On 16 Sep 2010 at 17:18, Steven Peterson wrote: Hi Platt,
On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 3:36 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Ham, > > Yes, "Something from Nothing" is latest iteration of the "Oops Theory" of how > the universe came into being. It goes hand in hand with the terms > "spontaneous" > and "emergence" so favored by science types when they have no idea why or how > something occurred. It would seem that either at some point something came from nothing or that something was always around. Which do you think it is? Hi Steven, I suppose you can argue that nothing is something. But, that doesn't sit well with me because to have a concept of nothing you have to have something, just as the concept of a whole presupposes a larger whole, or the concept of one presupposes the concept of many. So we find ourselves in the land of paradox. The only way out of this rational cul-de-sac that I know of is for one to decide which underlying assumption of the many available has the highest quality. For me, it's that something was always around. In other words, I buy the scientist's assumption that for every effect there is a cause That at the beginning of the universe cause and effect suddenly becomes inoperative to Hawkins and some other cosmologists seems to me to be a grand cop out. But I could be wrong. Maybe the technique Magnus uses to identify underling assumptions will reveal that I am. :-) Platt Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
