Ultimate question: Why anything at all?

[bohm2]

The thread would be most productive if we could go through Tegmarks reasonings for a mathematical universe. That is, why does he think it is indispensabile? "Just because it is", doesn't cut the mustard.

I think Tegmark comes to that conclusion because to a large extent,

"the propositions of physics are equations, equations that contain numbers, terms that refer without describing, many other mathematical symbols, and nothing else; and that these equations, being what they are, can only tell us about the abstract or mathematically characterizable structure of matter or the physical world without telling us anything else about the nature of the thing that exemplifies the structure. Even in the case of spacetime, as opposed to matter or force—to the doubtful extent that these three things can be separated—it’s unclear whether we have any knowledge of its intrinsic nature beyond its abstract or mathematically representable structure."

Thus, in physics, the propositions are invariably mathematical expressions that are totally devoid of direct pictoriality. Physicists believe that physics has to 'free itself' from ‘intuitive pictures’ and give up the hope of ‘visualizing the world'. Steven Weinberg traces the realistic significance of physics to its mathematical formulations: ‘we have all been making abstract mathematical models of the universe to which at least the physicists give a higher degree of reality than they accord the ordinary world of sensations' ( e.g. so-called 'Galilean Style').

But I think it's far-fetched to jump the ship and say there is nothing but math because one still has a "math-phenonology" unification problem replacing the mind-body explanatory gap. For how do mathematical entities lead to phenomenology? It seems to me that mathematical objects because of their abstractness are just the best mental objects/tools we have for describing stuff that our senses and every day notions cannot describe. But there seems to be far more than just mathematical objects as introspection/subjectivity reveals:

"And Since we know—more certainly than anything else—that experience is real, and is therefore wholly physical, if materialism is true, we have reason, as materialists, to think, with Priestley, Russell, Eddington, and others, that experientiality is a fundamental feature of the physical."

http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262513102pref2.pdf

 

[klimatos]

This is the kind of question that makes me bang my head on my desk. Why do people spend time on such useless questions? Oh, I know, philosophy asks the questions that don't need to be asked. <bangs head on desk>

Carry on.

My sympathies, Evo. I only hope that you have an indefinitely large supply of desks. I would have said "an infinite supply" except that some reader would have been sure to ask me "just exactly what do you mean by 'infinite'".

 

[Evo]

My sympathies, Evo. I only hope that you have an indefinitely large supply of desks. I would have said "an infinite supply" except that some reader would have been sure to ask me "just exactly what do you mean by 'infinite'".

LOL, unfortunately I only have one head.

 

[foolishwun]

Reality is an illusion, but the thing that's being eluded is also a part of that illusion.
First consider the fact that there is a possibility that all that exists is the very moment where you understand what I am saying now, with all memories of the even recent past nothing but an artificial arrangement of atoms and electrical activity. There is no objective present, only a quantumly subjective one. Think of it as a quantumly decided random outcome in infinite dimensions. A random position, a random present, a random set of universal laws, a random observer existent in any way that agrees with the universal laws and the logic that allows it to exist in the first place. It's like when you look directly at an electron or photon or whatever and say "why am I in the universe where this is here, instead of somewhere else in the wave funtion?" The same concept can be applied to every dimension of your subjectivity: location, present, even the universe that allows you to exist in the first place. Each of these things exists, at an abstract level, perpendicularly to the last, and the observer is a random outcome in any place where he/she is possible.
Anyone get what I mean? >.>

 

[estro]

Reality is an illusion, but the thing that's being eluded is also a part of that illusion.
First consider the fact that there is a possibility that all that exists is the very moment where you understand what I am saying now, with all memories of the even recent past nothing but an artificial arrangement of atoms and electrical activity. There is no objective present, only a quantumly subjective one. Think of it as a quantumly decided random outcome in infinite dimensions. A random position, a random present, a random set of universal laws, a random observer existent in any way that agrees with the universal laws and the logic that allows it to exist in the first place. It's like when you look directly at an electron or photon or whatever and say "why am I in the universe where this is here, instead of somewhere else in the wave funtion?" The same concept can be applied to every dimension of your subjectivity: location, present, even the universe that allows you to exist in the first place. Each of these things exists, at an abstract level, perpendicularly to the last, and the observer is a random outcome in any place where he/she is possible.
Anyone get what I mean? >.>

To me it sounds like a random collection of words.
Can you describe the idea, using short logical arguments. [after all philosophy should be logical?]

