The meaning of life

First, thanks for the link. I'm always interested in reading authors who try to answer this fondamental question. I'll buy that quoted book, by Bede Rundle, it seems interesting!

But back to the text. It really sounds to me the author uses big scientific buzzwords just to try to convince us he follows a scientific approach. "Quantum mechanics", "bosons", "fermions"... yeah right, ok, but what is his answer to the "Why is there something rather than nothing?" question in the end? You can resume his answer with the sentence he himself quotes at the end: "Because 'nothing' is unstable".

The author tries to define what "nothing" really means, why it could be unstable and become something. The big problem, though, is that the "nothing" he talks about is not the "nothing" found in the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?". Because this ultimate question can also be read: "Why is there something rather than the absence of anything?" If the "nothing" the author talks about can be unstable, it's not the "nothing" of the ultimate question, it's not an "absence of anything". Only something can be unstable.

Being unstable means there are some laws, forces, causing something to become unstable. Even if those forces are found in the "nothing" itself, they are still forces, they are still something. The author writes "The transition nothing-to-something is a natural one, not requiring any external agent.". But what does "natural transition" means if there is nothing at all? It makes no sense.

The author uses laws of our current universe and tells those laws may apply if there was nothing, tells those laws could explain why nothing could become something. But if there was nothing at all in the first place, the laws the author refere to wouldn't exist! You can't try to explain why something could emerge from nothing using the physical laws we currently know, because those laws wouldn't exist if there was nothing...

i completely agree, and would like to add on to this particular thought.
quoting the third para last line from the linked article:
"Yes, as long as you do not insist on playing word games with me by calling the lack of properties a property."
that is very much a property, and is something that the author very calmly overrules. simply by ridiculing it does not make that fact disappear. nothing is not a physical concept, that can exist or not exist, maybe something like time perhaps. it has failed to be defined using our native state of binary logic derived conceptualizing language, and very certainly our even more primitive visualizing language. perhaps some sort of an alternate logic based language could be recommended, haha, in which there exists instead of the usual cause and effect, something else that i have no idea if it can even exist.

I knew you'd give a good respond :)
Indeed, the last 3 lines would be enough for the answer, but the author tries to reveal a path on which we can reach this conclusion.
As I see, the interesting thing is the example with the snowflake, which describes pretty well that (in some cases) rather complex things exist than simple things. And although the analogy may be incorrect, it opens a way to think that maybe the most simple thing (nothing - or the absence of anything) has a like nature, and it, by it's nature, transforms into something more complex. This may happen due to laws which are yet unknown, but this doesn't change the fact that it might be possible. And as science goes, we accept the "most possible seeming" theory :)

I've never met a more specific, more scientific explonation to this, however, I also don't find the answer as satisfying as I wish to. But this is my personal problem :)

I don't think that the lack of properties is a property. A property has a name and a measurable value. It's easy to understand that no value of nothing's parameters (if there would be any) could ever be measured, because only something's paramter-values can be measured, since there has to be something measurable.
And so even if we could label 'nothing' with parameter-names, we couldn't give them values because there would be nothing to measure to receive the value. And this is the lack of parameters, which would mean that it has one parameter indeed, something like "NumberOfParameters=0", but nature doesn't record this value, it's just us who bother ourselves with this.

But probably the author of that article didn't want people to bother him with such things, this is why he "overruled" it so calmly :)

You don't seem to understand something: even "laws which are yet unknown" are something.

In fact "nothing" is really easy to describe: remove everything. If after removing everything you can still say "maybe there are laws, or forces, we don't understand but that are still present", then remove them also. Remove everything and you'll have the pure "nothing" from the ultimate question.

Nothing can happen in the pure nothingness because there is nothing to happen and nothing to make it happen. If there is something/laws/forces to make something happen in the nothingness, then it's not the pure nothingness.

