Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On Sun, Jan 04, 2015 at 02:10:51PM -0800, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: Russell’s observation that “The ultimate theory of everything is just a theory of nothing.” seems intuitively correct to me… though I have no rigorous proof for this sense of it ringing true for me. I was in ignorance that Russell had written a book on this; and just downloaded the pdf – so thanks Liz for bringing it to attention. Beginning to read it now…. Another excellent passage: “Something is the “inside view” of Nothing”. Nice! And this view from the inside looks so infinitely full of all manner of emergent stuff. I agree with the premise that perspective is paramount in coming to terms with and to understand the spooky weird nature of quantum reality; perspective also provides a powerful tool to explain the “something from nothing paradox”. Something does seem like it could be how Nothing looks from the perspective of being within itself – as opposed to the bird’s eye view from outside -- Max Tegmark uses Bird’s Eye view to describe this outside privileged perspective… looking down on the examined system from an outside perspective (even if that system, is everything that is… it is still valuable as an intellectual tool to be able to view this from the outside perspective as well).. but I digress, back to the book. One question for Russell, wonder what his thoughts are on the continued viability of Quantum Loop Gravity hypothesis – which you mention as being one of the contenders along with String Theory – for the unification of all the fundamental forces into a single theory -- given the findings of the ESA experiment that has showed that spacetime must be smooth down to scales trillions of times smaller than the Planck scale. Thanks for your kind words. Actually as to whether loop gravity or string theory or something else is the way to go, I really don't have a dog in the fight. I was merely commenting on my confidence that gravity will ultimately be unified with electro-weak-strong forces in some manner, but being agnostic as to how. My personal opinion is that measured values are constrained to be rational - there can only ever be a countable number of distinct observer moments. Yet this down not imply space is quantised or discrete in any way. It is quite possible there is no lower bound to the difference between two measurements. So it doesn't surprise me that space ends up being smooth at scales far smaller than the planck length. I would be more suprised at the opposite conclusion, as it implies a lack of symmetry (grids are not rotationally symmetric, except at specific angles). As for unification of GR and QM, one wildly speculative thought I've had is that matter is due to knots in space-time, and that the different types of particle relate to the different types of knots possible in a 4D Riemannian manifold. Some knots are easier to undo than others, explaining different particle lifetimes. Mass appears as curvature of space, so the knots have mass due to the twist they impart on spacetime. But importantly, matter does not curve spacetime, as is typically said, but matter is more of a topological defect. I have no idea if this idea has legs - I don't currently have the mathematical chops to work it through, and unfortunately also insufficient interest to acquire the necessary mathematical skills. -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Evolution of pro-social religions
There are previous evolutionary studies of religion leaded by David Sloan Wilson. I think that they only scratch the surface. But it is a good start. I wrote in this group about the need of human sacrifices to create an stable society if natural selection and game theory are accepted as premises. This indeed add a big significance of Christ sacrifice for non-believers, and explain the historical appetite for blood in every regime that want to construct itself from scratch (like the current New world order) 2015-01-04 2:14 GMT+01:00 zibblequib...@gmail.com: In the first instance I'm posting this recently accepted paper (link is to full paper), for Bruno and Brent reference a recent discussion between them about the part of large scale religion in the emergence of ever-more complex society. Brent has me on ignore...I'm not sure about Brunoperhaps someone not ignoring will do a reply in the thread so that it becomes visible for them. In the second instance I think the guys behind the paper have a good idea and/or chimes with what I'd imagine was a fairly common intuition on the matter. In the third instanceI thought what the paper aspires to deliver was worth consideration just for itself. I'll paste it below right after mentioning I haven't read the paper yetI shall be, but only just saw it yesterday. Given I haven't read itI have no idea whether and to what extent they live up to what they aspire to. *This framework (1) reconciles key aspects of the adaptationist and byproduct approaches to the origins of religion, (2) explains a variety of * *empirical observations that have not received adequate attention, and (3) generates novel predictions. Converging lines of evidence drawn from diverse disciplines provide empirical support while at the same time encouraging new research directions and opening up new questions for exploration and debate.* *http://dericbownds.net/uploaded_images/Norenzayan.pdf http://dericbownds.net/uploaded_images/Norenzayan.pdf* -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
On 03 Jan 2015, at 23:39, meekerdb wrote: On 1/3/2015 7:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Jan 2015, at 09:28, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2015 3:36 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Democracy On 31 Dec 2014, at 20:12, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2014 5:34 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Democracy On 30 Dec 2014, at 01:38, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: - Forwarded Message - From: Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 10:27 AM Subject: Re: Democracy The Soviet union can be formally considered a democracy. There is nothing external or formal that may distinguish a democracy from any other regime. Since every modern state has the same elements. All of them use the momenclature of the age. The word democracy is the most overused world in this century togeter with scientific. No word comes close to matching the overuse of the word god however. Yes, ... and no. For the greeks God was just a pointer to the truth we are searching, through theories and observation. It led to math and physics, + inquiry about which one is more fundamental, and what might still be beyond math and physics. That use of God remains in some language expression, like when we say only God knows, which means I don't know. But that is how the word was used in the Hellenistic period; I was referring to modern usage that has associated it with a monotheistic value system. I think monotheism is only the personal view of the monism of the parmenides one. I think that the theology of the christians and jews reflect the monism of those who believe in an unifying truth. The fairy