Why Something Rather Than Nothing?

[Chas]

Empty universes are unstable (really) and decay into universes that are not empty.

Yes, I am familiar with this barbaric hypothesis by Victor Stenger.

"Barbaric"? That's hilarious.

[datc]

I really hope you mean universe and not Earth, because the Earth has a beginning after our previous sun went nova. Plus, Earth does have predators: black holes, wandering planets and stars, and also our own sun.

Yes, of course, I mean the universe, the actual one. "Earth" is just the name I give it.

If it is not explicitly forbitten, then a possible situation will prevail eventually. That is what quantum mechanics tells us.

Logically prior to one of our propositions becoming true, both were false, and both were possible. Once one of them, namely (2), became true, the world it instantiated became imperishable and the other proposition, (1), became impossible.

The requirement of a cause is unjustified. In fact, we know of plenty of things in nature that are uncaused. For example, nuclear decays are uncaussed. Nothing makes the nucleus decay; it decays on its own. Another example is an electron dropping to a lower energy state and releasing a photon. There is no force causing it. The electron just has another energy state it can be at, and it has some probability of ending up there.

Random or rather quasi-random events still require an environment in which to "choose." But in the interstices of our possible worlds, (1) and (2), (whatever that means) there was no such cradle to house random event-making.

You clearly never spend time with a group of drunken mathematicians. There are certain axioms you must take to get to 2+2=4. However, you can create another set of axioms that give an internally consistent view.

Are you denying that there are such things as necessary propositions?

[Exian]

What do you mean by imperishable exactly?

[datc]

2. What are the logical or physical objections to infinite causal regress?

There cannot exist an actually infinite number of real objects (as opposed to ideal objects like abstracta like numbers, sets, or possible worlds).

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An obvious question that can be asked by an atheist at this point is: When was Earth's essence joined to its existence, given the assumption that Earth is everlasting

No, it can not be asked by an atheist, because it is a nonsensical question if our universe is everlasting in the past and future as you assume.

An atheist can object to my argument by pointing out that seemingly, at first glance, this question ("When was Earth's essence...?) has no answer.

[dyresand]

Hi, atheist folks. I wonder if you can find flaws in the following argument. If it holds, it'll be part of a book.

I ask: Why is there something rather than nothing?

The question is befuddling. Why should there be nothing rather than what we have around us? Why privilege either "nothing" or "something"? Why cannot this world be everything that has ever been and will be?

On the one hand, we humans privilege nothing readily. We apparently come from nothing and go into nothing. In between we live for a little bit, always in danger, such that if we don't struggle with all our might, the nothing will arrive even quicker. All living things are born, thereby beginning to exist, and die, thereby ceasing to exist. But the inference from this human experience to the universe as a whole need not be taken.

Moreover, "something" is also privileged. The moment we are born, we are surrounded with stuff to use, enjoy, and manipulate. Disembodied existence, while not inconceivable, is not part of our human experience. But "nothingness" is inconceivable; one can't close his eyes and picture nothingness.

However, that nothingness is inconceivable does not mean that it is impossible.

Let possible world Empty be defined as follows: ForAll(X I can think of)[X does not exist in Empty]. Then

(1) Nothing = ThereExists[Empty]. We are dealing with "universes," uni = "one," so any possible world is a maximally consistent state of affairs. As a result, Empty swallows up every other reality, so it is not necessary to say "there exists only Empty."

Let our actual world be called Earth. Then

(2) Something = ThereExists[Earth].

Neither is privileged.

In this case, it does not matter that Earth may have existed forever and will continue to do so indefinitely. We are not looking for a physical cause prior in time to Earth. Moreover, once Earth exists, I grant that it may be forever imperishable. First, there are no "predators" outside it that may kill it. Second, material objects, though they can in the course of their lives change from one form into another and even into energy, nevertheless seem imperishable. We might say that they "follow the law" so faithfully that they are granted immortality. They fear disobedience so much as to persevere in being forever.

But we are seeking an explanation of why (1) is false and (2) is true.

For (2) is a contingent proposition. The question is not what, if anything, preceded Earth in time in the actual world, but why the non-necessary situation prevails. I admit that Earth may never have begun; suppose it always has existed, with time going into the past into actual infinity. I do not consider this either unintelligible or impossible.

We ask for an explanation why (2) which is contingent and certainly need not be true is in fact true. But to explain something is to reduce it to a cause. For example, say, Smith throws a stone which breaks a window. This, too, is a contingent event. We explain why the window was broken by implicating Smith, his actions, the stone, etc. If there is determinism, then we can extend our explanation backward in time forever.

We certainly do not explain why "2 + 2 = 4" is true, because it's a necessary truth, if there was one. If pressed, we say that it is true due to the logical and arithmetical structure of the human mind. The opposite is neither conceivable nor possible, because possible worlds are imagined by human minds, and their ideal content is unavoidably constrained by the structure of these minds.

I fully admit that the cause of (2)'s being true, call it C2, is different from the cause of the broken window, CB, because both CB and its effect, the breaking of the window, are situated in time, with cause preceding the effect; while (2), being an abstract proposition is in any case timeless; it cannot be said to exist either in the past, present, or future. Regardless, it must have some kind of cause.

