Nothing From Nothing

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Is there anything that everyone here can agree on?

There is a saying: ex nihil, nihil fit. Out of nothing, nothing [be]comes.

Is this one of those obvious truths that folks like to deny the existence of, or do folks here believe that from utter nothingness sprang forth the world and all that is in it?

If you reject the idea that something could begin to exist out of utter nothingness, how do you explain that anything at all exists? Or do you just accept existence as a brute fact that requires no explanation.

244 thoughts on “Nothing From Nothing”

  1. walto: Sure.We can say anything we’d like.But I’d like to see a good (i.e., non-question-begging) argument for it being true.

    Not to mention how any being could be necessary.

    Necessary for saving someone’s conception of what reality is doesn’t count.

    Glen Davidson

  2. GlenDavidson: Necessary for saving someone’s conception of what reality is doesn’t count.

    What is reality and why should it be whatever you say it is? If there’s no logical necessity – and sufficiency – in what you say, then aren’t your reasons insufficient?

  3. walto: Sure. We can say anything we’d like. But I’d like to see a good (i.e., non-question-begging) argument for it being true.

    But if there’s a good argument for it being true, then is it really “anything we’d like” or is it more like, you know, true or at least plausible?

  4. Erik: What is reality and why should it be whatever you say it is? If there’s no logical necessity – and sufficiency – in what you say, then aren’t your reasons insufficient?

    Why should I care about your strawmen?

    Glen Davidson

  6. Neil Rickert:
    Just to stay on topic.

    If a mathematician starts with nothing, he can use that to create the empty set.And then, he can create the set whose only member is the empty set.From those beginnings, he can actually develop all of arithmetic.

    Who says you cannot get something from nothing?

    Is an empty set nothing or is it a set?

  7. Moved a comment to Guano. Please address the content of the comment or post, not the person behind it. That means name calling is disallowed.

  8. Kantian Naturalist: A friend of mine who works at the intersection of philosophy of religion and philosophy of physics is writing a paper about why the multiverse is a more reasonable hypothesis than God. I’m dubious of that claim but I look forward to seeing what my friend comes up with.

    I’m dubious of that claim too. God and multiverse are just as compatible as God and universe.

    Besides, there seems to be a fairly established concept of “mind of God” in physics. Back in the days of A Brief History of Time Hawking made use of it, “Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God.”

    Seems to mean “fundamental ontology/metaphysics” or something like that. (Teleology included, because Hawking’s question is why.)

  9. Erik: But if there’s a good argument for it being true, then is it really “anything we’d like” or is it more like, you know, true or at least plausible?

    If there’s a good argument that it’s true, there’s a good argument that it’s true. If you’ve got one, I’d like to hear it! (The entire world would, actually.)

  10. walto: If there’s a good argument that it’s true, there’s a good argument that’s it’s true. If you’ve got one, I’d like to hear it! (The entire world would, actually.)

    Since you are well-versed in philosophy, you know that blurting out a syllogism or such means little. Everything fundamental is done by examining presuppositions – namely one’s own presuppositions. Works only when people cooperate.

  11. Erik: why the multiverse is a more reasonable hypothesis than God. I’m dubious of that claim but I look forward to seeing what my friend comes up with.

    I’m dubious of that claim too. God and multiverse are just as compatible as God and universe.

    While you’re at it, please indicate why you think your remark about compatibility is relevant to KN’s friend’s claim.

  12. Erik: Since you are well-versed in philosophy, you know that blurting out a syllogism or such means little. Everything fundamental is done by examining presuppositions – namely one’s own presuppositions. Works only when people cooperate.

    As I expected. Notung.

  13. walto: While you’re at it, please indicate why you think your remark about compatibility is relevant to KN’s friend’s claim.

    KN is dubious of the claim. I suspect he is dubious of it because he doesn’t take multiverse be essentially different from universe. I would be dubious for the very same reason.

    It all depends on how convincing a case the friend makes for that multiverse is somehow essentially bigger, better and decisively self-sufficient compared to universe.

    walto: As I expected. Notung.

    So you didn’t mean your request sincerely. You meant it more as a non-starter, a conversation-stopper. As I suspected.

  15. Erik: …Back in the days of A Brief History of Time Hawking made use of it, “Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God.”

    Seems to mean “fundamental ontology/metaphysics” or something like that. (Teleology included, because Hawking’s question is why.)

    There is a causal “why”, and then there is the teleological “why”.
    You could write to Hawking and ask him which he meant, or are you just content to assume?
    Don’t let language lead you astray.