tales is a pedagogical popularization, who get wrong when the religion is (too much) mixed with politics. But it necessarily is mixed with politics, it's main function is political because the unifying truths are the cultural proscriptions about behavior and values. Not in the parmenides. Somehow in the Republic, but I guess you talk only of the christians (ah, you confirm this in your reply to PGC). But that is the problem, and yes Plato, and even Plotinus, who tried to create a city Platonopoly, wre wrong on this, as Plotinus was already aware in the ennead (that it could go in the falling soul direction). Religion can influence politics, but without saying so, privately. We just don't mix the temporal and the atemporal, even if each individual can be inspired by his religious cogitation and medictation or experiences. If not it is a blasphem, which in Plato theology can be translate into argument per-authority (indeed the worst one). God is the law-giver; he's the tyrant writ large who sees all, judges all, and rewards and punishes all. OK, you definitely talk about post roman religion. That was wrong, and that is why I suggest we backtrack to Plato and Plotinus, refined and corrected by the universal machine. It should be obvious that one we do theology as a science, we have to abandon wishful thinking and any ethical consideration in the assumption. We can only *hope* that Einstein was right: God might be subtle but not malicious. The truths of mathematics and physics and biology are of little relevance. His truths are about procreation and war and ethics and loyalty to the tribe. For the Roman, and I'm afraid, also for Mohammed, probably due to the circumstances. Before, his truth was the theorem of mathematics, well, almost. Which comes from the ONE of the greeks, mixed with the Jewish legend. Well, if you forget the superstition, it has some important relation. Monotheism is a reflexion of parmenides or Plotinus monism. Perhaps you are referring to the Jewish mystic concept of the sephiroth kether (kether means crown in Hebrew) it is that which is manifest yet cannot be named; the first divine emanation out of pure abstract space… that is without form or definition yet which fills and animates all things…. The divine spark so to speak. I think so. A few examples “a God fearing” man (or woman) is upstanding, moral and considered (by other god-fearers at least) to be superior to those who do not fear god; But this fearing of God is a mystery to me. God should be good. Only the devil should be feared. (between us). Unless you are the devil. The devil is in hell, but not among the tortured, as he is the torturer. You know, the daemons are very happy in hell. It is their home. They thank God for that. (I put myself in the post
Re: Democracy
On 04 Jan 2015, at 00:30, Kim Jones wrote: On 4 Jan 2015, at 2:47 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: But this fearing of God is a mystery to me. God should be good. Only the devil should be feared. (between us). Is the devil not-God? Yes, we can say that in the Platonic context where the God is The Truth. Then the Devil is the False. As such it does not exist in Platonia, but it can almost exist in the mind of the existing creature, and operate from there. This is due to the existence of false, yet consistent, proposition, relatively to models or local realities. Is it not that fear of the devil is the same as the fear of God (in some sense)? At the conceptual level, yes. Because once you have one, you have the other. But we don't live at that conceptual level, and you better fear an hammer on the finger (example of bad, that is what the devil practically does) than a cup of coffee (as example of good, what God practically does). Of course I assume the platonist link between God and Good here. that is not clear at all when you interview the universal machine (even with good being defined through self-survival ability). Who or what IS this devil character anyway? Is such a concept necessary? I'm afraid yes, in its most primitive sense of bad. As you say, for a platonist the ideas exist, and for a computationalists, they all have an infinity of Gödel numbers, or relative programs, or relative engrams, relative to some universal number(s). With computationalism, you cannot escape the fact that some solution of diophantine equations incarnate hellish experiences. Then the higher level devil is just a poetical view of the idea of the moral bad thing, or even the more general idea, and easier to define (as non linked to moral issue) that in a reality where you can augment the good for everybody, i.e. harm reduction for everybody, there will be situations where individuals or groups of individuals can accelerate the augmentation of their good by deceiving those outside the group: it is stupid in the sense of going from a win/win game to a win-a-lot/loss-a-lot game, but it makes sense locally, and nature does that a lot of times itself. It is a sort of constant prisoner dilemma. It is part of the nature of life, at the border between the computable and the non-computable. (from 3-1p: the sigma_1 leafs of the universal dovetailer versus its complement in arithmetic). It is an intrinsic weakness of God, It can't make the devil disappear, but It can help to make it apparent, and locally controllable, when tolerated in some proportion, or through representations. []f (G*) f (Z1*) Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
On 04 Jan 2015, at 09:05, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2015 7:47 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Democracy On 03 Jan 2015, at 09:28, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal On 30 Dec 2014, at 01:38, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: - Forwarded Message - From: Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com The Soviet union can be formally considered a democracy. There is nothing external or formal that may distinguish a democracy from any other regime. Since every modern state has the same elements. All of them use the momenclature of the age. The word democracy is the most overused world in this century togeter with scientific. No word comes close to matching the overuse of the word god however. Yes, ... and no. For the greeks God was just a pointer to the truth we are searching, through theories and observation. It led to math and physics, + inquiry about which one is more fundamental, and what might still be beyond math and physics. That use of God remains in some language expression, like when we say only God knows, which means I don't know. But that is how the word was used in the Hellenistic period; I was referring to modern usage that has associated it with a monotheistic value system. I think monotheism is only the personal view of the monism of the parmenides one. I think that the theology of the christians and jews reflect the monism of those who believe in an unifying truth. The fairy tales is a pedagogical popularization, who get wrong when the religion is (too much) mixed with politics. Which comes from the ONE of the greeks, mixed with the Jewish legend. Well, if you forget the superstition, it has some important relation. Monotheism is a reflexion