Something Instead of Nothing

The classic solution is, that something after and nothing are merely descriptions of signaling a difference. Merely pointing to an apparent difference does not guarantee that there is one, particularly given the fact that ontology started with that appearance.

Even appearance turns on the 50/50 spread , but that appearance, or appearing itself has the ontological predicate of a mode of being in the world, suggesting that the difference is an appearance of differences: meaning again, they differ only by the use of nomenclature. to support its Being in It’s Self, as a requirement to fathom IT.

This is philosophycal history, the way it did develop.

However here we run into the problem of determinism, and it is here that the question arises, whether such an ontological development was somehow that, without which, it could have gone a different way.

This is the hypothetical paradox, and positive nominalists can be in a position to answer by way of naive realism: it developed into a non differentiable concept, because it is what it is, as it appears. Things appear the way they do. because that is the way they really are; existentially. Their Being is not a static ideally formed entity , but a changing contextual flow, their existence always bound to such a changing temporal Being.

The meaning, of such an interpretation can not doffer from its appearing through its Being.

Again, I think that this why Sartre dismissed dualism as being a something and nothing concept INSTEAD of something or nothing.

Yes it does… I’m attempting to comprehend the world that is presenting itself through experience.
How best to conceptualize it, how best to make sense of it… how best to navigate it…

It runs counter to my purpose to deny that which is presented to me… that’s what needs accounting.

You may have a different objective…

Yes it does… I’m attempting to comprehend the world that is presenting itself through experience.


Comprehending the world by how it presents itself or unassuming that such a presentation excludes non presentational content , when any other representation is included, the real thing cannot be distinguished from any other . Then all modes of representation has to be included , and the experience changes learning, through non differentiable
individuation, retaining it’s most general aspects , its most general inclusion of hypotheticals.

This is not wrong, and this is entirely pointed through the imprecise way learning is acquired, by primarily using
stereotypical paradigms, within a mode of most generalized learning curves.

That this mode of learning posits maximally bounded relating/relative objects/objectives has denoted analysis to a point that has virtually eliminated it from practical life.

The suggestive use of probabilities reduces differential curves, to a degree that it interferes with any substantial possibility,. It politicizes them into undeniable body politic.

It is a modern and convenient way to minimize and destructure differential analysis and interpretation. The French philosopher Deleuze noted this.

All it does is to dehumanize such relations toward maximum determinancy, minimum indeterminacy. The price can be steep, the resiliency of counter insurgency shows this, phenomenally.

An example is when a man learns through a sadly malformed experiential field, and he basis his objectives exclusively in that environment. His objectives will be prevy to nothing else but those he finds there. Who can , or will be able to demonstrate that his o jectives are self defeating?

It seems to me you’re approaching it ontologically…
I recommend starting with epistemology.
Whatever universe we’re in HAS to explain the things we KNOW…
For example, we know we’re capable of reason, learning, growth, self-improvement… we can’t logically live in a universe in which we can’t do the things we CAN.

We’re trying to find a way to conceptualize our universe so that it fits what we know about it… Not trying to figure out what we CAN know based on our conception of the universe
That would beg the question of how we know we’ve got the right conception… leading to epistemic nihilism.
Which seems to be the trap you keep falling into… “I was never able to NOT know, what I was compelled to believe I know”

All that being said, let me ask you this: Do you see some contradiction in both believing everything happens for a reason and believing our thoughts can be reasonable?
I personally fail to see any contradiction…

So if indeed we’re in a kind of deterministic universe, we’re clearly in the kind where we’re determined to think reasonably… and even when we don’t, there’s a reason for it.

That all seems very congruent with the human experience to me…
We rarely ever think of ourselves as doing or thinking things for no reason…

I don’t know that we can account for it fully… it’s mostly speculation at this point, it seems to me.

Who says there is something?

I think the questions possibility already suggests the opposite.

We are as gods breath hovering over the abyss. Save what we do with this breath, there is no zero no one and no z or y, nothing to go by.

On the other hand, what can the minds of mere mortals on this one particular planet awash in the vastness of what may well be a multiverse, know about an ontological explanation for existence itself?

And I have yet to come across an argument that even pins down definitively if what we do think we know is not that which we could only have ever thought we knew.

