Peter van Inwagen - The Mystery of Existence
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- Опубликовано: 1 дек 2023
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If all that exists-everything imaginable, physical and nonphysical-is ‘something’. Why is there ‘something’ rather than ‘nothing’? Wouldn’t ‘nothing’ be simpler than any sort of ‘something’? It’s a haunting wonderment. It’s the biggest possible question. Why is there anything at all? There must be an answer. But who can know it?
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Peter van Inwagen is an American analytic philosopher and the John Cardinal O’Hara Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.
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Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
As a child, I was constantly losing sleep as I couldn’t wrap my head around the beginning/end of time and space. Nobody seemed interested in discussing it. It felt lonely. As an adult, I’m grateful for this channel, and for these great minds. Thank you Robert! You are the man!
*"Nobody seemed interested in discussing it. It felt lonely."*
... The percentage of people who contemplate the nature of existence is extremely small. None of my friends want to discuss it, and when I try, I can see it in their eyes that they have zero interest. They'd much rather discuss their favorite sports team or what's going on in their workplace.
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC you don't worry you have a beautiful mind keep thinking what your thinking and keep doing what your doing♥️✨
Accordingly
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC totally agree. I believe that it is probably part of the design of this universe. Just as evil exists. The universe exists in opposites like black and white, good and evil, hot and cold , etc.
Just like in The Matrix, all part of the programming.
We exist therefore a Creator must exist because existence is impossible based on our current understanding of the universe. And infinity doesn't compute.
Only the realm of the gods is eternal, where time doesn't exist based on our understanding of time in our universe.
@@offtheradarsomewhere. *"you don't worry you have a beautiful mind keep thinking what your thinking and keep doing what your doing"*
... Well, thank you so much!
I've always felt existence is some kind of paradox, something that you can't use reason and logic to get to the bottom of. And Robert's mission to understand the "truth" is similar to Sisyphus' task of rolling that huge boulder up the hill for all of eternity.
This is one of your top 5 interviews. Thank you for doing a deep dive on this rather than the typical three minute Q/A.
One of the great benefits of seriously asking the question “why is there anything, rather than nothing at all”, is in the confronting of the ever present mystery that envelopes everything. Keep alive that yearning to know that is so strong that it must ask such questions, and also keep alive that sense of doubt that cannot be quieted by the drive for tying things up neatly-truly seeing is a high wire act!
Like Robert and many others, I too had an existential crisis as a young teen. My terror wasn't only of 'nothingness' but of somethingness. Existence itself seemed strange and unlikely. This feeling was tied to several questions at the time; Who am I? What is reality? Where did the universe come from? And, why is there anything at all (something)? Unlike Robert, my own terror did not go away in a few weeks. It persisted, and drove me on to devour every philosophical and cosmology book I could get my hands on. (I suspect Robert is still plagued by this fear on some subconscious level, that's why he regularly brings this question to Closer to Truth.) What I felt was sheer terror of existence. I studied all the major religions and their holy books, but found no relief in belief or faith. It was only by directly confronting my inner terror that eventually resolved those questions.
Fifty-odd years after first asking them, here's my view now. Those of us raised in any of the western Abrahamic
faiths are taught that God created the universe ex-nihilo, literally out of nothing. Thus, we begin with the idea that God might have chosen not to create the universe--- as if nothing was an option. Absolute nothingness is an abstract creation of the human mind, and has no basis in reality itself. Nothing, in its common usage, just means that particular set, container, designated area, etc. is empty. This is a valid, relative nothing and exists over and against something. We extrapolate this relative concept to imagine that an absolute nothing might also have existed. Existence itself seemed terrifying because I saw myself as somehow outside it. When I was a child of about eight, I woke up one morning to find a hand hovering over my face. I was frightened for a few moments as I was awakening because I briefly thought the hand over me belonged to someone else. Once I woke up further, I could see it was just my own hand, and the fear left immediately...leaving me feeling a little silly for being fearful of my own hand. Many decades later, I realized something similar about existence...the same existence that terrified and haunted me for years was just me.
Study the brain and discover how it works.
While I'm not a neuroscientist, I have studied that as well. Right now, I'm researching neural nets. I am fascinated by the brain, too. What does your comment have to do with the subject at hand, though?@@georgegrubbs2966
You imply that nothing could be surrounded by something, forming a boundary. It would be a nothing hole in something, that would be no hole at all. The something would be continuous and unaffected by the void of nothing.
