Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

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Karpel Tunnel
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Thinking critical wrote: August 18th, 2018, 5:36 am
JohnB53 wrote: August 15th, 2018, 9:15 am The age old Phenomenological question-"Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing."
Just because language allows us to assemble words in order to ask such questions, it by no means, means, that the question itself is valid.

To ask "why" demands purpose and intent, these are qualities of agency. So to ask "why" is there something rather than nothing is to assume a certain a priori reasoning of agency.
Why is the sky blue? does not assume agency, purpose or intent. Why can imply agency, but does not necessarily.

I can't see any reason to label this kind of question invalid. It is certainly one that astrophysicists and cosmologists consider.
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Hereandnow
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by Hereandnow »

Greta:
Then anthropomorphising is inappropriate, being essentially the positing of transient qualities as fundamental. Humanness is clearly just a phase to be superseded like everything else. We rhapsodise and lionise humanness because we are human; or we did until recent years when ignorance made a comeback.
To add the suffix 'ize" means, I will grant you, to apply the predicate to the thing itself and not the part. SInce being-as-human is a local event, what it possesses cannot be applied a general feature to being, is how I take your objection, much in the way to minimize something applies to all of that thing, and not just a part. But I mean to say by being becoming anthropomorphized is this being, here, at this desk, me (as an example). Being is anthropomorphized in me. It is a fair statement to make that being is anthropomorphized in me, leaving out the localization is just an ellipsis.
"Machine" is just an analogy and does not give credit to the reality creating and transforming qualities of black holes. It's like describing the Sun as a "ball of gas". No, it's not any kind of ball but a monstrously huge area of extreme concentration within largely sparse space, and we are its mere debris. A black hole is not a machine but a piece of reality that consumes its environment and very slowly radiates it back out or periodically blasts it out.

My point being again that we overestimate ourselves and underestimate everything else, and that includes the sense of being.
I won't take issue with the term 'machine'. I meant it in the Hobbsian sense: human mental reality is just more of the bumping and grinding of the stuff of the world. Basic materialism. What I do take issue with is what seems to be an attempt to ignore the qualitative distinctions of being human, in favor of a quantitative reductionism. That universe quantitatively dwarfs local events contained therein, but why does this matter at all? Further, being the "mere debris" of a star furnace is a description that looks only at the star and not at all at the phenomenon of a human being. Thereby, you subsume the depth and breadth of our being in the world under a very simple, scientific rubric, and make a kind of straw person argument against any attempt to establish a qualitative argument underscoring the actualities of being human.
One thing eternity tells us: size qua size doesn't matter, number qua number doesn't matter. Ah, but "mattering" matters. This is what we do: we care, and if we care, Being cares, albeit locally.
It is ironic (not surprising) that the scientific community swells with curiosity over quantum physics and what happens inside a particle accelerator and its challenge to Newton, but has nothing to say at all about happiness, love, suffering. Of course, this, we say, is not its purview. We have psychology, neurology and others for this. But a truly comprehensive physics must account for all.
Of course ideally one learns enough and experiences enough to get a feel for what's going on (in music or in life), and this is the case in all fields that require real time performance - learn the theory until it's so ingrained that you can forget it during performance.

Yet, we most eloquently express ourselves when we forget ourselves, with any instance of self consciousness only adding awkwardness. So this advance in awareness - basically an extra feedback loop - of humans has proved useful. However, the future of moving off-world is unlikely to favour the humanly conscious, with long periods of inactivity in space and conditions that consistently challenge biology.

I do think that extra feedback loop adult humans have - the capacity to control the way we condition ourselves - is a fine and valuable thing, but it's terribly overrated as compared with other species, so often being posited as the pinnacle of being when it's just one phase. In the far future, what may be thought of as "aware" may be vastly different to our self assessments, largely limited as we are into the perspective of one set of senses in one place and time.
If over-ratedness is measured by evolutionary success. But you're talking here about the human capicity for reflection. I strongly believe that this is what is at the foundation of being an agent at all to have experiences of any kind. Reflection is the "space" between the egoic center of experiential agency and instinct and dogma. This is retrograde evolution.
You do ignore the qualitative distinctions of human existence just to reduce a person to a scientifically viable idea. Kuhn's "normal science" applauds this, I guess, but the anomalies are filled with gravitas.
To some extent this is simply maturing - what you once thought important you see as ephemeral games of life, to be played out over and over by interchangeable actors. Games that were played long before we were born and will continue unabated after we're gone. So your attention shifts to noticing and appreciating the simple things in life ignored while trying to be efficient.
Narratives are dogmatic, just the endless recapitulation of something we heard when acquiring language and culture. Only in inquiry is freedom realized.
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Thinking critical
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by Thinking critical »