Yes, you are right.
Then let's say that the existence of the concept of nothingness does not prove that nothingness exists or can exist. It is not evidential that "before the big bang" had to be nothingness. Noone knows what "had to be" then.
We can say, of course, that "something" had to have a source, and before the source created something, and before the existence of this source, there could not be something but nothing. But this is just a viewpoint of ours through the linearity of time where one event has to be followed by another, a cause by an effect. And because of this, we see this whole "creation" as first there had to be "nothing" as cause, and then "something" as effect, and the dilemma is: if there is nothing in nothing then what causes the effect?
But perhaps the truth is that it's not time that contains the universe but the universe contains time. There is neither beginning nor end, nor anything like "before beginning". The conception of the timeless universe does not have to have a previous cause for it's own existence, simply because there exists nothing like "before" and "after". Causality without time can be a pretty interesting issue. Maybe I'll look after it once :)

So maybe the answer to the ulitmate question is that this is not a smart question at all, and it makes no sence :)

I agree "what was before the big bang?" maybe makes no sense. "time" is something I wouldn't pretend to really understand! And maybe time looses its meaning near the beginning of the big bang, where laws were probably very different from what they are in our actual universe.

But, the point is we don't talk about the exact same ultimate question!

The ultimate question you are talking about is: "What was before the big bang?". Since nothing can emerge from the pure nothingness, since everything needs a cause and effect, the question is how it's possible that the big bang occured in the first place! This question is valid and my personal answer to it is that existence is eternal. Even if our current universe appeared from a big bang only some billions of years ago, there was something "before" it. There had always been something.

Now, the ultimate question I ask is: "why is there something rather than nothing?". It is different from the one you are talking about. It doesn't talk about time, about a "before" or about a "beginning of creation". Since my own conviction is that existence is eternal (it has to be eternal since nothing can emerge from nothingness), I do not ask when it appeared and how it could have emerged from a pure nothingness. I say: it would be so more logical, so more simpler, if nothing had never existed at all, ever. But it's not the case, existence is. How is it possible? What force/power can allow this situation to be? I do not ask "When did existence start to be? How did it emerge from nothingness?" since this would be impossible. I ask "The fact that existence is is so incredible, what allows that?".

My personal answer is that there has to be a divine force. Again, I'm not using the word "god" because I hate religion and I do not see the divine force as a being who has plans for humanity. I do not want to make too much assumption about this divine force because that would only be imagination on my part, projections, and this is how religion and wars start!

I can only say I do believe in a force that needs to be divine/magical, a force that transcendes any logical though.

hi

And this is the lack of parameters, which would mean that it has one parameter indeed, something like "NumberOfParameters=0", but nature doesn't record this value, it's just us who bother ourselves with this.

im sorry, but im not very sure of this statement. in the natural state, the concept of zero doesn't exist. numerically, it is easy to define it as a point on a linear axis, but tangibly, the manifestation of the numeral zero itself is what we are referring to as the absolute nothing.
so saying that the number of parameters = 0 itself is like saying that nothing is defined by a function of nothing itself, hence something similar to 0 = f(0), in plain english, 0 = an equation which is multiplied by 0, which does not define it in any way.
which basically means that nothing has not been successfully defined using the authors argument.

Or you can understand this like the definition of the only possible property of nothing is impossible, and because of this, no such parameter can exist. This means that 'nothing' has no parameter.

Indeed, I didn't refer to your question. Sorry. I try it again :)

It seems to me that the universe is very complex. Even more, it is much more complex than we think it is. In this complexity, time and possibility don't behave as we thaught through the history of science. I believe time to be contained by this complex universe, and possibility to be something what separates multiple universes from each other in a way we can't experience.
In my theory, possibility means the choice we take, or the decissions we make. Every single one of this creates a new possible universe. Although we don't experience the universe in a manner which we did not choose, it exists in that way, too.
At this point, we have to reconsider the definition of existence, and we have to accept that existence is not limited to the existence of matter in the form as we perceive matter. I refer here to the quantum superposition theory, which has been proven by the NITS institute in practice. This theory tells us that the building units of matter (i.e. particles) exist in the form of waves while they are not observed. In this wave state, particles take all their possible places at once. They can exist in thousands of different spatial positions in the same time. But when we observe this matter, the units jump into one possible state and behave like particles.
By accepting this theory, we also have to accept that there is space between the possible positions of the particles, which space can never be filled with an observable particle. The concept of nothingness would mean that it even doesn't contain waves, or the wave-states of particles. Right. But what about the superposition of 'nothing'?