You are lucky you did not become nuts. You are making simple things complicated. You are afraid of the ghost you created. The two protagonists here are just playing with words. Their explanations explain nothing. It is the process of your finite mind. You cannot deduce it by your limited brain. Put God in your equation add humility and voila your terror will disappear, as simple as that. The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.- Philippians 4:6-7.
Hebrews 11:1-3 - Now faith is the confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2This is what the ancients were commended for. 3By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Yes, most religious belief systems provide relief from existential terror. That's one of their main purposes. This is true for Christianity as well. The men who flew planes into the WTC fervently believed they'd go to heaven and be with Allah. They were so sure they held the correct beliefs, they were willing to die for them. In Eastern religions, this fear is mitigated by the belief in reincarnation and karma. To the degree you can convince yourself that any of the answers are true, they provide some relief.
One of my absolute favorite channels on RUclips. Much love from Sweden.
We are the universe we are not separated from it we are made from the same fabrics, we our conscious and to think we our separated from the rest of it, is like saying your head is not part of your body.
Well your argument is flawed. A rock doesn’t have the same level of consciousness to question its own existence. Human race is the only anomaly in the animal hierarchy that has awareness over his mortality so the hippie stuff you mentioned doesn’t help to approach a logical answer
If there would be nothing we still wouldn't be satisfied...
We would force ourselves into existence just so we could ask why there is nothing.
Quite simply nothing doesn't exist, just like cold and dark don't exist in the absolute sense. You can't add cold or dark to something you can only take away heat or light, which are concrete items. Nothing is the same thing. You can't add nothing. You can only take away something. Cold, dark, and nothing are only relative terms and are not concrete or absolute.
Exactly.
People throw around infinity without a full appreciation, infinity is everything, including nothing.
In another way, nothing contain everything - somehow including infinity. Maybe surrounding the universe is NOTHING
Jolly good show.
If something can’t come from nothing, then something always had to be here.
Looking at that question from the standpoint of Cause and Effect is useful. If the "Something" is an Effect, then there must have been a Cause sufficient enough to produce it. If it is not an Effect, then it is self-existent.
Why is there something rather than nothing? There is something rather than nothing because something precedes nothing.
What a great thought!
I look at these questions differently now that I have matured to eighty-three years of age and have studied them all my adult life. I don't see these questions as mysteries. Sure, we may not know all the answers to all the questions, but we know a lot.
We know enough to realize that we live in a natural physical world without spirits, gods, angels, demons, (divine) miracles, or the like. We know there is no heaven and no hell, no reincarnation, and no talking to the dead. There are events and personal experiences that are unusual, and in the final analysis, they will be seen to have a physical basis.
We know how humans and other life forms came to be. We probably will never know the exact way that life began on our planet, since we do not know the exact environment in which it began, but we have quite reasonable theories. I'm satisfied that we know that life formed by physical means around 3.8 to 4.0 billion years ago. Once life began, evolution by natural selection took over.
My tentative belief regarding the larger Universe is that it is "infinite" and "eternal." I put those words in quotes because they have no concrete meaning in our finite existence. Suffice it to say that the larger Universe has alway existed and always will exist; there was no "first cause." If someone wants to put a tag on it and label it "God," that's fine with me as long as they realize that Nature or the larger Universe is not a being or a mind, and doesn't intervene on anyone's behalf. It proceeds according to natural laws.
What is this "larger Universe"? It is the energy substrate from which all else emerges. Perhaps "dark energy" is evidence of the larger Universe. "Our" observable universe emerged from the energy substrate. Call it the "Big Bang," but I believe that is a misnomer. I prefer "Big Inflation." Additional knowledge about the observable universe is discovered almost daily, and I feel confident that solid evidence for the larger Universe will be found and confirmed.
So, continue the great scientific journey to discover Nature's nature.
The question of, "How come there's anything rather than nothing?" has bothered me for a while, too, and my quickest answer is that without us being here to ask the question, then there wouldn't be anything asking the question. It is this tight, almost dizzying, or perhaps vertigo feeling of a tautological statement: we are here to witness Ourself-the universe itself.