of parmenides or Plotinus monism. Perhaps you are referring to the Jewish mystic concept of the sephiroth kether (kether means crown in Hebrew) it is that which is manifest yet cannot be named; the first divine emanation out of pure abstract space… that is without form or definition yet which fills and animates all things…. The divine spark so to speak. I think so. A few examples “a God fearing” man (or woman) is upstanding, moral and considered (by other god-fearers at least) to be superior to those who do not fear god; But this fearing of God is a mystery to me. God should be good. Only the devil should be feared. (between us). Obviously that are open problem in machine theology. With some definition, fearing God is a nonsense. I find those definitions of God far more palatable than I do the Manichean dystopic vision, of a universe divided between the opposing forces of good and evil. In the theology of the machine, the devil is well played by the notion of false. In a sense, like in Plotinus, it simply does not exist, but its influence is incarnated in the []f, and [][]f, or even []t, which implies logically f, at the star level (in G*), which we cannot see, but can intuit. That makes the frontier between good and bad into a fractal similar to the Mandelbrot set. But it relates also the bad to the harm. The opposing force is nature manicheism, needed to make us believe that eating is good and being eaten is bad, which is locally useful to live and develop. We should fear the devil, but not God. Or as some spiritual traditions maintain the devil is merely a manifestation of our own ignorance and impoverished state of being cutoff form our spiritual being. That follows from what I say aboven but not withot some technical difficulties. Plotinus get similar difficulties. Pain and suffering remains quite complex to analyse. there are still many difficulties. Pain and suffering will never be easy to explain, especially the pain and suffering of innocents. In a sense, it is easier to explain the pain of the innocent than the pain of the guilty, as it is easier to explain the pain of the guy tortured than the pain of the torturer (if any). What is vexing is that the bad qualia, or the qualia of bad, is very easy to explain functionally: if we did not felt the bad that our brain try to explain us when we are in a bad situation, we would find ourself much more often in bad situation, which is not good for the survival thing. The devil is a paper tiger… not to say that evil does not exist, but evil is ultimately a manifestation of profound spiritual ignorance – at least amongst some spiritual traditions. So perhaps if I could re-phrase the phrase above to
Re: Democracy
On 03 Jan 2015, at 16:21, Alberto G. Corona wrote: Neither the USSR was democratic neither democracy means freedom. I said to you that democracy is a bad name, a wildcard that each one fill with underserved and unjustified attirbuted, a symbol of freedom that does not deserve it. It is like If i insist to call alcoholism as the proper name for euphoria. The same happens with democracy and freedom. If truth and freedom were the result of the decission of the majority, then herds of sheeps would have painted the Chapelle Sixtine and they would be exploring the galaxy. So hard is that to be understood? Did I ever said that democracy is freedom? democracy is not a symbol, it is when people agree to vote. It is a progress because non democracy is automatically coercion. Now democracy is just the possibility of more freedom, but it can take a lifetime to wake up the politicians to some ideas, and freedom needs a constant high vigilance, encouraged or discouraged by (mis)education, etc. Truth needs science which has no need of votes, it needs only modest doubting researchers. Only decision about the city and the possible conflicts with the neighbors and the environment needs vote. I am not saying that democracy solves all (social) problem, but it gives the ground to start talking about the problems (instead of being tortured because you dared to mention a problem). And the democracy can derive into a totalitarian system very easily. There is no magical formal trick that avoid to derive a rule of the majority into a totalitatian dictatorship, as Godel demonstrated a few posts ago with the US constitution. And a living tissue can derive into a cancer very easily. That is the biological or social consequences of Gödel (stretching the things): no complex system can guarantied its own consistency. Shit happens. But deciding to avoid democracy because it can leads to Tyranny, is like avoiding life because it can lead to death. That happened again and again. The nazi case is not an exception, but the rule. Only something external to the formal political system, the beliefs and values of the people can slow this evolution, since democracy erodes the pre-political (moral) bases upon which the liberal system is constructed. The difference between germany in the 30 and the US in the same years was so little, that probably, without the nazi germany and the II world war it is possible that some form of socialist dictatorship would be now ruling the US and still we would call it democracy. Or perhaps popular democracy. Perhaps. Democracies are living being. Fragile, in need of constant vigilance, and we have been sleepy. All countries in which cannabis is illegal have sin, and they have put criminal elements at the top, but again, it is not because a democracy can be sick that a democracy should not be valued better than non- democracy. Even sick, we have more ability to, correct this than in a dictatorship. Copare North and South Korea. Bruno 2015-01-03 15:29 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: On 02 Jan 2015, at 21:01, Alberto G. Corona wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_democracy First, a reference to wikipedia is everything but an argument. Second, it looks like the athenian democracy. I just said that this is not democracy in the modern sense of the word. From my own research, the USSR has been one of the hardest dictatorship in human history. Only after the fall of the berlin wall could many refugees (from USSR and its satellites) see their family again, when still alive. Religion was also forbidden and christians, jews and others have been deported or executed, in mass. All people I know from there confirmed: no elections, except at the top of the hierarchy, like in China. Those were atheist dictatorships. If you believed that the USSR was democratic, I understand better your critics on the democratic system! Bruno 2015-01-02 12:38 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: On 01 Jan 2015, at 22:28, Alberto G. Corona wrote: 2014-12-30 14:15 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be: On 29 Dec 2014, at 19:27, Alberto G. Corona wrote: The Soviet union can be formally considered a democracy. I disagree. Democracy is when there are election, with secret vote, every four or five years. It allows a formal opposition with some representation is some parliament or equivalent. The soviet union had elections and a other parties. It had a parliament . At least in most of the comunist parties there were a formal opposition. The constitution of the URSS was ok according to liberal standards. All that you mentioned were meet as well as it is met by almost every modern regime You might give reference. I have never heard of the people being able to vote. A leftist friend of mind was so naive on this that he asked to the USSR to accept him as
