RE: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?

Sun, 11 Jan 2015 23:20:51 -0800 

 

 

From: [email protected] 
[mailto:[email protected]] 

 

Chris,

Hey Roger ~ sorry for the belatedness of my reply

 

1.    It sure is hard to visualize the "absolute lack-of-all", I agree.  What I 
try to do is to shut my eyes and try to imagine the universe and all its volume 
collapsing down to just my body and then just my mindscape.  Then, I push that 
darkness of the mindscape off to the side into a little point and try to 
imagine getting rid of that point.  I've never pushed it all the way away out 
of fear that it may not be so good for your health, but it helps me think that 
only once it's all gone, including our mind, do we jump to the outside and see 
the "absolute lack-of-all" as the entirety of all there is and thus an existent 
entity.  But, it's possible it's just my imagination

 

Nice meditative visualization. The last bit you mention about the sudden 
quantum jump – at the very instant when everything including the last vestige 
of self is gone and the state of all-nothing is first reached – in that 
sub-femtosecond or less instant – the observer perspective quite suddenly (in 
some quantum salsa) on the outside looking in… gaining this crucial outside 
perspective on the all-ness of nothing.

I used to do visualization the other way… how vast can we imagine our minds? 
Perhaps, one could say, both roads lead to the same place. When I have tried 
this exercise I would expand my inner sense of the volume of space my mind 
extended to and enveloped from the room I would be meditating in… to the 
neighborhood above the trees… to the perspective of the clouds and the much 
vaster territory seen from that POV… and more… zooming out, holding the focus. 
Each time, at some point it I would lose it, on occasion from the vertigo in 
the mind; on others due to mundane interruptions – like some sound from my 
immediate environment that kicked the more primitive survival pathways of the 
brain, up into override mode. Have not done that in some time, but it was an 
interesting exercise of holding a focus on this particular mental perspective. 

I kind of suspect there may some ultimate symmetry in the limit of both the 
very big and the very small.

Roger: I really like your idea of imagining your mind growing to infinite size, 
but I agree it sounds pretty hard.  I'm going to give it a try.  Your head 
doesn't blow up, does it? :-) As you said, maybe people visualizing the 
infinitely small and infinitely big will eventually meet.  

 

Yes, in the sense of our universe being the perspective, of being, from inside 
a black hole. The universe shares some compelling properties with black holes; 
both are defined by their event horizons and both have histories bounded by 
moments of origin. 

 

 

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2.    When I was talking about removing all things thought to exist in order to 
get to the "absolute lack-of-all", I don't think there's still a container 
left.  Instead, I think that that that "absolute lack-of-all" itself is the 
container.  That nothingness would be the entirety of all there is and thus the 
grouping, or container, defining what is contained within.  That nothingness is 
both what is contained within and the container.

Nice Daoist ring to this: “nothingness is both what is contained within and the 
container” okay, I see your POV. Then the container of this all-nothing, is a 
dual aspect or POV, of nothing.

Roger: Yep, I think the entiretyness of the all-nothing means that it's a 
grouping, or surface, defining what is contained within.  So, it is 

kind of a dual aspect of it.

 

Agreed.. the duality of perspective. In fact duality is inherent in 
perspective; perspective requires a degree of separation of the observed and 
the observer (even if admitting a higher order unity). In order to have a 
perspective on something even if it is the self there has to be some layer of 
intervening abstraction in order for perspective to gain traction – whether 
this sense of separation is real or illusory is another matter.

 

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4. In regard to the auto-catalytic nature of the existent entity/empty set, I 
totally agree.  But, my vote for what the multiplication operation would be is 
that:

o If the "absolute lack-of-all" is a grouping defining what is contained within 
and thus an existent entity, a grouping is the similar to a surface or edge 
defining what is contained within and giving substance and existence to the 
thing.

Do you then view – e.g. maintain a perspective on – nothing as being a zero 
dimensional bubble with nothing inside (or outside for that matter), but one 
which is imbued nevertheless with this duality of having an edge or surface? 

One could make the point that this boils down to a duality of perspective: the 
within perspectives; and the containment of all (of nothing) perspective. The 
surface/edge is the global containing one  (the bird’s eye view); whilst every 
other infinitely possible perspectives are within.

Perspective of course implies an observer. Which poses some interesting 
problems for something out of nothing.

Roger: Yep, I do think of the all-nothing as being a bubble with nothing inside 
and nothing outside but with the property of being a surface because of the 
fact that it's the entirety, or all, of all that is  present.  But, I don't 
think of it as zero dimensional.  I can't envision anything that actually 
physically exists as having any of its dimensions actually be zero.  If so, it 
seems like it wouldn't be there.  So, I think of it as a physical entity of a 
finite, non-zero, size of 1 where 1 is the smallest possible size.

