Why is there something rather than nothing?

[Damian]

Zero is a value, and all that is before the value of 1.

Your mathematics leave something to be desired. That being said, numbers are abstractions and do not exist independently of a mind that abstracts.

Or in other words; nothing is something.

That's an inherently self-refuting statement.

 

[CherubRam]

Your mathematics leave something to be desired. That being said, numbers are abstraction and do not exist independently of a mind that abstracts.



That's an inherently self-refuting statement.

Have a nice day. :deadhorse:

 

[Stuu]

You're just playing a semantical game.

Kettle, pot, black.

Stuart

 

[George Affleck]

You're just playing a semantical game in order to divery attention away from the fact that your argument has been refuted.

OK
Bye again.

 

[zippy2006]

But when you use blindness, or emptiness, and even "nothing", most of the time, you are describing something.

No, I am not. This is important. You are twisting language. You want to say that I am merely making a statement about a room, but that is simply not the intention of the speaker. The negative statement is about more than the room. It is about a lack precisely as a lack. It is about an absence. Take blindness:

But blindness is a property of a thing (or a person) that exists. What is the thing that you are describing in the sentence "nothing exists"?

No, it isn't a property of the person. Strictly speaking, blindness is not something a person has, it is just a lack of sight. And again, I am not describing the person, I am describing the lack of some possible thing. In truth the lack has no more subject or spatial coordinate than the idea of sheer nothingness. It is the same. The same exact question could be asked about the statement, "Blindness exists."

You're describing something that doesn't exist? What color is the komodo dragon that doesn't exist?

Do I have to assign a color to say that a komodo dragon does not exist in this room? Of course not. Color is an accidental property. The statement is perfectly intelligible without a specified color.

I am describing a lack. I am describing a possibility that did not obtain.

I think that's the problem.

And yet you do it all the time. :idunno:

A "nothing" is not an object, it is a lack of an object.

That's what I'm saying.

...and the language describing the lack is intelligible and coherent. :up:

I could as easily say, "There does not exist a komodo dragon." The statement would be false and intelligible.

And ambiguous.

What is ambiguous about it? It is meaningful, it is intelligible, and it is coherent, so whatever you mean by "ambiguous" doesn't seem particularly important. It is no more ambiguous than any other instance of language use. Is this a true statement: "There do not exist unicorns"?

It seems to me that "Nothing exists" is a kind of counterfactual statement.

Where, in that posit, is this nothing?

Again, you're relying on strawmen. Counterfactuals do not exist anywhere in space or time, and neither do lacks or privations. Your question makes no sense and is evidence of a misunderstanding of what is being said.

I can look at the chair in my room and form the (intelligible) proposition, "The chair does not exist."

A cringeworthy assertion, if ever I heard one. And even so, you're describing the chairlessness of your room.

"Cringeworthy" isn't an argument. And no, I am not describing the chairlessness of my room (you didn't even read what I wrote). There is a chair in the room. The proposition is false, and yet intelligible.

I can also form the proposition, "Chairs do not exist."

Presumably, the context here is "in reality" or something similar.

Of course! So what? :idunno:

I can go on with, "Things do not exist," and "Realities do not exist." There is simply nothing incoherent about this.

I think we have more than enough examples.

Where is the incoherence?

Existence is a kind of absolute quality. I can form concepts in my head and yet they may or may not exist in reality. Lions do, unicorns don't. Consider the world (or state of affairs) in which we enumerate over everything that currently exists and theoretically negate its existence. That is what we mean by the scenario "Nothing exists."

Well, I'm being sincere, and not intentionally difficult.

Okay, good. :thumb:

Sure I do. I call it "transience".

Everything is transient. I don't make a habit of using words to distinguish everything from nothing beside the obvious.

Great, so you know what contingency is. Grand.

...and yet you clearly have a concept of "transience," even though you claim that everything is transient. So you have the same habit as everyone else.

Oftentimes language predicates properties of subjects. But that doesn't mean it always does. In fact there are many examples where language depicts a lack, a non-existence. I just don't find this answer compelling, and I'm not sure you've provided a sound argument:

zippy: Consider the counterfactual scenario in which nothing exists. rexlunae: I have no idea what you are talking about. The statement is incoherent or contradictory. zippy:

 

[OCTOBER23]

DAMIAN BANNED ????- hmmmmmm

Aren't we all glad that there is something rather than nothing

or else we would not have a Forum of Friends to discuss things with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r7km3ygza4

 

[steko]

OP: Why is there something rather than nothing?