Re: Carlos Castaneda
I agree. Frijtfof Capra, also. But this illustrates my point. As long as non confessional theology does not come back to academy, we open the road of the lack of rigor in the field, and we provide jobs to the charlatans, and retired Doctors. Actually, theology has been ejected out of the academy, due to such charlatan, and stay out of the academy by the effect of those charlatans and their allies. Bruno On 04 Jan 2015, at 00:16, meekerdb wrote: Here's a mystic who knew the purpose of religion. I well remember the adulation of Castaneda and how even otherwise sensible people thought his stories were true. Brent Forwarded Message New post on All Things Crime Blog Carlos Castaneda’s Sex-and-Suicide Cult, and the Witches Who Disappeared by PatrickHMoore by BJW Nashe Carlos Castaneda’s journey from anthropology student to famous author to New Age cult leader makes for a strange tale that is far more disturbing than anything found in his bestselling books. At the peak of his career, Castaneda crossed over an invisible line. He turned his back on the clear light of humane, rational thought, and stepped into a shadowy realm of manipulation, secrecy, and lies. It’s tempting to compare this to the metaphorical leap into the abyss that figures so heavily in his writings. Yet Castaneda’s real- life leap had consequences that were quite different from the magical escapades depicted in his writing. Once he became rich and famous and began facing scrutiny, Castaneda shunned the limelight and spent the next two-and-a-half decades pursuing a bizarre alternative lifestyle largely hidden from the public. He proclaimed himself a shaman and a sorcerer and assumed the role of a mysterious guru surrounded by a group of close followers. Read more of this post PatrickHMoore | January 3, 2015 at 7:58 am | Categories: Historical Crime, True Crime | URL: http://wp.me/p3dI4z-7No CommentSee all comments Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from All Things Crime Blog. Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://www.allthingscrimeblog.com/2015/01/03/carlos-castanedas-sex-and-suicide-cult-and-the-witches-who-disappeared-7/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 'Roger' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Even if the word exists has no use because everything exists, it seems important to know why everything exists. Even if the word klogknee has no use because everything is klogknee, is it important to know why everything is klogknee? How is it that a thing can exist? How is it that a thing can be klogknee? Before you can figure that out you must first know what klogknee means, and if everything is klogknee then you don't know because meaning needs contrast. What I suggest is that a grouping defining what is contained within is an existent entity. I don't understand that. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: A paranormal prediction for the next year
On 04 Jan 2015, at 05:33, John Clark wrote: On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 9:55 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Are only 0, s(0), s(s(0)), ... primary? or should we also insist that addition and multiplication are primary. You tell me, you're the one who asked Do you believe in a PRIMARY physical universe?; I can't answer your question if even you don't know what the question is. That needs to be clarified Then do so, and do it before you ask me again if I believe in a primary physical universe. By your post, it seems you do not believe in a primary biological reality or even a chemical universe. It seems that you believe that chemistry can be reduced conceptually to physics. This means that we don't need to assume some vital or chemical principles. Physical entities and physical laws can explain the chemical laws, which can explain the biological laws. Here the physical entities and laws are primary and the chemical and biological are not. My question can be put in this way: do you think we necessarily need to assume physical entities, or are you open to the idea that the physical itself can be reduced to another field (like perhaps number theory, or mathematics, or some abstract psychology, or theology, of computer science, etc.)? Personnally I don't see how a complex numbers, or an integer can be considered physical at all. By physical universe, I mean what is described in the book of physics. Both integers and complex numbers are described in physics books, you can't do physics without them. The fact that a book in physics use mathematical notions does not imply that the mathematical notions are physical. Book on gastronomy use english does not make the use of english an object of gastronomy. Bruno John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Carlos Castaneda
On 04 Jan 2015, at 07:49, meekerdb wrote: On 1/3/2015 9:50 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of meekerdb Here's a mystic who knew the purpose of religion. I well remember the adulation of Castaneda and how even otherwise sensible people thought his stories were true. Then there is…. Ron Hubbard a fairly mediocre sci-fi writer who (reputedly) made a bet with Anton LaVay (founder of the Church of Satan) It was Robert Heinlein, a some what better SciFi writer, with whom Hubbard shared a house for a while. It's not clear that it was a formal bet. In discussing how to get rich, Hubbard opined that the founding a religion was the surest way. I wonder if Bruno is an a-Scientologist? The Partnership for a Society Without Drugs was financed by the industry of Tobacco, the industry of Alcohol, the industry of weapon and ... Scientology. Those people are making money on lies and deceptions. They should be judged and comdamned and their leaders put in jail. It has nothing to do with health, and nothing to do with religion. Absolutely nothing. Bruno Brent that he could found a religion… and so (reputedly) off of this bet, the world was “blessed” with Scientology and ultimately of course Tom Cruise, along with a whole slew of other Scientology faithful in Hollywood. -Chris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Evolution of pro-social religions
