On 9/19/2011 11:19 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:27 AM, nihil0 <jonathan.wol...@gmail.com
<mailto:jonathan.wol...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi everyone,
This is my first post on the List. I find this topic fascinating and
I'm impressed with everyone's thoughts about it. I'm not sure if
you're aware of this, but it has been discussed on a few other
Everything threads.
Norman Samish posted the following to the thread "Tipler Weighs In" on
May 16, 2005 at 9:24pm:
"I wonder if you and/or any other members on this list have an opinion
about the validity of an article at
http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm
Jon,
Thank you for your post. I actually came across that page many years
ago, before joining this list. It is interesting to go over it again
and I am glad to see it still online. I appreciated the Liebniz quote
he cites "omnibus ex nihil ducendis sufficit unum" which he translates
as "For producing everything out of nothing, one principal is
enough". I searched for this, and also found by John Wheeler:
/The Universe had to have a way to come into being out of nothingness.
...When we say “out of nothingness” we do not mean out of the vacuum
of physics. The vacuum of physics is loaded with geometrical structure
and vacuum fluctuations and virtual pairs of particles. The Universe
is already in existence when we have such a vacuum. No, when we speak
of nothingness we mean nothingness: neither structure, nor law, nor
plan. ...For producing everything out of nothing one principle is
enough. Of all principles that might meet this requirement of Leibniz
nothing stands out more strikingly in this era of the quantum than the
necessity to draw a line between the observer-participator and the
system under view. ...We take that demarcation as being, if not the
central principle, the clue to the central principle in constructing
out of nothing everything. / — John A. Wheeler
I think Liebniz's words are insightful, but more to the point was when
he said:
"There is an infinity of figures...of minute inclinations....Now, all
of this detail implies previous or more particular contingents, each
of which again stands in need of similar analysis to be accounted for,
so that nothing is gained by such analysis. The sufficient or ultimate
reason must therefore exist outside the succession of series of
contingent particulars, infinite though this series be. Consequently,
the ultimate reason of all things must subsist in a necessary
substance, in which all particular changes may exist only virtually as
in its source: this substance is what we call God."
He says that the source of our existence is something that has to
exist, it's existence is a necessary property. Of everything humans
have discovered, I think mathematical truth most closely fits. It
seems to insist on its own existence unlike any physical contingency
or the universe itself. Yet as Bruno has helped to illustrate, the
universe, or our perceptions, follow from the existence of
mathematical truth.
Jason
--
Hi Jason,
Very good points and quotes. we might start with the basic
principle that Existence exists. From there we elevate Wheeler's
elaboration of Leibniz "/the necessity to draw a line between the
observer-participator and the system under view/." This active
separation between observer and observed is the key to unlock the
Gordian knot of how does Everything obtains from Nothing.
Onward!
Stephen
//
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