Why is there Something Instead of Nothing?
I have seen at least one other philosopher on this site make this argument for existence:
1. Things (God and/or matter) either always existed or spontaneously emerged.
2. Therefore there is no Cause either way.
What are your thoughts in this?
Here is a 4 minute video and a link to the entire discourse with some free will thrown in: http://philosophersunion.org/
1. Things (God and/or matter) either always existed or spontaneously emerged.
2. Therefore there is no Cause either way.
What are your thoughts in this?
Here is a 4 minute video and a link to the entire discourse with some free will thrown in: http://philosophersunion.org/
Comments (123)
As @Pfhorrest explained to you is necessary logical to the the function of the world. Aristotle explained in his writings that "one object cannot be a different object at the same time"
Well this premise fits here. There is something because this is the world we live in and then, we can't say there is nothing at the same time.
Quoting 180 Proof
What is your criterion for stupidity?
How soon you've forgotten: the incorrigible misuse / abuse of intelligence, knowledge and/or judgment that inadvertently does harm for no gain or profit. That said, in the context of the original thread (linked by my user name), "stupid question" was merely a sarcastic descriptive; a more accurate adjective would've been "pseudo" rather than "stupid".
I prefer it as attles. It's funnier.
My best is on cosmos beyond physical world or god
First, if there is a question to be answered, it should be "Why is there something?"
Second, that's a question nobody will answer by thinking really hard. Leave it to the scientists to determine how the universe came to be, if they can. If they can't, so be it.
I do believe that the question 'why is there something ?' is an important one, which leads onto another one: why did any form of life come into existence? Also, what triggered the evolution of human consciousness? I know that many people think it is all random and accidental, but we can also say that life and consciousness are so complex and intricate. If it is all random why did it all develop with such exquisite sophistication and inherent laws of nature? But, I don't think that there are any easy answers...
Be nice. He's a new guy.
:up:
I prefer 'How any universe comes-to-be, continues-to-be, and ceases-to-be?' (sub specie aeternitatis) Also, whether or not biogenesis randomly occurs (which seems doubtful to me, just chaotic & highly improbable), evolution via natural selection is not a "random" process. And, as far as we can tell so far, 'consciousness' (i.e. phenomenal self-reflexive intelligence) is an embodied functionality of adaptive, ecosystemic-eusocial, intentional agents.
These are scientific problems, not (any longer) philosophical questions.
My memory isn't what it used to be. I hope you'll find it in you to let some of my errors, slight and gross, slide on that score.
To court harm, injury, loss, even death would mean stupidity for you as there's no gain or profit discernible in that but isn't risk of harm, injury, loss, even death the stuff great people are made of. Imagine if the Wright brothers were scaredy-cats, averse to risk and danger. Would the jet age have been a reality? By your logic all pioneers in every field and discipline would be morons because they would've asked questions that wouldn't have made sense within the paradigms of their time. All this assuming of course that stupidity is context-sensitive vis-a-vis the framework of knowledge it "lives" in.
To carry the analogy further, at one time it would've been considered rather foolish, even utterly insane, to talk of men taking to the air in metal contraptions but now such events are an everyday affair and thinking/saying the opposite would be considered foolish/mad. Stupidity, ergo, in my humble opinion, depends on which era or period one belongs to. Calling an idea, a question, a point of view, etc. stupid could be rather premature given the facts of history. Just saying...
I don't see why science should be given the authority and power to answer all the big questions leaving philosophy like an abandoned vagrant sitting in the gutter. Also, the scientists have come a long way, but perhaps there is a lot left to discover, and who knows, perhaps philosophical thinking may inspire their searches.
The temptation to belittle others is the trap of a budding intellect, because it gives you the illusion of power and superiority your mind craves. Resist it. It will make you intellectually lazy as you seek "easy marks" to fuel that illusion, [and] a terrible human being to be around, and ultimately, miserable. There is no shame in realizing you have fallen for this trap, only shame on continuing along that path."
— Philosophim
Stupidity is, as my link points out, a congenital species defect which intellience struggles with / against and occasionally exploits (e.g. pioneers, explorers, thrill-junkies, young parents ...)
Science isn't "given the authority"; rather its domains consists in quantifiable matters of fact. Philosophy, on other hand, concerns formal, methological & conceptual topics. Whenever a question can be answered factually it's no longer philosophical and is translatable into a scientific hypothesis, or problem, to be 'solved' experimentally (which may be interpreted philosophically in terms of "what it means ..." ethically / aesthetically / ontologically, etc). Scientific theories, however, are approximate explanations of the world and are therefore fallable and reviseable / replaceable by better approximations. Philosophy isn't superceded by science any more than a mother is superceded by her children.
I guess your phone was right.
How unsettling.
I think that you are right to suggest that 'philosophy is not superseded by science any more than a mother is superseded by her children'. Perhaps, the two can work alongside one another and philosophy have an important role in aiding with the interpretation of the facts emerging in the sciences.
Hasn't philosophy done so since the pre-socratics?
There's something unconvincingly trite about 's post. It's a sort of revers ontological argument. Existence or lack thereof should not result from mere logical consideration.
There's a long line of philosophical discussion of empty worlds; see Nothingness.
I'm pointing out that the grammar of possible worlds allows for an empty world. So while there may be no possible world in which there is no world, there is at least one empty possible world. Hence the question in the OP might become "Why is the empty possible world not the actual world?"
