Something Instead of Nothing

[iambiguous]

I guess that we have reached the end of the road.

And just when things were going so well for you!

[phyllo]

And just when things were going so well for you!

Gee, I don't know what you mean.

[Mad Man P]

Let's examine this for a spell... let's assume nature/god/our parents have programmed us in a similar way to the computer.
Let's bring this down to earth as you often request...
What difference would it make in our daily interactions?
How would this change anything in our daily lives or even our experience of life?
If all I am is a machine... well then that is what I am... so what?

So what? Well, you can ask that now because we still have no real capacity [that I am aware of] to know if it is in fact true.

And that seems to be where we are all stuck. Nature or God has provided us with a brain able to ask the question but [so far] not with a brain able to know the answer [one way or the other] for sure.

Here's what we DO know.. we invented the word "autonomous" to describe something we found in the world.
The things we used that word to describe are real, even if we don't yet or can't ever know how they work.

If your understanding of the word is NOT in reference to something we find in the world... then and ONLY then does it make sense to question whether or not it CAN be found in the world.

A unicorn for example, is an imaginary magical animal... we can meaningfully ask whether or not unicorns can be found in the world.
But a horse is NOT, with a horse we point to the damn thing and say THAT is a horse... It's then pointless to ponder whether THAT really is a horse or not.

What I believe you are asking, and no one here can provide an answer to, is whether or not we are made of more than matter... I don't know the answer any more than you do.
I have good reason to believe matter exists, but I can't say the same for any spirit dimension nor do I have good reason to suppose anything supernatural or magical is going on...
and in the absence of compelling reasons to believe I do the only reasonable thing to do, which is to not believe they exist... which leaves me only matter to work with, pending further information.

[Meno_]

Let's examine this for a spell... let's assume nature/god/our parents have programmed us in a similar way to the computer.
Let's bring this down to earth as you often request...
What difference would it make in our daily interactions?
How would this change anything in our daily lives or even our experience of life?
If all I am is a machine... well then that is what I am... so what?

So what? Well, you can ask that now because we still have no real capacity [that I am aware of] to know if it is in fact true.

And that seems to be where we are all stuck. Nature or God has provided us with a brain able to ask the question but [so far] not with a brain able to know the answer [one way or the other] for sure.

Here's what we DO know.. we invented the word "autonomous" to describe something we found in the world.
The things we used that word to describe are real, even if we don't yet or can't ever know how they work.

If your understanding of the word is NOT in reference to something we find in the world... then and ONLY then does it make sense to question whether or not it CAN be found in the world.

A unicorn for example, is an imaginary magical animal... we can meaningfully ask whether or not unicorns can be found in the world.
But a horse is NOT, with a horse we point to the damn thing and say THAT is a horse... It's then pointless to ponder whether THAT really is a horse or not.

What I believe you are asking, and no one here can provide an answer to, is whether or not we are made of more than matter... I don't know the answer any more than you do.
I have good reason to believe matter exists, but I can't say the same for any spirit dimension nor do I have good reason to suppose anything supernatural or magical is going on...
and in the absence of compelling reasons to believe I do the only reasonable thing to do, which is to not believe they exist... which leaves me only matter to work with, pending further information.[/quote

-- -- --

But the clincher is that matter in the old nomenclature does exist, in the new , matter is reducible to unseen particles of energy, that probably will mimic a unified field. So you're doing the same thing, you are mixing two types of languages.

[Mad Man P]

But the clincher is that matter in the old nomenclature does exist, in the new , matter is reducible to unseen particles of energy, that probably will mimic a unified field. So you're doing the same thing, you are mixing two types of languages.

What same thing am I doing?

If we were to entertain a new conception of matter where there were no particles at all... we would not be questioning the existence of matter, only our understanding of matter.

[Meno_]

But the clincher is that matter in the old nomenclature does exist, in the new , matter is reducible to unseen particles of energy, that probably will mimic a unified field. So you're doing the same thing, you are mixing two types of languages.

What same thing am I doing?

If we were to entertain a new conception of matter where there were no particles at all... we would not be questioning the existence of matter, only our understanding of matter.

But the new language does entertain such an idea, and the old archaic one was at least tangential to it( the atomists) , there is some foreseeability in keeping a nominal unified field of knowledge, where substantially the understanding should be expected to develop with this trend.

And what You are saying parallels this idea, because it excluded all known possibilities other then the hypothetical presented, and the fact is the hypothetical of all exclusions, has not occurred, but the inclusive identifiable content of current knowledge has.

This doesent appear as a proven possibility, as of yet, based on a set standard.