On 04 Jan 2015, at 02:14, zibblequib...@gmail.com wrote: In the first instance I'm posting this recently accepted paper (link is to full paper), for Bruno and Brent reference a recent discussion between them about the part of large scale religion in the emergence of ever-more complex society. Brent has me on ignore...I'm not sure about Brunoperhaps someone not ignoring will do a reply in the thread so that it becomes visible for them. In the second instance I think the guys behind the paper have a good idea and/or chimes with what I'd imagine was a fairly common intuition on the matter. In the third instanceI thought what the paper aspires to deliver was worth consideration just for itself. I'll paste it below right after mentioning I haven't read the paper yetI shall be, but only just saw it yesterday. Given I haven't read itI have no idea whether and to what extent they live up to what they aspire to. This framework (1) reconciles key aspects of the adaptationist and byproduct approaches to the origins of religion, (2) explains a variety of empirical observations that have not received adequate attention, and (3) generates novel predictions. Converging lines of evidence drawn from diverse disciplines provide empirical support while at the same time encouraging new research directions and opening up new questions for exploration and debate. http://dericbownds.net/uploaded_images/Norenzayan.pdf I read it quickly. It is interesting, but not my field, so i cannot judge the plausibility of the analysis. I have not seen any obvious contradiction with computationalism, above the mere fact that the author does not address the ontological question and stays in the Aristotelian frame, which is fair enough, given its anthropological interests. Might reread some part when I have more time. Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: Democracy
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2015 7:47 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Democracy On 03 Jan 2015, at 09:28, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal On 30 Dec 2014, at 01:38, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: - Forwarded Message - From: Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com The Soviet union can be formally considered a democracy. There is nothing external or formal that may distinguish a democracy from any other regime. Since every modern state has the same elements. All of them use the momenclature of the age. The word democracy is the most overused world in this century togeter with scientific. No word comes close to matching the overuse of the word god however. Yes, ... and no. For the greeks God was just a pointer to the truth we are searching, through theories and observation. It led to math and physics, + inquiry about which one is more fundamental, and what might still be beyond math and physics. That use of God remains in some language expression, like when we say only God knows, which means I don't know. But that is how the word was used in the Hellenistic period; I was referring to modern usage that has associated it with a monotheistic value system. I think monotheism is only the personal view of the monism of the parmenides one. I think that the theology of the christians and jews reflect the monism of those who believe in an unifying truth. The fairy tales is a pedagogical popularization, who get wrong when the religion is (too much) mixed with politics. Which comes from the ONE of the greeks, mixed with the Jewish legend. Well, if you forget the superstition, it has some important relation. Monotheism is a reflexion of parmenides or Plotinus monism. Perhaps you are referring to the Jewish mystic concept of the sephiroth kether (kether means crown in Hebrew) it is that which is manifest yet cannot be named; the first divine emanation out of pure abstract space… that is without form or definition yet which fills and animates all things…. The divine spark so to speak. I think so. A few examples “a God fearing” man (or woman) is upstanding, moral and considered (by other god-fearers at least) to be superior to those who do not fear god; But this fearing of God is a mystery to me. God should be good. Only the devil should be feared. (between us). Obviously that are open problem in machine theology. With some definition, fearing God is a nonsense. I find those definitions of God far more palatable than I do the Manichean dystopic vision, of a universe divided between the opposing forces of good and evil. In the theology of the machine, the devil is well played by the notion of false. In a sense, like in Plotinus, it simply does not exist, but its influence is incarnated in the []f, and [][]f, or even []t, which implies logically f, at the star level (in G*), which we cannot see, but can intuit. That makes the frontier between good and bad into a fractal similar to the Mandelbrot set. But it relates also the bad to the harm. The opposing force is nature manicheism, needed to make us believe that eating is good and being eaten is bad, which is locally useful to live and develop. We should fear the devil, but not God. Or as some spiritual traditions maintain the devil is merely a manifestation of our own ignorance and impoverished state of being cutoff form our spiritual being. That follows from what I say aboven but not withot some technical difficulties. Plotinus get similar difficulties. Pain and suffering remains quite complex to analyse. there are still many difficulties. Pain and suffering will never be easy to explain, especially the pain and suffering of innocents. The devil is a paper tiger… not to say that evil does not exist, but evil is ultimately a manifestation of profound spiritual ignorance – at least amongst some spiritual traditions. So perhaps if I could re-phrase the phrase above to say that we should be mindful of our ignorance, for inner ignorance is what cuts us off from the infinite eternal divine infusion of being. I will think about this. I am not entirely sure. It is more the ignorance of our ignorance which is evil, but that might correspond to what you say, because it is the ignorance of ignorance which cut of frm the divine source. Our ignorance itself, when living on the terrestrial plane, is our knowledge of God/Truth. To see God is a sort of way to see the abyssal and
RE: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2015 7:59 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to
dialectics?
On 03 Jan 2015, at 07:17, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2015 9:44 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to
dialectics?
On 1/2/2015 9:05 PM, 'Roger' via Everything List wrote:
Even if the word exists has no use because everything exists, it seems
important to know why everything exists. How is it that a thing can exist?
What I suggest is that a grouping defining what is contained within is an
existent entity. Then, you can use this to try and answer the other question
of Why is there something rather than nothing?.
If everything exists, what doesn't exist? Nothing.
If nothing existed; would it remain nothing?
Careful not confusing Nothing exists and Nothing exist.
In the first case, something exists. But not necessarily in the second case.
Okay… I see you point. “Nothing Exist” is a hard abstraction to wrap the mind
around and the mind will try like hell to give nothing a kind of existence
because it is so impossibly hard to even imagine the former.
Of course not everything exists a priori. There is no divisors of zero
different from zero,
nor is there a cat-dog,
Not yet in our universe, but what about in fifty years from now would it remain
beyond our technical reach to fuse the DNA of a cat and a dog to create this
radical hybrid? Would it always fight with itself… would it bark or meow J
I take your point however.
nor is there a triangle with four sides.
Then with mechanism, we can, assume that what exist are simply the numbers 0,
s(0), s(s(0)), etc.