And the answer is, it just isn't.
From a modal realist perspective like mine, "actual" is indexical, so that question in turn becomes "why aren't we in the empty possibly world?" The answer to which, of course, is that any world that we are in is by definition not empty; we can only find ourselves in a world that contains at least ourselves.
We might then ask why there is anything besides ourselves in this world, and the answer to that would concern the prevalence of possible worlds that just contain (basically) a Boltzmann Brain compared to worlds containing complex cosmological and evolutionary processes that give rise to brains in the way we suppose ours were created. Which pretty much reduces this problem to the Boltzmann brain problem.
SO much for your version of modal realism.
There are possible worlds without me in them, and possible worlds with some alternate version of me in them but not this me. Those are not the actual world to me, though they are actual to anyone in them. Just like there were times when I didn't exist, and times with some earlier version of me in them but not this me, and those are not the present to me, but they are present to anyone in them.
So far from what we can tell, there isn't any reason to believe that this vocabulary can be used to describe why does "anything at all" exists. Like what standard (what collection of experiences that inform judgment) can be used to differentiate between one state of affairs where the world that we know of is the way it is, and where none of this applies. There is no way to formulate and apply such standards, in the way we can use science and economics to explain tables. And if we don't have the set of experiences where we can make the necessary judgments, there isn't any reason to suppose the question itself is a meaningful one.
My own guess is further insight into cosmological questions will dramatically alter our notions of causality and temporality, so progress on judging the meaningfulness of the question can be shaved down without experimentation indirectly from tuning our vocabulary.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Quoting Pfhorrest
What’s the difference between an empty possible world and “no world”?
Quoting Pfhorrest
A “possible world” is therefore a spacetime snapshot of this or some other (possible) world?
Imagine a building with infinite rooms (a Hilbert Hotel if you will) representing the set of all possible worlds. An empty possible world is represented by a room with nothing in it. An absence of any possible world is not represented; there is no room for it.
Quoting Luke
That depends on who you ask. In my version of modal realism, which seems to also be similar to Saul Kripke's (though I'm not super well-versed in Kripke), that's more or less correct; on my account, another time literally is the same thing as another possible world that meets certain criteria in relation to the present/the actual world. But on David Lewis' account, he being the premier promoter of modal realism, possible worlds are complete spacetimes, with pasts and futures of their own, not just snapshots. I guess I'm kinda weird for combining a (probably) Kripke-like conception of possible worlds with a Lewis-like realism about them.
"You are a fluke of the universe, you have no right to be here."
That is a parodist response to the Desiderata, which "argues" that a person has reason to think otherwise.
The question has the quality of asking for comfort in a hostile place. I would like to take my very existence as proof of something but existence keeps suggesting I should stop that.
I am grass, trying to stay out of range of the lawnmower.
So there is something rather than nothing because of the postulated existence of this building with infinite rooms...
Quoting Pfhorrest
So the absence of a possible world is impossible, even if that possible world is absent... :chin:
No, the building is just an illustration, a metaphor.
There is a world at all because there not being a world at all is not a possibility. At every possible world (whatever that means) there is some world.
There is something in the particular world that you are in because a world with you in it is a world with something in it: you.
Why is there anything else in that same world as you? :shrug:
It seems to be much more than that given that it’s the reason you have offered for why it is logically impossible for there to be no world. The existence of possible worlds is why you say there cannot be nothing, even if one (or more) of those possible worlds is empty.
Interesting approach. I guess it's the fastest and shortest route the the heart of the issue.
Quoting 180 Proof
Nice! A great way to look at the things - how intelligence operates at another level and "...occasionally exploits..." stupidity.
There could also be an empty world in any case, whatever it means for there to “be a possible world” in each different interpretation of modality.
The appeal to modal realism is only involved in the question of why there’s a non-empty one instead of an empty one, for on a modal realist account all possible worlds equally exist in the same way, so if there could be an empty world, there is; it’s just not THIS one. The reason it’s not this one is, for starters, because we’re here, making it non-empty.
Sorry, I overlooked this. Why couldn’t there be a non-existent world (i.e. why couldn’t there be nothing) even if modal realism were false?
Because there is no possible world at which there is no world, regardless of what it means for there to “be a possible world”.
This is going to escalate quickly to the point where writing post becomes more trouble than it is worth, but I will have another go at cleaning up the discussion.
Firstly, logic should be philosophically neutral. It is about syntactical rules and their interpretation; it's just grammar. It can tell us how we might join proper names and predicates and logical connectives and quantifiers together, but it can't tell us what the proper names and predicates stand for.
So if someone were to show up here claiming to have a modal argument for the existence of god, I'd take a lot of convincing. Logic can tell us what to say about such-and-such once we know it exists; but it cannot bring things into existence.
So I was both impressed and sceptical when @Pfhorrest suggested the argument "There is no possible world at which there is no world, therefore the existence of something is logically necessary". It seems to show that something must exist.
"There is no possible world at which there is no world" looks a bit like slight-of-hand. It's not a neat parsing of "There is something rather than nothing". Things are within worlds, so "There is something" is talking about what is happening within some possible world, not about there being a word. Hence, we might better parse "Why is there something rather than nothing" as asking if there is a possible world that contains nothing.