  16. Allan Miller: So space stops being nothing when there is something in it? Or is space never nothing?

    Never nothing. If space is a relation between objects, then – no objects, no relation. That would be a state where there’s no objective (i.e. pertaining to objects) reality. There would still be the transcendental reality, the precondition for objective reality.

  17. Fair Witness: There is a causal “why”, and then there is the teleological “why”.
    You could write to Hawking and ask him which he meant, or are you just content to assume?

    I have read the entire book. The mechanical physics (and its extension – biological evolution) was amply covered before. So the only “why” left after that must be teleological.

  18. Erik: I have read the entire book. The mechanical physics (and its extension – biological evolution) was amply covered before. So the only “why” left after that must be teleological.

    So.. content to assume. Got it.
    Somehow, I don’t think Hawking is the source you want to hang your teleological hat on. Subsequent public statements made by him, after he had learned more about how the universe works, made it clear that he sees no need for a god in the origin of our universe.

  19. Erik: KN is dubious of the claim. I suspect he is dubious of it because he doesn’t take multiverse be essentially different from universe. I would be dubious for the very same reason.

    It all depends on how convincing a case the friend makes for that multiverse is somehow essentially bigger, better and decisively self-sufficient compared to universe.

    So you didn’t mean your request sincerely. You meant it more as a non-starter, a conversation-stopper. As I suspected.

    I think you should incorporate, Erik. Maybe “Flim-Flam, Limited” is available.

  20. Fair Witness: So.. content to assume. Got it.

    But I was operating with your assumption: There is a causal “why”, and then there is the teleological “why”.

    Or is there also some third and fourth “why” you would like examined?

  21. walto: I think you should incorporate, Erik.Maybe “Flim-Flam, Limited” is available.

    You are just reaffirming that you were joking all along. I can congratulate myself for having the right hunch.

  22. Erik: But I was operating with your assumption: There is a causal “why”, and then there is the teleological “why”.

    Or is there also some third and fourth “why” you would like examined?

    “Why is my windshield wet? Because it rained”
    Is it not clear this is a causal “why”? This is not an assumption that a causal usage of “why” is common.
    Your believing Hawking’s “why” was a teleological “why” is the assumption I was referring to.

  23. Fair Witness: Your believing Hawking’s “why” was a teleological “why” is the assumption I was referring to.

    Yes, we already covered that. And we also covered the fact that if you read the book, you would know it’s a justified assumption.

  25. Kantian Naturalist,

    We can say that there must be a necessary being […] .

    I still don’t know why we’d say that though. You seem sympathetic to the view, but ‘beings’, in every other sense that I can think of, only exist inside the STEM universe. I don’t see a compelling need to invoke one to explain the existence of said STEM universe. Why not ‘necessary physics’?

  27. Erik,

    Never nothing. If space is a relation between objects, then – no objects, no relation. That would be a state where there’s no objective (i.e. pertaining to objects) reality. There would still be the transcendental reality, the precondition for objective reality.

    So if there were no universe, and a quantum fluctuation occurs, with the particles physically separated in some way, that separation is the physical thing ‘space’, which is not nothing. It didn’t exist before there were particles for it to be between. Is there still ‘nothing’ outside the frame bounded by these two existent entities?

    ISTM that nothing stops being nothing by virtue of the particles within it. ergo, when you get a quantum fluctuation, you get something from nothing, briefly. It doesn’t seem like you disagree, though I think you want to.

  28. Erik: You are just reaffirming that you were joking all along.

    Uh, right. Reaffirming. Pretty much everybody’s posts do that for you. Agree or disagree, they all reaffirm whatever argle-bargle you’re currently burbling.

  30. Allan Miller:
    Fair Witness,

    I might also suggest

    “information”
    “random”
    “accident”
    “design”
    “intelligence”

    Very nice.
    I actually think that “design” can be defined pretty well. It’s main issue is that people infer design for the wrong reasons. Design tends to be a victim of confusion/ignorance rather than a source of it.
    But I am adding all of these to my list.

  31. OMagain: Your ‘solution’ appears to be to accept a deity whose existence is a brute fact that requires no explanation. So you are in exactly the same boat as those you think you are aiming this OP at, except we’re having a bit of a chuckle at your supposed cleverness at “solving” this “problem”.

    I don’t recall putting forth a solution to any problem, and the OP is aimed at everyone here.

  32. Tom English: Twenty-five years of ID, counting from the publication of Darwin on Trial, and not so much as a stable definition of a model.

    That’s a bit off topic for this thread.

  34. GlenDavidson: Anyhow, unless and until “God” can be shown not to be nothing (except fiction), it certainly doesn’t improve anything by calling your nothing “God” and saying that it is omnipotent and omniscient.