 

[estro]

Today I have a mood for some philosophy!

...
Why there is something rather than nothing?
...

Do you know why does a dog lick his balls?
I guess you can put the dog as a metaphor for the universe. =)

 

[Willowz]

Today I have a mood for some philosophy!


Do you know why does a dog lick his balls?
I guess you can put the dog as a metaphor for the universe. =)

Durrrrr! Does not compute.

 

[estro]

Durrrrr! Does not compute.

You can answer these both questions using similar logic...=)

 

[NorEaster]

Interestingly, this post was sent as a post-reply forum alert (within a forum email), and I remember commenting on this subject, and yet I can't find whatever it was that I posted within this thread. I guess I'm just not doing something right, but I still can address some of this.

Reality is an illusion, but the thing that's being eluded is also a part of that illusion.

The truth is that your singular perception of reality is an illusion - crafted by the cognitive vetting process that manages all information that is allowed to be loaded into your corporeal brain's short term memory. That said, to believe that the whole of reality is an illusion is to suggest that you are the Alpha and Omega of what lies above and beyond existence itself and are being served by that existential whole as the central purpose of that whole. A good self image is important, but there are boundaries between what is good and what is a little too good, and your assertion might be an illustration of the crossing of such a boundary in this case.

First consider the fact that there is a possibility that all that exists is the very moment where you understand what I am saying now, with all memories of the even recent past nothing but an artificial arrangement of atoms and electrical activity.

In reference to your perception, this is true, but only regarding your perception. The caveat that I would inject here is that what you understand to be "now" is anywhere from 3-7 seconds in the past (delayed reality perception) since the cognitive vetting process takes a moment to shed, mask, amplify, minimize, and otherwise "massage" all the data (stored residual, ruminative, audio/visual/sensory) that is streaming into your short term memory as a mix-down wash of corporeal consciousness at this specific instant.

Once that data has been streamed in (in the form of a residual data clone of the real associated "burst" whole of indivisible conscious intellect) the carbon storage material (that we're all constructed of) stores that cloned data for quick access, since this is on-board data storage/access/application/configuration capacity is what makes the brain itself such a superior survival data management system (as opposed to the point-of-application DNA directives system found in much more primitive corporeal matrix wholes). The original Intellect "burst" (a dynamic information/event unit hybrid) immediately associates with existing "bursts" from the same corporeal authoring brain, forming a unique existential hybrid collective, but that's a subject for discussion within a different thread.

There is no objective present, only a quantumly subjective one.

Actually, there is a definitive present, but it only lasts the span of the contextual environment's Unit Rate of Change (URC) before being replaced by the next change (event) unit. We refer to each of these indivisible event units as "now", and it's fair to say that they are very short-lived. They do - however - survive as associated unit configurations of information (the facts of these event units having occurred), but that's a completely different form of physical existence, so in truth, these event units do not literally survive the instant. That said, they can logically survive as contributive holon units within larger event holons, which can also be integral to progressively larger event holons, giving all associated event units logically representative survival as long as the umbrella event trajectory survives.

It can get pretty complicated when you start examining umbrella event holons that approach the sophistication of those that we perceive as material existence. By that time, the holon layers are fairly extreme, and the contextual ramifications are very rigid (by juxtapositional default impact, of course), and the potentials have become comfortably predictable.

Think of it as a quantumly decided random outcome in infinite dimensions. A random position, a random present, a random set of universal laws, a random observer existent in any way that agrees with the universal laws and the logic that allows it to exist in the first place. It's like when you look directly at an electron or photon or whatever and say "why am I in the universe where this is here, instead of somewhere else in the wave funtion?" The same concept can be applied to every dimension of your subjectivity: location, present, even the universe that allows you to exist in the first place. Each of these things exists, at an abstract level, perpendicularly to the last, and the observer is a random outcome in any place where he/she is possible.