And here we set off into free modal logic - and into considerable complexity. The upshot here is that so far as I am aware there is nothing preventing a possible world with an empty domain. It's odd, but ask a silly question...
Another approach, which @Pfhorrest might have at the back of his mind in talking of "indexical" modal realism, is asking if we can access an empty possible world. As it stands the argument he presented only says that we cannot be in an empty possible world, which is obvious, and unhelpful since it tells us nothing about a possible world that it empty of even us.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Seems to me you are confusing there being no world with there being an empty world.
Quoting Luke
Yep.
Thus, I transpose @Pfhorrest's possibilist/modal realist statement as 'there is no possible version of the actual world which could have been ... non-actual world (aka "nothing")'. Your contention, Banno, about an "empty world" is, to my mind, a possible way the actual world could have been; however, "empty world" – whether in actualist or possibilist semantics – cannot be, as you seem to suggest, "empty" of "being a world", that is, "an empty world" which is also "not a world" – a contradiction.
I don't see a reasonable way of distinguishing a possible version of the actual world from any possible world.So not sure what you are getting at there. The empty world is a possible world and hence a possible way the actual world might have been.
It's sufficient for the purposes of this thread that some doubt be cast on there being a clear understanding of "There is no possible world at which there is no world".
Well, sir, we actualist hobbits surely don't (and certainly not before second breakfast & a full pipe). :yum:
Interesting. A world in which nothing exists wouldn't be a world let alone a possible world. Perhaps we shouldn't bring up the notion of "possible worlds" as "worlds" becomes a source of confusion because it's a loaded term - comes with ontological baggage so to speak.
I was interpreting "there being nothing" as "there being no world" at first, but when you brought up the possibility of there being an empty world, I thereafter distinguished between them. But in the bit you replied to, I was replying to this:
Quoting Luke
Which sounds like Luke is asking not about an empty world, but about there being no world ("a non-existent world"). Maybe he is confusing the two?
My stance toward non-existent worlds remains the same (there logically must be some world, there don't exist any non-existent worlds, whatever it means for a "possible world" to "exist"), but I've since clarified that I think yes, empty worlds are totally logically possible (and so on a modal realist account like mine, exist), although it's of course not possible that we could exist in one, because our existing in one would make it non-empty. But at some possible world there "is nothing", sure. It's just not this one, not the least because we're here.
Quoting Banno
If I understand Kripkean accessibility relationships correctly (and I'm not highly confident that I do), that's basically asking if this world we're in could possibly evolve into an empty state.
[hide="Digression about philosophy of time"](If I understand him correctly, his accessibility relationships amount to what I take temporal relationships to be: in my philosophy of time, other times are the exact same things as possible worlds, specifically ones that bear the relationship of being at adjacent to ours in the phase space -- @180 proof -- via routes of monotonically increasing or decreasing entropy entropy; less-entropic ones are "pasts", and they are fewer by definition and so converge "over time", i.e. over distance in the phase space; while more-entropic ones are "futures", and there are more of them by definition and so diverge "over time", i.e. distance in the phase space. Futures are possible worlds we can get to from this one; pasts are possible worlds that can get to this one.)[/hide]
I'm not sure about that question, but as I understand the current state of physics, true vacuum is thought to be basically impossible, so completely emptying this world (or a world enough like it) is not physically possible.
However, almost all of the complete universe (if eternal inflation is correct) is pretty much as close to empty as could possibly be: all but (an infinite number of) tiny finite pockets of stuff (like our observable universe) is just space filled only with vacuum energy, expanding as rapidly as it can. Rarely, but in that infinite universe consequently all the time, a tiny bit of it slows down a little, which collapses the adjacent parts as well, and the bits next to them, and so on at the speed of light, all of that former expansion energy converting into enormous amounts of other forms of energy -- a Big Bang -- but the rest of the universe beyond that pocket is expanding so much faster that these bubbles remain isolated from each other. If nothing is done to stop it (like somehow harnessing that energy of expansion to preserve a part of the observable universe), everything will eventually expand at an accelerating rate and rejoin the rest of that inflating empty universe. In that way, this world as we know it could get, more or less, emptied; and began empty as well, until it suddenly wasn't.
[hide="Digression about possible theological interpretations of eternal inflation"](The religious in the audience might be interested in this thought that's crossed my mind. It would be accurate to describe the cosmos on this eternal inflation account thus: there exists, always has existed, and always will exist an eternal and infinite force of unending creation, which took a tiny part of its incomprehensibly enormous and ever-increasing self and created everything that we know of as reality, and more; and the almost certain fate of this bit we know of reality is to eventually rejoin with that creative force again. If it doesn't bother you that said force is not a person and isn't listening to your prayers and won't personally solve your human problems, feel free to call that "God" if it makes you happy.)[/hide]
I'm not qualified, but from what I understand i don't think that's right. But leave it as moot. I understand possible worlds as constructed by fiat of their proposer; that is, it's the "what if..." that brings 'em into the conversation. Hence, what we can construct from the actual world does not place any limitation on possible worlds. The physics of this world does not limit the possibilities of other worlds.
Forgive me for being ignorant but I am just a crayon eating web surfer and am not that book smart.
Does the modal realist perspective consider worlds that have laws that do not follow our own, to be within the set of "possible worlds?" For example, would a world where gravity makes things fall upwards a possible world?