    I don’t believe the OP says anything about God.

  35. Neil Rickert: It’s a set. It isn’t nothing, though its contents are nothing.

    If it has any members, then it isn’t empty. If it contains the member “nothing” it’s no longer the empty set.

  36. In quantum mechanics, and in particular in quantum field theory, Heisenberg uncertainty principle allows energy to briefly decay into particles and antiparticles which then annihilate back to energy without violating physical conservation laws.
    Can we agree that energy is not nothingness?

  37. Allan Miller: …when you get a quantum fluctuation, you get something from nothing, briefly. It doesn’t seem like you disagree, though I think you want to.

    What is a quantum fluctuation? Fluctuation of something, not of nothing, right? Namely, fluctuation of quantum field.

  38. walto: Uh, right.Reaffirming.Pretty much everybody’s posts do that for you.Agree or disagree, they all reaffirm whatever argle-bargle you’re currently burbling.

    Can you rephrase the following so it makes a rational point and is not argle-bargle that you currently burble?

    walto: I think you should incorporate, Erik.Maybe “Flim-Flam, Limited” is available.

    Good luck with it.

  39. AhmedKiaan: Who makes up that gibberish? Do you feel smart saying it?

    That seems uncalled for. I know you don’t know me, but I was just presenting the traditional Western metaphysical view as I understand it. I’m not endorsing that view.

    walto: Sure.We can say anything we’d like.But I’d like to see a good (i.e., non-question-begging) argument for it being true.

    I think that would depend on how one takes the principle of sufficient reason. The standard argument goes something like this

    All beings exist either contingently or necessarily.
    For any contingent being, there is an explanation for the existence of that contingent being.
    The set of all contingent beings is itself either contingent or necessary.
    If it is contingent, then the explanation for its existence cannot be a contingent being (we have already included all contingent beings in the set by stipulation).
    Therefore the explanation of the set of all contingent beings must be a necessary being.

  40. Allan Miller:

    I still don’t know why we’d say that though. You seem sympathetic to the view, but ‘beings’, in every other sense that I can think of, only exist inside the STEM universe. I don’t see a compelling need to invoke one to explain the existence of said STEM universe. Why not ‘necessary physics’?

    To go back to my response to walto here: if the universe as a whole is a contingent being, then the explanation for its existence is either a contingent being or a necessary being.

    If the explanation for the existence of the universe is a contingent being, then the existence of the universe-explainer would need to be explained. The regress of explanations is either infinite, or it terminates in a necessary being. Necessary beings (if there any) don’t need explanations for their existence.

    I don’t see why this isn’t a good argument.

    But by the same token, I don’t see any reason why God — let alone the God of the Abrahamic religions — should be identified with the necessary being.

    In fact, I don’t see how we can anything about the necessary being, except that it exists.

    The problem with getting being from non-being is that it’s logically impossible. By non-being I mean — as Parmenides put it — that which is not. Empty sets and quantum fields are beings; they cannot be non-being.

    This raises the further question: can we conceive of non-being? Parmenides’ whole argument is that we cannot, since to conceive of anything at all is to conceive of a being. Hence we cannot conceive of non-being, and so we cannot make sense of the idea that being could come into existence from non-being.

    Make what you will of Parmenides’ argument, it set in motion (pun intended) the next major wave of Greek speculation: Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Leucippus, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Epictetus. Each of these philosophers posited some necessary being — whether the world-organizing Mind, or the Forms, or atoms — and then tried to show how contingent and changing beings could be explained in terms of the necessary being.

    (There were also the Skeptics who held that it was impossible to know anything at all about what is and what is not, so they resolved to live guided only by appearances.)

    In contemporary terms, I’m fine with the idea that the universe exists contingently (if that’s what physics shows us). If so, its existence must be explained by a necessary being — if the principle of sufficient reason applies to the universe as a whole.

    It’s precisely here where I am skeptical — I’m not sure it makes sense to apply the principle of sufficient reason to the universe as a whole. This move has always seemed problematic to me.

    I take the PSR to be a prescription or rule of inquiry: it tells us, “always look for the explanation of a phenomenon!”

    But while that makes good sense when applied to particular objects in Space and in Time, I’m less confident that it makes good sense when applied to all of space and time.

  41. Kantian Naturalist: But by the same token, I don’t see any reason why God — let alone the God of the Abrahamic religions — should be identified with the necessary being.

    Likewise, do you see any why the necessary being ought to be conceived of as a personal being? I think much of the objection to “necessary being” is that it smacks too much of a personal God. Would it help to call “it” by a name other than necessary being?

