Ultimate question: Why anything at all?

[apeiron]

" ... the past of an inflationary model is a matter of speculation ..."

...and Vilenkin et al are offering tighter constraints on that speculation.

So if you want to argue that the universe/multiverse is past-eternal, you now have to give arguments against the reasonableness of their averaged expansion condition.

 

[alt]

Thanks for the pep talk alt.

Pep talk ? Was just trying to bring the conversation down to my level :-)

Truth be told, the reason I try so hard to simplify things is that I'm not capable of navigating through complexity. I'm a panicky guy. Keep it simple ... please.

'bout the same here - except that I wouldn't call myself panicky.

And now I think I should just fade once again into the background and let the more informed members, you included, continue with the discussion.

Me ? Informed ? Lol :-)

I feel like fading into the background all the time, but I'm informed with a propensity to ask the odd question. These couple of lines from Oliver Goldsmith ring in my ears occasionally;

Deign on the passing world to turn your eyes
And pause a while, from letters to be wise ..

 

[alt]

Oh, and BTW Thomas, earlier on, you said ..

Some behavioral characteristic that's operational on the very largest to the very smallest scale. A dynamic that pervades and permeates the whole of reality.

Can you expand on that at all ?

 

[ThomasT]

...and Vilenkin et al are offering tighter constraints on that speculation.

So if you want to argue that the universe/multiverse is past-eternal, you now have to give arguments against the reasonableness of their averaged expansion condition.

A good point, imho. Sorting the out the most reasonable constructions wrt extant physical evidence and standard logic is a formidable task ... which supports your point that consideration of the OP should probably facilitate the emergence of more sophisticated answers to the question, even if no definitive ones ... and in the process maybe better ways of thinking about our world, our universe, emerge.

 

[ThomasT]

Oh, and BTW Thomas, earlier on, you said ..

Some behavioral characteristic that's operational on the very largest to the very smallest scale. A dynamic that pervades and permeates the whole of reality.

Can you expand on that at all ?

I did that in a couple of previous posts. I don't want to hijack the thread. If you can't find the relevant posts, then PM me and we can hash it out.

 

[Maui]

Until science can explain in a non-ambiguous manner the solidity of matter, the question in the OP will remain unanswerable. That would entain a model that's not based on non-existing virtual photons(the mainstream view) as the mediators of the electromagnetic force. This is a crippled model and doesn't give much of a clue what matter is and what anything is. Can anyone provide an adequate or semi-adequate answer to the question what matter is? No.
I guess this concludes the thread, unless some breakthrough can shed more light on what matter is.

 

[apeiron]

Until science can explain in a non-ambiguous manner the solidity of matter, the question in the OP will remain unanswerable. That would entain a model that's not based on non-existing virtual photons(the mainstream view) as the mediators of the electromagnetic force. This is a crippled model and doesn't give much of a clue what matter is and what anything is. Can anyone provide an adequate or semi-adequate answer to the question what matter is? No.
I guess this concludes the thread, unless some breakthrough can shed more light on what matter is.

Well we have the Pauli exclusion principle, which is in turn based on symmetry arguments. So that is a pretty "solid" and unambiguous explanation.

Maths tells us why there must be both fermions and bosons, at least as potentialities, if there are any material fields at all.

Now why there should be material fields is another matter - it is the "why anything" question again. But material fields are not very "solid" things themselves, are they?

So the solidity of matter is another emergent property arising from symmetries and their breaking. Rather than being a barrier to the discussion, it seems a big clue to our answer.

 

[Maui]

Well we have the Pauli exclusion principle, which is in turn based on symmetry arguments. So that is a pretty "solid" and unambiguous explanation.

Not really. Electromagnetism(the Coulomb repulsion) works at 'large scales' compared to the PEP, if i remember correctly the electromagnetic force begins to act in between 2 'solid' surfaces at distances around 10^-8 m. which is quite big quantum mechanically. I stand by my words, there is NO adequate classical explanation for the solidity of matter at this time. There is a model that generates predictions based on mathematical entities for which existence there is only partial, after-the-fact circumstantial evidence. I think everyone recognizes that whatever causes the repulsion between 'solids' is not the non-real(or not really real) virtual photons but 'something(force?)' that cannot be framed in a classical manner. Hence the question will remain unanswerable.I am not quilified to generalize this, but matter is a special kind of force(one that has a few special features), hence why everything found in reality can(hopefully) be modeled as an interaction between the 4 fundamental forces. If anyone wants to challenge this, i'd be more than happy to learn what else on top of the 4 forces and their intercations exists in nature.

