Why is there something rather than nothing? Dumb question?

[Mijin]

@Mikeisskeptical

I don’t mean to call anyone stupid.
[…]
you either do not understand what I am saying, or you are being deliberately dishonest

Oh OK then, that’s much better.

Both of you have repeatedly misrepresented my views, accused me of saying things I have not said, and which are obviously false, ignored my criticisms of your own points and at one point accused me of not believing my own claims.

Funnily-enough, my feeling is the exact opposite of this: that you keep repeating your initial assertion and ignoring most of the counter-arguments to it.

Let’s try to bring this back on track: the argument is based on the idea that when we talk about something vs nothing, the latter option is talking about a specific entity, that we’re calling nothing, having the property of existing. But this isn’t the case, and that assumption ISTM is based on parsing an English sentence in an incorrect way.

“There is nothing in the box” does not mean I’m labelling the contents of the box “nothing”. It’s making a higher-level claim about the box: that it has no contents; that the set of things inside is the empty set.
If we were talking about the box physically containing nothing we’d run into all sorts of problems: e.g. Is there a single nothing in the box, or an infinity of nothings? If I put an object in the box, does it now contain an object + nothing(s)?
But these questions are based on a misparse of the original sentence; treating “nothing” as a discrete entity rather than a fact about the box.

I don’t think you’ve really addressed that simple objection, you’ve just continued to describe nothing as a discrete thing, and why it can’t have the attribute of existence.

[Man_About_Town]

Nothingness has only one state of being.
Somethingness can have an infinite number of possible states. So the probability of Somethingness is infinitely higher then that of Nothingness. Hence the existence of the Universe.

[Richard_Pearse]

@Man_About_Town

Nothingness has only one state of being.
Somethingness can have an infinite number of possible states. So the probability of Somethingness is infinitely higher then that of Nothingness. Hence the existence of the Universe.

This particular something has only one state of being. All of the other somethings have an infinite number of possible states. So the probability of something else is infinitely higher than that of this something. Hence one of the other somethings must exist and this something must not.

[Mijin]

@Man_About_Town

Nothingness has only one state of being.
Somethingness can have an infinite number of possible states. So the probability of Somethingness is infinitely higher then that of Nothingness. Hence the existence of the Universe.

This argument would work if at some time in the past all unique universe configurations were lined up (with apparently, nothingness occupying one index), and one was selected at random.

There’s no reason to think this ever did happen and/or it would change the nature of this question if it did (e.g. Why does the multiverse exist?)

Also, there’s no reason why there would be a uniqueness constraint. Why can’t the roulette wheel of universes include duplicates?

[Mikeisskeptical]

Since you’ve directly asked me to address a specific objection, I’ll give it another go. If I getting snippy, again I apologise. I am finding this extremely frustrating.

@Mijin

“There is nothing in the box” does not mean I’m labelling the contents of the box “nothing”. It’s making a higher-level claim about the box: that it has no contents; that the set of things inside is the empty set.
If we were talking about the box physically containing nothing we’d run into all sorts of problems: e.g. Is there a single nothing in the box, or an infinity of nothings? If I put an object in the box, does it now contain an object + nothing(s)?
But these questions are based on a misparse of the original sentence; treating “nothing” as a discrete entity rather than a fact about the box.

I don’t think you’ve really addressed that simple objection, you’ve just continued to describe nothing as a discrete thing, and why it can’t have the attribute of existence.

You keep saying that the problem stems from the fact I am using “nothing” as a noun. While it is true, that I have at times stated the problem in such a way, that this objection is valid (it’s hard not to with the way English works), I have also tried to clarify why I think my claim is more than mere semantics.

The problem as I see it is a failure to distinguish two related but quite separate concepts of “nothing”.

1. Not any of the things you might expect to find in a particular location.

2. No time, no space, no laws, no properties… ad infinitum. Which from now on I will refer to as Nothing in bold.

By these definitions, “a box with nothing in it” is perfectly sensible. It means an empty box, perhaps containg air, perhaps containing a perfect vacuum.

“A box with Nothing in it” is ISTM nonsensical. I don’t no whether it could refer to an infinitely small box, or a solid object with no interior, or if it is in any way distinguishable from a non-existent box.

By the same token, “a reality of nothing” makes sense if you mean an infinite empty space or something similar. You could even have a region of nothing and measure it’s distance from a region of something. “A reality of Nothing” is an over-extension of this intuitive principle, that all things can either be present or absent. I don’t know in what sense you can claim that “it could have been this way”. It certainly doesn’t make sense to talk of Nothing before the universe, or Nothing outside of the universe. I contend that it doesn’t make sense to talk of Nothing* instead of* the universe.