If, for instance such were to occur, as has been postulated in some way out future possibility in another world, then there would still be a necessity for connecting it with the past known. and that would still involve identifying the known with the not yet known, hence utilizing the inclusion and the exclusion of the substance of the idea into a singular bounded relatedness.

But since Your objection is almost totally similar to the basic con-cept, at some point it is identifiable at that point as universally relevant.

[iambiguous]

And just when things were going so well for you!

Gee, I don't know what you mean.

Okay, that makes two of us.

Not that we could ever have known otherwise of course.

But only if this is actually true.

And here some only think they know that.

[phyllo]

[Mad Man P]

But the new language does entertain such an idea, and the old archaic one was at least tangential to it( the atomists) , there is some foreseeability in keeping a nominal unified field of knowledge, where substantially the understanding should be expected to develop with this trend.

And what You are saying parallels this idea, because it excluded all known possibilities other then the hypothetical presented, and the fact is the hypothetical of all exclusions, has not occurred, but the inclusive identifiable content of current knowledge has.

This doesent appear as a proven possibility, as of yet, based on a set standard.

If, for instance such were to occur, as has been postulated in some way out future possibility in another world, then there would still be a necessity for connecting it with the past known. and that would still involve identifying the known with the not yet known, hence utilizing the inclusion and the exclusion of the substance of the idea into a singular bounded relatedness.

But since Your objection is almost totally similar to the basic con-cept, at some point it is identifiable at that point as universally relevant.

The word "possible" is one of the richest most opportune targets for equivocation... because we use the word to mean "known option" as well as "conceivable option"
Let's say we chase a person into an empty hallway with 2 doors and no other exits... by the time we get there he's nowhere to be seen.
It's possible that he went through one of the doors...
but it's also "possible" that he turned insubstantial and went through the wall, was teleported onto a starship in orbit, dragged to hell by a demon, was never there in the first place... and so on until we've exhausted our imaginations.

Yet if you were to ask me to lay down odds on where he went... I'd say it's 50/50 between the doors.
Yes, I could conceivably be wrong, as the epistemic nihilists keep reminding us, but I have no good reason to suppose I am.

Being able to imagine a world is not a very good reason to suppose we live there...

[iambiguous]

So what? Well, you can ask that now because we still have no real capacity [that I am aware of] to know if it is in fact true.

And that seems to be where we are all stuck. Nature or God has provided us with a brain able to ask the question but [so far] not with a brain able to know the answer [one way or the other] for sure.

Here's what we DO know.. we invented the word "autonomous" to describe something we found in the world.

Or [perhaps]: Here's what we were never able not to know...that we were compelled to invent the word "autonomous" in order to describe something that we were compelled to find in the world.

The things we used that word to describe are real, even if we don't yet or can't ever know how they work.

Or [perhaps]: These things are real only to the extent that we can grasp them ontologically given a complete understanding of existence.

If your understanding of the word is NOT in reference to something we find in the world... then and ONLY then does it make sense to question whether or not it CAN be found in the world.

Finding something in the world autonomousy and deluding ourselves psychologically [autonomically] that we are finding something in the world autonomously --- how are they the same or different? How would we go about telling them apart?

A unicorn for example, is an imaginary magical animal... we can meaningfully ask whether or not unicorns can be found in the world.
But a horse is NOT, with a horse we point to the damn thing and say THAT is a horse... It's then pointless to ponder whether THAT really is a horse or not.

Or, again, it might be true that it is pointless to ponder whether any of this exchange about unicorns and horses could have been other than what it must be. The mind of the one imagining the unicorn or pointing to the horse embodying only the illusion of doing this of its own volition. The mind of the horse then being closer to a purely genetic, instinctive matter.

On the other hand, you may well be pointing out something here that is in fact more reasonable than the manner in which I try to think it through. But I can't quite wrap my mind around the idea that, in a wholly determined universe, I can only wrap my mind around it as the laws of matter dictate.

What I believe you are asking, and no one here can provide an answer to, is whether or not we are made of more than matter... I don't know the answer any more than you do.

Exactly. Is mind "matter plus"? How do we account for mindless matter evolving into mindful matter that may or may not be autonomous?

I have good reason to believe matter exists, but I can't say the same for any spirit dimension nor do I have good reason to suppose anything supernatural or magical is going on...
and in the absence of compelling reasons to believe I do the only reasonable thing to do, which is to not believe they exist... which leaves me only matter to work with, pending further information.

I basically agree. I only stipulate that this information would seem to take us all the way back to why there is something instead of nothing. And why this something and not another.

[iambiguous]

Well, that is certainly something instead of nothing. On the other hand, so is this:

[iambiguous]

Seriously though how does one wrap their head around the fact that something rather than nothing exist?