What you're suggesting is superposition, which defies the elegant efficiency of the real reality that sits beneath you and allows you the progressive stability and capacity to consider its structure. What we know of reality - that it is exceedingly crisp in its elimination of what is cumbersome and non-essential - is directly contrary to the launching-of-infinite-realities-upon-the-manifestation-of-the-choice-not-made notion that bases what you just described. What exists as stable and relatively reliable can't be structured as a result of that which is random and infinitely malleable, since these qualities sets are incompatible with one another at a core level. This means that the random existential foundation that you describe can't progress into the stable and dependable real that serve you as well as it does from moment to moment. The point of stability in any system that is inherently instable simply does exist. There can't logically ever emerge a transition point from true instability and randomness to what is essentially its own antithesis.

As far as random is concerned, it is exactly what it suggests that it is - completely undependable and unpredictable. There are no actual degrees of randomness. There are only incorrect perceptions of that which is not truly random, but actually structured within a pattern scheme that has yet to be accurately discerned or observed by the unassociated and freely dynamic Intellect. If you are positioned 3 inches from a 100 square yard patterned whole, your point of perspective is simply too close to allow you to view the pattern that exists despite your inability to observe it. That doesn't mean that the pattern doesn't exist until you finally get around to realizing its existence. It means that you are incapable of observing it in its entirety until that moment when the pattern becomes obvious to you. This is why there is the material capacity to back up a bit and take another look. Maybe not "why" that capacity exists, but since it does exist, it's good to take advantage of it now and again.

Reality exist, and while it's not Harry Potter-ville, it's pretty amazing.

Anyone get what I mean? >.>

I get what you mean. Do you get what I mean?

 

[shashankac655]

Why there is something rather than nothing?

Actually, this itself is an assumption! what makes you think there is something?
What if our consciousness is just an illusion.
Some Ancient Indian philosophers came up with the theory that the universe is our consciousness(an illusion)
Maya

Don't ask me for proofs ,i was just trying to tell that some people have tried to answer this question.

 

[bohm2]

What if our consciousness is just an illusion.

That doesn't make sense. How can consciousness be an illusion?

 

[shashankac655]

That doesn't make sense. How can consciousness be an illusion?

I was thinking that our whole life is a big dream and we will all wake up when we die.

 

[chiro]

Why anything at all?

Well anything is just a term we use in a descriptive capacity.

Like a fish that lives in water, we are the same but in a different kind of fish-bowl.

We only know of how to describe things that we can sense, or things that we have a created a way to sense, like mathematics.

No one can visualize four dimensions visually, but mathematics provides a gateway to sensing this in a new way, and like any other language, it helps us make sense of the world by reducing some aspect of it down so that it can be attempted to be understood.

My best guess is that these "senses" will evolve with new language that is beyond our current understanding.

Just in the way that the pythagoreans couldn't come to terms with real numbers, it will probably be the same with us. The future will have language that is so far removed from our current state of being, just like we take the complex numbers for granted now, when even a couple of hundred years ago, many could not comprehend the necessity and the power that these give us.

 

[Sefrez]

You would think that you could not differentiate the two, something and nothing. But it does seem, here, that I can by simply saying that this question wouldn't be asked if there were nothing. But that is implying that nothing is of what we think nothing is to be. Or in other words, is this question even something? I'm unsure.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Actually, the original question assumed anything exists. I demand proof that anything exists.

 

[bohm2]

Actually, the original question assumed anything exists. I demand proof that anything exists.

Descartes: "I think, I exist"? I think one would have trouble trying to question their own existence.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Descartes: "I think, I exist"? I think one would have trouble trying to question their own existence.

I exist. But I'm not sure about you or Descartes. Besides, the question is "why" anything exists. I exist, but I have no idea why.

 

[apeiron]

I exist. But I'm not sure about you or Descartes.

You only need the existence of one particular thing to motivate the more general question of why should anything exist. And it is a legitimate metaphysical question that is worth taking more seriously.

Some try to answer it in terms of material cause (some event like a quantum fluctuation).

Some employ final cause (existence is necessary to complete some sort of purpose).

The OP was about an argument based on formal cause - the ways to exist far out-number the simple alternative of non-existence.

So it is a question that forces you to question your very understanding of "existence" and "causality". What is the ground beneath these fundamental notions?