[hide="If yes"] If yes, is there a possible world where in, the laws are different in a way that allows for consciousness to exist without anything? In other words, if the very laws of physics can differ, what makes us so sure that there isn't a law that allows consciousness to exist from nothing?
If there is a law, then just because I think, does not mean I am (in every world)[/hide]
[hide="If no"] If no, I don't understand what constitutes being "possible" and "not possible." If the laws of physics cannot be changed between worlds, what can be? If only atoms can be different to be possible, why?
For example, does the world have to have logical progression from beginning to current to be possible? So it is possible if and only if it can result from the beginning of time: the Big Bang, let's say for the sake of simplicity. Perhaps the chaos of quantum physics allow for deviations to occur in how atoms align and such that all worlds that has matter, our laws of physics, and resulting from the Big Bang, are worlds that are possible. With this line of logic then, a world that is empty or not a world at all cannot be possible because it simple cannot result from the beginning of time. Not just because something needs to exist in order for there to be me or you.[/hide]
Possible worlds are just "what if..."'s. What if gravity repealed instead of attracted? That's just supposing a possible world in which gravity is repulsive. What if Trump won in 2020? that's just supposing a possible world in which Trump was still president.
This is quite distinct form multiple universes, as proposed by some quantum theories.
It became more interesting to philosophers with a formalisation of the process in Modal logic, developed by Saul Kripke. This formalisation has led to a wide-ranging discussion of what might be possible and what might be necessary.
1. Something [includes possible worlds]
Or
2. Nothing
Possible worlds:
Any world that doesn't entail a contradiction. Most importantly doesn't include the situation in which nothing exists for if nothing exists, it can't be a world
:up:
"Why is there something instead of nothing"
Since there are two threads with the same title I guess my answer works for both of them...
This is the central theme of Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics :"Why are there beings at all instead of nothing" (p. 215)
What he does is essentially recast and reconceptualize the understanding of the nature of Being in a way that encompasses the concept of nothing. One of his most interesting conclusions is:
The concept of being that has been accepted up to now does not suffice to name everything that "is". (p. 218)
I recommend this, it's a good read, extremely dense but fairly short. As the "successor to Being and Time" alone it is worth consideration.
As I understand it, modal realists consider what is possible (i.e. possible worlds) to be actual, unlike actualists who draw a distinction between what is actual and what is possible.
For modal realists, what is possible necessarily exists (as possible worlds).
For actualists, what is possible does not necessarily exist (and only what is actual exists).
This is why modal realists cannot admit the existence of nothing ("no world"): because the existence of something is possible, i.e. because possible worlds necessarily exist.
But for actualists, what is possible does not equate to what is actual (possible worlds are not actual), so the existence of nothing ("no world") is merely possible without being actual. For the actualist it is not logically impossible that nothing might exist, whereas for the modal realist it is logically impossible that nothing might exist.
As for your own version of modal realism where "actual" is indexical, presumably this means that the "actual" world is the one in which one (currently) resides/inhabits. This seems to imply that a possible world requires someone to inhabit it in order for it to be "actual". If so, then how can there actually be an empty possible world? Moreover, can there exist an actual possible world without inhabitants?
In so far as "nothing" denotes not-exist, your statement is doubly self-contradictory.
I admit it was very poorly written, but where’s the contradiction?
To clarify, it is logically possible (for an actualist) that there could exist nothing or “no world”.
I highly appreciate the explanations. Thank you.
So if I understand correctly, then a modal realist way of thinking is like imagining the universe to be infinite where there is many versions of the world by sheer chance. And depending on the area of the universe, laws can change so that gravity falls upwards, for example. So in that universe, there are many worlds you might call a possible, real version of the world, but none of them would be "nothing" and be a world at the same time.
Quoting Luke
The usual (Lewis) form of modal realism also takes "actual" to be indexical, and so in those terms would not say that everything possible is actual. I agree with that too, but it's not peculiar to me. ([hide="Details"]My only real difference from Lewis is that he takes each possible world to include a whole past and future, while I take a possible world to be a single instant, which as I understand Kripke is more like how he conceives the notion of possible worlds, though Kripke isn't a modal realist[/hide]). The modal realist says that other possible worlds exist in the same way that the actual world exists, but not that they are actual, in the same way that an eternalist says that other times besides the present exist as much as the present does, but not that they are present.
Quoting Luke
Both an actualist and a modal realist can use the language of possible worlds the same, they just take it to mean different things ontologically speaking. In that language of possible worlds, under either interpretation, it makes no logical sense to say "there's a possible world where there is no world". So in either case, it's not logically possible that there be no world at all.
However it is logically possible, in either case, for there to be a world in which there is nothing, i.e. an empty world, as Banno pointed out.
If we're asking why that possible world isn't actual, then the modal realist and the actualist diverge on their lines of argument. For the actualist, that's equivalent to asking "why doesn't that empty world exist instead of this one?" For the modal realist, there's no "instead of": both exist the same way, and countless others; the question is just why are we in this one and not that one; and the answer to that is that a world with us in it is by definition not empty.
Quoting Luke
See above for clarification about other possible worlds not being "actual" (to us), but also for further clarification: on an eternalist view, "now" is just the time that we exist at. Does that mean that there could never be or have been times without people living in them to call them "now"? No. On an eternalist view, where "now" and "present" are indexical (it's just the time we're at, not ontologically special), that doesn't mean that times without inhabitants don't exist. Just that they aren't anybody's "now", because there's nobody there then to call it "now".