'I think, therefore I am', basically.
Love this channel.
Excellent... thanks 🙏.
Van Inwagen never ceases to provide arguments I find unconvincing. What does "probability" even mean in this context? Of course you can mathematically construct some number here, 0 or more plausibly an infinitesimal value. But who conducts the dart throwing experiments and provides actual frequencies to compare? (Compare the videos on fine-tuning, e.g. Maudlin) And anyway, whatever the metaphorical dart throw stands for, that is something outside and above the 'possible' state of nothingness. So 'absolutely nothing' is still impossible in this scenario, or thought experiment or metaphor, or whatever it is.
The answers he and all of us who watch this are wanting to know, will never be known. And that's a crying shame because the reason for all of this is far....far more fantastic than any of us could possibly imagine.
Agreed.
It depends upon what you mean by "nothing".
Nothing, in an absolute sense, is impossible.
The purely abstract, dynamical, relative state is fundamental, in which ever - changing patterns manifest as what we call nature.
It has to be that way. The alternative is impossible.
To put it another way, nothing is the negation of something, but since the absolute state is impossible, it’s negation is meaningless.
This fits somewhat along the lines of that concepts like cold and dark don't actually exist, just varying degrees of heat and light and that cold and dark are just relative terms and are not absolute. There is no way to darken something you can only take away light. There is no way to cool something you can only take away heat (things such as refrigeration are not actually adding any state, rather they are creating a state that drives away heat). The something/nothing argument is similar. There can't be nothing as an absolute state, you can only remove pieces of something. You can't "add" nothing to lessen the something, only take away other somethings 🤯
Wow, fantastically holding the ground!
Brilliant! I hadn't heard the probability argument before... it's very nice. It's anchored in the presumption that there is a realm of essences (probabilities / possibilities...real, not just epistemic ones) that are necessary and productive of concrete existence(s). Plato & followers seemed to have that view... so... good pedigree.
Yeah, Plato was definitely on to something.
Look at all the comments that have been posted without watching the whole video first. People just out there living to their own expectation instead of trying to learn something.
Unfortunately that happens very often.
Seems like you made your comment 8 minutes after the video was posted. But it’s a 16 minute video. 😮
@@longcastle4863 *"Seems like you made your comment 8 minutes after the video was posted. But it’s a 16 minute video."*
... Thanks, Lt. Columbo! I have to watch van Inwagen videos at 1.25 speed because he speaks so slowly, but that only shaves off a few minutes or so.
@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC Yeah VanInwagon was a slow one. I watch everything on 1.25x except music of course. I would prefer an AI remove filler words, and overly long pauses... maybe someday.
@@longcastle4863 lol I name you from now on Sherlock :D
It is just so _weird_ to exist and be aware of it! I guess I treat The Transcendent Mystery as an object of thought and contemplation, and then incline towards what today is being called "non-duality" so also a type of Transcendent Unity.
Special pleading for the good that means so much to you and yet can’t exist in the actual reality!
We are scared of something. Can not get away from it.
I disagree with this. There are a few issues with that. The main one for me is that we can't just put the worlds on a wall, and select one. Because the infinitude of worlds is really beyond description, there is no good way of representation and it is VERY unclear how do you pick one. If one talks about picking the world, it assumes someone is throwing the dice. Who is that, God behind of the worlds? But isn't he a world too, how he isn't one? Why would there be a completely separate dice thrower? I think nothing is the way how world is instead. It's not just a possibility out of many worlds
That is a good first response. It highlights that the universe was forever changed after Christ was born.
Peter van Inwagen seems close to having a breakthrough here
Star seeds 💫
The real problem is in being uncomfortable with not knowing. Given we are born with our intellect a clean slate, knowing nothing the search for information to fill the vacuum between our ears is human. But at some point, speculation to create knowledge runs amuck. For many people, any solution to the question 'why' is better than no solution.
Unfortunately, human nature causes us to attach to these beliefs, especially over time. We grow more attached to our beliefs as time passes.
The goal, however, should be to accept and be comfortable with science not having reached the point where we have a good sense of certainty that we have arrived at the truth.
As I once heard, 'it's not the things we don't know that cause us problems it's the things we know that aren't so'.