 

[SW VandeCarr]

So it is a question that forces you to question your very understanding of "existence" and "causality". What is the ground beneath these fundamental notions?

Frankly I find these discussions rather useless and annoying. The OP's question as to "why" anything ultimately exists has no answer IMO outside theology and as such should be off limits, even in this forum.

 

[apeiron]

Frankly I find these discussions rather useless and annoying. The OP's question as to "why" anything exists has no answer IMO outside theology and as such should be off limits, even in this forum.

That seems an odd reaction to me. Philosophy is in fact more about how to frame questions properly than in delivering the certainty of an answer. You can always hope to do at least that much.

While perhaps theology does start with its answer, then seeks its supporting framework of argumentation (in so far as it needs to justify what people are going to believe from social indoctrination anyway).

But here in this forum, it is pretty clear that you have to demonstrate why the question has no possible answer before you can call for it to be ruled "off limits". Are you suggesting it is a tautology or ill-posed for some other standard reason?

 

[SW VandeCarr]

But here in this forum, it is pretty clear that you have to demonstrate why the question has no possible answer before you can call for it to be ruled "off limits".

I would challenge that outright. I don't need to show that no possible answer exists. I have only to refer to this thread and other similar threads that have made no progress toward a satisfactory answer or to even suggest how a satisfactory answer could be formulated outside of some first cause argument. When a first cause argument is framed in terms of "why", it's difficult to see how it's not theological.

 

[Nano-Passion]

THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS! That was an extremely interesting read to say the least! I've grappled with this question hard and long and this was a very invigorating read.

"Why is there Something rather than Nothing?
If you don’t get dizzy, you really don’t get it."

I like this quote, its very true!

 

[apeiron]

I would challenge that outright. I don't need to show that no possible answer exists. I have only to refer to this thread and other similar threads that have made no progress toward a satisfactory answer or to even suggest how a satisfactory answer could be formulated outside of some first cause argument. When a first cause argument is framed in terms of "why", it's difficult to see how it's not theological.

But the OP did not offer a "first cause" argument. It was an argument from formal cause.

And when you say "first cause", it is not clear here whether you in fact mean efficient cause or final cause.

Some arguments posit a first event (an efficient cause) - either a god chosing to act, or something like the first arbitrary swerve of an atom in Greek atomist philosopy.

More sophisticated arguments, like Aristotle's, are based on final cause. Things start out as merely potential and then develop towards the actual. So Aristotle's "unmoved mover" was not a god of the "lighting the blue touch paper" variety but the concept of a final state (of actualised perfection) that draws the potential towards it, "inspiring it to develop".

It is the outcome that causes the move. Or perhaps the better way of putting it, it is the limit on change. This is an ontology in which the problem is not about getting anything started, but finding the reason it eventually stops. A very different way of thinking about "why anything".

 

[ThomasT]

Think of all the possible ways that the world might be, down to every detail. There are infinitely many such possible ways. All these ways seem to be equally probable—which means that the probability of anyone of these infinite possibilities actually occurring seems to be zero, and yet one of them happened.

This depends somewhat on how one views/defines the evolution of our universe. Apparently, there's only one possible way "that the world might be, down to every detail" at any given instant, during any given interval -- which is the way that the world actually is.

Depending on one's view/definition of the evolution of our universe, some of the future possibilities that might seem apparent wrt certain views can be ruled out, rendered impossible, wrt certain views. In the views where the evolution of the universe is limited in some way, there's a limited number of possible continuations with each possibility having a positive (> 0) finite probability of occurring.

The assumption that certain fundamental dynamical laws (maybe just one fundamental dynamic) are operational seems to suggest that the evolution of the universe will exhibit certain evident salient, and therefore predictable, characteristics. For example, wrt a local deterministic universe where the speed of change is limited by c, the prediction that the spatial configuration of the universe one nanosecond from a time, t, will not be appreciably different from the spatial configuration at t.

Anyway, wrt our universe, the possibilities don't seem to be infinite, but instead seem to be quite limited -- depending, as I mentioned, on the assumptions one starts with, and there don't seem to be an infinite number of reasonable alternatives from which to choose.