Because, some thing has always existed.

 

[George Affleck]

But when you use blindness, or emptiness, and even "nothing", most of the time, you are describing something.

But blindness is a property of a thing (or a person) that exists. What is the thing that you are describing in the sentence "nothing exists"?

Can you conceive of something that does not exist and talk about it as if it could exist, if not for the fact that it does not, even describing in detail imaginary properties? Flying Spaghetti Monster for example?

Does this mean that anything that is imaginary is something? I think what you mean is - the firing of neurons in your brain is something even if the subject matter does not exist.

Darkness is the absence of light which makes absolute darkness nothing within the restricted conversation about light/darkness.

Ignorance is the absence of knowledge which makes absolute ignorance nothing within the restricted conversation about knowledge/ignorance.

We have ascribed words to stand for, as Zippy said, a lack of something that would be real if there was any of it. Just because we use the words does not mean those things are something.

It doesn't matter how many non-meals we attempt to consume (impossible of course), we will never be filled.

 

[PureX]

I think one of the easier ways to think about it is as follows:

The contradictory proposition is, "Something exists." I take it that this is intelligible? Your computer exists; your computer is something; therefore something exists. From this argument we can easily see that it is false that "Nothing exists," since the two are contradictory propositions. Furthermore, the truth of "Nothing exists" is equivalent to the falsity of "Something exists," and I think the falsity of that proposition is also quite intelligible and coherent.

The problem is that neither statement means anything except in opposition to the other.

We can't comprehend "nothing". We can't experience "nothing". We can't recognize, share, or prove a state of nothingness. The term and concept of "nothing" is completely meaningless except that it opposes the term and concept of "something". And yet "something", until specified, is just as meaningless and empty the term as "nothing". And even having been specified, the "something-ness" of the thing we are referring to becomes a meaningless redundancy. So that in fact, the two terms really don't mean or refer to anything except as contrast to the other.

So how is it that we have created these two contrasting concepts in our heads, when neither of them refers to or means anything except in relation to the other?

The answer to that question lays in how the human brain 'thinks'. And that essentially happens via successive comparing and contrasting of whatever information it receives, so as to identify and qualify it relative to all the other information it has already received, identified, and qualified. We literally think by means of likeness, and unlikeness. And if we remove all the specific information from that mechanism, the fundamental mechanism of 'compare-contrast-repeat' remains: an unidentified "something" contrasting and standing in comparison to an unidentified "nothing".

 

[JosephR]

Do you believe it is possible that, at some point, absolutely nothing existed? Do you believe it is possible that the exhaustive source(s) of all being was one or many contingent beings?

this is actually a great question and thought excorsize..

there was something that created the big bang... a dense state or whatever,, but now we know more about dimensions and quantum levals of existence...

what is size, and relativity? could there have ever been nothing?

I am afraid my dear friends, with fear of the Lord... that there has always been somthing, and that something is ever present...and that will drive you mad or in total disillusion. but these are the hard facts and we can rest knowing we have a loving Father who will not leave His children,alone in a entroptic environment..

 

[Damian]

Have a nice day. :deadhorse:

I will. Thank you.

 

[Damian]

OK
Bye again.

I said good day.

 

[Damian]

Because, some thing has always existed.

But why?

 

[Damian]

Kettle, pot, black.

Stuart

Show a little creativity. That's AMR's line.

 

[freelight]

the substance at heart......

the substance at heart......

Originally Posted by freelight:

As addressed earlier here....consciousness is Self-evident....

To which I replied: "Nothing is self-evident." This, of course, is only my opinion but I don't believe it was 'addressed' as you say, just stated without support. Mine was also a statement of a belief I hold and was intended to challenge your statement as a belief, not an axiom.