That's assuming probabilities exist prior to there being anything at all (including probabilities). But if we have all these possibilities, then the question becomes what must be the case in every possible world. And that would be reason and logic.
This. Assuming that any other possible universe could exist and is equally likely as any other possibility is a huge assumption.
These videos are always interesting but somethings are just unknowable for humans at least. The quest is worthwhile but the solution is terminally elusive.
I think you might be right. If a God exists, I'm not sure if even they would be able to answer that question. Even if this God is simply a "necessary being", it seems like even _that_ would logically require an explanation! Even if you just write off the question of why anything exists as a "brute fact", even _that_ seems to need an explanation!
I do not think we can conceive of what nothing would look like as even darkness is something.
if the World exists, there can only be one.
If there is another one, it means that it is a distant corner of our World.
What was supposed to mark the boundaries between ours and some other one?
There is one World, and the particular phenomena found in it are its components.
If existence exist as something what is that something, and if existence exist as all things what knows all things?
16:35 "There isn't anything in addition to anything." Anything is everything.
Of course we all had the same brain freeze as youngsters when thinking about nothingness. Seems like we were pretty smart back then because we knew exactly how to define nothing and that is why it was scary. The fact is there is something and we can't go back to a void. We are stuck with something and all the permutations that come with it. We are also stuck with non-physical ideas and concepts and things that suggest that there are unlimited possibilities of existence. What make us hesitate to believe in God is the absence of observation. We can't see what we can't see. But all other worldly phenomena suggests there is much more to existence than we can see.
Not sure. But thanks.
Who’s throwing the dart? Who made the dart?
And that vast dartboard...
I assume he was just using a metaphor. But that made his argument hard to understand. His "dartboard" argument also has a problem with finetuning, unless many darts are thrown to produce a multiverse.
nothing can only be described in terms of something
I think all the non-existent things sit on long shelves in Heaven, and the Time Angel knocks them out the back, they fall over the Elysian Parapets and float down on little cloud parachutes and become the existent things we find in the pages of history books. Our teachers make us read them so we can understand the piffle we watch on "Closer To Truth."
You can't have nothing without something. There would be nothing to base the nothingness off of.
We’re here because we’re here because we’re here……
We are here because we are not over there because this is where we are. To because or not to because, because that is the question.
@@alexgonzo5508 hahahahahaha!
Our reasoning its flawed by the fact that we have a beginning and an end and we extrapolate that to everything. Maybe the true nature of existence, the natural state and the only state is "without a beginning and without end".
While I share Robert's eternal intrigue with this question, I think there's a simple solution. "You can't get something from nothing" they say, right? But why not? I'll grant that that *seems* to be a law of the universe, sure... but in absolute nothingness, there *are no laws,* including that one. There is nothing -- no laws, logic, or reason -- preventing _something_ from spawning spontaneously out of nothing. And in the absence of even time, if something should happen to spontaneously appear, it wouldn't take days or weeks or eons; it would happen instantaneously, so to speak.
@@unlimitedlyintelligentspirit Under this idea of something spontaneously forming from nothing, there is no need for a god to explain it. The rules are different in this way of looking at it; there are no rules.
I've also never heard any compelling argument for why god _must necessarily exist_ to explain the existence of everything. And I think the above framework completely removes the necessity of any traditional god. The only "god" I could see existing under this framework is one as defined as "everything that exists" or "consciousness" or similar.
For me it's fairly clear just from looking at the universe, that it was either made by something, or it itself is a sentient self-creation. Whether it's benevolent, malevolent or indifferent i don't know, but i'm convinced there is some kind of intelligence responsible for the reality we inhabit.
I kind of agree: we know the universe started with the big bang, so the question becomes "what started the big bang?". And the answer could be as simple as an intelligent being clicking "start" on a far advanced quantum computer with our universal physical constants set as the parameters
What we see from studying the evolution of the universe is a continuous process of progression from extreme simplicity and uniformity to increasing complexity. Intelligence seems to be highly complex, so that seems incongruent with the progression we observe.
Also it seems like it should be easier to explain the origin of a simple state than the origin of a complex, highly structured organised state. Where would this organisation and complexity come from? Conversely we can see how initially simple physical processes generate greater and greater complexity. So I have to disagree, assuming an initial highly ordered structured state seems, apart from being directly contrary to observation, to raise many more questions than it answers.