 

[apeiron]

I stand by my words, there is NO adequate classical explanation for the solidity of matter at this time. There is a model that generates predictions based on mathematical entities for which existence there is only partial, after-the-fact circumstantial evidence. I think everyone recognizes that whatever causes the repulsion between 'solids' is not the non-real(or not really real) virtual photons but 'something(force?)' that cannot be framed in a classical manner. Hence the question will remain unanswerable.

Err, all knowledge is just models surely? All we are ever going to have is our mental concepts, never the Kantian "thing in itself".

Solidity is a psychological-level concept - a useful idea to organise our impressions at the scale of everyday human life. But it falls apart very quickly as we change our scale of observation.

Virtual particles are an example of a useful concept at a different scale. It is an idea that generates predictions and is confirmed by measurements. Protesting it is "too unreal" is to make the mistake that any concept could ever be real, rather than just a useful mental abstraction used to organise our experience.

 

[Maui]

Virtual particles are an example of a useful concept at a different scale. It is an idea that generates predictions and is confirmed by measurements. Protesting it is "too unreal" is to make the mistake that any concept could ever be real, rather than just a useful mental abstraction used to organise our experience.

I agree with this but if we are supposed to apply the rigor you mention above to the question in the opening post, the question becomes "why 'this useful mental abstraction' at all"? Doesn't it?

 

[apeiron]

I agree with this but if we are supposed to apply the rigor you mention above to the question in the opening post, the question becomes "why 'this useful mental abstraction' at all"? Doesn't it?

Yes, this is all about examining our concepts more carefully - I think I've said that a lot here. And as an ultimate challenge, it would require us to go the deepest.

So even if we know there can be no final certain answer, this is the reason for taking the question seriously - for what it can reveal about the way we think, the kind of assumptions we have been making without really realising it.

One of the big ones - or so I have argued - is that causation is all bottom-up (I instead argue the systems view on causality).

Another big one is that reality has crisp existence (I instead argue the Peircean view that it self-organises out of vagueness via semiosis).

Vagueness and downward causality are themselves "just concepts". And for the everyday purposes of scientists - scientists who mostly want to build bigger and better machines - they may not even seem very useful concepts.

In the biological and psychological sciences, by contrast, these new concept do appear much more promising. Indeed, they seem essential. And the same has been true for philosophers ever since philosophy began.

I probably agree with you in that I like to have a proper visual or kinesthetic sense of any concept I employ. I want to be able to have a strong impression of vagueness or constraint as some actual "thing" that I can picture vividly, and so play about with, imagine how it works and reacts.

It is just like visualising particles as little balls richochetting about. Strong imagery is useful to actually think. But that says more about our shortcomings as thinking animals (although it is also our advantage, as wouldn't a computer like to be able to do likewise?).

Anyway, the goal of maths and philosophy is to create useful mental abstractions - ideas so generalised that all particular visualisable detail has been washed away. The detail then becomes something the model, based on abstract concepts, predicts and measures. The detail becomes the actual variables we plug back into the general equations.

The great scientists of course have always been good at concretely visualising things - and then throwing all that away to produce the bare mathematical description. Force may be imagined as a bunch of little solid pushes and pulls, tugs and nudges. Then it gets reduced to a capital F in some formula - a symbol standing for something we know how to measure, and relate to other kinds of measurements in a useful fashion.

 

[chiro]

Great post Apeiron.

Just to add what you said, what I imagine will happen more in the future (as is happening now) is that mathematics will end up being one of our 'primary' senses in the way that seeing and hearing are senses.

Rather than replacing our natural senses it will strengthen the others and provide a more advanced way to make sense of the world by providing a new kind of intuition about things.

With regards to how we think, a lot of this in my view partially boils down to language and by looking at a dictionary that includes every term created in every language, you basically get a snapshot of how people think and also what they are thinking. By looking at the evolution of language, you can infer what changes have been going on in terms of thinking by looking at what words and terms have been created at what particular time and place.

To mathematics fills a void that regular language can not: it is both very specific and very broad, almost paradoxical in a way. Not only can it provide an exact description of something with relation to some kind of quantity, but it can be used to describe an absolute vastness of possibility with the most compact representation.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that later it is highly possible that this will be the paradigm for all communication: instead of having a language with words like 'cat', we will have some kind of mathematical representation: maybe a pictorial representation of a geometric object that represents the signal space for what a cat is.

