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"That's not nothing"
#31
RE: "That's not nothing"
But that's what I said. All the definitions you posted were saying that a vacuum was proposed to be an empty region of space.
"The reason things will never get better is because people keep electing these rich cocksuckers who don't give a shit about you."
-George Carlin
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#32
RE: "That's not nothing"
(May 15, 2014 at 1:16 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: But that's what I said. All the definitions you posted were saying that a vacuum was proposed to be an empty region of space.

Confused Fall

OK....erm......we agree?

But the definition does contain void and that means:

Full Definition of VOID

1
a : not occupied : vacant <a void bishopric>
b : not inhabited : deserted
2
: containing nothing <void space>
3
: idle, leisure
4
a : being without something specified : devoid <a nature void of all malice>
b : having no members or examples; specifically of a suit : having no cards represented in a particular hand
5
: vain, useless
6
a : of no legal force or effect : null <a void contract>
b : voidable
— void·ness noun
See void defined for English-language learners »
See void defined for kids »

Not trying to pick a fight or be pedantic.
Kuusi palaa, ja on viimeinen kerta kun annan vaimoni laittaa jouluvalot!
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#33
RE: "That's not nothing"
"Containing nothing" just means it doesn't contain anything. :p I'm not trying to be a prick either... it just comes naturally! xD
"The reason things will never get better is because people keep electing these rich cocksuckers who don't give a shit about you."
-George Carlin
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#34
RE: "That's not nothing"
(May 15, 2014 at 1:31 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: "Containing nothing" just means it doesn't contain anything. :p I'm not trying to be a prick either... it just comes naturally! xD

Clap

Fuck me!

Desperately fighting the urge to ask how can containing nothing not be nothing?

Tell me though - after this exchange - don't you sympathise a bit more with the poor physicists who walked into this quagmire?

Suppose they said simply "without cause." Would you be OK with that?
Kuusi palaa, ja on viimeinen kerta kun annan vaimoni laittaa jouluvalot!
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#35
RE: "That's not nothing"
(May 15, 2014 at 12:23 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Quantum foam exists even without space and time. The quantum fluctuations are like tiny flickers of space and sometimes time
uh?!?!
I... thought... that... quantum foam and quantum fluctuations were pretty much the same thing...
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#36
RE: "That's not nothing"
(May 15, 2014 at 12:52 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: [quote='Mister Agenda' pid='670904' dateline='1400168597']
Despite carefully explaining exactly what he means: there is no such thing as absolute nothingness, at the closest we can get to it, there is still quantum foam.

That doesn't escape the equivocation fallacy. Saying "The closest we can get to X is Y, therefore X is Y" is clearly fallacious.

Krauss doesn not claim quantum foam is absolute nothingness. That's a philosophical term, not a scientific one. He explains, in effect, that when he says 'X', he means 'X1', which in reasonable discourse would get you out of a charge of equivocation which is a form of using unclear language in order to deceive. But if you feel butthurt about it, I'm sure he's got a website or a blog where you can register you dissatisfaction. He'll probably be interested in your explanation of how he's using the equivocation fallacy when he's precisely defining his terms. A casual observer might think there's no fallacy involved, just you not liking his choice of words.

(May 15, 2014 at 12:52 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: "'No potentiality for creation' is a property, and an awfully convenient one for Craig to apply to nothingness, given that he wants to conclude that 'nothing can come from nothing'."

Again, that's just obviously playing on language. Not having any properties is NOT a property. And if you're going to be consistent, you might as well say that non-existent things have the property of non-existence. It's absurd, but that's what is entailed by what you're saying.

Maybe I am wrong, I'm no professional philosopher. However, as far as your explanation for WHY I'm wrong, I don't see any issue at all with saying non-existent things have the property of non-existence, and I don't see how it's absurd to say so. What would be absurd would be to say that non-existent things DON'T have the property of non-existence, because that would mean they exist.

(May 15, 2014 at 12:52 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: "That is true. It is also true that if the energy balance of the universe ('negative' energy plus 'positive' energy) is not exactly zero, it is very, very, close to zero."

So? These are still existent things. They couldn't (even in principle) balance off to be "nothing".

That's what people in the logic biz call 'an unsupported assertion'.

(May 15, 2014 at 12:52 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: "The quantum fluctuations themselves are something from nothing. There is no true nothingness because nothingness 'fizzes'."

And here we go again. Are you saying there isn't anything, and yet it "fizzes"? If you are, then you're contradicting yourself. Processes require there to be something going through the process or action, i.e you don't have rolling going on without something that exists which is rolling.

