David Nyman wrote: -------- *On 25 January 2012 19:46, meekerdb <**[email protected]*<[email protected]> *> wrote:* *> Note that the theories I mentioned do not assume a spacetime vacuum. One > may say they assume a potentiality for a spacetime vacuum, but to deny even > potential would be to deny that anything can exist. >* *But surely that denial is precisely the point of the "philosopher's nothing"? I'm not sure why you would say that pointing to a "negative potential" for anything to exist is incoherent (illogical, inconsistent, or whatever). Of course it's a dead-end, explanatorily useless, a mystery if you will. Given that there is something, some aspect of that something will always have to be accepted as given. That's the nature of explanation; the philosopher's nothing is what you get if you push explanation past its breaking point.* *David* *---------------* David, it is still our 'human' (restricted?) logic and capabilities. Brent (whom I esteem a lot) concluded:
>> *That's the philsopher's idea of 'nothing', but it's not clear that it's even > coherent. Our concepts of 'nothing' obviously arise from the idea of > eliminating 'something' until no 'something' remains. It is hardly fair to > criticize physicists for using a physical, operational concept of nothing. > Note that the theories I mentioned do not assume a spacetime vacuum. One > may say they assume a potentiality for a spacetime vacuum, but to deny even > potential would be to deny that anything can exist. > > Brent* *--------------------* Why should "philosophers" be 'smarter' than you or me? granted, they specialize in a different domain, but still use 'human' (i.e. restricted) logic. What I would like to 'change' in your remark is the replacement of the 1st "given" (that there is something) by "assuming", closer to my agnostic wording. Also, the 2nd "given" is suspect: acceptble as we think it is 'given'. Dead end is in *our views*, not from the aspects of the infinite complexity we (= our world) is part of. "Mystery"? as long as we do not learn the details and process of it. The main point is that "nothing' pointing to a hiatus in our limited knowledge. (And that pertains to physics as well when one mentions a 'vacuum', spacetime or any). Do you have an idea for identifying "exist"? (And I am not talking physics). Just rambling John M -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