I don’t think you are referring to set notation.. the empty set being {}. So by
“s(0)” do you mean an operation taking zero? A specific operation perhaps: 0,
sum(0), sum(sum(0)) etc. ?
It seems so but I am not sure.
Then all the rest, God included, is part of a persistent number hallucination,
but hallucination should not be used as unreal, because the hallucination
is real, and is what makes our lives, and there is no reason to dismiss them at
all.
The math makes this clear too by distinguish the
ontical existence Ex P(x) and only 0, s(0), ... exists in that sense
and the many and quite variate rich phenomenological existence: whcih are
obtained with the modal points of view, like []Ex[]P(x), with [] being the box
of self-reference logic and its many intensional variants (which distinguish
basicall all science (biology, psychology, physics, even theology).
It is intuitive to me how a vastly deep self-referential recursion of math
could generate all manner of sublime subtle effects at some far remove from the
basic fundamental math underlying the self-referential edifice.
-Chris
Bruno
-Chris
Brent
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RE: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com]
In regard to:
If nothing existed; would it remain nothing?
This is exactly what I'm suggesting. It would not remain nothing. We
usually think of the situation when you get rid of all matter, energy,
space/volume, time, abstract concepts, minds, etc. as nothing. But, what I'm
saying is that this supposed nothing really isn't the lack of all existent
entities. That nothing would be the entirety of all that is present; that's
it; there's nothing else. It would be the all. An entirety is a grouping
defining what is contained within and therefore an existent entity, based on my
definition of an existent entity. So, even what we think of as nothing is
an existent entity or something. This means that something is
non-contingent. It's necessary. There is no such thing as the lack of all
existent entities.
Roger – you have much to say about nothing [just joking]
I agree with the distinction you make between nothing arrived at through the
negative process of removing everything that exists until nothing is left
versus the nothing *that is* everything.
Further down, if I follow you, you are making the point that if we are speaking
about the *nothing that is the set of everything there is* then even if this is
an empty set, by virtue of a set being something – a conceptual entity – then
even the absolutely empty universal set {} exists as a conceptual entity at
least.
Is that a fair recap of your intent; or am I off the mark?
-Chris
On Saturday, January 3, 2015 1:17:27 AM UTC-5, cdemorsella wrote:
From: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:
[mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript: ] On Behalf Of meekerdb
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2015 9:44 PM
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com javascript:
Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to
dialectics?
On 1/2/2015 9:05 PM, 'Roger' via Everything List wrote:
Even if the word exists has no use because everything exists, it seems
important to know why everything exists. How is it that a thing can exist?
What I suggest is that a grouping defining what is contained within is an
existent entity. Then, you can use this to try and answer the other question
of Why is there something rather than nothing?.
If everything exists, what doesn't exist? Nothing.
If nothing existed; would it remain nothing?
-Chris
Brent
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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On 3 Jan 2015, at 5:17 pm, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: If everything exists, what doesn't exist? Nothing. If nothing existed; would it remain nothing? -Chris Brent You are both missing the main question: what was there before there was nothing? K -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 10:58 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: Careful not confusing Nothing exists and Nothing exist. In the first case, something exists. But not necessarily in the second case If nothing means no-thing, and that is certainly how that English word originated, then the meaning of the first case is clear even if I don't agree with what it says, but no thing exist just sounds like bad grammar to me. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On 1/4/2015 1:09 AM, Kim Jones wrote: On 3 Jan 2015, at 5:17 pm, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: If everything exists, what doesn't exist? Nothing. If nothing existed; would it remain nothing? -Chris Brent You are both missing the main question: what was there before there was nothing? When is there something? Now! When wasn't there something? Never! --- with apologies to W. V. O. Quine -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
On 1/4/2015 7:15 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. - Anne Lamott Good point. Of course today we know that God has created the cat in his own image, and that he created the humans to serve the cats, and to give them shelter, heat, cough, sofa, music, milk, cat-food and bags of legal catnip. All we can hope is becoming a cat in the next life. My brother says that when he dies he wants to come back as his wife's dog. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
I hope Russell's theory of nothing is getting due attention. On 5 January 2015 at 08:26, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: *From:* everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto: everything-list@googlegroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Kim Jones *Sent:* Sunday, January 04, 2015 1:09 AM *To:* everything-list@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics? On 3 Jan 2015, at 5:17 pm, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: If everything exists, what doesn't exist? Nothing. If nothing existed; would it remain nothing? -Chris Brent You are both missing the main question: what was there before there was nothing? Why, pre-nothing, of course. -Chris K -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kim Jones Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2015 1:09 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics? On 3 Jan 2015, at 5:17 pm, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: If everything exists, what doesn't exist? Nothing. If nothing existed; would it remain nothing? -Chris Brent You are both missing the main question: what was there before there was nothing? Why, pre-nothing, of course. -Chris K -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