 

Actually, thinking about it, I see problems with an infinitely fine 
zero-dimensional entity, as well, even as a pure abstraction, when taken to an 
infinite degree of fineness of scale of its address in space-time. In a 
physical sense, as a smallest address of space time, how small can small be? 
And as a point of origin our laws of physics break down at some scale… how 
point-like was the Big Bang – at a scale of less than 10^(-35), do we really 
know?

Even as a pure mathematical entity – with no corresponding point particle 
entity -- one can make an argument against an infinitely small point, existing 
even in a purely mathematical abstract realm, by noting that there exists a 
reverse symmetrical property between the scale of the points grain size (e.g. 
radius for example) and the information required to address it. The smaller the 
addressed scale becomes, the bigger the information set that is required in 
order to hold its address also becomes. If the rate at which the required 
address size increases, matches the rate at which increasingly fine scaled 
points can be defined then an infinitely small point would require an 
infinitely large address space in order to be defined. On the other hand, if 
the rate of growth in address space is less than the rate of increasingly fine 
grained scale point definition then perhaps it doesn’t matter. 

The information defining a point is {x,y,z,t} plus the meta-information of what 
the address ordering means e.g. that ‘t’ measures a time axis as well as 
meta-information about the scale (ex. Fractions of a Femtosecond). The meta 
ordering part would possibly also grow but not be a constraining factor; but 
the number of bits of information required to hold the addressed value of a 
four dimensional address {x,y,z,t} scales with the fineness of the grain size. 

 

    The only perspective present is that of you and me and others, and that's 
only after the fact.  We're thinking about and looking at (in our mindframe) 
this situation, and it seems like there has to be an observer present, but in 
the situation itself, there are no observers.  Just this initial fundamental 
existent entity.  So, our talking about a perspective and an observer is 
putting something onto the situation after the fact, when in the situation 
itself, there was no observer.  This kind of gets to the idea that the 
conception of something in the mind of a thinker/observer is different than the 
thing itself.

 

We are post facto self-aware entities, spinning hypothetical tales about 
nothing and everything, which is fun in and of itself; we reify a moment just 
before time… on the very cusp of being, before space-time eternal inflation. We 
do so from the POV  of our abstract mental inner-mind-scape…. Itself an 
emergent dynamical net-centric entity, arising from a physical brain, that 
could never have been there to observe the moment of inception (metaphorically 
speaking… because time really only makes sense as dynamical threads of 
execution through branching stack-frames of space-time… with all paths being 
followed in the WMI)

What about the bare concept of perspective/point of view? A container implies a 
surface as well some contained volume inside. In order for a container to know 
itself however isn’t it necessary for it to have a bird’s eye POV that is - 
-abstractly perhaps – external and seeing the whole.

 

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o If you have this initial surface, what's next to the surface?  The "absolute 
lack-of-all".  This new instance of the "absolute lack-of-all" is itself an 
existent entity next to the surface of the original entity.  In fact, I think 
new identical  "absolute lack-of-all" existent entities would cover the entire 
surface of the original entity.  

One view of all of the duplicated nothing is that it is all illusion – 
self-reflection gone infinite – that reduces down instantaneously to nothing 
AND all…. Form the ALL perspective. It is the Grand Illusion. Conjured out of 
nothing, but it is beautiful, terrifying too J -- so immediately-self-apparent 
as alive within us, driving our being to ask the question.

The question we ask about nothing.

Roger: I sure agree about it's seeming like an illusion sometimes.  Sometimes, 
I think that if we could pull the curtain back a little on reality, we'd see 
that it's the "absolute lack-of-all".  But, it's also an existent entity.  So, 
as you say, it's all kind of an illusion, but two illusions relative to one 
another would look just as real to each other as two "normal" physical 
particles".

 

Sure… a perfect simulation.. why not? Even if it could be proved that an 
auto-catalyzing beautiful illusion could not exist without some substrate that 
does not prevent almost perfect illusory realities from being generated purely 
by informational means in some reality, leading to a scenario of informational 
realities spawning informational realities within realities… the hall of 
mirrors.

 

 

You've got a very good way of writing about this stuff.  Your way of saying 
things is much more interesting than my way, IMHO.

 

We could argue about that J

 

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o Each of the new "absolute lack-of-all" existent entities would repeat the 
process and you'd have an expanding space composed of these "absolute 
lack-of-all" existent entities.  

You seem to be hypothesizing a form of eternal inflation, of nothing, 
rubber-stamping out more {} ad infinitum. I like it.

    This would be my vote on the autocatalytic mechanism for how this initial 
entity/empty set could replicate itself.

It does seem to lead naturally to the kind of runaway process, which, I believe 
is what is required, in order for existence to become manifest. 

Roger: Yep, I guess it's like a totally automated factory making ever more of 
the {}.  At least, that's my view.

Roger:  Hardly anyone ever seems to agree with any of my views, so even if 
you're just humoring me, I appreciate all your insights!  Thanks.  You seem to 
be one of the very few who can see things in a similar way to me.  I'm so sorry 
for you! :-)

 

I appreciate your condolences Roger J

-Chris

 

                            Roger  

 

 

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