Quoting FlaccidDoor
So long as it's clear that "world" means something like "universe", and not "planet" like Earth, so we're not talking about somewhere far away in space there being another planet where things fall up, but about an alternate "universe" in a "multiverse" where things are that way.
Not a contradiction? Or, at least, a reification fallacy?
:up: Your patience is much appreciated.
If the (i.e. our, this) universe ceased to exist, then nothing would exist. In other words, there would be “no world”, as it has been otherwise expressed here. Do you think that this cannot be expressed without contradiction?
Given an empty world, it stands to reason that for the world to be empty, a lack of existence needs to exist. A lack of existence in this case seems synonymous with empty space. So that begs the question: is space something or nothing?
If it is, then it seems like a world with nothing is impossible without differentiating empty from nothing, unless a world can exist without the dimension of space.
If "possible worlds" is just another name for "possibilities", then it seems uncontroversial that modal realists and actualists alike believe in the existence of possibilities.
The difference seems to be that modal realists consider those possibilities to be actualised (as other possible worlds), whereas actualists considers those possibilities to be unactualised (except in this world).
Quoting Pfhorrest
Isn't the difference that an actualist considers what exists in this world to be all of the (i.e. the only) actualised possibilities, whereas a modal realist considers what exists in all possible worlds to be all of the actualised possibilities? Otherwise, what is the ontological difference between them? As you said, according to the modal realist, our world and other possible worlds "both exist the same way".
Quoting Pfhorrest
This highlights the difference between actualists and modal realists, since modal realists view the possibilities (aka possible worlds) as already actualised, whereas actualists view the possibilities as what could become actualised, or how things might otherwise be in this world. Possible worlds are unactualised, unrealised possibilities for the actualist, who can conceive of the possible non-existence of this one and only world. For the actualist, there is no difference between "no world" and an empty possible world, because that possibility can exist only for this world, and that possibility has not yet been (or is not presently) actualised.
When I start thinking about it like that I obviously wind up in an infinite causal regression. But if there is an infinite causal regression, then there is no initial cause. On the other hand, if there isn't an infinite causal regression, then there is an initial cause that was not caused by anything- a spontaneous existence. Either way, this ancient philosophical question seems to be resolved- Existence is a fact for which there isn't cause.
If you substituted something like "realized" for "actualized" in there, that would be fine. The actualist believes that talk of "possible worlds" is just a figurative way of talking about states of affairs that could (possibly) be real but aren't; only the way things actually are is real, so "actual" and "real" are basically synonymous to them. But the modal realist believes instead that all possible states of affairs are equally real, each a different world, and what makes one state of affairs actual and the others merely possible is that one of them is the way things are in the world we're a part of, and the others aren't.
I keep using this analogy with philosophy of time because it really seems to clarify things. Both a presentist and an eternalist will talk about the past and the future the same. But the presentist considers "the past" to be merely a state of affairs that was once real but is no longer, and the future a state of affairs that has yet to become real but might; while an eternalist considers past, present, and future to be all equally real, and "the present" to just be the time that we happen to be at.
The presentist is like the actualist, while the eternalist is like the modal realist, just regarding time instead of possible worlds. (And I, uniquely so far as I'm aware, collapse those to the same problem, and consider other times to just be a subset of possible worlds, so the world with nothing in it but shrimp is just as real as last year: neither is actual, or present, but both are ways-things-could-be, equally real as the way things actually, presently are, just not the way things are for us, now).
Yes, I get the analogy. The actual world is the one we inhabit, and all the possible worlds which exclude us cannot be realised for us. But, as with the static world of eternalism, it is not as though we could ever "switch" from one possible world to another, or change, anyway. The fix is in, and all possibilities are already realised. But I digress...
Does this mean you concede that it does make logical sense for an actualist to say "there's a possible world where there is no world"?
Is there any possible version of the actual world that is 'the negation of the actual world' (i.e. nothingness)?
Is there any possible world in which it is true that 'a possible world is not a possible world' (i.e. nothingness)?
That's how I see it.
Nope, because that's like saying "before there was time...".
You could talk about a time in which nothing existed though, or a possible world in which nothing exists. But that's still a time, or a possible world, respectively.
Tu quoque???
I don't think that's analogous.
The realised empty possible world of the modal realist is equivalent to the actualist's unrealised possibility that this world could cease to exist.
Quoting Pfhorrest
There is no realised and pre-existing possible world for the actualist like there is for the modal realist. No other worlds exist for the actualist but this one. A "possible world" for the actualist is just an unrealised possibility of this world. That's why it makes logical sense for the actualist to say "there's a possible world where there is no world". It's not some other world; it would be this one, if the possibility of this world's extincton were to be realised.
WHAT is empty?
What is (logically) possible or impossible is knowable a priori. Since something does exist now, it is clearly possible that something exists. If there could come to be a state where nothing exists, it would still remain (logically) possible for something to exist -- that possibility would have once been actual, back in the past that is our present, even if it's not longer actual in some annihilated future.
It may be a possibility for the actual world to become empty, devoid of things. But that possibility is still the possibility of an empty world, not of some kind of non-world.