Apparently that is not an absolute requirement. But maybe I'm wrong. If it's an absolute requirement, and you know that, surely you can demonstrate it. Because there certainly SEEMS to be a phenomenon that doesn't require there to be something for something to happen.

(May 15, 2014 at 12:52 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: "The uncertainty principle says that you cannot simultaneously know the position and momentum of a particle. The position and momentum of a particle that doesn't exist is 0,0. Since we can't know that, it might exist, and therefore it does, at least sometimes. Quantum vacuum fluctuations aren't coming from something, they are causeless."

The uncertainty principle is an epistemic barrier, I don't think it has anything to do with ontology.

It's an observable effect (NOT the observer effect...) in quantum mechanics, not epistemology. I know it sounds like epistemology because it concerns what we can know, but it's physics.

(May 15, 2014 at 12:52 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote:
Quote:Even if there were no space and time, these fluctuations would still happen, they are essentially temporary bits of energy and space flashing into and out of existence. That's how the hypothesis goes, anyway.

Which means they exist, and hence are a referent, a thing.

No kidding. But where do they come from? Evidence says nowhere.

(May 15, 2014 at 12:52 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote:
Quote:Clearly it has the property of not having properties. It seems superficially to involve a contradiction to say nothingness has no properties.

[quote='MindForgedManacle' pid='670947' dateline='1400172744']
I already dealt with this above, but for a quick recap: that is absurd.

Making an unsupported assertion is not what I consider dealing with something. YMMV.

(May 15, 2014 at 12:52 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: Not having a property is not itself a property. Otherwise I could, under that paradigm, say all non-existent things have the property of non-existence.

Can't you even come up with two examples that don't make your point?

(May 15, 2014 at 12:52 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: But having properties denotes existing, hence demonstrating a contradiction in your account.

Adding more unsupported assertions to your claims doesn't make them more supported.

Maybe you're right, but the reasons you're giving for being right don't support that hypothesis.

(May 15, 2014 at 4:18 pm)pocaracas Wrote: I... thought... that... quantum foam and quantum fluctuations were pretty much the same thing...

Quantum foam is made of quantum fluctuations. Hypothetically, they would occur even with no universe/space-time for them to 'happen in'. Sorry if I was being unclear.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
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#37
RE: "That's not nothing"
(May 16, 2014 at 11:45 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: Krauss doesn not claim quantum foam is absolute nothingness. That's a philosophical term, not a scientific one. He explains, in effect, that when he says 'X', he means 'X1', which in reasonable discourse would get you out of a charge of equivocation which is a form of using unclear language in order to deceive. But if you feel butthurt about it, I'm sure he's got a website or a blog where you can register you dissatisfaction. He'll probably be interested in your explanation of how he's using the equivocation fallacy when he's precisely defining his terms. A casual observer might think there's no fallacy involved, just you not liking his choice of words.

I did not say Krauss said that. I said Krauss calls it nothing, and then equivocates to answer the question "Why is there something, rather than nothing?" Clearly in that case, the apologist posing the question to him is asking him "Why does anything exist?" To respond to that with "Well it's because nothingness is unstable" IS an equivocation fallacy. He's answering their question by changing the meaning of "nothing".

It's not about being butthurt, it's that Krauss is playing a shell game that was really just to sell books, but is clearly absurd in terms of ontology.

Quote:Maybe I am wrong, I'm no professional philosopher. However, as far as your explanation for WHY I'm wrong, I don't see any issue at all with saying non-existent things have the property of non-existence, and I don't see how it's absurd to say so. What would be absurd would be to say that non-existent things DON'T have the property of non-existence, because that would mean they exist.

Because having properties denotes existence. So "having" the property of "not existing" is a contradiction in terms. Things that don't exist have no properties.

Quote:That's what people in the logic biz call 'an unsupported assertion'.

They actually call it a rational inference. If something exists, it can't be balanced against something we deem to be its opposite, and then claim they don't exist. If two people are pushing an object from opposite sides, and the relevant forces are perfectly balanced out, are you really going to say the two aren't exerting any force on the box at all?

Quote:Apparently that is not an absolute requirement. But maybe I'm wrong. If it's an absolute requirement, and you know that, surely you can demonstrate it. Because there certainly SEEMS to be a phenomenon that doesn't require there to be something for something to happen.

You are wrong. Even with quantum "foam", there is something which "fizzes". It is just an obvious contradiction in terms to say "There isn't anything, and yet fizzing is going on." "Fizzing" (or any process) can only refer to the action of some existing thing. Unless you're going to say non-existent things can do actual actions?