Karpel Tunnel wrote: August 20th, 2018, 3:51 am
Thinking critical wrote: August 18th, 2018, 5:36 am

Just because language allows us to assemble words in order to ask such questions, it by no means, means, that the question itself is valid.

To ask "why" demands purpose and intent, these are qualities of agency. So to ask "why" is there something rather than nothing is to assume a certain a priori reasoning of agency.
Why is the sky blue? does not assume agency, purpose or intent. Why can imply agency, but does not necessarily.

I can't see any reason to label this kind of question invalid. It is certainly one that astrophysicists and cosmologists consider.
Yes, however from a scientific standpoint, that is to say, to articulate questions in such a way that we can provide answers with explanatory value, the question should be posed as "what causes the sky to appear blue"? One could take the question "why is the sky blue" to mean, who or what decided to make it appear that way?
This cocky little cognitive contortionist will straighten you right out
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by JohnB53 »

Hereandnow wrote: August 18th, 2018, 1:11 am
.
If I were to look at the matter with assumptions like yours, I would first point out that matter and energy are interchangable--two forms of being. So there being an equilibrium or not does not determine whether being emerges or not. And to say that “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another” as Einstein did, means that being is eternal.
Of course, if the issue turns to being as we know it, then this is finite, but it does miss the point of the asking, which is to play upon the intuition, what Jaspers called the "sense" of being, which registers as a kind of dull thud on the inquiring consciousness, at first: quaint, curious, but without consequence, and this is why the question fails to be about authentic being. Authentic being is what lies before your waking eyes; it is the material ground for any question: experience (the only thing anyone has ever actually encountered at all). Experience is saturated with meaning, purpose, value. Thus, the "why is there anything at all?" question, given that it hinges on 'anything" and all things issue forth in experience, and experience is saturated with meaning, purpose and value, is really about these latter and not at all about the dumb stuff of the universe, which is just an abstraction of being. It is abstracted from the robust being of living, caring, yearning, suffering, and so on. This is Being.
This passage stood out to me. You stated that experience is saturated with meaning, purpose, and value. I would agree with this statement very much so and go on to emphasize my point that experience is influenced by our place in time (or historical context). Therefore the meaning of our experience or the value of our experience will be determined by the culture of the period in which we exist. The purpose of our existence I view in one of two potentials. The first being that our purpose will be defined by the essential needs of the period in which we live, or very simply, there is no purpose other than to exist to experience sensation. My view on value is again simply that the value in existing is our ability to experience sensation at all. These views within a historical context are consistent with Gadmer & Dilthey.
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Hereandnow
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by Hereandnow »

JohnB53
My view on value is again simply that the value in existing is our ability to experience sensation at all.
I would need some clarification on this point.
Fooloso4
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by Fooloso4 »

JohnB53,

I would like to know what your thoughts are on any or all of the following, since they are related. And, of course, what others have to say would also be welcome.

Do you take the question of why is there anything at all and rather not nothing to be the same as the question of the meaning of being?

Do you think Heidegger answers this or these questions?

Does what in his later works he refers to as ‘es gibt’, the giving of being, give the answer to these questions or are they wrested from being by man or do they remain unanswered, a matter of being guided by the questions rather than answers?

Would history be different without say Aristotle or Heidegger himself or would someone else have “harkened” to being, this is, if I remember correctly, think what is given by being to be thought?

Is this a matter of thinking about the issues that confront us, for example, Heidegger’s concern with technology, or something more?

What does this mean for the relationship between man and history? He talks, for example, in Time and Being, about the future determining the present.