I'm not saying it will happen ten years, a hundred years or even a thousand years from now, but the idea of having a language and method of communication that moves concepts from one person or thing (like a computer) to another in the way that absolute definition certainty is guaranteed with a minimal redundant form of the information is not, at least to me, that far fetched.

 

[apeiron]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that later it is highly possible that this will be the paradigm for all communication: instead of having a language with words like 'cat', we will have some kind of mathematical representation: maybe a pictorial representation of a geometric object that represents the signal space for what a cat is.

I know what you mean and I think it is happening already. When I see a cat, especially at the moment when it is nagging to be fed, or scratching a hole in the flower bed, I do think "well, I'm looking at a dissipative structure right there."

The cat can be visualised quite easily as a particular instance of a "geometrical notion" that is extremely general. But also, not part of regular language as yet.

The difference is traditional geometry is more about the representation of objects than processes. Even a topological vision of a cat would still reduce it to some kind of object (a torus if we just consider the body with its gut as the hole?).

So a big part of what a systems approach says is missing from maths is a representation of pure process. Even the current dynamical models in maths are based on object thinking - one definite state mapping timelessly onto the next definite state. Likewise, the concept of a number is just a something that exists, not something which emerges as some kind of development.

A process-based view may not even be possible, but it is worth investigating.

As an aside, there are people who are trying to rethink maths in a deep way. There is Benioff who is asking what happens when we try to build maths from a quantum foundation. And Davies asks what happens when we limit maths to only what is materially possible.

See - http://www.ctnsstars.org/conferences/papers/Holographic%20universe%20and%20information.pdf

There is no reason the coming century won't produce conceptual revolutions to match the ones of the last. Though personally I think biology, thermodynamics, and the other sciences of complexity, are where the action will be at.

 

[Maui]

I probably agree with you in that I like to have a proper visual or kinesthetic sense of any concept I employ. I want to be able to have a strong impression of vagueness or constraint as some actual "thing" that I can picture vividly, and so play about with, imagine how it works and reacts. It is just like visualising particles as little balls richochetting about. Strong imagery is useful to actually think. But that says more about our shortcomings as thinking animals (although it is also our advantage, as wouldn't a computer like to be able to do likewise?).

It could be some animal inhereted shortcoming indeed, but delving deeper requires an explanation of the fundamentals -- the pre-existing factors that serve to bring forth the emergence of what you call a crisp reality. Something clearly must pre-exist and pre-date the apparent classical world. Extremely short-lived virtual photons aren't adequate explanations for the world we observe. Referring to matter as a special kind of force or peculiar type of energy does not disspell the confusion about what it is that we mean by something as common and simple-looking as 'matter'. People and scientists in general are left with the only option of referring to 'matter' as that which is observed, touched, handled, etc., but an enquiry into its nature quickly reveals that we are failing as a species to know the ABC of the surrounding world. The only reason why relatively few people discuss this dramatic failure is that few people population-wise are aware of this fact. Getting back to the inital idea - we are not in a particularly good position to claim we adequately know what it is that exists or what pre-existed it. This(and similar scientific or should i say philosophical models) are a castle in the sky and will be so unless people discovered the fundaments of reality, which are now largely missing(i would guess that every BA physicist and above knows this quite well).

Anyway, the goal of maths and philosophy is to create useful mental abstractions - ideas so generalised that all particular visualisable detail has been washed away. The detail then becomes something the model, based on abstract concepts, predicts and measures. The detail becomes the actual variables we plug back into the general equations.

The role of philosophy is to inquire into the nature and validity of the premises and assumptions made by mathematicians. In that regard, philosophy will always disagree with 'shut up and calculate' approaches to understanding reality.

The great scientists of course have always been good at concretely visualising things - and then throwing all that away to produce the bare mathematical description. Force may be imagined as a bunch of little solid pushes and pulls, tugs and nudges. Then it gets reduced to a capital F in some formula - a symbol standing for something we know how to measure, and relate to other kinds of measurements in a useful fashion.

Between the formula and observation, there must be a something that pre-exists and we can define and represent spatially. Do you know how to represent spatially the so called building blocks of the world - the non-spatially extended point 'particles' or the virtual particles that mediate the forces between 'them' which make up this, er... world?

 

[Maui]

To mathematics fills a void that regular language can not: it is both very specific and very broad, almost paradoxical in a way.