Then back to the autonomous aliens noting that while we think we are capable of doing this of our own free will, we could never have not done it. Human logic in a wholly determined segment of the universe being no less an inherent toppling over of matter. As though it were just another agglomeration of dominos set up by whatever can be known [ultimately] about the ontological nature of existence.

Actually, what I am trying to do here is to take yet another “general description” like this one out into the world of actual human interactions.

For example:

Given what is in fact unfolding now in, say, the Trump scandals, how do we determine conclusively whether what we think about the choices being made here are 1] being intertwined in a universe as we imagine it [autonomously] to be or 2] that the universe as it actually is, is, instead, compelling us to think what we do.

My connundrum here is that I – “I” – have no definitive capacity to know for sure which one it is. Then I can only confront the arguments of those who think otherwise.

Well, how can there be any contradictions at all in a wholly determined universe? If what we believe about reasonable thoughts is only that which we were ever able to believe about them then that is wholly in sync with those alleged immutable laws of matter.

But even if we can freely choose to distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable thoughts, would we not have to take this back to all that can be known about existence itself? An existence in other words that includes human autonomy.

Or is that actually unimaginable? Like speaking of human autonomy in a world where God does exist and He is omniscient.

How can there be immutable laws of matter in a universe where matter has evolved into minds able to choose freely to think otherwise? Able to think things that are not in fact true. Now that is some really, really strange matter. But: is that what human consciousness has in fact come to be?

But here I am back to my own mind swirling and whirling about – unable to anchor itself to anything definitive.

We think only as we are compelled to in a universe consisting of matter only at it is compelled to be. “Reason” is just a word human minds were compelled to invent in order to explain those aspects of existence it notes to be highly correlated. But that is not the same as coming to grips with the actual cause and effect forces that encompass existence itself.

Right?

Me too.

Yup… that’s your problem, looking for something definitive.
I recommend instead you look for something practical…

So, you are either actually free to judge my problem, or you were never “for all practical purposes” free to judge it at all other than as you did.

And my problem is that, of my own volition, I fail to recognize that I can look for something more practical.

Let’s just leave it at that, okay? :wink:

All that is definitive is the ring of power.

Either you own it or you don’t.

This ring is the connection of ones self awareness to ones actual existence.

I previously called it self valuing logic, or VO.

Or described in another basic form:

The relation between causa sui and sui generis.

Or extended to Sartre, the relationship between for itself and in itself

: Being-in-itself is concrete, lacks the ability to change, and is unaware of itself. Being-for-itself is conscious of its own consciousness but is also incomplete. For Sartre, this undefined, nondetermined nature is what defines man.

From ’ Being and Nothingness’ , Sartre

All I can do with this is to [once again] suggest that we bring VO down out of this world of words [awash in “definitional logic”] and situate it out in any particular context of his choosing.

One in which men and women choose particular behaviors for particular reasons.

Then examine his take on how this “ring of power” is situated in his take on why there is something instead of nothing, why it is this something and not another, and how it all is encompassed in his take on the origins of existence itself.

And let’s assume that we do in fact have access to some measure of autonomy.

Same here.

Choose a particular context in which actual flesh and blood human beings interact and bring Sartre’s assumptions down into it.

What “for all practical purposes” do you suppose that he is telling us here about the pour-soi and the en-soi?

And, in a wholly determined universe, could a distinction such as this even be made? Or, if made, made only because one could never not make it?

Some more speculation: youtu.be/wI0T9-1CbeQ

This take on the question “why something instead of nothing?” starts out by noting the age old distinction made between the God and the No God folks. The God folks explain the existence of something “logically” through God. It’s the only reasonable explanation that there is.

But then the No God folks point out that if something and not nothing includes God this immediately begs the question, “who or what created God?”

Here he notes that the God folks then abandon “logic” for “magic”. God, they tell us, is the one exception. He does not need a creator or a creation. He just is.

Next, he offers a quote from JBS Halding: “Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

And, in this universe, and on this planet, matter has evolved into minds able to conjure up any number of really tough “metaphysical questions”. Philosophical and scientific quandaries such that the tools at our disposal [logic, rational thought, empirical observation etc.] only take us so far in attempts to provide answers.

