dantana wrote: why is there something, rather than nothing
The last I'd ever thought about this, one of the many things I'm never going to get an answer to in this life, is that the most basic way to think about the question is in terms of propositional logic. The most simple thing in propositional logic is the empty set. Therefore, why wouldn't there just be an empty set?
The objection to that is that reality isn't math. Just because an empty set is the simplest thing in logic, doesn't mean it's the simplest thing in reality.
The objection to that is that if you assume "reality" you've assumed something already.
We might not even be able to say what "nothing" is. If there is no "nothing" in "reality" that we can correlate to the empty set in logic in a satisfying way, then the question is invalid. Anytime we try to think about "nothing" in physics, we're brought back to forces, potentials, vacuum; and stuff that isn't nothing.
An objection to that might be that logic must come first, even in physics. For example, the law of non-contradiction is prior to physical laws; a brute example being the grandfather paradox and time travel.
If logic comes first, then the natural question is if "something" is necessary. I've seen some lame discussions of this on Lex -- brilliant science people who need to take Phil 101. This one guy was insisting that this mathematical structure he believed was behind reality was logically necessary. But why? That's the interesting question. He just stipulated that it was.
Peter Woit on Lex, who didn't tackle this straightforwardly (from what I remember), but seemed to be saying, if I understood him, that there is a deep connection between number theory and physics that he's exploring. So maybe you could show line by line how stuff necessarily exists given logic after all? (that's not what he was saying, but what I was thinking as the deepest implication of that)
Another possibility (again) is logic isn't really prior, and physics is prior. Many years ago I saw this physicist argue for allowing contradictions, but I was never able to find the source years later, when I came to think that it was an important line of thinking. Most people are going to say that's silly because non-contradiction has to be prior, because we can't form concepts without it -- it's self-refuting.
Well, that may be the case, but, that seems to be the grain of late modern philosophizing. Heidegger suggesting the "Ontic", what is beyond human experience, that human's can never describe -- language necessarily fails; an implication might be that the law of non-contradiction is at the heart of human language, and it necessarily fails to pin down what's out there. My main point, again, is that if logic isn't prior, then the idea of a mathematical empty set being the simplest model for how reality should be fails; as it isn't an analogy.
Logic as prior and building from from there into full reality might fail because Godel.
Another problem with logic as prior is just read the deepest thinkers on the subject and see if you can really accept that crap either. One of the deepest thinkers in this regard was David Lewis, who argued for this way out there position called modal realism, which says that all logically possible worlds are equally real to this one (as in, a world where pink dinosaurs suddenly appear and eat everything is just as real as this one). He'll try to convince by showing if you don't want to accept that, you might have to accept the ontological argument (for God).
Objection to rejecting logic and metaphysics is that science guys (atheists) who eschew it as nonsense are doing metaphysics anyway (as I've said), just doing it really badly, and run into the same problems everyone else already knew about. So I don't mean to say we can escape logic and have some mystical way around the problem. (cue DCP)
Anyway, to me, the deeper question is whether logic, the law of non-contradiction, is this objective thing that everything out there in eternity bows down to, or if it's a human construct, and the physical world is prior. As I've said, we can't talk about a physical world without logic. I can't stipulate a contradiction or seriously entertain what I'm suggestion in language, because its self-refuting. My only hope would be the MG 2.0 route, and go for a stalemate. If stipulating the law of non-contradiction is viciously circular, requiring non-contradiction as an assumption, then we might have a situation analogous to this: If you say "this sentence is false", then that results in a paradox, and that's like saying we can allow a contradiction. But saying "this sentence is true" is pretty meaningless. In either case, you're running into pitfalls of logic investigating logic. And if it's meaningless to affirm logic as base with logic, then I feel like I can suggest physics as prior to logic, practically speaking.
That is next level funny there dude. Thanks!