According to this theory, we can imagine that the whole universe exists in all it's possible states in the same time, as waves. And as we go alogn and experience the universe according to our choices, the universe collapses in one possible manner, and becomes observable matter, space, and time. The superposition theory tells us that the particle and the wave state of a single unit can exist simultaneously. Even if we perceive a particle as a particle, it exists as wave, too. The fact is that we only perceive one single particle at one single spatial place because this is the nature of observing: by observing, we effect the quantum field around us, and we make the superposition seemingly collapse. So we have to separate the way of observing the universe from the way the universe actually is, because they are pretty much not the same.

My theory concludes that the universe contains all its possible states from it's first minute until it's last minute. Time separates this multiverse linearly, like the fourth dimension, and only lets us experience one state at a time. And possibilities separate this universe too, and lets us only experience one state at a time, like if it would be the fifth dimension. So we actually have a multiverse with all the possible states of it, in which the differences are the choices what we (or any conscious beings) make, plus the effects of these differences. Hence the universe has no beginning and no end, it simply exists, but not in a way we thaught. It is obvious that we have no correct words to describe this kind of existence, so I try to put it as simple as I can. Since existence - as I mentioned above - is not limited in the existence of matter as we know matter, we can say that nothingness can exist and that nothingness has a superpositional state as well as matter. This means that the universe exists in a way as it contains no matter at all, even more, this state of the universe can exist in multiple places at once. The conclusion is that the material universe and the "universe which is nothingness" exist at the same time in the same place simultaneously, spreading in all possible states at every single moment of time, through every possible reality.

Through this concept we can accept that nothingness is a very existing thing, as well as somethingness, although we can only perceive the objects of somethingness, and that too in just a very limited manner according to time and possibility.

As for the final conclusion of "what makes the existing part of the universe exist" - which seems to be the question what you ask -, I believe that the superposition of all this complex multiverse is such a substance which provides life and consciousness. This is, different structures behave in different ways and are capable of different things. More complex structures behave as living, even more complex structures as conscious beings. Because life and consciousness derives from this substance, it is alive and conscious. As for this, it created all the possibilities of existence at once. You have to see that the number of possibilities is increasing whith the number of conscious beings. Every single being who has the capability of choosing, adds thousands and millions of possibilities to existence. So practically, when this substance created all the possibilities, it created the possibility of something that can choose from the possibilities, and so it gained the numbers of possibilities.
So the existence of a conscious being was necessary in the All Existence, as well as the existence of nothingness, because it is also a possibility.

If you try to consider what made this substance exist, you will find that it was the possibility itself, which is contained in this substance. This is a cycle what you can't break. The cycle of existence :)

Interesting! But you are far from convincing me of anything. Maybe I'm just not able to understand what you say though!

You say: "As for the final conclusion of "what makes the existing part of the universe exist" - which seems to be the question what you ask -, I believe that the superposition of all this complex multiverse is such a substance which provides life and consciousness."

When I talk about "something" in the question "why is there something rather than nothing?", I do not refere to the "existing part of the universe" only. I talk about EVERYTHING as a whole. This would include your multiverse and all its possible manifestations.

How is it possible that this whole thing, multiverse, universe, possibilities, laws, forces exist? Why not a pure nothingness? How do you explain the fact that this multiverse and all those possible states, exists? Not "how does it works?" but rather "why is it there?"!

As I wrote in the last lines, "If you try to consider what made this substance exist, you will find that it was the possibility itself, which is contained in this substance. This is a cycle what you can't break. The cycle of existence :)"

You can't answer the question from outside, because all the tools you are able to use for the answer are inside the thing you question. And whatever would be the subject of your question, this will always be the case. This is a principle of thinking.

no its worse than that. nothing has no parameter is an incorrect assumption, because having no parameter is a parameter itself. which is like back to square one, the language game that the author warns us of.
nothing is a situation that exists or unexists somewhere where cause and effect do not take place. hence, it is impossible to define using our time bound laws.

