Being can come from non-being

[GrandizerII]

Asserts who?

Science. 

https://medium.com/nakshatra/the-nature-...4033e752f4

the quantum field gently vibrates randomly. Sometimes this producesenough energy to form particles out of seemingly nothing!

That's not the part I was questioning. You said the quantum vacuum had to come into being since it could not be eternal. What is the source you're getting this from?

---

(1) Nothing is not anything.

(2) That which is not anything cannot be anything.

(3) That which cannot be anything cannot come from anything.

(4) non-being is not anything.

(5) Conclusion: non-being can't come from anything

Depends on what one means by "non-being". If you think of "non-being" in a conditional sense such as "no apples", you can get that from "apples". Eat every apple you have in your stock, and you're left with no apples.

[ThinkingIsThinking]

Non-being either means nonexistence or it means something so wooy it isn't worth discussing.

Non-apples isn't non-being. It's non-apples.

Non-being doesn't refer to 'not X but perhaps Y' ... it refers to 'not X, not Y and not anything else either.'

It's simply the absence of being.

[Mister Agenda]

Non-being not being possible and therefore did not ever 'exist' solves the conundrum nicely; though I would also note that 'not being able to be anything' seems like a property, and 'unbeing' only has the property of not being anything. It doesn't seem to follow that unbeing can't stop 'being unbeing', what would keep it in that state?

[Drich]

Prove me wrong...
I don't think there's a coherent deductive argument that can be made to prove this assertion false. Of course, it is far from clear what exactly is meant by being or non-being, but I wager that for any ontologically interesting definition of these terms, there is no way to show the statement to be fallacious.

So you mean like the big bang? (not the TV show but the cosmological event?) IE something/universe from nothing

[ThinkingIsThinking]

Non-being not being possible and therefore did not ever 'exist' solves the conundrum nicely; though I would also note that 'not being able to be anything' seems like a property, and 'unbeing' only has the property of not being anything. It doesn't seem to follow that unbeing can't stop 'being unbeing', what would keep it in that state?

It's possible to describe impossible properties when making an argument.

If X has the property of 'not being able to be anything' then X does not exist.

We can obviously describe that which can't exist. For example "A square that has five sides ... doesn't exist." Just because I mentioned an impossible shape doesn't mean the shape is at all possible.

It's BECAUSE unbeing has the property of 'not being anything' that we're describing something that can't exist.

Nothing keeps it in the state of unbeing but only because there is no it. Because we're talking of an impossibility. It's no different to you asking "If nothing can't stop being nothing then how is it really nothing if it's BEING nothing?" well, the answer is that the idea of anything LITERALLY BEING nothing is already a contradiciton in the first place. Hence why I talk of "not being anything" rather than "being nothing" ... so there's less confusion. But it's also less confusing when you realize that all "being nothing" or "unbeing" or "being in a state of unbeing" actually means is "not being anything" and "not being in a state of being".

---

Of course, it is far from clear what exactly is meant by being or non-being, but I wager that for any ontologically interesting definition of these terms, there is no way to show the statement to be fallacious.

The problem, then, is that there is no ontologically interesting definition of "non-being"! ... either non-being isn't being and therefore can't exist or the only reason it isn't impossible is because you're labelling a type of being as non-being ... which isn't interesting at all--it's just a nonsensical redefinition.

[Alex K]

Of course, it is far from clear what exactly is meant by being or non-being, but I wager that for any ontologically interesting definition of these terms, there is no way to show the statement to be fallacious.

The problem, then, is that there is no ontologically interesting definition of "non-being"! ... either non-being isn't being and therefore can't exist or the only reason it isn't impossible is because you're labelling a type of being as non-being ... which isn't interesting at all--it's just a nonsensical redefinition.

I like this take

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Non-being not being possible and therefore did not ever 'exist' solves the conundrum nicely; though I would also note that 'not being able to be anything' seems like a property, and 'unbeing' only has the property of not being anything. It doesn't seem to follow that unbeing can't stop 'being unbeing', what would keep it in that state?

It's possible to describe impossible properties when making an argument.

If X has the property of 'not being able to be anything' then X does not exist.

We can obviously describe that which can't exist. For example "A square that has five sides ... doesn't exist." Just because I mentioned an impossible shape doesn't mean the shape is at all possible.