I’m not saying it’s impossible that something exists - that would be absurd. Im saying it’s possible that nothing could exist, or that there could be “no world”.
Quoting Pfhorrest
There is only one world for the actualist: this one. The realisation of the possible annihilation of this world would make it a non-world. It would remain logically possible for this world to exist again after its annihilation, but it would also remain logically possible for this world not to exist again after its annihilation; to remain a non-world.
You said "The possibility (now) of there coming to be no possibilities (at some future time)". If there are no possibilities, then there is no possibility of something existing -- it is impossible for something to exist. If that was just misspeaking on your part, then nevermind.
Quoting Luke
That is the thing in question. We could annihilate everything in this world, and make it an empty would, but would it then be no world? I say no, and not for any reasons dependent on modal realism. Even if there's only the actual world, if everything in it were annihilated it would remain a world, just an empty one. Just like, if there comes to be some time in the future where nothing exists anymore, that wouldn't be not a time.
If this world were annihilated, then there would be no possibilities. I probably should not have said in my last post: "It would remain logically possible for this world to exist again after its annihilation," I was just trying to be even-handed, but I actually don't see how this could be possible. It is possible there could be a big crunch where even the singularity gets annihilated. It's hard to see how there could be any possibilities left in that scenario, or anything left to call a "world".
It sounds like you're not talking about logical possibility, which could be a source of our problem here.
If something is logically possible then it's logically possible always and forever. That's why I said earlier "What is (logically) possible or impossible is knowable a priori." It's not contingent on any particulars of the world. So, since it is clearly logically possible for something to exist, because something does actually exist, then even in a future state of this world where everything is annihilated, it is still logically possible for something to exist. That doesn't mean it's possible in any other sense, like physically or technologically or anything like that.
What “world” would remain for something to exist in? It’s not that everything in this world would be annihilated, but the world itself.
Why is it logically impossible for a world to be permanently annihilated?
A "world" is just some state of affairs, whether you're a modal realist or an actualist. If there is some state of affairs in which nothing exists, that is still some state of affairs.
In any case, you're missing the point about logical possibility. Even if "the world" was annihilated, it would remain logically possible for "a world" to exist, because "a world" actually exists now, which means it's logically possible now, and logical possibility doesn't change over time, so it remains logically possible always.
I don’t think so. It’s not “a world” for the actualist, because there isn’t more than one; there’s only this actual world.
Actualists still use the language of “possible worlds”, and did so before modal realism existed; the novel thing about modal realism is taking that kind of talk literally instead of just metaphorically.
Right, and actualists use the language of possible worlds metaphorically to talk about the possibilities of this world only, as I’ve been saying. If the possibility that this world gets permanently annihilated were to be realised, then there would no longer be “a world”, or logical possibility, or logic.
Actualists suppose that everything that exists is actual.
But there are several ways of using exists; one of which is displayed clearly by the existential quantifier. Existential quantification can range over things that are not actual - hobbits, possible aliens, and so on.
Actualists make the mistake of thinking that the way 'exists' is used in 'everything that exists is actual' must be the same as the way it is used when we parse "In a hole there lived a hobbit" as "There exists a hobbit how lives in a hole". They get confused, because they think this implies hobbits must be actual.
Some ancient thinkers assumed that the physical world had existed forever. But others intuited entropy, and guessed that the existing world would eventually wind down to nothing, hence they concluded that a finite world must have an infinite Cause : a creator or precursor of some kind. We now have scientific evidence that our universe has not always existed, but emerged long ago from a sudden creative event. Combine that cosmic contingency (dependence on something outside the self) with the unavoidable certainty of entropy (e.g. death), and we are forced by logic to assume some external -- outside of our knowable space-time -- cause for the existence of all physical things.
Today, we have only two plausible candidates for that First Cause : a> an eternal non-physical creator, or b> an eternal physical multiverse. Option is questionable, because we have no sensible experience with entities having no extension in Time or Space. But option is also dubious, because our experience with the only knowable universe indicates that dynamic creative energy (in a closed system) always runs-down to total entropy over time. So again, we are dependent on some source of power outside our world to provide the impetus for a Big Bang, or for a Genesis event. The Multiverse option tries to avoid the First Cause/Power Source solution, by claiming it's merely physical causal-turtles all the way down to . . . . what?
Sadly, any logical choice between those alternative unknowable scenarios is ultimately opaque to human experience, and rests instead on personal preference or prejudice. That being the case, we can't be certain that our chosen world creator exists in any meaningful sense. Yet, we do know that physical systems tend to fall apart over time, and that mental (meta-physical) systems are dependent upon physical substrates for their metaphysical existence. So again, the choice of Cause is a toss-up.
The related question of "why is there something rather than nothing" presupposes that there is someone to ask the question. Hence, whatever the Cause of our known "something" may be, it must have the power or potential to create something with Awareness & Willpower from some prior "thing". That much is certain. But that a priori "thing" could be a> ordinary Matter, or b> ordinary Energy, or c> extraordinary Substance as proposed by Spinoza. Therefore, I conclude that the First & Final Cause of my existence in a contingent world must be both Infinite & Eternal : call it "G*D" or "Nature" as you Will. :cool:
Metaphysical Existence : metaphysics was the “science” that studied “being as such” or “the first causes of things” or “things that do not change”.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existence/
Note : Physical existence is objective : "I see it, therefore it is". Metaphysical existence is subjective : "I imagine it, therefore it's essence is". Essence (ousia) is a defining property. e.g. Mathematical properties are subjective, but derived by reason from objective physical knowledge.