The reality of consciousness is most certainly, self-evident, self-realizing, self-reflecting,...since the 'Self' itself is the mirror or the "I" of subjectivity at the heart of awareness, in which one's own 'being' is known, and in which all is known (the perceived world and all its forms/content/relationships, etc.). I can intuit from reality itself... the reality that "I Am", the very identity and awareness wherein 'no-thing' and 'every-thing' exists (in potential and actuality), even 'God'. There is awareness itself, and all its conceptions,...which are but abstract forms, assumptions, modifications, restrictions, refractions of the original light, since this is all that exists. 'God' (original primal awareness) is 'no-thing' and 'every-thing',...essence and form, and beyond. 'God' is One and All. There is no other.

freelight:

I don't see how that could be questionable. Try denying that you are aware, or the fact of awareness itself.

Saying that consciousness is not self-evident is not the same as denying it. I am not denying conciousness, I am simply saying that to declare it self-evident is an attempt to create a false and subjective starting point.

Conciousness may be axiomatic to you. To me it is merely a subjective description of a condition common to humans; as is awareness. These things are part of our makeup because God designed it so, not because 'it-just-is' (self-evident, axiomatic). The God of 'itjustis' is as hollow for mystics as for evolutionists just from a different perspective. There is no intrinsic value in consciousness/awareness that justifies it as the 'kickoff' for enlightenment.

Again, only my perspective/opinion. It is, I believe, a Biblical one. We start, not with ourselves but with God, who IS, and who enlightens us by His Revelation of truth; if we ever stop denying Him with our self-centredness.

I affirm that consciousness/awareness IS, and all else are but thought-reflections, constructs, concepts, ideas, beliefs, relative perceptions, speculations. We can only begin first with 'awareness', since it is primal, prior to and original to all other 'thoughts', that arise from IT. - this includes 'god-concepts', in all their various forms and personalities - All there is, is LIGHT and its various reflections, the entire spectrum of all the possibilities of 'light' and 'darkness', in the shadow-world-play of creation-duality.

I come from an Advaita (non-dualism) point of view usually, with various nuances of my own nomenclature from various schools, as these all center from and originate with first the light of 'God' in one's own soul-consciousness (spirit-center), without which 'God' or the 'world' could exist. So you see that apart from awareness, nothing exists to be perceived or known, on any level or description, in the 'negative' or 'positive'....since some kind of awareness is essential for anything to be conceived (negative or positive existence). 'God' is the 'Light'(original awareness/energy-intelligence) making 'consciousness/existence' possible. I am that. (spiritual classic from Nisargadatta Maharaj).

freelight:

Apparently, as 'something' arising in consciousness. Whatever occurs is but a simulation of movement within awareness.

Being made in the image of God, the recognition that we are conscious/aware should drive us toward God for fellowship with Him, not away from Him into vain and counterfeit representations of divinity. The reason it doesn't is evidence of the fact that we have fallen from a once perfect relationship and are adrift in manufactured religion. Most 'somethings' are not of our own making, but that does not register as significant. Awareness now drives idolatry. Before the Fall, it resulted in relationship.

Perhaps 'God' is made in the imagination-reflection of our own consciousness...in our own 'imaging' power - it might behoove us that intrinsic within the true nature of our Real Being, is already love, truth, innocence, grace, compassion, bliss,...because that is its very nature, God's own. Love is love. Just because within awareness, all potentials of 'good' and 'evil' exist DOES NOT prove there was a 'fall', or that there is 'original sin', since those are religious assumptions/mythology, no matter how they relate to the bigger picture in the imagination of man.

From the higher infinite perspective, yes....its all 'God' anyways dreaming the cosmos into being, whose play of possibilities must include all potentials to experience themselves, fulfilling their beginnings and endings in the currents of time. Yep,...all this is going on in consciousness, the only place that 'everything' or 'nothing', however you conceive it could exist!

We are consciousness itself.

freelight:

The subject is most significant hence my critiques, as nothing is as essential or fundamental to existence than consciousness apart from which nothing could be.

I couldn't disagree more. In my opinion there is nothing as essential or fundamental to existence than knowing God. Awareness should be understood in relation to the cause of awareness. This is not to say that this has always been my opinion. Far from it; but I now wholeheartedly reject subjectivity as being totally unreliable.

LATER EDIT: By totally unreliable I am referring only to knowing God, existence, meaning, awareness, etc. and I am not commenting on mundane issues such as: stopping at a red light, etc. All men are religious but cannot know essential truth without guidance and faith.