@simonhibbs887 you're not wrong and I understand your argument. Richard Dawkins advocates for the same propostion; however, philosophers like Nick Bostrom makes a convincing argument that our universe and our existence is highly likely to be a simulation. We make simulations in super computers all the time mimicking the laws of nature showing the progression from simple to complex, what makes you think our universe isn't the same? No Man's Sky is a procedurally generated universe, why can't our universe be similar but on a much grandeur scale?
@@chriswhite599 Very few cosmologists , astronomers and physicists think anymore that the universe began with the Big Bang. If by universe you mean all that is. Rather what seems more likely to be the case is that our particular “universe” emerged out of the Big Bang inflation event nearly 14 billion years ago, along with many other “universes” that are now separate from ours. It is an idea that arises out of the mathematics of Cosmic Inflation Theory that Guth, Starobinsky and Linde won the Nobel Prize in Physics for in 2014.
@@simonhibbs887Yes, it seems as if complexity emerges from simpler building blocks in both the physical world as well as the mental, e.g., mathematics. Conway's game of life is a good example of simple rules leading to full Turing machine complexity (in the sense that it can compute all that is computable). Yet, the question remains, if it was simple in the beginning, how did the simple come about? Conway himself spent a lot of time to stumble upon his simple rules. But many other simple alternatives failed. Electron and quarks seem to be the simple building blocks of the physical along with the rules for their interactions (called bosons, you know photons, gluons, etc), but, how are they made? Something simpler? Infinite regress? And why are they made? And why so many? And why do we care? Only to suffer, survive and procreate and then disappear? Sounds absurd 😂
We have progressed much in the question of existence and conciousness. Peter van Inwagen shows it clearly in philosophigal way. The mystification serves religious thinking.
My best guess is that even if nothing exists, logic and maths would still exist. And somehow out of this abstract framework existence appears.
But then thats not nothing. In that case it would mean nothingness has rules and properties an that's an oxymoron.
The sweet mystery of life.
And sour.
@@Alfie1970Waterhouse Ha genius.
The problem itself is solved when you realise that ‘nothing’ is of itself actually a creation. ‘Nothing’ is a creation - it’s not outside of creation…it’s not outside ‘something’. We have to stop talking about ‘nothing’ being nothing.
"Why is there something rather than nothing ?" - Robert asked.
The answer is because of the fact/proof that we are aware of the existence of things around us that could not possibly came out of nothing. This means that something always exists. Understanding this question simply requires applying plain good commonsense to answer if you still have one free from the influence of evil forces....
Godless people who ask the same question should not be stressed too much because, soon, their souls will return back to cold dark NOTHINGNESS (hell) to have their dreams fulfilled which is a life without God's grace... Wishing for NOTHINGNESS as their preference rather than SOMETHING is their own command because we are all the Masters of our faith, the Captains of our souls.
Good luck lol
Whats the probability of existence or life after death? Please discuss in the next video...
Why, you have a 100 dollar bet outstanding?
Because i believe we are here in this world to create our afterlife ..
@@i4niable I see, then thats a valid interest.
There can only be theories or imaginations of the reasons of existence.
This is a simple question to answer. We know what nothingness is. It is when we lose consciousness. When we lose consciousness, then nothing exists, not even mathematics. Nothing. Since consciousness is fundamental to existence, a supreme consciousness has to create everything else.
the question has no meaning-- if there were nothing the question could not be asked.
Is Nullpunktenergie factored into these something vs nothing discussions?
"Nothing" only exists as the yang to "something's" yin. Is there a third state, outside of being?
If there was nothing, logic wouldn't exist. In that case, you should not be surprised that something became existent, because there were no rules saying that something can't come from nothing.
I followed this up to throwing darts. 😟
*"I followed this up to throwing darts"*
... Did you think you wouldn't hit anything? 🙂
"God alone suffices" St Therese of Avila.
"It stranger than we can think". R.B.S. Haldane.
First, lay down the foundation of NOTHING, no time, no space, no particle nor wave to exist in space-time, and then ask FROM WHAT ANGLE can SOMETHING see that?
There may be different kinds of nothing, and different relationships to its counterpart, something.
One conception is that of vacuum. Another conception is that of noise.
To me, the noise is the more fundamental, as it captures the idea of lack of order.