Substance Monism : The most distinctive aspect of Spinoza's system is his substance monism; that is, his claim that one infinite substance—God or Nature—is the only substance that exists.
https://iep.utm.edu/spinoz-m/
Only by being (or making the clause) literally false.
Quoting Banno
Only if they think the story is literally true.
Moreover, there are innumerable true modal statements ranging over things that are not actual.
You are using the word "literally" to mark a domain of discourse.
That's an interesting philosophical concept. For example, in what sense is Bitcoin actual? Perhaps it becomes actualized when a coin miner cashes-in the current value of his imaginary coins. Until then though, the bitcoin "money" exists only in the form of abstract information (data) on a worldwide distributed network of mindless & soulless computers. Therefore, until actualized, Bitcoin has only Potential value. To sell your coins you must make the buyer believe that it has actual cash value. So, in what sense is your belief in the value of your abstract coins reality based? Is Bitcoin Something or Nothing? Actual or Notional? Real or Imaginary? :chin:
PS___Many years ago, my brother was convinced that the US should return to the Gold Standard, based on a similar notion : that only actual (physical) money is real. Anything else is fake-money, non-existent, like "vaporware". But, even the currency value of Gold -- beyond its intrinsic value as an industrial metal -- is based on Faith in an emotional system of human beliefs & values. Reportedly, Trump was also in favor of the Gold Standard. Perhaps, that's because it is tangible, and appeals to the physical senses with its glimmer & heft. Also, because he wouldn't have to place his faith in the integrity of fellow humans -- some of whom may be grifters & con-men, or Mexicans. Another hypothetical, if Trump became dictator of the US. he might prefer "fiat" currency, In that case, its value would be whatever he dictated by fiat. :joke:
Bitcoin : Like fiat currencies, Bitcoin is not backed by any physical commodity or precious metal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
Note : which is better : fiat or faith? Command or cooperation?
Vaporware : software or hardware that has been advertised but is not yet available to buy, either because it is only a concept or because it is still being written or designed.
Fiat :
1 : a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort According to the Bible, the world was created by fiat. 2 : an authoritative determination : dictate a fiat of conscience. 3 : an authoritative or arbitrary order : decree government by fiat.
THE VALUE OF MONEY
It's the same for paper money. It's the same for ownership of any sort.
But off topic.
Sorry. I had just read an article about Bitcoin. Hence the discursive diversion off-topic. But what if it was actually a prologue to an on-topic post, that didn't actually exist -- until now?
So, the relevance to this thread is that Bitcoin is treated as-if it's a real thing, even though the "coins", and their ownership, only exist as notions in human minds. That raised the question in my mind about its actuality -- its reality. "As-if" is not real existence, but an ideal mode of being.
I had never heard of the philosophy of Actualism, but I suppose it's a variant of Realism, and opposed to Idealism. So, I wondered if Potential money had any meaning in that philosophy. Aristotle made a distinction between Actual and Potential, but treated Potential as-if it's a potent force in the real world. Perhaps Potential exists only as a Possibility or Probability. And it would be easy to dismiss such non-existing non-actual things as equivalent to Nothing. Like Bitcoin, statistical Probability does not exist, until actualized. Yet, it's a useful & meaningful concept for those of us who are not Actualists. :smile:
OP --- [i]"argument for existence :
1. Things (God and/or matter) either always existed or spontaneously emerged.
2. Therefore there is no Cause either way."[/i]
According to cosmologists, our space-time world did not exist, as such, prior to the Big Bang Prime Cause. But, as OP noted, logically Something must have existed, unless Spontaneous Generation is a real thing. Some call that necessary Actualizer "God" (i.e. eternal Mind), while others call it "Multiverse" (i.e. eternal Matter). The M'verse theory assumes that Matter actually existed forever, while the God theory supposes, as an axiom, that the divine Potential for our world existed eternally before the Causal act of creation. Therefore, we have a choice between an Actual material Cause and a Potential mental Cause. Hence, there must a Cause either way. No?
Per Actualism : "to be is to exist, and to exist is to be actual"
So, in what sense can God or M'verse be said to exist? If they are not here & now, are they Nothing? A mere figment of imagination? Or the potent Cause of all actual things? . . . . Why is there something? Because there was always the Potential for something. :cool:
But is there, in all of Heaven and Earth, a domain of Lord of the Rings, containing hobbits?
Why is there Something Instead of Nothing?
Off-topic diversion continued . . . . chasing the elusive butterfly of Why?
Another "simple desultory philippic" ???
Feel free to ignore these rambling wonderings.
But, remember that Wonder is the philosophical emotion.
Per Actualism : "to be is to exist, and to exist is to be actual"
The weak point in that assertive affirmation is the word "Actual", which is the opposite of Potential, and implies an act of transforming a pre-existing Possibility into a currently existing Actuality. If so, our actual world is contingent, and there was also the alternative possibility of non-existence. Hence, the assertion contains the seed of its own negation. Whatever exists must have been actualized or created by some prior Power or Potential. Knowledge of that a priori Something could point toward a meaningful answer to "why?".