Ok,....we would agree that 'God' is the source of awareness-existence-creation,....so however one looks at it, we are still experiencing/knowing 'God' and all that has meaning and value within consciousness anyways. Faith, insight, reason, intelligence, inspiration/illumination all arise from the primal depths and purity of original awareness, Spirit.

I'm not being flippant, but, I just don't have time to pour through threads with content I've heard before many times. I had a quick look. Thanks though.

No worries,....I leave research-links and resource portals for those interested in looking deeper :sherlock:

Thank you,



pj

 

[freelight]

zero point expanding........

zero point expanding........

Zero is a value, and all that is before the value of 1. Or in other words; nothing is something.

Yes,...'God' can be equated to being the first original 'no-thing' from which 'every-thing' emerges or proceeds,...the Zero-point of infinity, the still-light center of all creative movements in the cosmos, from which all multiple points derive and multiply therefrom, yet 'zero' always being the nuclear-value, and return-point of all variables. In this context,...'zero' is the womb of 'everything'...and everything is but some derivative or multiplication-extension of zero.

No-thing is some-thing, yes, as it exists or is conceived as having any substance or value. So, something ('God', 'zero', 'awareness', 'essence', creative intelligence') has always been....since it is always 'be-ing'. 'God' is 'be-ing',....as 'timeless' and thru-out all time, both 'stillness' and 'movement'. God is all there is...and 'God' is both knowing and being it, since what exists outside of 'God'? From 'God' there is no escape possible, EVER.

Zeroed out :surf:



pj

 

[freelight]

mind blower................

mind blower................

This is not saying that God is creating himself. It's saying that God is a necessary being. That is, God's nonexistence is impossible. To a believer, it is impossible that God cannot exist. So, why is there something rather than nothing.? There is something rather than nothing because it is impossible for there to be nothing. God exists necessarily.

In one sense, 'God' is necessary,.....in another 'God' is not. Only what is truly necessary or essential to being itself, is intrinsically so, yet a created 'God' or 'god-concept' may be totally 'unnecessary', 'problematic' or in the extreme....'insane'.

To contemplate an eternal/infinite 'something' is not a problem to this entity,....since if 'God' be that reality as classically defined or beyond as held by other schools....its logic stands to reason that God could not be proved otherwise, unless the evidence could absolutely refute his eternality/infinity of Being.

Something exists, and it just happens to be the case. This 'thisness', or 'suchness' is what IS. Such is reality. All else are descriptions, a fanfare of mind and its conceptualizing,...merry go rounds. No one has the upper hand or orthodox formula of success here, since existence is consciously existing the same for everyone, - only the perceptions, forms, appearances differ along so many story lines and their starring 'egos'.

The "my god is better than your god" looks rather dismal a party line, since it is by one's own criteria and qualifications that he enamors and worships his 'god', however defined. Once words are dismissed, that which is prior to and beyond words, shines forth of its own nature. That 'nature' is the essence of what/who we are.

Something exists,...because that just happens to be the case. Remember,...it is still YOU being and doing it all. The Conscious YOU. - even your 'gods' do not exist without YOU. Nothing exists apart from consciousness or some awareness to know it, or for a concept of 'not knowing' to be assumed.

There is only what is be-ing, nothing else as far as we know. Its redundant after a certain point.



pj

 

[Stuu]

Show a little creativity. That's AMR's line.

Ok then. You're a hypocrite.

Is that original enough for you?

Stuart

 

[George Affleck]

The reality of consciousness is most certainly, self-evident, self-realizing, self-reflecting,...

Then we will continue to disagree. If anything is self-evident, there is no need for God.

...since the 'Self' itself is the mirror or the "I" of subjectivity at the heart of awareness, in which one's own 'being' is known, and in which all is known (the perceived world and all its forms/content/relationships, etc.). I can intuit from reality itself... the reality that "I Am", the very identity and awareness wherein 'no-thing' and 'every-thing' exists (in potential and actuality), even 'God'. There is awareness itself, and all its conceptions,...which are but abstract forms, assumptions, modifications, restrictions, refractions of the original light, since this is all that exists. 'God' (original primal awareness) is 'no-thing' and 'every-thing',...essence and form, and beyond. 'God' is One and All. There is no other.