This kind of nothing is creative!
It creates something around it, as we consider it more closely, extract some order, and reduce its bounds, but never to zero.
This is a nothing that creates complexity in proportion to our ability to analyze it.
It's the kind of nothing you find if you go looking for it.
Is there “Infinity and Unlimited”!? If there is then by default “Nothing” is the carrier And contains “Everything”!? Therefore “Nothing is Everything”!?
There can never be a state of complete nothingness, there always needs to be a precedent whatever that might be so it doesn’t seem logical to ask the question at all.
I tried to think of this in mathematical terms. You start with 0 and that’s the only integer you have (nothing). You multiply by 0 and get 0. You also cannot add to 0 to get anything because we only have 0 as an integer. So it almost seems like something HAD to exist, however, where did that originate?
Suppose this, then. What if we ARE nothingness. What if we are 0. We are a placeholder in this plane of existence. It’s just a circulation of 0. Very abstract to think about, but in a closed system, it seems to work. Until you ask how the integers outside of us exist lol.
Idk, it’s all a massive paradox.
[nothing]
I think [ ] is simply the missing bits between 2 bits of information that constitute 2 possibilities
in macroscopic realm for example;
I have [ ] but this,
I can't think of [ ] but this,
I can see [ ] but this,
I can feel [ ] but this
there's always [missing bits] that can't really be conceptualized by our minds, in the middle, of something
and in microscopic realm for example;
the spin of quantum particle is quantized, which means it can only take [nothing] but 2 distinguishable value;
spinning up[ ]spinning down
If something made out of nothing then where did nothing come from?
@@halcyon2864 that is one of the beautiful theory yes. But even the endless cycle must start from something, right?
@@halcyon2864 “reality is not real” is another subject. We don’t know anything for sure, we can just draw some simple logic lines and my original comment is an example of it. Anything else is possible and probable
@@halcyon2864 “reality is not real” is another subject. We don’t know anything for sure, we can just draw some simple logic lines and my original comment is an example of it. Anything else is possible and probable
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Love you work I'm so glad it exists. I'm not that smart I'm afraid but surely even nothing (to say there isn't anything even numbers) is something and the old question who made god?
😮
The question is now WHY is there something as opposed to nothing but HOW is there something?
What does an infinitely sharp dart have to do with it? An infinitely dull dart would work just as well, so long as it hits the infinitely large wall.
Since we haven't got capacity to visualise the whole or below per in emage or imagery building capacity of sublime,our creation never been meaningful and ultimately succumbs to nothingness.But we are striving forth harder, enlarging our imagination, innovative capacity to produce the microsome of perfect omnipresent.Goodluck.
Is a better question are we truly finite and if so can it be that finite things must always be?
Or is it that we must be because infinite demands it?!
I’m not declaring anything but honestly asking for alternate perspectives.
What if the postulation of probable states is a false one? And every single state in time could only ever be one way?
Why would all “holes” on the wall have an equal probability of being hit by the dart? Why wouldn’t the dart “god” or “super-nature” throws at the wall have a tendency to go one direction or another? Is the existence distribution equal amongst possible realities? Most containing universes and only one (?) nothingness? Why would there be only one? Why not two nothingness options for every something option on the wall? Why is only one dart thrown?
I had a dream in which sort of disk shaped universe suddenly blinked out of existence. I was started by this sudden appearance of nothingness and I entered the weird world of contemplating the possibility of nothingness. Few thoughts actually give you a physical jolt as you nearly capture it, but this one does.
Don’t eat cheese before bed.
This array of possible realities doesn’t make sense to me. There is one single way that reality can be like and that’s that.
Human beings are contingent beings embedded in space and time. So we cannot think of something called 'nothing' simply because nothing is not a thing. On the other hand, God as Necessary Being does not need anything to create something.
God or gods are just another level of complexity...you still have to explain how God or gods get there...and as there is zero evidence for it, it's not looking good.
Surely the turtles know the answer.
They don't know the answer, rather, they are the answer.