Another thread on this forum asserts that "Existence is infinite in extent and eternal in duration. Only nothing or nonexistence could actually limit existence". That very long post attempts to support that questionable conclusion with philosophical reasoning. Yet, "Infinity" is not a provable actuality in our real world. It's merely the conceptual negation of "Finite". So, to assert that Actual Existence (physical reality) is infinite seems to go beyond our ability to know such things. Of course, our physical universe could conceivably be unbounded in space & time, but our means of measurement are limited by the speed of light, which forms a boundary to our observations. Hence to claim that “existence” is infinite (as in Multiverse theories), sounds more like a statement of faith, than of fact. So, we could just as well assume that before the Big Bang, there was nothing Actual --- perhaps only unknowable Potential.
Therefore, this thread's topical "why" question seems to logically require some Outside (transcendent) Force, or Actualizing Agent, to convert non-existence (nothingness) into existence (somethingness). Whatever, that exotic Actor might be, it alone could provide a knowledgeable answer to the "why" question. Yet, some early human thinkers assumed, as an axiom, that their world was eternal, and didn't bother themselves with questions about origins or beginnings. But philosophers, and some scientists, are not known for leaving well-enough alone. So, they deign to ask hypothetical “why” & “how” questions. Yet, “why” questions go beyond the scope of physical science, to inquire about meta-phyical Reasons for Being. Moreover, reasons are properties of conscious agents, not aimless atoms.
In the current issue of SKEPTIC magazine, one article is entitled "How did it all begin?". Which seems to be related to the topic of this thread. The transition from Nothing to Something implies a Point of Beginning -- the locus of the act of Actualization. And the article attempts to supply a scientific & physical answer. First, it notes that "modern cosmologists cannot resist exploring models which neatly incorporate any date in the past, even one predating the beginning of our current universe." Apparently, the notion of a self-existent universe does not make sense, so they are logically motivated to explain Why there is Something. Although our current entropic universe seems to be finite, anything prior to the beginning might not be so limited.
Unfortunately, the only solution offered in the article is an imaginary scientific hypothesis, not an observation of something physically Actual. It says, "Inflation explains why there was a 'bang' and even provides a 'banger' . . . in the form of an exotic form of energy known as a quantum field". So, their answer to "how" and "why" is a barely existing exotic non-thing that was originally proposed, in desperation, as a solution to the frustrating quest for the fundamental building block of the Actual real world. An early unproven hypothesis was Atomism : something you can't see or touch is responsible for the stuff that you know as actual reality. So far, we have found no such concrete foundation, so theorists are reduced to proposing fluffy clouds of invisible intangible insubstantial potential (virtual) causal power. Which, ironically, sounds a lot like an ancient ghostly creative Deity. That being the case, have we really made progress in understanding ultimate “why” questions? :cool:
What Does Quantum Theory Actually Tell Us about Reality? : Nearly a century after its founding, physicists and philosophers still don’t know—but they’re working on it
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/what-does-quantum-theory-actually-tell-us-about-reality/
Is The Inflationary Universe A Scientific Theory? : Not Anymore
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/09/28/is-the-inflationary-universe-a-scientific-theory-not-anymore/?sh=5a88f917b45e
Quoting Banno
You are using the phrase "domain of discourse" to confuse use and mention. (See above.) Which is a bad habit.
Quoting Banno
Which is hooking it to your veins.
:roll:
is no kind of an argument that winged horses exist in some related sense of the word.
Always leave the quantifier hanging. Then you make no commitment.
That, er, needs developing. I suppose I can understand if you would rather not.
You've not made a cogent point this last page. Go back to this: Quoting Banno
And make your reply compelling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p_1QSUsbsM
Quoting Banno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM
Use Your Words!
I think that indeed it does.
U \subset U \subset U\subset \ldots ad infinitum, so nothing cannot really exist.
I'm sorry you're upset.
I don't suppose you could clarify whether you hold this notion,
Quoting Banno
to be itself mistaken? Maybe I jumped to the conclusion that you do.
I wondered if you had a better argument against it than the fact that we make up fictions?
C'mon, reifying an idiom is silly. "I do not have anything in my pocket" is clearer and synonymous with "my empty pocket". Nothing has nothing to do with nothing.
Further, nothing is a state of affairs with something; I can only have nothing if initially I had something. Let's circle nothing, it means void of something.
Let's now ask, where did existence begin? I would not reduce the beginning era to nothing, but rather a fraction or a partial state. It wasn't fully something, it was half nothing, and an equal fraction away from becoming fully something.
It seems highly illogical so... Luck?
Theory of nothing and creation to my understanding say that something come to be out of nothing.
The key to understand how something come out of nothing is in that nothing itself is something.
Nothing is absence of everything, so that's something.
To anatomize something rather than nothing, you have to ask more detailed questions such as:
Why are there physical laws rather than no laws?
Why is there matter rather than matter and antimatter?
etc.
The more of such questions you analyze the easier it becomes to understand broader picture which is why is there something rather than nothing.
[quote=Ash Abadear]Why is there something instead of nothing?[/quote]
Complex question fallacy. What if all this which we call something is actually nothing?
:point: ??nyat?
For everything there is somebody to which that thing is nothing.
Nxy = x is nothing to y
[math](\forall x)(\exists y)(Nxy)[/math]
Correct me if I'm wrong.