Consider: https://youtu.be/ynWKQcjznQU

A good place to start: The part about "why?" distinguished from the part about "how?"

And it's an important distinction because to ask the question "why?" tends to take us in the general direction of teleology. "How?" might be encompassed in the ontological. This is how something either always existed or came into existence out of nothing at all. But asking "why one rather than the other?" can't help but nudge us into exploring what possible purpose existence could have. And purpose implies one or another entity having one. God is obviously the explanation that will pop into the head of most of us. But could there actually be another explanation?

And, if so, how would we go about describing it?

Krauss seems especially eager to dispense with the part about "why". Why? Because he clearly recognizes how quickly this can take the discussions to things like God and religion.

Better to just focus of "how"...how "scientifically" there might be an explanation.

Then he goes on to speculate that there is something rather than nothing because nothing is "unstable" and will always produce "something".

But:

How can he possibly know this unless he has performed actual experiments with nothing at all. In fact this is the sort of conjecture from the scientific community that always basically annoys me. He speaks of the nothingness of empty space containing "virtual particles" that come in an out of existence.

Okay, how has this been demonstrated definitively? Where do the theoretical assumptions here end and the actual empirical evidence begin?

Sure, he says a lot of things here that are clearly over my head. There's no way I can get around that. I have no way in which to demonstrate that he is wrong.

So it would then seem to come down to the extent to which someone like him is able to demonstrate that what he says is true is in fact true for all of us.

Assuming of course that any of us have it within our capaicity to pursue this autonomously.

[Meno_]

But the new language does entertain such an idea, and the old archaic one was at least tangential to it( the atomists) , there is some foreseeability in keeping a nominal unified field of knowledge, where substantially the understanding should be expected to develop with this trend.

And what You are saying parallels this idea, because it excluded all known possibilities other then the hypothetical presented, and the fact is the hypothetical of all exclusions, has not occurred, but the inclusive identifiable content of current knowledge has.

This doesent appear as a proven possibility, as of yet, based on a set standard.

If, for instance such were to occur, as has been postulated in some way out future possibility in another world, then there would still be a necessity for connecting it with the past known. and that would still involve identifying the known with the not yet known, hence utilizing the inclusion and the exclusion of the substance of the idea into a singular bounded relatedness.

But since Your objection is almost totally similar to the basic con-cept, at some point it is identifiable at that point as universally relevant.

The word "possible" is one of the richest most opportune targets for equivocation... because we use the word to mean "known option" as well as "conceivable option"
Let's say we chase a person into an empty hallway with 2 doors and no other exits... by the time we get there he's nowhere to be seen.
It's possible that he went through one of the doors...
but it's also "possible" that he turned insubstantial and went through the wall, was teleported onto a starship in orbit, dragged to hell by a demon, was never there in the first place... and so on until we've exhausted our imaginations.

Yet if you were to ask me to lay down odds on where he went... I'd say it's 50/50 between the doors.
Yes, I could conceivably be wrong, as the epistemic nihilists keep reminding us, but I have no good reason to suppose I am.

Being able to imagine a world is not a very good reason to suppose we live there...

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.

[Mad Man P]

Merely pointing to an apparent difference does not guarantee that there is one

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...

[Meno_]

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.

[Meno_]

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?

[Mad Man P]

On the other hand, you may well be pointing out something here that is in fact more reasonable than the manner in which I try to think it through. But I can't quite wrap my mind around the idea that, in a wholly determined universe, I can only wrap my mind around it as the laws of matter dictate.

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...

What I believe you are asking, and no one here can provide an answer to, is whether or not we are made of more than matter... I don't know the answer any more than you do.

Exactly. Is mind "matter plus"? How do we account for mindless matter evolving into mindful matter that may or may not be autonomous?

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

[Jakob]

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.

[iambiguous]

On the other hand, you may well be pointing out something here that is in fact more reasonable than the manner in which I try to think it through. But I can't quite wrap my mind around the idea that, in a wholly determined universe, I can only wrap my mind around it as the laws of matter dictate.

It seems to me you're approaching it ontologically...
I recommend starting with epistemology.

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.

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.

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.

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"

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.

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...

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.

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...

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?

What I believe you are asking, and no one here can provide an answer to, is whether or not we are made of more than matter... I don't know the answer any more than you do.

Exactly. Is mind "matter plus"? How do we account for mindless matter evolving into mindful matter that may or may not be autonomous?

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

Me too.

[Mad Man P]

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

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

[iambiguous]

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

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?

[Jakob]

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.

[Meno_]

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

[iambiguous]

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.

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.

[iambiguous]

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

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?