You might say that this is a positive claim, requiring positive evidence, but I don’t know what evidence you can provide that something is literally meaningless. “KJ&&*(YJBEFL^^^fgr” might mean something to you. All I can really do is, say that I have no idea what it could possibly mean and ask you to elucidate what you mean by it.

[Mijin]

@Mikeisskeptical

If I getting snippy, again I apologise. I am finding this extremely frustrating.

Ok, but since you are dealing with the biggest philosophical question of them all, I think you should also consider the possibility that you haven’t solved it.
I mean, this is hardly the first outing of this idea: we’re both treading old ground here, on a path widely acknowledged to lead, well, nowhere.

“A box with Nothing in it” is ISTM nonsensical. I don’t no [sic] whether it could refer to an infinitely small box, or a solid object with no interior, or if it is in any way distinguishable from a non-existent box

Agreed, and I like the clarification of terminology.

It certainly doesn’t make sense to talk of Nothing before the universe, or Nothing outside of the universe.

Well we start getting into trouble here.
Physicists absolutely would say there’s nothing outside of the universe, meaning that there is no outside, rather than a claim about some discrete kind of thing.
If “There is no outside” is OK, why not “There is no universe”?

I contend that it doesn’t make sense to talk of Nothing* instead of* the universe.

But why? Nothing instead of a universe doesn’t need a location or a time or whatever, so it’s not like the other examples you gave. It seems like I can’t imagine it, so it must not be possible.

And how about this way of putting it: I think you’ve said you’re happy with people saying “Why is the universe this kind and not that kind?”.
So why not just imagine the question: “Why does something exist rather than nothing?” to mean something like “Why does a complex universe like this exist and not a Infinitesimal universe?” where infinitesimal universe means the simplest universe you can conceive of: a empty line of planck length 1D-space, say. No time dimension, no mass-energy.

Of course, at the limit of “infinitesimal universe”, the two questions are the same
(but even if you don’t accept the application of limit() here, why is the distinction between Nothing and Infinitesimal universe so important?)

[Kobal2]

@Mijin

Better even is to just concede the point, that way the debate would have made some progress, and can move on to other points and conclude with a general agreement.

Or pay your round 'cause it’s your turn and you know it, so we can finally get to the fighting

[Mikeisskeptical]

@Mijin

Ok, but since you are dealing with the biggest philosophical question of them all, I think you should also consider the possibility that you haven’t solved it.
I mean, this is hardly the first outing of this idea: we’re both treading old ground here, on a path widely acknowledged to lead, well, nowhere.

I agree, when I described my position as “a relatively simple truth” I was overstating things. I was trying to be condescending, because I felt I was being goaded back into the discussion in a condescending manner and wanted to respond in kind.

@Mijin

Well we start getting into trouble here.
Physicists absolutely would say there’s nothing outside of the universe, meaning that there is no outside, rather than a claim about some discrete kind of thing.
If “There is no outside” is OK, why not “There is no universe”?

I don’t think we disagree here. The one thing I would say is that “universe” should not be interpreted so broadly as to include all that there ever was or ever could be.

@Mijin

But why? Nothing instead of a universe doesn’t need a location or a time or whatever, so it’s not like the other examples you gave. It seems like I can’t imagine it, so it must not be possible.

I still contend that this is too broad a category for that statement to be meaningful. As humans I think we are so familiar with the everyday notion that things can be either present or absent, that we want to generalise that to reality itself. While it’s powerfully counter-intuitive, what I am suggesting is that in order for the concept of absence to make sense, there has to be some finite set of things which might otherwise have been present. Absence of All (All to all is as Nothing is to nothing) makes intuitive sense, but the concept does not map onto any conceivable reality. I don’t think that’s just a failure of my imagination. I think it would be beyond any possible imagination.

@Mijin

And how about this way of putting it: I think you’ve said you’re happy with people saying “Why is the universe this kind and not that kind?”.
So why not just imagine the question: “Why does something exist rather than nothing?” to mean something like “Why does a complex universe like this exist and not a Infinitesimal universe?” where infinitesimal universe means the simplest universe you can conceive of: a empty line of planck length 1D-space, say. No time dimension, no mass-energy.
Of course, at the limit of “infinitesimal universe”, the two questions are the same
(but even if you don’t accept the application of limit() here, why is the distinction between Nothing and Infinitesimal universe so important?)

I’ve no idea whether such a universe is possible or not. I mean, I doubt it, but what do I know? You make that planck length into a 0, and that 1D-space into a 0D-space and I’m happy to say it can’t exist. Then again, there’s splitting hairs and there’s splitting hairs.