In fact, nothingness is so much of nothing that it can't even be observed or perceived, or known in any manner. Can you tell one parameter of something what you've never seen, never known?
It's a pretty usual (and unfortunate) problem that people forget that the world as we see is not the world as it exists; and that the name of a thing is not the thing itself.

No wonder that the author didn't want to argue about such things :)

Nothing is not
Nothing not! funny..
If nothing was inverted on itself, would it become something?
Is nothing the opposite of something?
Is a vaccuum nothing or something?
If a vaccuum was nothing, then how can it make more of itself when it isn't (universe expansion).
We could be a type of nothing, to a something, and those somethings could be nothings to us.
But, it is getting too big out in the metaphysical mathematical macrocosmic world we consider exists if we are, and Anonpower is...or isn't... I am (or not) sure.

My point of view:



You can't invert "something" that doesn't exist.


Yes.


If it has any kind of property then it's something. If it can expand, then it's definitively something!

SmallBang, be a little more mathematical... Mathematics is able to deal with infinity and non-existence :)

Nothing is not the opposite of something. People think that it is, so they don't find the answers...
Nothing and something is like the absolute zero degree (0°K = −273,15°C = −459,67°F) and temperature generally. Nothing is like the absolute zero, and something is like all the other degrees. There is this absolute lowest temperature which is the lowest limit, there is nothing what can be possibly have a lower temperature. For this, you have to understand what temperature is: the experience we call temperature is caused by particles which have a spontaneous movement, called Brown-movement. When you give heath-energy to these particles then their speed increases and their territory to move will expand. If these particles belong to water, then this increasing speed will lead to a degree of movement where the addiction between particles will become less than the bounce of the atom, and the particles will break out - this is called evaporation. So for a cold temperature we have to pull out energy to slow down particle movement. It was calculated that according to the change in speed of particles and the given energy, the particle loses all it's kinetic energy and remains calm at 0°K. Since there will be no more energy to extract, it cannot be slowed down more.

Whatever we can call 'something' has an entropy. The more complex the thing is, the more levels it's entropy has. The lowest number of levels and the highest entropy leads to the most stable and most simple solution, as well as the lowest number of forms of energy in a particle leads to the most stable state.

There is 'nothing' as the bottom of existence, and then there are different levels of existence, like different temperatures, but there is no absolute existence.

According to this, nothing's entropy is very high and consists of the less possible levels. This is like the most solid thing possible. I'm not sure how I could imagine something like this but for sure this means that we should reconsider our definition about 'nothing'.

SmallBang will probably say that if it has an entropy then it is not 'nothing'. Well, if nothing doesn't contain anything, then it surely has one property: absolute homogenity. This means that nothing, as the absence of anything, without parameters, cannot exist.

Indeed.


Of course "nothing" cannot exist!! I've never said "nothing" could exist!

The matter at 0°K is not "nothing! How can you say that? It may not be moving anymore but I don't see how we could call it "nothing".

Again, I think we are not talking about the same "nothing". You think that if you take a volume in which there are some molecules but not moving, then it's nothing. I say that even if there was no molecule at all in your volume (an empty space), no energy, it would still not be "nothing"!! If there is time-space, it's not nothing!

Again, we are just debating about words. You just have to use another word than "nothing" and I'll understand what you mean. But I'm sorry, for me "nothing" has a very clear description and it's not what you say it is. "nothing" is the absence of anything.

I didn't say that the particles at 0°K are nothing, I said that NOTHING vs. SOMETHING is like ABSOLUTE ZERO vs. TEMPERATURE.

But tell me, if you didn't say that nothing could exist, then why do you ask "why is there something rather than nothing?" Since the answer is: because "nothing" cannot exist.

Anyway, an empty space consists of the effects of energy and matter, even if matter is outside that space. So for sure an empty space in the universe is not nothing. As we've already discussed this months ago, "nothing" cannot be a part of this 3D space.