I published several times on various lists - including this one - my agnostic? stance about that *OXYMORON *'democracy' called so because the 'demos' (i.e. all of us) cannot exercise 'kratos' (governing power) to everyone's satisfaction in the variety we represent genetically, mentally, in interests and taste, lifestyle etc. etc. I added the *HOAX *of majority voting because 1. a 'majority' involves a suppressed minority and the 'voting' does not mean agreement, just lesser dissatisfaction in the expressed *L I E S of a campaign* to make the candidate more palatable to the voting crowd. Such lies are not even pretended to be kept once the candidate gets the power and it is pretty hard to get rid of someone with a majority voting record. I also expressed in no uncertain terms that autocratic (religious, communist/socialist, fascist) systems are not prone to any distinction of a *democratic* rule (if we condone such). We can add the capitalistic economical systems to that, constituting the rule of a minority (owners?) over a vast majority of employed (working) segment of the populace - which can be (mutatis mutandis) a form of slavery in pretentious, more humanitarian formulation. Democracy-(like) governance has never been istigated in any country. Lenin (the philosopher) said to establish a 'communistic' state a new-type MAN has to be developed with selfless benevolence to work for the community. Same for the elusive democracy. Such are the reasons why I call 'capitalism' dead by the 1970s and name the resulting system a Global-Ecoomic-Feudal format with Lords (owners) and Serfs (employees - working for MONEY, no matter how much). JM On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 5:39 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/3/2015 7:47 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Jan 2015, at 09:28, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: *From:* everything-list@googlegroups.com [ mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com everything-list@googlegroups.com ] *On Behalf Of *Bruno Marchal *Sent:* Thursday, January 01, 2015 3:36 AM *To:* everything-list@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Democracy On 31 Dec 2014, at 20:12, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: *From:* everything-list@googlegroups.com [ mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com everything-list@googlegroups.com ] *On Behalf Of *Bruno Marchal *Sent:* Tuesday, December 30, 2014 5:34 AM *To:* everything-list@googlegroups.com *Subject:* Re: Democracy On 30 Dec 2014, at 01:38, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: - Forwarded Message - *From:* Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.com *To:* everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com *Sent:* Monday, December 29, 2014 10:27 AM *Subject:* Re: Democracy The Soviet union can be formally considered a democracy. There is nothing external or formal that may distinguish a democracy from any other regime. Since every modern state has the same elements. All of them use the momenclature of the age. The word democracy is the most overused world in this century togeter with scientific. No word comes close to matching the overuse of the word god however. Yes, ... and no. For the greeks God was just a pointer to the truth we are searching, through theories and observation. It led to math and physics, + inquiry about which one is more fundamental, and what might still be beyond math and physics. That use of God remains in some language expression, like when we say only God knows, which means I don't know. But that is how the word was used in the Hellenistic period; I was referring to modern usage that has associated it with a monotheistic value system. I think monotheism is only the personal view of the monism of the parmenides one. I think that the theology of the christians and jews reflect the monism of those who believe in an unifying truth. The fairy tales is a pedagogical popularization, who get wrong when the religion is (too much) mixed with politics. But it necessarily is mixed with politics, it's main function is political because the unifying truths are the cultural proscriptions about behavior and values. God is the law-giver; he's the tyrant writ large who sees all, judges all, and rewards and punishes all. The truths of mathematics and physics and biology are of little relevance. His truths are about procreation and war and ethics and loyalty to the tribe. Which comes from the ONE of the greeks, mixed with the Jewish legend. Well, if you forget the superstition, it has some important relation. Monotheism is a reflexion of parmenides or Plotinus monism. Perhaps you are referring to the Jewish mystic concept of the sephiroth kether (kether means crown in Hebrew) it is that which is manifest yet cannot be named; the first divine emanation out of pure abstract space… that is without form or definition yet which fills and animates all things…. The divine spark so to speak. I think so.
Re: A paranormal prediction for the next year
On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: By your post, it seems you do not believe in a primary biological reality or even a chemical universe. I don't know, give me some examples of a primary biological reality and a chemical universe and I'll be able to tell you if I believe in them or not. And remember I don't want definitions I want examples. It seems that you believe that chemistry can be reduced conceptually to physics. Obviously. This means that we don't need to assume some vital or chemical principles. As a practical matter when you get to the level of chemistry and biology you do have to assume some approximations and statistical laws; even in physics we'd be lost without statistical ideas like pressure and temperature. Physical entities and physical laws can explain the chemical laws, which can explain the biological laws. Obviously. Here the physical entities and laws are primary and the chemical and biological are not. I would agree that physical laws come before biological laws in a objective chain of cause and effect, but primary means highest rank in importance and so there is some subjectivity thrown into the mix, and so I wouldn't necessarily agree that the laws of physics are more important than the laws of chemistry or biology. My question can be put in this way: do you think we necessarily need to assume physical entities, or are you open to the idea that the physical itself can be reduced to another field (like perhaps number theory, or mathematics, or some abstract psychology, or theology, of computer science, etc.)? Sure I'm open to the idea, but as to which came first physics or mathematics I don't know. I am a physics agnostic, but as I understand it you are a atheist. The fact that a book in physics use mathematical notions does not imply that the mathematical notions are physical. True, but it does not imply that the mathematics is not physical.either. Book on gastronomy use english does not make the use of english an object of gastronomy. English can describe food but food came before English. You seem to be implying that mathematics is just a language that can describe physics. I don't know if that's true but if it is then physics came before mathematics. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR I hope Russell's theory of nothing is getting due attention. Russell’s observation that “The ultimate theory of everything is just a theory of nothing.” seems intuitively correct to me… though I have no rigorous proof for this sense of it ringing true for me. I was in ignorance that Russell had written a book on this; and just downloaded the pdf – so thanks Liz for bringing it to attention. Beginning to read it now…. Another excellent passage: “Something is the “inside view” of Nothing”. Nice! And this view from the inside looks so infinitely full of all manner of emergent stuff. I agree with the premise that perspective is paramount in coming to terms with and to understand the spooky weird nature of quantum reality; perspective also provides a powerful tool to explain the “something from nothing paradox”. Something does seem like it could be how Nothing looks from the perspective of being within itself – as opposed to the bird’s eye view from outside -- Max Tegmark uses Bird’s Eye view to describe this outside privileged perspective… looking down on the examined system from an outside perspective (even if