As to why it’s important. As far as I can see, it’s not. Not even a little bit. I don’t think I can imagine anything less important. I raised the subject on a whim and when it seemed to be getting a bit OTT, I bailed. Then I got called chicken so I came back.

[Trinopus]

@Mikeisskeptical

. . . I am finding this extremely frustrating. . . .

It’s philosophy, man. Kick back, pop a brew, and argue your point best you can. In the long run, we all die…and that’s a kind of “nothing” we will all experience directly.

Any thoughts on my halfway “nothing” universe – a universe with atoms spread out at cosmological distances? Not even a molecule to be found. No possibility of “things” as we understand them, no possibility of people.

It would be “empty” in the way the empty shoebox in your closet is empty. Okay, it has space-time inside it…but that’s about all.

How about the same universe, without the atoms? Just space-time, nothing else. But this leads to Socratic questions: how “big” is that universe? Does “distance” exist, if there aren’t any objects to use to measure distances between? Is that universe rotating? How would you know? If it suddenly doubled in size…would that even have a meaning?

Our universe has three spatial dimensions. What if the universe had been a flatland, with only two dimensions. Or one. Or…why not?..zero. A point, and nothing more.

Cosmologists suggest our universe might be closed. What is “outside” of it? It could be “nothing” of the sort you are challenging.

C’mon! Play it as a game! Pawn to King’s Bishop Four!

[Richard_Pearse]

You seem to want the concept of nothing to make sense to our human brains and when you find that it doesn’t you extend that to mean it is not possible or worth thinking about, but a valid concept doesn’t have to make sense to us. Eternity and infinity don’t make sense and are not possible to imagine either.

[septimus]

@Mikeisskeptical

I find this whole discussion increasingly unpleasant, and I wish to terminate it for that reason and that reason alone. Please feel free to continue in my absence.

Sorry. I didn’t follow the whole discussion, but I did notice someone accusing you of word games after you correctly pointed out they were tending to lead us down the word-game path!

The question “Why is there nothing?” can’t be spoken if there is nothing, but the question still exists as a logic construct. Follow this train of thought and eventually embrace Tegmark’s view cited above.

[Mikeisskeptical]

@septimus

Sorry. I didn’t follow the whole discussion, but I did notice someone accusing you of word games after you correctly pointed out they were tending to lead us down the word-game path!

The question “Why is there nothing?” can’t be spoken if there is nothing, but the question still exists as a logic construct. Follow this train of thought and eventually embrace Tegmark’s view cited above.

I was just being melodramatic because I was tired and I have a toothache.

As Trinopus say’s, it’s not worth getting stressed out over philosophy. I am chill now.

I may come back to this in a few days, but I definitely need a break from it for now. My brain is not happy with me for repeatedly instructing it to visualise the impossible.

[Saffer]

this seems relevant.

[begbert2]

It’s my understanding that spacetime is both a package deal and bounded - prior to the start of time in our universe there simply is no time, just like prior to the first page of a book there are no pages. Similarly my understanding is that our universe is spatially bounded - it’s constantly expanding (or at least seems to be from the inside), but is at any time of finite size. To me this paints a picture of the entirety of existence as we know it to be limited - much like the book. And, like a book, one simply needs to look around the book to see what things would look like if the book didn’t exist.

Of course, we can’t see outside our universe, but we do know that there is an outside to the universe - or at least, there’s room for one, because the universe itself is bounded and hasn’t always been around. We can’t say for sure that there’s actually nothing out there - we can’t say anything about it. But there certainly could be nothing out there, and if so, prior to time starting in our universe, there may have been nothing at all.

(This is all making certain assumptions about the state of our universe, including the assumption that time is passing. It might not be, in which case things get a little more confusing, but not in a way that fundamentally contradicts with our idea of what nothingness is.)

So, what would nothing look like?

It wouldn’t look like anything, naturally. Also you couldn’t look at it anyway, because:

1. There is no dimension to it, and
2. time isn’t passing.

Things like time and space are attributes of the spacetime continuum, and we’re not talking about that, so they’re not available. Which means we can’t look at the universe because there’s no place to stand.

So that’s what nothing is like. It’s impossible to visualize because there’s nothing TO visualize, but we have little choice but to entertain the possibility of its existence because the complete collection of all somethings is bounded and limited, and on the other side of those limits Nothing lies*.
*Maybe. It’s kind of hard to tell, since we can’t see out. But it’s certainly possible.

[Saffer]

@begbert2

It’s my understanding that spacetime is both a package deal and bounded - prior to the start of time in our universe there simply is no time, just like prior to the first page of a book there are no pages. Similarly my understanding is that our universe is spatially bounded - it’s constantly expanding (or at least seems to be from the inside), but is at any time of finite size. To me this paints a picture of the entirety of existence as we know it to be limited - much like the book. And, like a book, one simply needs to look around the book to see what things would look like if the book didn’t exist.