“Now, there’s only one way for there to be Nothing, right?” There are no variants in Nothing; there being Nothing at all is a single state of affairs. And it’s a total state of affairs; that is, it settles everything—every possible proposition has its truth value settled, true or false, usually false, by there being Nothing. So if Nothing is one way for reality to be, and if the total number of ways for reality to be are infinite, and if all such infinite ways are equally probable so that the probability of anyone of them is [essentially] zero, then the probability of ‘there being Nothing’ is also [essentially] zero.” Because there are an infinite number of potential worlds, each specific world would have a zero probability of existing, and because Nothing is only one of these potential worlds—there can be only one kind of Nothing—the probabilily of Nothing existing is zero.

The problem is that there aren't, based on observation and certain inferences relating to observation, reasonably, an infinite number of ways for reality to be. The fact of the matter, the reality of any given universal configuration, is the configuration itself -- which necessarily entails that it isn't some other possible configuration.

But we're just considering the two possibilities, something and nothing. If, since we don't know why there's something rather than nothing, we give these two possibilites equal weight (which I think is the usual probabilistic approach), then each has a 1/2 probability.

However, there is something rather than nothing. Which is all that we know, or can know, about the something vs nothing problem, since, by definitions, we can't experience nothingness. So, we can't even say that nothingness is a possiblity.

Thus, the question does, imo, reduce to, "why/how our universe?". Wrt this I think that there are some cosmological models that extrapolate/speculate back to before the point of departure of the mainstream "big bang" cosmologies.

Does the argument sound persuasive?

No.

 

[apeiron]

A good thinker on the issue is the process philosopher Nicholas Rescher.

See "On explaining existence" - http://cla.calpoly.edu/~rgrazian/docs/courses/411/Rescher-OnExplainingExistence.pdf

Briefly, he outlines why efficient cause-based explanations fail. Then argues for a "constraint of possibility" approach - what he calls the hylarchic principle.

Existence-explanation via a hylarchic principle of protolaw turns on a distinction between substantival explanations in terms of the operations of entities and process explanations in terms of primordial operational principles - principles that underlie rather than merely reflect the nature of the real. It is predicated on acknowledging that explanation in the case of existence-at-large cannot operate in the orthodox order of the efficient causation of preexisting things. In resorting to a hylarchic principle one can thus abandon altogether the hoary dogma that things can only come from things. A fundamental shift in explanatory methodology is at issue with this hylarchic approach - the shift to a nomological mode of explanation that operates in terms of laws which lack any and all prior embedding in an order of things. The fact of the world’s nonemptiness is now accounted for as the consequence of a constraint by principles rather than as the product of the operation of causes.

The neat trick he wants to then pull off is to show that because there are grades of possibility - with only the constraint-satisfying kinds being "real" - then the possibility of nothingness can be ruled out (so proving there must always be something as some possibilities will always become the actual due to the causality of proto-laws).

The role of a hylarchic principle is now clear. As a protophysical law of a characteristically preexistential kind, it reduces the range of real possibility so as to exclude from it (inter alia) those worlds that are existentially empty. A hylarchic principle is simply a particular sort of possibility-restricting condition - a rather special one that narrows the range of eligible cases down to nonempty worlds. And so the task of explaining why there is something rather than nothing can be discharged by relatively orthodox, direct and unproblematic means, since what is necessary must be actual.

Still more ambitiously, Rescher hopes then to connect to science by suggesting that GR or QM may already be laws of this form - ones that exclude null outcomes as actual possibilities.

For such an approach to work, it would have to transpire that the only ultimately viable solutions to those cosmic equations are existential solutions. This explanatory strategy casts those “fundamental field equations” in a rather special light. They are not seen as ordinary laws of nature that can be construed as describing the modus operandi of real things that are already present in the world, but rather as preeconditions for the real - as delimiting the sorts of possibilities that can be realized. We thus have an account of the following structure: The fundamental field equations, seen to function not merely as laws OF nature, but as laws FOR nature, as protolaws in present terminology - delineate the domain of real possibility. And the nature of this domain is then, in its turn, such as to constrain the existence of things.

 

[ThomasT]

@ apeiron,

Thanks for the links and comments. Whatever you write wrt anything has always made me think and provided motivation to learn more.

