in the universe but you don't
even bother to glance at the many many profound questions that science
already has answers to, many found centuries ago. Gaining wisdom takes work
but you are not willing to put in the time, and so as a result you have no
more knowledge of how the universe actually operates than your average
18'th century gentleman. You Sir are a dilettante.

> Sorry that was a typo. It should be nothing instead of something.
>

Easy mistake to make, the difference between the two is so small.

  John K Clark

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

2012-05-06 Thread Richard Ruquist 
Nothing does not exist...
Richard

On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 1:06 PM, R AM  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".
>
> - 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? 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".
>
> - 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").
>
> Ricardo.
>
> On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 6:24 PM, John Clark  wrote:
>
>> On Sat, May 5, 2012  John Mikes  wrote:
>>
>> > Is it so hard to understand a "word"?
>>>
>>
>> Yes, the word "nothing" keeps evolving. Until about a hundred years ago
>> "nothing" just meant a vacuum, space empty of any matter; then a few years
>> later the meaning was expanded to include lacking any energy too, then
>> still later it meant also not having space, and then it meant not even
>> having time. Something that is lacking matter energy time and space may not
>> be the purest form of nothing but it is, you must admit, a pretty pitiful
>> "thing", and if science can explain (and someday it very well may be able
>> to) how our world with all it's beautiful complexity came to be from such
>> modest beginnings then that would not be a bad days work, and to call such
>> activities "incredibly shallow" as some on this list have is just idiotic.
>>
>>
>>
>>> *>** N O T H I N G  -  *is not a set of anything, no potential
>>>
>>
>> Then the question "can something come from nothing?" has a obvious and
>> extremely dull answer.
>>
>> > I wrote once a little silly 'ode' about ontology. I started:
>>>  "In the beginning there was Nothingness.
>>>  And when Nothingness realised it's nothingness
>>>  It turned into Somethingness
>>>
>>
>> Then your version of nothing had something, the potential to produce
>> something. I also note the use of the word "when", thus time, which is
>> something, existed in your "nothing" universe as well as potential.
>>
>>   John K Clark
>>
>>
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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

2012-05-06 Thread R AM 
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".

- 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? 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".

- 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").

Ricardo.

On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 6:24 PM, John Clark  wrote:

> On Sat, May 5, 2012  John Mikes  wrote:
>
> > Is it so hard to understand a "word"?
>>
>
> Yes, the word "nothing" keeps evolving. Until about a hundred years ago
> "nothing" just meant a vacuum, space empty of any matter; then a few years
> later the meaning was expanded to include lacking any energy too, then
> still later it meant also not having space, and then it meant not even
> having time. Something that is lacking matter energy time and space may not
> be the purest form of nothing but it is, you must admit, a pretty pitiful
> "thing", and if science can explain (and someday it very well may be able
> to) how our world with all it's beautiful complexity came to be from such
> modest beginnings then that would not be a bad days work, and to call such
> activities "incredibly shallow" as some on this list have is just idiotic.
>
>
>
>> *>** N O T H I N G  -  *is not a set of anything, no potential
>>
>
> Then the question "can something come from nothing?" has a obvious and
> extremely dull answer.
>
> > I wrote once a little silly 'ode' about ontology. I started:
>>  "In the beginning there was Nothingness.
>>  And when Nothingness realised it's nothingness
>>  It turned into Somethingness
>>
>
> Then your version of nothing had something, the potential to produce
> something. I also note the use of the word "when", thus time, which is
> something, existed in your "nothing" universe as well as potential.
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
>  --
> 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.
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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

2012-05-06 Thread John Clark 
On Sat, May 5, 2012  John Mikes  wrote:

> Is it so hard to understand a "word"?
>

Yes, the word "nothing" keeps evolving. Until about a hundred years ago
"nothing" just meant a vacuum, space empty of any matter; then a few years
later the meaning was expanded to include lacking any energy too, then
still later it meant also not having space, and then it meant not even
having time. Something that is lacking matter energy time and space may not
be the purest form of nothing but it is, you must admit, a pretty pitiful
"thing", and if science can explain (and someday it very well may be able
to) how our world with all it's beautiful complexity came to be from such
modest beginnings then that would not be a bad days work, and to call such
activities "incredibly shallow" as some on this list have is just idiotic.



> *>** N O T H I N G  -  *is not a set of anything, no potential
>

Then the question "can something come from nothing?" has a obvious and
extremely dull answer.

> I wrote once a little silly 'ode' about ontology. I started:
>  "In the beginning there was Nothingness.
>  And when Nothingness realised it's nothingness
>  It turned into Somethingness
>

Then your version of nothing had something, the potential to produce
something. I also note the use of the word "when", thus time, which is
something, existed in your "nothing" universe as well as potential.

  John K Clark

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing?

2012-05-06 Thread Bruno Marchal 


On 05 May 2012, at 13:49, ronaldheld wrote:


Does nothing mean zero or the empty set in this thread?


There are as many notions of nothing/everything that there are notion  
of things.


"Nothing" can be interpreted in many ways, differently for each theory  
candidate to be a theory of everything (ontology/epistemologies).


The everything idea in this list is that conceptually simple theory  
are preferable than complex theory, but conceptually simple theory  
tend to multiply the possibilities and the ontologies, and the taking  
into account of the first person view entails such possibilities  
interfere.


Comp explains as most as possible why there is something rather  
nothing. UDA makes elementary arithmetic enough, and elementary  
arithmetic can already explain why you can't get them with less. So  
our belief in {0, 1, 2, ...} is mysterious, and *has to be*  
mysterious. But then we have the explanation of the emergence of  
quanta and qualia from {0, 1, ...} and the + and * laws.
Any first order logic specification of a Turing universal system would  
do. The key discovery is the discovery of the universal numbers, and  
the ways they reflect themselves in the arithmetical truth/reality.


Bruno





   Ronald

On May 5, 2:52 am, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

On 04 May 2012, at 17:48, John Clark wrote:




If the nothing of a vacuum is really full of potentials,



If you insist on the strictest definition of "nothing" which is not
even the potential of producing anything, then even God Himself
could not produce something from nothing; and this line of thought
is quite clearly leading precisely nowhere.


At the meta level of a theory, "nothing" and "everything" are
basically equivalent with respect to the difficulty to be define  
them.

In set theory, everything (the "universe" of set) is given by the
unary intersection of the empty set, for example. And the quantum
vacuum, needs the whole non trivial assumption of quantum mechanics.
The "no" and the "every" in "nothing and everything" depend on the
logical assumptions. The real difficulty is in the definition or
choice of the notion of "things".

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/


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