Sure, mathematics carries no human baggage and doesn't differentiate betweent objects and events, whereas humans are stumped when forced to consider them on equal footing.

 

[apeiron]

Between the formula and observation, there must be a something that pre-exists and we can define and represent spatially. Do you know how to represent spatially the so called building blocks of the world - the non-spatially extended point 'particles' or the virtual particles that mediate the forces between 'them' which make up this, er... world?

This is trivial if you take a constraints acting downwards on degrees of freedom approach.

What exists at some "location" is infinite possibility. Constraints then limit that freedom so that it has some distinct identity (it is this, and thus not that). So particles exist as the residual degrees of freedom once all other freedoms have been removed from some locale.

The void is then those locales where even more degrees of freedom have been suppressed.

But constraint does have its limits. By observation in our universe, we know that there is a Planck scale uncertainty. You cannot constrain local freedoms better than that. So beyond that limit, you have still a seething mass with its unlimited degrees of freedom.

Virtual particles model that situation. We don't have to think of them as some kind of ontological particles - little scraps of stuff that pre-exist classical existence. They are instead just the degrees of freedom that are unsuppressed because constraint has limits to its reach.

It is kinda like talking about the bubbles of air trapped in swiss cheese. Do the bubbles "spatially pre-exist" or are we just talking about the local limit of a process - the cheese that forms the bubble-shaped boundaries?

 

[Nano-Passion]

Though personally I think biology, thermodynamics, and the other sciences of complexity, are where the action will be at.

Interesting view. Why?

 

[apeiron]

Interesting view. Why?

Because complexity forces you to face up to the issue of modelling process and development. And the lessons learned there should allow people to see how even the simple is also a result of process and development (rather than merely existing in an uncaused, unexplained, fashion).

 

[sigurdW]

“Why is there Something rather than Nothing” is “just the kind of question that we will be stuck with when we have a final theory [of physics]. … We will be left facing the irreducible mystery because whatever our theory is, no matter how mathematically consistent and logically consistent the theory is, there will always be the alternative that, well, perhaps there could have been nothing at all.”

A very basic statement is: Something is.

Its denial is self contradictory: Nothing is.

The conclusion is: There could not have been nothing at all.

 

[apeiron]

A very basic statement is: Something is.

Its denial is self contradictory: Nothing is.

The conclusion is: There could not have been nothing at all.

The question is about potentiality rather than actuality. We know something exists of course. But can we rule out the potentiality that nothing could have existed instead?

 

[sigurdW]

The question is about potentiality rather than actuality. We know something exists of course. But can we rule out the potentiality that nothing could have existed instead?

Look again!

A very basic statement is: Something was.

Its denial is self contradictory: Nothing was.

The conclusion is: There never was nothing.

There is no,there was no, there will be no state of existence corresponding to nothing!

Again: To be is to be a someting, therefore a nothing can't ever be!

 

[Pythagorean]

is nothing existing distinguishable from a universe in complete equilibrium?

 

[apeiron]

Look again!

A very basic statement is: Something was.

Its denial is self contradictory: Nothing was.

The conclusion is: There never was nothing.

There is no,there was no, there will be no state of existence corresponding to nothing!

Again: To be is to be a someting, therefore a nothing can't ever be!

How do you know something was?

All we can be certain of is that something is. We can't have the same certainty that there was never a nothingness in the past, nor even that there won't be a nothingness in the future.

So your first premise fails.

 

[sigurdW]

How do you know something was?

All we can be certain of is that something is. We can't have the same certainty that there was never a nothingness in the past, nor even that there won't be a nothingness in the future.

So your first premise fails.

I can be sure because the negation of the first premise is self contradictory!

Therefore the premise is true.

 

[apeiron]

is nothing existing distinguishable from a universe in complete equilibrium?

An equilibrium does seem a more fundamental concept than a void. As nothing of note happening would be even less than nothing of note existing.

 

[sigurdW]

is nothing existing distinguishable from a universe in complete equilibrium?

Im just a poor logician so I don't understand how you check that a universe IS in complete equilibrium!
Is it done from the inside? Then it seems to me your presence would disturb the equilibrium.

 

[apeiron]

I can be sure because the negation of the first premise is self contradictory!

Therefore the premise is true.

In what way is "nothing was" self-contradictory? And in what way is nothing the proper negation of something?

A lot more work has to be done here than can be achieved by your quick syllogism.