This cause must have been presented with a choice to make either (1) or (2) true and chose (2). This choice of words does not imply anything regarding the type of causation, whether it was physical, teleological, or some other third type. Note that C2 could not be random, because any random selection still presupposes a mechanism or environment to generate randomness.

How then did C2 make (2) true? By joining Earth with existence, i.e., by creating Earth. As a result, (2)'s being true has a "cause," and Earth's existing has a "ground" of its existence. This ground is called God.

An obvious question that can be asked by an atheist at this point is: When was Earth's essence joined to its existence, given the assumption that Earth is everlasting, i.e., without beginning or end? In reply I suggest that God is eternal, defined as "simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life": for God, the 4 time periods are folded up, unified as if in a package and present themselves as single eternal moment of boiling divine life. Earth was united with its existence not at any moment in time but as a whole in eternity which "covers" merely everlasting existence.

This is only half the task. Now we ask: What is this God? It cannot be another real thing, for then it, too, would stand in need of its own ground. It must then be "beyond" being. The only non-thing that can conceivably fit that description is "goodness."

Goodness is not a thing but a kind of force, a primal principle that permeates all, that creates this world, so that its inhabitants might enjoy life or try to. That is what we mean when we say "God." Goodness is not a thing but Creator of things. As a result, in the beginning, there was a kind of clean slate, in which whatever is created (by goodness) could be made into a top-notch project or performance from ground up, with no need for backward compatibility.

Now if goodness reigned, then in the beginning (of our story), there could not be anything, because only goodness creates good things, and nothing can exist whose existence goodness has not authorized.

Our options are: (a) goodness + nothing in the beginning and (b) a good thing, i.e., the universe, in the beginning. Goodness implies "nothing," and "nothing" implies goodness; and now we see that their combination, i.e., (a), is also implied.

okay nothing is unstable and you cannot have something without nothing it defeats the fact. we live in a universe a which is something and b we are expanding into nothing. its a paradox but we came from something that came from nothing. the energy for the big bang is explained by quantum mechanics and yes it exploded and expanded. <- no god required btw. after that pretty much all the pieces started dropping in place first we get our stars which takes a few million years because the residual heat is to hot for helium to make bonds. millions to billions of years later we get physical matter etc and most not if all our
elements. as for the subject of earth we are still figuring it out current hypothesis - The Earth is thought to have been formed about 4.6 billion years ago by collisions in the giant disc-shaped cloud of material that also formed the Sun. Gravity slowly gathered this gas and dust together into clumps that became asteroids and small early planets called planetesimals..

[datc]

The only non-thing that can conceivably fit that description is "goodness."

Why? Why can't it be sadness, evilness, darkness, and lochness.

Why reserve the term "goodness" for self-diffusion of God and not call the other two modes of causation, physical and teleological, good? There are two reasons. First, nature and men do not have to do good. Their actions need not have good consequences and often, in fact, do not, whereas God's providence is presumably far superior in its ability to do good. Second, because physical causality and teleology, in making the world a better place, are motivated by the cause's own needs: to persevere in one's nature or to become happier. But God has no needs and acts solely so that good things may exist.

For example, suppose that God was not completely happy and created because, say, He wanted company. Then it would no longer be true that God "wills nothing except by reason of its goodness." He would have created because of the utility to Him of the creation which would be good as a means to the satisfaction of God’s "selfish" ends. In other words, there would be an evil in God which the creation would help remedy; and therefore, the creation would spring from something evil rather than from something good.

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Nothing is the absence of everything which is defined by a collection of something.

Yes, that is why our possible world Empty depends on the things you can think about that are absent in Empty. Possible worlds are ideal abstract (as opposed to real) objects and as such, they exist only in your mind. So do the ideas of things that we deny really exist in Empty.

Thus, you think of X = "a lion" or Y = "a unicorn" and say that neither X nor Y exists in Empty; and X does and Y does not exist in Earth.

In other words, X has both meaning and reference for Earth; Y has an ideal meaning ("a mythical animal generally depicted with the body and head of a horse, the hind legs of a stag, the tail of a lion, and a single horn in the middle of the forehead") but lacks a real reference; "Blarg" has neither meaning nor reference.

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What do you mean by imperishable exactly?

I mean that once Earth has been generated (come into existence), there is no possibility of its ever corrupting (going out of existence).

That there is matter is a contingent fact; there might never have been material objects in the universe. But once there are such objects, they cannot be destroyed as per the law of conservation of matter and energy.

Same with the universe as a whole: once it's here, it will exist forever.

[vorlon13]

Empty universes don't contain people to ponder such things either.

[datc]

Empty universes don't contain people to ponder such things either.

That's why I have to ponder them for them.

[JesusHChrist]

Why are some people so obsessed with attempting to find 'answers' to these 'life questions?'

We are here. That's just what it is. IT JUST IS.

Because God cares very, VERY much about where you (the collective you of ALL humanity) put your naughty bits. Whether that be the naughty bits of a same gender person or the abomination of fornicating with a different gender whilst in an unmarried state.

Either way, God don't like it if you don't put your naughty bits next/in/around someone else's naughty bits ACCORDING TO THE RULES.

So, universe, schmooniverse. It's all about the relative positions of humanity's naughty bits.

[vorlon13]

Why are some people so obsessed with attempting to find 'answers' to these 'life questions?'

We are here. That's just what it is. IT JUST IS.

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