What is the relationship between philosophy and history?
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by ThomasHobbes »

The simple reason that there is something rather than nothing is the existence of the questions why is there something rather than nothing, since if there were nothing the question itself would not and could not exist.
Since there is no other possible condition that a state of affairs where this question exists, the question has not converse meaning, making it a null question.
For example since there is no condition in which "white" does not exist in the universe, why is white is an empty question since were there no white we would not be capable of asking why no white, since white would be imaginary.
The case for "something" is worse still, since without something, nothing would be unimaginable.
I submit that this is simply not a valid question in any sense.
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

ThomasHobbes wrote: August 24th, 2018, 2:48 am The simple reason that there is something rather than nothing is the existence of the questions why is there something rather than nothing, since if there were nothing the question itself would not and could not exist.
Since there is no other possible condition that a state of affairs where this question exists, the question has not converse meaning, making it a null question.
For example since there is no condition in which "white" does not exist in the universe, why is white is an empty question since were there no white we would not be capable of asking why no white, since white would be imaginary.
The case for "something" is worse still, since without something, nothing would be unimaginable.
I submit that this is simply not a valid question in any sense.
If a question assumes a truth and only makes sense with what we consider not to be the case, I can see calling it invalid:

What kind of cheese is the sun made of?
assumes it is made of cheese.

But even here I don't think we should call questions invalid and save validity as a quality for arguments. IOW an argument where if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. Here we are referring to questions that have implied or obvious premises that we consider not true. A false statement is not invalid. A false question, whatever that means, contains an (implicit) untruth but is not invalid.

Then in the specific I think the question is a good question.

There is a lot of implied metaphysics in our thinking. I think a lot of people have a metaphysics that expects parsimony. And hey, there is nothing more parsimonious than nothing having either arisen or ever existed. From our perspective, of course.

I think it is really odd that there is something. Obviously my incredulity is not an argument, but it is important to see why this sense that nothing is more likely is rooted somewhere in our implicit metaphysics.

I see absolutely no reason to shut down a philosphical discussion of why there is someting rather than nothing.

And to shut it down via calling it an invalid question seems to me a category error.

It does make sense to me to look at the implicit metaphysical assumptions in the question and see if they are true. Or, since it is a question, possibly true - I mean the assumptions are not even asserted as true, just as possibly true.

That allows a discussion. Hey, your question assumes X. I don't think that is true because Y. But is it possibly true that X. And so on.....
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Thinking critical wrote: August 21st, 2018, 6:02 am
Karpel Tunnel wrote: August 20th, 2018, 3:51 am Why is the sky blue? does not assume agency, purpose or intent. Why can imply agency, but does not necessarily.

I can't see any reason to label this kind of question invalid. It is certainly one that astrophysicists and cosmologists consider.
Yes, however from a scientific standpoint, that is to say, to articulate questions in such a way that we can provide answers with explanatory value, the question should be posed as "what causes the sky to appear blue"? One could take the question "why is the sky blue" to mean, who or what decided to make it appear that way?
I guess, though when kids ask me this kid of question, I can't recall once it having this meaning. Nor adults. Who made the sky blue? is another story.

But OK, what is even less likely to think you are asking about agency. But then we are in a philosophical discussion. There is no reason to rule out agency when asking the question. The person being asked is not cornered into saying 'Because God....' the answerer can give whatever they think is the most llikely reason given current science. And there are some physicists who do precisely that, that the somethingness would always slide into being from a deeper nothing with an attendant quantum debt....etc. As in Lawrence Krause' whole book answering that question.

Honestly to we really want to start saying questions should not be asked? I see physicists happy to deal with this question and do not seem to feel boxed into a corner. They give their explanations, those that do, and see no reason to think it is necessary for there to be a God.

And I think scientists are interested because on some level their own metaphysics (given their epistemology) expects to find causes if somethign exists and also emphasizes parsimony. So something emerging from nothing or there always having been something are very intriguing possibilities.

That theists may have smugly presented the question and think they have cornered somebody is irrelevant.

I think it's a good question.

And I think reformulating it without the 'why' is weaker in the forms I can imagine...

What causes it to be such that there is something rather than nothing?

for example 1) presumes that it must be causal, when perhaps it just is so - iow that question has an assumption that may or may not be true and 2) ****, I could take that as wondering if there is an agent and 3) it doesn't get at the sense that it seems more likely somehow that there would be nothing. The fact that that 'sense' is not evidence does not matter since we are not making a statement, we are asking a question. And this question can lead to us, those of us who have a kind of base parsimony and think something always having been or something appearning out of non-being or whatever are odd, can they probe into our own metaphysics of probability and liklihood.