As has been discussed in this thread, nothingness should more properly be paired to some notion of everythingness (if not-nothing, then everything).

And the idea of nothingness is indeed self-contradictory if it requires any sense of a definite place where things are then definitely absent (because a definite place is not "nothing").

So for these reasons, we come back to the deeper - non-contradictory - notions of the potential and the actual. We get in behind arguments that depend on the law of the excluded middle to consider instead the development of crisp somethingness out of indeterminant vagueness.

A definite nothingness is self-contradictory, I agree, because to be definite requires at least the context that allows that judgement. So it can't exist before, during or after anything.

But an indefinite nothingness seems a different matter. And it also happens to be indistinguishable from an indefinite everythingness. Which has important implications. All is still possible when nothing has yet happened.

 

[sigurdW]

In what way is "nothing was" self-contradictory? And in what way is nothing the proper negation of something?

You can't be serious!

Do you deny that Nothing and Something negate each other?

Then how do you convince anyone that there is something?

 

[apeiron]

You can't be serious!

Do you deny that Nothing and Something negate each other?

Then how do you convince anyone that there is something?

The negation, or logical complement, of the existence of some things would be the lack of existence of some things, not the existence of no things.

So the proper negation of the existence of no things would be the existence of every thing(s). If one claims that A = an absolute limit on existence, then not-A would have to = absolutely unlimited existence.

 

[sigurdW]

The negation, or logical complement, of the existence of some things would be the lack of existence of some things, not the existence of no things.

So the proper negation of the existence of no things would be the existence of every thing(s). If one claims that A = an absolute limit on existence, then not-A would have to = absolutely unlimited existence.

By "nothing" we mean the lack of existence of ALL things
so it negates the existence of ANY things.
By "something" we mean "ANY things",

So "nothing" and "something" negates each other.

I think the concepts "nothing" and "something" are basic...
Deny that they negate each other and you cannot prove there is something...

 

[sigurdW]

The negation, or logical complement, of the existence of some things would be the lack of existence of some things, not the existence of no things.

So the proper negation of the existence of no things would be the existence of every thing(s). If one claims that A = an absolute limit on existence, then not-A would have to = absolutely unlimited existence.

What do you mean:the existence of no things.

Neither do I believe there exists a largest natural number,nor do I believe there are existing no things!

 

[apeiron]

By "nothing" we mean the lack of existence of ALL things
so it negates the existence of ANY things.
By "something" we mean "ANY things",

See how you tried to slide from all to any just there.

A lack of particular things is not necessarily a general lack of things. Any does not mean every.

Some-thing talks about particular thingness. So it's rightful negation would be a lack of such particularity. And so a most generalised notion of thingness. Ie: a vagueness rather than a nothingness.

 

[Pythagorean]

Im just a poor logician so I don't understand how you check that a universe IS in complete equilibrium!
Is it done from the inside? Then it seems to me your presence would disturb the equilibrium.

If there's an organism around to ask the question, then complete equilibrium does not exist.

 

[sigurdW]

By "nothing" we mean the lack of existence of ALL things
so it negates the existence of ANY things.
By "something" we mean "ANY things"

See how you tried to slide from all to any just there.

A lack of particular things is not necessarily a general lack of things. Any does not mean every.

Some-thing talks about particular thingness. So it's rightful negation would be a lack of such particularity. And so a most generalised notion of thingness. Ie: a vagueness rather than a nothingness.

I see nothing really wrong in the definitions:

1 By "nothing" we mean the lack of existence of ALL things
2 By "something" we mean "ANY things"

And there's no sliding: By "something" we don't mean "ALL things"...
we mean any things selected from the set of ALL things.

You seem to think that to negate nothing we should claim the existence of ALL things,
but it suffices to claim there is at least one thing. Theres uncountably many negations of nothing.

I wonder where the vocabulary you use comes from? Heidegger?

 

[apeiron]

You seem to think that to negate nothing we should claim the existence of ALL things,
but it suffices to claim there is at least one thing. Theres uncountably many negations of nothing.

Have you actually read the thread yet?

Nothingness cannot be defined in terms of the empty set because the set itself is a (general) kind of something. You can remove the contents one by one, but the very making of that claim then appeals to the something that exists - the context of the set which is becoming empty.

You don't seem to realize how you are jumping between generals and particulars here. The very fact that there seem to be "uncountably many" negations of the empty set shows that your point of view lacks sufficient generality to talk about the negation or logical complement of whatever it is you mean to talk about.