 

[bohm2]

But I mostly reject mathematics as a basis for philosophical.

This sort of of argument is a very strong argument against the original position at the start of the thread, I think. If one assumes that mind-independent reality transcends mathematical (necessary) truths/logic (e.g. reality is not mathematical), then these types of arguments are arguably not very convincing. I'm going to read the Rescher piece. Looks interesting.

 

[ThomasT]

This sort of of argument is a very strong argument against the original position at the start of the thread, I think. If one assumes that mind-independent reality transcends mathematical (necessary) truths/logic (e.g. reality is not mathematical), then these types of arguments are arguably not very convincing. I'm going to read the Rescher piece. Looks interesting.

I'm glad you're going to read the Rescher piece. I was printing it out (I like to read upside down ... resting) when I ran out of black ink.

I will trust your assessment of it.

What I've read of it so far seems to be in line with the my current mode of thinking on this.

 

[bohm2]

I will trust your assessment of it.

I don't trust myself because I'm having a lot of difficulty understanding some his arguments. In my mind, of all of Rescher's possible responses to the question "Why is there anything at all?", the one that I found the most compelling (but unfortunately also unappealing, as Rescher notes) is Mystification: the question is legitimate but unanswerable for a linguistic ground chimp like us. Back to Mcginn's argument, again.

Specifically, I had trouble understanding his Nomological Approach for the major reason that he notes himself:

"How is one to account for the protolaws themselves?". It seems like that approach is just passing the buck elsewhere and the problem remains? I kind of was sympathetic to the mathematical/probabilistic arguments quoted at start of this thread because they were simple but in all honestly I think MarcoD's criticism is extremely persuasive to me, especially since I lean towards treating mathematical objects as mental stuff. I'm guessing that someone who is more of a Platonist on mathematics (e.g. Tegmark’s mathematical universe hypothesis, come to mind) may be more persuaded by Rescher's arguments, I think? One author who takes a very Platonic approach in trying to answer this question is Rickles:

The strategy I am advocating is that physics, in becoming more or less completely aligned to mathematics (in terms of content, at least), will be able to penetrate down the ladder of explanation to the very deepest rung of all: existence. We do not have the same kind of problem with the existence of mathematics. Mathematical statements are necessarily true in the sense that if they are true in one world (in the sense of modal logic) then they are true in all worlds. They are not created. They are not located in spacetime. The question of why is there something rather than nothing simply does not make sense if the somethings in question are mathematical.

http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Rickles_Rickles_fqxi_2.pdf

 

[qsa]

How about this take. Something implies that there was a chain of causes that resulted in that something and that means there is a reason for it to be true. But, Nothing is by definition has no cause so it is missing what can make it true.

But what was the initial cause is a question for physicists and not philosophers.

 

[apeiron]

But, Nothing is by definition has no cause so it is missing what can make it true.

But wouldn't the absence of causes be part of the definition of true nothingness? Causality would have to be one of the things "not there".

 

[qsa]

But wouldn't the absence of causes be part of the definition of true nothingness? Causality would have to be one of the things "not there".

I would say causality would be only concerned with " it is here".

 

[apeiron]

"How is one to account for the protolaws themselves?". It seems like that approach is just passing the buck elsewhere and the problem remains?

This is where Rescher would benefit from a more Peircean approach. If you are taking a developmental perspective, it is no problem for "laws" - globally general constraints - to emerge from vague and tentative beginnings.

Both laws and what they regulate develop jointly. Ultimately they are cut from the same cloth - the kind of absolute state of possibility that Peirce called vagueness.

One author who takes a very Platonic approach in trying to answer this question is Rickles:

Interesting paper, but Rickles kind of kills his own argument by citing Connes on the view that there is "primordial mathematical reality" out there which is separate from the "deductive tools" which exist in our heads.

So reality looks mathematical, rather than reality is mathematical. There may be a correspondence between the two, but it is epistemic, not ontic. And thus the way that the world takes on mathematical-looking form (ie: develops some set of laws, regularities or constraints) might be entirely different to the way humans reconstruct those forms (via a logico-deductive process).