Quote:It's an observable effect (NOT the observer effect...) in quantum mechanics, not epistemology. I know it sounds like epistemology because it concerns what we can know, but it's physics.

I know what the uncertainty principle is. I'm saying it's a barrier with respect to our ability to know something, i.e epistemic.

Quote:No kidding. But where do they come from? Evidence says nowhere.

Well if you're saying they're a thing, then you can't agree with your earlier statement that "Apparently that is not an absolute requirement. But maybe I'm wrong. If it's an absolute requirement, and you know that, surely you can demonstrate it. Because there certainly SEEMS to be a phenomenon that doesn't require there to be something for something to happen."

And I didn't say or ask anything about where they came from.

Quote:Making an unsupported assertion is not what I consider dealing with something. YMMV.

Unsupported? I'm sorry, but giving an explanation - which I did and you conveniently left out - is not an unsupported assertion, especially when I demonstrated that it makes you contradict yourself:

MFM Wrote:Not having a property is not itself a property. Otherwise I could, under that paradigm, say all non-existent things have the property of non-existence. But having properties denotes existing, hence demonstrating a contradiction in your account.

Quote:Can't you even come up with two examples that don't make your point?

Can't you even make a coherent objection? You've reduced yourself to saying that non-existence things have properties. Following it up with a non sequitur is doesn't help you.

Quote:Adding more unsupported assertions to your claims doesn't make them more supported.

Maybe you're right, but the reasons you're giving for being right don't support that hypothesis.

Okay then tell me this: Do you, as I, believe God doesn't exist? If so, under this silly ontology you've halfheartedly defended, do you say God has properties? If so, how is that coherent? The $100 bill I imagine in my pocket doesn't have the value of an actual dollar bill, because it doesn't exist. IF it existed, it would, but it doesn't, so it doesn't have any properties.
"The reason things will never get better is because people keep electing these rich cocksuckers who don't give a shit about you."
-George Carlin
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#38
RE: "That's not nothing"
Potential for change is something. Even empty, timeless non-space, non-time is something, if it can allow for the creation of stuff. And since I know stuff exists, then it arose from something.
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#39
RE: "That's not nothing"
I like this thread, its been 4 pages, and we've talked about nothing very successfully.

Joking aside, can we just conclude that something can come into existence without a cause? Sure, it probably isn't from absolute nothing, but its plausible from what we understand of the laws of physics, that a universe can appear where a universe once was not, and thus we don't need to propose a cause. Since this 'quantum foam' stuff existed preceded the universe, there was always something, but maybe preceding is a poor phrase, because time might have came into existence with the energy in the universe as a result of entropy (see the arrow of time). If you want to interpret this a cause, this could be considered a material cause of the universe (if you insist quantum events still obey causation). We have a past finite universe, with a beginning to it, and its completely plausible according to science; And that is what we should be celebrating, as Krauss put it. We non believers are closer to god than any theist is, because we are getting closer and closer to understand the 'mind of god' through science, like how the universe got here, while a theist can only put fingers in their ears trying to cover up this science, or trying to find ways to get around it. Theism is a way to avoid growing up, avoid learning, and avoid having to deal with death. Atheism/naturalism is about facing up to these obvious facts, accepting reality for how it is, and embracing the absurdity that is life.

But if you think about it, no one really thinks the universe can come from absolute nothing... When theists say the universe came from nothing, they are not saying god made it from nothing, but god created the universe, thus the universe really did come from something (god). When atheists say the universe came from nothing, they are not saying the universe was made from nothing either, but from the laws of physics producing the universe or some sort of pre-existing material like a vacuum. Something had to have always existed, and we're taking the simpler route by assuming some physical substrate always existed. God is therefore superfluous. Its enough to assume a physical reality, but to assume on top of that an extra supernatural reality is unfounded, and definitely violates Occam's Razor. Why assume god has all these sorts of rationalized justifications as to why he permits evil/suffering, when its simpler to assume no such being exists? Why assume morals can only come from god, when its simpler to assume that morals are just a human creation? Why assume all this unnecessary bullshit, when we can just claim no such thing exists? Apologetics from people like WLC are so convoluted to the point it loses meaning, and they do logical backflips through hoops just to mend obvious inconsistencies; Why do that when you can just say no such being exists? God really is superfluous, and people will go through extreme lengths just to save their comfort blanket in their existential storm. With enough time, and enough hard work, any inconsistency can be rationalized, and apologists demonstrate that every day.
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