A great way of rationalising your belief in a religion that you control. God objectively IS. He is the only I AM. All else exists by His command.

I affirm that consciousness/awareness IS, and all else are but thought-reflections, constructs, concepts, ideas, beliefs, relative perceptions, speculations. We can only begin first with 'awareness', since it is primal, prior to and original to all other 'thoughts', that arise from IT. - this includes 'god-concepts', in all their various forms and personalities - All there is, is LIGHT and its various reflections, the entire spectrum of all the possibilities of 'light' and 'darkness', in the shadow-world-play of creation-duality.

I affirm that God IS. He is independent, infinite in wisdom, and you need to bow the knee to Him alone and hear His Word.

I come from an Advaita (non-dualism) point of view usually, with various nuances of my own nomenclature from various schools, as these all center from and originate with first the light of 'God' in one's own soul-consciousness (spirit-center), without which 'God' or the 'world' could exist. So you see that apart from awareness, nothing exists to be perceived or known, on any level or description, in the 'negative' or 'positive'....since some kind of awareness is essential for anything to be conceived (negative or positive existence). 'God' is the 'Light'(original awareness/energy-intelligence) making 'consciousness/existence' possible. I am that. (spiritual classic from Nisargadatta Maharaj).

All that is would still exist without your awareness or the awareness of any and all humans on the earth if God wills it to be so. Your whole point is not self-awareness, it is self-worship.

Perhaps 'God' is made in the imagination-reflection of our own consciousness...in our own 'imaging' power - it might behoove us that intrinsic within the true nature of our Real Being, is already love, truth, innocence, grace, compassion, bliss,...because that is its very nature, God's own. Love is love. Just because within awareness, all potentials of 'good' and 'evil' exist DOES NOT prove there was a 'fall', or that there is 'original sin', since those are religious assumptions/mythology, no matter how they relate to the bigger picture in the imagination of man.

No, He is from everlasting to everlasting. He has told us what we need to know. His Word tells us about the Fall. We don't need to be in the dark about that or tie ourselves in philosophical knots.

From the higher infinite perspective, yes....its all 'God' anyways dreaming the cosmos into being, whose play of possibilities must include all potentials to experience themselves, fulfilling their beginnings and endings in the currents of time. Yep,...all this is going on in consciousness, the only place that 'everything' or 'nothing', however you conceive it could exist!

We are consciousness itself.

You can believe that if you want. I prefer to believe God when He speaks. He spoke everything into existence, He didn't dream it. It happened for real. When I became a man, I put away childish things.

Ok,....we would agree that 'God' is the source of awareness-existence-creation,....so however one looks at it, we are still experiencing/knowing 'God' and all that has meaning and value within consciousness anyways. Faith, insight, reason, intelligence, inspiration/illumination all arise from the primal depths and purity of original awareness, Spirit.

Closer, but still far, far away.

______________________________________________

Ok, now that I have commented from my 'party line' and you have done the same, let me say that I understand, in general terms, your reasoning and beliefs. It is rather common these days. There was a time when I gave all this airy fairy stuff the time of day but no longer. In my opinion it is just another way to deny Jesus and look clever.

The war is between objectivism and subjectivism. I am on one side and you are on the other. Subjectivism is a license to print your own religious currency and sell shares in a religion/worldview. History attests to an almost infinite number of 'right religions'.

But they are counterfeits of the original. Narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it. The way is shut up in Jesus only. My hope is that you will sell all that you have acquired and count it as dung for the excellency of the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus.

 

[zippy2006]

The problem is that neither statement means anything except in opposition to the other.

No, you're confusing yourself. We know what existence is apart from either statement. People (or children) understand "something" before they understand "nothing." They understand existence and then learn to understand non-existence. Contradictory propositions imply one another, but this in no way means that they signify no positive reality. :idunno:

A concrete demonstration of this fact is seen when you try to teach kids math, especially subtraction. They understand how to subtract "something" (i.e. positive integers from larger integers), but they require further development to understand how to subtract "nothing" (e.g. 5 - 0). Someone who has just learned to subtract will be bewildered by the idea, for they don't properly understand what is meant by "nothing." Yet their grasp of "something" as well as subtraction is firmly planted.