It's BECAUSE unbeing has the property of 'not being anything' that we're describing something that can't exist.

Nothing keeps it in the state of unbeing but only because there is no it. Because we're talking of an impossibility. It's no different to you asking "If nothing can't stop being nothing then how is it really nothing if it's BEING nothing?" well, the answer is that the idea of anything LITERALLY BEING nothing is already a contradiciton in the first place. Hence why I talk of "not being anything" rather than "being nothing" ... so there's less confusion. But it's also less confusing when you realize that all "being nothing" or "unbeing" or "being in a state of unbeing" actually means is "not being anything" and "not being in a state of being".

---

Of course, it is far from clear what exactly is meant by being or non-being, but I wager that for any ontologically interesting definition of these terms, there is no way to show the statement to be fallacious.

The problem, then, is that there is no ontologically interesting definition of "non-being"! ... either non-being isn't being and therefore can't exist or the only reason it isn't impossible is because you're labelling a type of being as non-being ... which isn't interesting at all--it's just a nonsensical redefinition.

I think you've pretty well nailed the ontological argument - trying to define God into existence.

Boru

[Mister Agenda]

Prove me wrong...
I don't think there's a coherent deductive argument that can be made to prove this assertion false. Of course, it is far from clear what exactly is meant by being or non-being, but I wager that for any ontologically interesting definition of these terms, there is no way to show the statement to be fallacious.

So you mean like the big bang? (not the TV show but the cosmological event?) IE something/universe from nothing

Pretty sure we've been over the Big Bang theory not being the theory that the universe came from nothing; it's the theory that (like it says in the intro song to the show) the whole universe was in a hot, dense, state; then something happened (the initial rapid expansion). Where the 'hot dense state' came from is not addressed by the BBT. The theory works whether the previous state of the universe was eternal or 'popped out of nowhere'.

It's kind of like the theory of biological evolution in that respect; which explains how life evolved, however it started, not the origin of the first life form.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

So you mean like the big bang? (not the TV show but the cosmological event?) IE something/universe from nothing

Pretty sure we've been over the Big Bang theory not being the theory that the universe came from nothing; it's the theory that (like it says in the intro song to the show) the whole universe was in a hot, dense, state; then something happened (the initial rapid expansion). Where the 'hot dense state' came from is not addressed by the BBT. The theory works whether the previous state of the universe was eternal or 'popped out of nowhere'.

It's kind of like the theory of biological evolution in that respect; which explains how life evolved, however it started, not the origin of the first life form.

Thank you.  Theists who don't get that are committing a version the Nirvana fallacy:  If a theory doesn't explain everything, it explains nothing.

Boru

[Mister Agenda]

Non-being not being possible and therefore did not ever 'exist' solves the conundrum nicely; though I would also note that 'not being able to be anything' seems like a property, and 'unbeing' only has the property of not being anything. It doesn't seem to follow that unbeing can't stop 'being unbeing', what would keep it in that state?

It's possible to describe impossible properties when making an argument.

If X has the property of 'not being able to be anything' then X does not exist.

We can obviously describe that which can't exist. For example "A square that has five sides ... doesn't exist." Just because I mentioned an impossible shape doesn't mean the shape is at all possible.

It's BECAUSE unbeing has the property of 'not being anything' that we're describing something that can't exist.

Nothing keeps it in the state of unbeing but only because there is no it. Because we're talking of an impossibility. It's no different to you asking "If nothing can't stop being nothing then how is it really nothing if it's BEING nothing?" well, the answer is that the idea of anything LITERALLY BEING nothing is already a contradiciton in the first place. Hence why I talk of "not being anything" rather than "being nothing" ... so there's less confusion. But it's also less confusing when you realize that all "being nothing" or "unbeing" or "being in a state of unbeing" actually means is "not being anything" and "not being in a state of being".

'From nothing, nothing comes' is an assertion, not a deduction. You can take the assertion that 'nothing can't stop being nothing' as axiomatic because it aligns with your intuitions; but it's not a fact. Presuppose that there was at some point 'not anything'. No matter, no energy, no time, no space. For it to 'stay nothing' that state of affairs would have to be stable. I don't think it would have been, because with no time, there can be no continuation of any given state of affairs.

That said, I don't think there was ever a state of 'true, absolute nothingness' because the idea of it is incoherent; I think we agree on that point. It's like your five-sided square.