Honestly, I HATE when questions are shut down. I mean, an insulting when did you stop beating your wife? type question, fine, leave it out of the forums,

But just answer the question or probe it's assumptions.

What is the urge to stifle the question?

I see other utter atheists finding it a very useful starting point for discussion and this includes physicists.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Karpel Tunnel wrote: August 24th, 2018, 3:53 am
ThomasHobbes wrote: August 24th, 2018, 2:48 am The simple reason that there is something rather than nothing is the existence of the questions why is there something rather than nothing, since if there were nothing the question itself would not and could not exist.
Since there is no other possible condition that a state of affairs where this question exists, the question has not converse meaning, making it a null question.
For example since there is no condition in which "white" does not exist in the universe, why is white is an empty question since were there no white we would not be capable of asking why no white, since white would be imaginary.
The case for "something" is worse still, since without something, nothing would be unimaginable.
I submit that this is simply not a valid question in any sense.
If a question assumes a truth and only makes sense with what we consider not to be the case, I can see calling it invalid:

What kind of cheese is the sun made of?
assumes it is made of cheese.

But even here I don't think we should call questions invalid and save validity as a quality for arguments. IOW an argument where if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. Here we are referring to questions that have implied or obvious premises that we consider not true. A false statement is not invalid. A false question, whatever that means, contains an (implicit) untruth but is not invalid.
No, By your own example with the bounds of your question about which cheese the sun is made from. Since there can be no such cheese, there is also no such nothingness which can be applied to reality, for obvious reasons. Except that my objection to the question is even stronger since no questions exist in ANY sense without the somethingness of the universe.
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by chewybrian »

Fooloso4 wrote: August 23rd, 2018, 7:28 pm Do you think Heidegger answers this or these questions?
I've avoided reading him because he was an unapologetic Nazi.
Fooloso4 wrote: August 23rd, 2018, 7:28 pm Would history be different without say Aristotle or Heidegger himself or would someone else have “harkened” to being, this is, if I remember correctly, think what is given by being to be thought?
We are bound to discover ideas eventually. In fact, we often 'discover' something which has already been known for thousands of years. In the past, cultures without contact with each other discovered many of the same things independently. Before cultures, independent men presumably made the same discovery repeatedly, only to have the idea die with them and wait to be rediscovered.
Fooloso4 wrote: August 23rd, 2018, 7:28 pm What is the relationship between philosophy and history?
This might depend on your definition of philosophy. I would define it as the framework through which one views the world and events. As such, it will determine people's actions and reactions, choices and goals. So, philosophy drives history for the most part, if my definition is accepted.
Fooloso4 wrote: August 23rd, 2018, 7:28 pm Do you take the question of why is there anything at all and rather not nothing to be the same as the question of the meaning of being?
No. "Why is there matter and empty space?" is one very good question, but there is no meaning to matter or empty space. I would draw a sharp line between existing and being. Meaning implies life, choice and a chance for self-determination, at least for men. Many of us would agree that there is no meaning to living as a 'vegetable' without conscious thought or action. As a side note, this is why the notion that we lack free will is so offensive. Rather, it is the idea that it is 'no big deal' whether we have free will or not that is so offensive.

There may be, presumably is, a different type of meaning for other animals or plants, if only the drive to survive in some. But, I don't see meaning in being sodium or a light ray, except the meaning of these things to a being which does have a meaning to their life. Water is a necessary component of a meaningful life, but 'being' a water molecule, or Lake Erie, is not really being, but rather just existing.
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
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Hereandnow
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by Hereandnow »

Chewybrain: I've avoided reading him because he was an unapologetic Nazi. Socrates was a pedophile, Wagner was antisemitic. If you cross of your list those with objectional views, you might as well not read at all, for look closely at the past and the zeitgeists of bigotry. How about oppression of women? They were nearly all male chauvinists.
Being a good person does not assure worthy thoughts, nor does being a bad one make your thoughts unworthy. You're missing out on a LOT.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Hereandnow wrote: August 24th, 2018, 11:42 am. Socrates was a pedophile,
Just no.
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Hereandnow
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by Hereandnow »

just why?
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Why is there anything at all and rather not nothing

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Hereandnow wrote: August 24th, 2018, 1:06 pmjust why?
Why are cats not dogs?
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