The question is how is it that there is something because the fact is that there is something and since there is something we should establish an argument as to why there is something and there is something because I exist why do I exist I exist because my parents gave birth to me and so on and so forth into the past existence being infinitely into the past and infinitely into the future
My Brain has melted into nothing
but nothing is someting, both have been and will always be
If we look at what the earth is producing alone and then depend on it alone, humanity will fail the rest of the world. Check why other religion including those of the African origin have their soils thriving especially those that still practice true spirituality to the point of death or extreme exhaustion. What is the main reason for the bible and the key figures and what was the common "trait" between them all - whether or not they did wrong or right? There is a certain energy you worked and walked and wandered for that starts to inspire you as an individual to a higher frequency that produces answers of unimaginable kind. The vertical produces a certain kind of energetic patience that will always produce a extreme kindness or extreme physical movement. It is so unfathomably powerful, it will discourage or give you a strength you have never wanted or will ever know you can produce.
With time I will share mysteries you, I and others overlooked.
The only way to believe there is nothing is to become ignorant. Then you wouldn't even have abstraction.
It's not whether 'anybody' is here to answer the question (we clearly can't), it whether there is anyone here to ask the question (we do). Why would God not make it 100% certain in all of our minds if he exists? That's the big question in my mind. What is his point (assuming he absolutely does exist) for not making that clear or provable? And why are we held accountable if we don't come to the 'right' conclusion? And why is it possible to disingenuously claim in his name that you are doing his work in order to profit personally? Why is all of that possible? What are we to learn that it is so?
We should learn that the idea of God and and after life may be soothing for the individual, but it is disastrous for the species and holds the species back from progressing as it needs to in order survive. Any species worth its salt will not allow the idea of God or religion to have any political power or control over it at all.
Maybe God doesn’t make Himself certain in our minds because our minds produce ideas and concepts and God doesn’t “like” being viewed as an idea or concept.
How can you have a world of nothing?
Is there Zero and One ,,,,0 & 1...Which is equal to “Infinity and Unlimited” if there is, then by default “Computing Of 0 & 1” is being carried by “Nothing”. Therefore 0 & 1 is in the Toolbox Of Everything Being Nothing!? Ying/Yang. There can be “Nothing Without Everything”!?
Particles and processes…voila⚡️
Mathematically the probability of nothing is 1 to infinity ♾️
Something and nothing are fundamentally exactly the same. Yummy, scrambled eggs, fried ham and toast.
Seems to me there other slightly less un-answerable questions we might be better served asking....
Why worry about nothing since there obviously is something?
If there is only Nothing, then that "Nothing" is 'Something', ie Zero (0) cannot equal One (1). Hence One can only equal One, therefore only One (a 'something state') exists.
0=∞
...Please allow my comment some careful thought. First may I say Thank you for for your wonderful knowledge. The Big Bang was not an explosion. GOD separated/tore a portion of Heaven and created HIS Garden. HIS Garden would contain all parts of Heaven. What a wonderful and amazing thought. So Finely Tuned and Balanced Garden. The setting aside a small portion of Heaven to create HIS Garden would produce a massive release of explosion like environment reactions
Thank you and all of our very learned minds, respectfully, Chuck, you tube...captivus brevis...Blessings All, my brothers & sisters...
InBetween Nothing & Everything there are lots of something , running around something will never lead you somewhere, Try to link all theories' in mind , First Yourself than try to see the way for others with me. Goldy
How absolutely empty and meaningless existence would be without God! How impossible is the design and structure of the universe without God.
The idea of God is a crutch that eventually hobbles the species that can’t let go of it.
The kind question asked by someone with too much time on their hands
There's something rather than nothing because it is impossible for there to be nothing there can't be nothing because if there is something then it is impossible for there to be nothing if there is something it is impossible to somehow erase everything so that there is nothing so it is impossible for there to be nothing
If nothing has to exist then its still something. One has to think about the formless which is the background of this Form or Universe . If we think deep it can only be knowledge. So utlimately it comes to out be that something has to exists in its knowledge or formless. That formless is nothing OR knowledge which depends on something. 😊
There is no cause and effect. Existence is one which means it is eternal infinite and absolute. One cannot find oneself outside oneself. (Religion and science trying to find cause or what is outside universe) . Also one cannot find oneself by breaking oneself (science trying to find what is inside quantum particle)
Without knowledge of existence there cannot be existence and without existence there cannot be knowledge of existence. That Knowledge can only be achieved through eternal cyclic movement with division of subject and object in it.
Thanks 😊