And then the core of Rickles' argument is that he can imagine subtracting away all material objects so as to create an empty reality - a nothingness - but he can't imagine how to subtract away the existence of mathematical truths. They are always going to be there (well, somewhere) even in the absence of any thing. So a state of no-thing is impossible as an actuality.

But this has holes. If, as I argue, maths describes forms, and thus constraints, you don't subtract them away, you get rid of them by relaxing them. You remove by generalising (such as going from a geometric to a topological level of description).

An empty world - in the sense of one with all its possible local degrees of freedom definitely removed, all its contingent facts erased - is in fact in a highly constrained state. Indeed, infinitely constrained. We would be talking about everything being completely limited and so nothing actually occurring. But that would leave this "empty" world now also completely full of contraint.

Rickles' view is that it is trivial to subtract away local degrees of freedom, but impossible to subtract away mathematical forms. My argument is instead that the two aspects of existence are a yo-yo balance, and any effort to remove one gives you more of the other. It is for this reason that there is always something rather than nothing.

Relaxing constraints give you more degrees of freedom. Tightening constraints gives you less degrees of freedom.

So again, it is not that subtracting one is trivial and the other impossible which forbids the existence of nothingness, but the reciprocal causal relationship that constraints and degrees of freedom have with each other.

 

[bohm2]

Interesting paper, but Rickles kind of kills his own argument by citing Connes on the view that there is "primordial mathematical reality" out there which is separate from the "deductive tools" which exist in our heads.

So reality looks mathematical, rather than reality is mathematical. There may be a correspondence between the two, but it is epistemic, not ontic. And thus the way that the world takes on mathematical-looking form (ie: develops some set of laws, regularities or constraints) might be entirely different to the way humans reconstruct those forms (via a logico-deductive process).

I'm lost here also. As I see it, I think the major problem with Rickle's argument is the following statement:

"so long as we are willing to accept that reality is mathematical".

That’s a major problem especially for those who view mathematics as mental objects or believe that reality transcends mathematics (MarcoD). I always assumed that qualia/consciousness defies mathematical/formal description so the existence of such stuff seems to seriously raise doubts about whether mathematics can fully describe reality. There are some, however, who argue that this isn’t a major stumbling block because we have no way of knowing "what is like to be a mathematical structure", so maybe certain mathematical structures could have the intrinsic properties we associate with qualia/consciousness? I’m not sure I buy this argument.

Furthermore, maybe I’m misunderstanding but is Rickle’s point that there is no problem concerning Godel’s theorem, with respect to his position, valid? He seems to suggest all of the following:

1. Godel’s theorem does not tell us that there is any problem with mathematical truths per se; only that there is no algorithmic way of generating all such truths. We must distinguish truth and provability.
2. Furthermore, there’s a distinction between the tools (i.e. theories) we use to represent reality and the reality itself.
3. Godel’s incompleteness theorem applies to the former alone (theories). Indeed, this does impose a limitation on physics’ theoretical prowess in that if reality is a certain way (related to properties of arithmetic) then a complete account using any logico-mathematical representation will prove to be impossible. This is an epistemic limitation rather than a limitation imposed on reality.

But then he also suggests that for his argument to be valid one has to accept the view that:

4. Reality is mathematical.

Wouldn’t that imply that there is no difference between the tools (i.e. theories) and reality so that Godel’s incompleteness theorem would apply? Maybe I'm mistaken. I have trouble with these types of arguments.

 

[Maui]

How about this take. Something implies that there was a chain of causes that resulted in that something and that means there is a reason for it to be true. But, Nothing is by definition has no cause so it is missing what can make it true.

But what was the initial cause is a question for physicists and not philosophers.

That is a non-question... like most others. It's been known for a while now that everything is out of our immediate reach - consciouness, matter, time, space, spacetime... even causality which is the BASIS for ALL our knowledge has been shaken by modern theories like quantum mechanics. Then neuroscientists keep pressing that being conscious is an automatic and autonomous process, much like being asleep and dreaming and perceiving your decisions after the fact. Push hard enough and you cannot but see that we don't really understand anything, anything at all. Nothing "has really changed since Socrates and his famous "I know that i know nothing" unless you want to fool yourself into the common delusion(which falls down on its face upon closer examination)