    I’m trying to find out of we can agree that utter nothingness isn’t a recipe for bringing universes, or universe generators, into existence. That to believe so is to be worse than a theist (if that’s possible).

    So that might be one thing we could all agree on.

    Then perhaps we could all agree that “something” must necessarily exist. People don’t want to call that “something” God, I am fine with that. But that would be two things we could all agree on, while only disagreeing about what to call “it.”

    Who knows what else we might find to agree about. 🙂

  42. Mung: Likewise, do you see any why the necessary being ought to be conceived of as a personal being? I think much of the objection to “necessary being” is that it smacks too much of a personal God. Would it help to call “it” by a name other than necessary being?

    I’m trying to find out of we can agree that utter nothingness isn’t a recipe for bringing universes, or universe generators, into existence. That to believe so is to be worse than a theist (if that’s possible).

    So that might be one thing we could all agree on.

    Then perhaps we could all agree that “something” must necessarily exist. People don’t want to call that “something” God, I am fine with that. But that would be two things we could all agree on, while only disagreeing about what to call “it.”

    Who knows what else we might find to agree about.

    Without speaking for anyone else here (which should be obvious, though some theists here seem to assume that all non-theists must share the same position): I am perfectly happy to say that there must be a necessary being, if it makes sense to ask “but what explains the universe?” But I don’t see why the necessary being need be anything like a personal God.

    In short, I am a Spinozist about metaphysics just as much as I am a Kantian about epistemology. (As were Hegel and Sellars.)

  43. Kantian Naturalist: That seems uncalled for. I know you don’t know me, but I was just presenting the traditional Western metaphysical view as I understand it. I’m not endorsing that view.

    I think that would depend on how one takes the principle of sufficient reason. The standard argument goes something like this

    All beings exist either contingently or necessarily.
    For any contingent being, there is an explanation for the existence of that contingent being.
    The set of all contingent beings is itself either contingent or necessary.
    If it is contingent, then the explanation for its existence cannot be a contingent being (we have already included all contingent beings in the set by stipulation).
    Thereforethe explanation of the set of all contingent beings must be a necessary being.

    Yeah, I seem to remember reading that syllogism at (I think) plato.stanford.edu and how they took some of the criticisms to be invalid because of the “The set of all contingent beings” needing to be either contingent or necessary. I just couldn’t wrap my head around that

  44. dazz: Yeah, I seem to remember reading that syllogism at (I think) plato.stanford.edu and how they took some of the criticisms to be invalid because of the “The set of all contingent beings” needing to be either contingent or necessary. I just couldn’t wrap my head around that

    Fair enough.

    Personally, my admiration for Parmenides has nothing to do with his argument and everything to do with the sheer brilliance it took to be the first human being ever (that we know of) to even raise the question of the relation between modality, cognition, and reality. The staggering brilliance and audacity it took to even put that problem front and center — regardless of whether it was right or wrong — that’s where I find myself simply in awe of Parmenides.

    Mind you, I’m on the side of the anti-Parmenideans — I’m over with Hegel, Nietzsche, Dewey, and Deleuze in rejecting the whole Parmenidean tradition! But one ought to respect one’s enemies, and I do.

  46. Alan Fox:
    Regretfully, I’ve moved a rule-breaking comment to guano (plus another couple that quoted the offending part). I fully understand the provocation. Noyau may help with the frustration.Moderation Issues is there if anyone would like to suggest amending the rules.

    I am not allowed to point out Rumrakets brilliant spelling here?

    Can I point out that all of Rumrakets posts amount to mockery, trolling, and bad caricature accents? That would be appropriate here, right?

  48. Neil Rickert: It’s a set.It isn’t nothing, though its contents are nothing.

    Its a concept. Why are you conflating concepts with things? Are things just concepts to you?

    Is the “set of large” something?

    If this is how the study of math teaches people to think, maybe those who study math shouldn’t consider real things, you know like biology.

  49. Kantian Naturalist: Fair enough.

    Personally, my admiration for Parmenides has nothing to do with his argument and everything to do with the sheer brilliance it took to be the first human being ever (that we know of) to even raise the question of the relation between modality, cognition, and reality. The staggering brilliance and audacity it took to even put that problem front and center — regardless of whether it was right or wrong — that’s where I find myself simply in awe of Parmenides.

    Mind you, I’m on the side of the anti-Parmenideans — I’m over with Hegel, Nietzsche, Dewey, and Deleuze in rejecting the whole Parmenidean tradition! But one ought to respect one’s enemies, and I do.

    So fucking inspiring

  50. In our quantum mechanical view of the Universe, empty space is not truly empty…

    A Fortunate Universe

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