Of course, we can’t see outside our universe, but we do know that there is an outside to the universe - or at least, there’s room for one, because the universe itself is bounded and hasn’t always been around. We can’t say for sure that there’s actually nothing out there - we can’t say anything about it. But there certainly could be nothing out there, and if so, prior to time starting in our universe, there may have been nothing at all.

(This is all making certain assumptions about the state of our universe, including the assumption that time is passing. It might not be, in which case things get a little more confusing, but not in a way that fundamentally contradicts with our idea of what nothingness is.)

So, what would nothing look like?

It wouldn’t look like anything, naturally. Also you couldn’t look at it anyway, because:

1. There is no dimension to it, and

2. time isn’t passing.

Things like time and space are attributes of the spacetime continuum, and we’re not talking about that, so they’re not available. Which means we can’t look at the universe because there’s no place to stand.

So that’s what nothing is like. It’s impossible to visualize because there’s nothing TO visualize, but we have little choice but to entertain the possibility of its existence because the complete collection of all somethings is bounded and limited, and on the other side of those limits Nothing lies*.

*Maybe. It’s kind of hard to tell, since we can’t see out. But it’s certainly possible.

There is no evidence that the universe is spatially bounded.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[aldiboronti]

The dictum ‘nothing can come from nothing’ (nihil fit ex nihilo) has been around since Parmenides, the sixth century BC Greek philosopher. It’s still true today. The argument that something came out of nothing, ie the big bang, just doesn’t hold water. There wasn’t nothing before the big bang but a state pregnant with the possibility of a big bang and that is very definitely something.

[WordMan]

@Mikeisskeptical

I was just being melodramatic because I was tired and I have a toothache.

As Trinopus say’s, it’s not worth getting stressed out over philosophy. I am chill now.

I may come back to this in a few days, but I definitely need a break from it for now. My brain is not happy with me for repeatedly instructing it to visualise the impossible.

You should read the book I recommend on page 1 of this thread. We are limited in this argument by our Humanity. We can’t really conceive of Nothing, nor can we work backward effectively from an Anthropic today to what got us here. We have great ideas and they are worth discussing, but at some point our Human brains just hit a bluescreen of incomprehensibility.

[Trinopus]

@Saffer

There is no evidence that the universe is spatially bounded. . . .

Even the expansionary phase enhancement of the Big Bang does not suggest an infinite cosmos, only a really big one. The Big Bang idea entails a bounded and finite cosmos.

The cosmos might expand forever without limit, but so might the national debt: it would still be finite.

Can you point to a currently extant cosmological theory that describes our cosmos as infinite? I haven’t heard of any.

(If you’re referring to a possible meta-universe, an “outside” cosmos-of-cosmoses, the space into which the Big Bang is expanding, then, yeah, maybe. But is it a formal scientific notion, or just an idea?)

(And here’s a really hare-brained thought: what if there is no limit to the smallness of things? What if space can be infinitely sub-divided into teenier and teenier distances? If that were so, then, yeah, the cosmos is infinite…but an inch is infinite too!)

[Trinopus]

@aldiboronti

The dictum ‘nothing can come from nothing’ (nihil fit ex nihilo) has been around since Parmenides, the sixth century BC Greek philosopher. It’s still true today.

Philosophic truth is very different from scientific truth.

The argument that something came out of nothing, ie the big bang, just doesn’t hold water. There wasn’t nothing before the big bang but a state pregnant with the possibility of a big bang and that is very definitely something.

With all due respect, that idea isn’t supported by any scientific model. The “state pregnant with the possibility” might actually have been an absolute void. It might not have; it might be some weird meta-energy field we can’t even conceive of.

(There are weird meta-energy fields right here at home we can only barely conceive of, like the Casimir Effect.)

You’re making a good argument from ignorance, but that’s all it is, until someone codifies it with a model that has working descriptive power. There’s nothing wrong with philosophical arguments – save only that an equally valid philosophical argument can always be made stating exactly the opposite viewpoint.

(“Atoms are the smallest particle of matter.” “Matter can be infinitely subdivided.” Philosophy is incompetent to decide which of these ideas is true.)

[Riemann]

@Trinopus

…The Big Bang idea entails a bounded and finite cosmos…

No, it doesn’t. When a size is mentioned, it is the size of our observable universe.

@Trinopus

…the space into which the Big Bang is expanding…

The universe is not expanding into anything. I think this tired misconception has been corrected at least twice already in this thread alone.

Expansion of the universe