Eventually we are just stuck with accepting the “queer” parts that seem beyond our grasp.

And “something and not nothing” clearly falls within the parameters of that. Our rational thinking tells us that everything in the universe had a beginning. And then some insist that this beginning can be explained [will be explained] once we completely understand that beginning – the Big Bang.

And that this will somehow include the part before it. Or explain why there was no part before it.

And, however queer that might seem, isn’t the idea that existence has always been around queerer still? So, we have to take that “leap” to the explanation that seems the least queer to us “here and now”.

Knowing that we can never really be certain of what new information and knowledge and ideas might come along to change our minds.

Or if even that is within capacity to embody autonomously.

As the different nexus appear as insoluable in some instances, and at that level, an existential jump based on extremely small differences, becomes a power issue which is almost an unconscious endeavor this sub consciousness becomes like an auto pilot.

I mean, basically, this why I almost never respond to the points that you raise. For all I know, sure, this may well be a brilliant observation. But what on earth does it have to do with “choosing a particular context in which actual flesh and blood human beings interact…and then bringing Sartre’s assumptions down into it.”

As that relates to why there is something instead of nothing in a world where we may or may not possess autonomous minds.

What “existential jump” based on what “extremely small differences” relating to what actual context in which human beings choose different [and sometimes conflicting] behaviors?

And in a wholly determined universe it would seem that even Nietzsche’s “will to power” – embodied either consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously – might be described as on “auto-pilot” given that it can only ever be in sync with the immutable laws of matter.

I actually tried to relate to Jacob"s comment how it legitimizes his ontological-value description in terms of Being and Nothingness.

I was not particularising within the context you bring it down to earth,because that is impossible, given that description, with which I sense agreement.

Partixularising is the contextual background, where a reductive effect takes place, I.e, from IO valuation, to basic general evaluation based on the very basic ontological necessity, that exists between particularization/differentiation and identification/integration of variables.

(Since values are variable as they are conflicting

The levels of convertibilitu of values are mostly automatic and deterministic at that level, hence the unconsciousness of any effort for an existential leap.

If I had to spell out every variable in this progression, it way undermine the fact that I am basically with you here.

But again, since You are currently taking a positivist -linguistic bases , while extolling the contrary, does not change communication to a degree that would guaranty a mutual communication. However I still keep tryiing grather then point to a one way flow of information exchange, as brilliant or, otherwise it may appear/ to .be.

As far as the will to power is concerned, he is taking a position an-infinity, away from absurdity, where repetition on an approach hung absolute(Kierkegaard) will start to approximate an exit , but on cosmogical and not particular ground. What that particular or particle is is a matter of philosophical bias, not in a something or nothongr bounded bounded universe but in a something and nothing universe.

Okay, that’s fair enough. But in my view Jacob is particularly adept at coming in here and making these ponderous observations that appear to be intellectually weighty, but only [in my view] up in the clouds of abstraction.

I still have no idea how VO might relate to the manner in which I construe the values that individuals acquire over the course of actually living their lives. Let alone how that relates to something instead of nothing or the debate that swirls around dualism and human autonomy.

And now this from him: “All that is definitive is the ring of power.”

Right.

But what do you mean by impossible here? There are clearly things that are in fact possible in regard to human interactions. Things that we can agree are true for all of us.

And while we do not appear capable of linking our own narratives to an understanding of existence itself, that never stops folks interested in philosophy from giving it their best shot. And do we ever really know which members here might be thinking about all this in a way that never really occured to us? Besides, if it stops being of interest to someone, they can always just cease and desist from coming here.

Again, this might be an extraordinary insight. But I have absolutely no idea what “on earth” it means. Though, sure, if that part is of little or no interest to you, you can always find others here who are willing to trade “technically sophisticated” “general description” “scholastic assessments” with you.

But it always just seems to be so much mental masturbation to me. A ceaseless attempt to coincide conflicting renditions of “definitional logic” so that everyone is at least absolutely certain that they agree on what the words mean.

Will Durant’s “epistemologists” in other words.

What I am is someone who is interested in taking observations like this out into the world of actual social, political and economic interactions. And then in exploring how “for all practical purposes” they are relevant to the lives that we live.

[b]What on earth do you suppose the evolution of human speech and language is really all about? In other words, what is it that speech and language is intended to communicate?

First of course words that facilitate our actual subsistence itself. We can’t be philosophers unless and until we are able feed ourselves, shelter ourselves, defend ourselves, reproduce ourselves.

And then words that sustain all the things that we are able to want.

Only after all that can the very few focus on those words that revolve around what we call “the big questions” in philosophy.[/b]

The stuff that is the aim of this thread.

So, what I do is attempt to connect the dots between what we think we know about the nature of human speech and language, about the “big questions”, and how that might be relevant to the behaviors that we choose in the course of living our lives.

As that relates to the question, “how ought one to live”?

Imbigious, most matters of this kind can be solved by reduction, instead of inducing them by a positive demonstration. Positive philosophy is more linked to material demonstration s, of the here and now. This You MUST agree because they are the linkage of the beginning and the very end of your summation.

The basic questions or rather, sub questions can flow out of this basic reduction from most complex: vis. ‘induced’, toward the most ‘reduced’.

The point at which they become cognitively upheld on any basis , which is the epoche, or presentation/re-presentation of a tie-in between the materialist and the immaterialiat position, where those two terms are logically tied to ea h other, as Kantianism tried to do.

This too, is or should be self exemplary.

The exemplary-ness of such, was indeed upheld by Sartre, by his invocation in Being AND Nothingness, to which You yourself subscribed to.(see above)

That quote underlines obviously what is at stake, and that is where we can get into trouble. And did! Now before going further, hoping that so far everything seems in order upon agreeing upon them, I will take a pause before getting into theater of Your particular objections. Which are noted in between Jacob’s description s and your parting shot at the end about a though about how one ought to live.

“no idea how VO might relate to the manner in which I construe the values that individuals acquire over the course of actually living their lives. Let alone how that relates to something instead of nothing or the debate that swirls around dualism and human autonomy.”

The problem with VO , as you define conflicting values, of as Sartre explained it minimally above, is, that the ‘for itself’ is conscious of Its own values, but always incomplete. For, particular applications always revolve around the in-situ problem., whereas I’m it’self is not conscious of his own level of his absolute conviction.

This is where the cusp of the argument falls down.Why? The real reason is based on the definition of what DOUBT , the concept, revolves around. Particularization , sure, will be easily shown to be the basis of the failure in exemplifying the moral problem of abortion.

However, this doubt, or variable probability for setting a credible ethical standard is insufficient in that effort, and prone to a reduction into an absurdity. (Epoche stops this unreasonably dubious descent, invoking Kant’s famous categorical imperative. Now arguments cone in called ‘Naturalustic Fallacy’ to logically declare the artificiality, of the conceptual fragmentation of further logical reduction into holding to the notion of ‘absolute Doubt’ ( The same pivotal Doupt’ that Descartes finally cracked. It cracked , because he invoked the idea of a demonic concept, the Evil Genious to overcome God’s benefiscience. Descartes was a Catholic within. The folds of the Church, hence his Evil Genius is a Temptor, who has to be literally understood at face value. This is the problem before Nietzhe cracked or, by the power of The Ring, an eta when, before redemption, pre-logical essences played with the rules of existence.

Not to invoke or induce these archytipical Beings into the argument is a mistake, since they are mostly part and parcel of the archytipical down to earth ideas about the mind, about its functions and how they relate to how we presently act morally, sometimes in defiance to the gods, because everyone assumes they ’ died’

But did they?

Before going on into Eyer, whose argument reduces behavior into an absurd argumentative relations in relation of how we may think about them, lets take another pause, before trying to inquire of how we, as everyday practical men do, or should apply the more inclusive adaptations of modern doubt, into the necessity of its consciously developed mutation.
We can not , for if we go further than the materialhete and now connotation of the doubt enveloping us, we immediately negate that thought by short cutting it, in defense of our own rational material psyche.

I don’t even know how suçcesful this demonstration was, but certainly, if I was a young girl living in Saudi Arabia, where denial of parent’s attitudes could result result in my death, I would certainly think twice before becoming pregnant, and if I did, I would certainly see it fit to do anything to abort a child.