that system, is everything that is… it is still valuable as an intellectual tool to be able to view this from the outside perspective as well).. but I digress, back to the book. One question for Russell, wonder what his thoughts are on the continued viability of Quantum Loop Gravity hypothesis – which you mention as being one of the contenders along with String Theory – for the unification of all the fundamental forces into a single theory -- given the findings of the ESA experiment that has showed that spacetime must be smooth down to scales trillions of times smaller than the Planck scale. [If I recall they differentially measured the polarity of light from a distant and very powerful gamma ray burst over many wavelengths, from the hard gamma rays down through other wavelengths of light issuing from the same phenomenon. Their argument is that if space time was granular then this would have interacted with the passing light and induced a polarity bias that would affect different wave lengths of light differently. This is a I recall the details of the experiment. What they found instead is a lack of any effect – down to the incredibly small sub-Planck scale they were able to indirectly peer down into)] Doesn’t Quantum Loop Gravity require space time to be granular at the Planck scale? And if so isn’t the ESA experimental evidence a potential falsification of the hypothesis – at least as it has been formulated? “Thus we should conclude the opposite of what we first supposed. Far from containing the wisdom of the ages, the library is useless, containing no information of worth. Our libraries are useful, not so much for the books they contain, but for the books they don’t contain!” I detect an echo of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu in this statement. “The thirty spokes unite in the one nave; but it is on the empty space (for the axle), that the use of the wheel depends. Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty hollowness, that their use depends. The door and windows are cut out (from the walls) to form an apartment; but it is on the empty space (within), that its use depends.” And so… by the same Daoist token, it is the absence of information that makes any given collection of information useful. “The validity of the anthropic principle tells us that self-awareness must somehow be necessary to consciousness.” I agree with that; it is only by reflecting on the self and being aware of the self-nature we are observing that we can become conscious of its existence…. Of our existence. “all laws of physics will eventually be found to relate back to some essential property of the conscious observer” – the fundamental centrality of the observer for understanding reality is an idea I have long found intriguing. Excellent intro Russell.. I now know what I will be spending my Sunday afternoon (and maybe evening on). On to the next chapter. Cheers, -Chris On 5 January 2015 at 08:26, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kim Jones Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2015 1:09 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics? On 3 Jan 2015, at 5:17 pm, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: If everything exists, what doesn't exist? Nothing. If nothing existed; would it remain nothing? -Chris Brent You are both missing the main question: what was there before there was nothing? Why, pre-nothing, of course. -Chris
RE: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
Russell ~ got to say that you nailed it on the head, with this statement: “Thus it appears that emergence stands in opposition to reductionism, a paradigm of understanding something by studying its constituent parts. To someone wedded to the notion of reductionism, emergence can appear rather mysterious and strange.” From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2015 11:27 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics? I hope Russell's theory of nothing is getting due attention. On 5 January 2015 at 08:26, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kim Jones Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2015 1:09 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics? On 3 Jan 2015, at 5:17 pm, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: If everything exists, what doesn't exist? Nothing. If nothing existed; would it remain nothing? -Chris Brent You are both missing the main question: what was there before there was nothing? Why, pre-nothing, of course. -Chris K -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
For me the reason of the failure of the USSR was so accelerated for the same reasons why other democracies are corrupted and degenerated, but while the democracies dismiss and erodes progressively the pre-political grounds that guarantee personal freedom, Comunism directly tries to eliminate such pre-political grounds. 2015-01-03 19:12 GMT+01:00 zibblequib...@gmail.com: On Friday, January 2, 2015 9:30:24 PM UTC, Alberto G.Corona wrote: Indeed. Popper had a very naive conception of human nature. If error correction were the hallmark of democracy, then the keynessian economic measures used now to fight the crisis, that are so convenient for the ruling elite -because they increase the size of the leviatan state- would never have been used again after the crisis of the 70's. IMHO: The striking thing about the Soviet system was how quickly it succumbed to corruption. It's hard to estimate because it happened so quickly. There doesn't seem to be a 'honeymoon'. But then again, it wasn't about socialism but brutal genocide. Whatever. The corruption factor is still legitimate even so. The Westwas a beautiful thing. It ran foroh I don't know the answer to that one. But while it ran...wow. Science, checks and balances, a new vision of a holistic society. You are right that Christianity was front and centre of that world. That world that is gone. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: S=0
Russell ~ nicely summed up [is there a pun in what I just said?] I like that subtle meta information that the sum entirety of all information of everything is all on the left hand of an equation with no information in it at all when taken as a whole. I like the focus that this way of putting it helps to make apparent… and how it how emergent reality – when all moved to the left hand side of the equation – can emerge in all the obvious complexity of form, structure, sequence, thought, emotion, sensation, and self-aware enquiring observing being that is obviously real and all around us… in real life. For me the crux has always also been how does anything at all emerge from an all-encompassing universal nothingness. That is a nice perspective and way of viewing this endlessly recursive problem. -Chris Now the grand unified theory of physics, according to Feynman is the deceptively simple equation S = 0 where S is defined to be the sum of the left hand sides of all those equations we wrote down before. Clearly, S = 0 contains no information whatsoever, all the information is contained in the “definition” of S http://www.hpcoders.com.au/theory-of-nothing.pdf -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Democracy
On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 3:04 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/3/2015 4:15 PM, PGC wrote: with the latter ultimately escaping our capacity to sort and analyze. You mean their assertion of that is clear. It's begging the question to say it is clear. It's clear to everybody who has read them beyond some wiki pages, including you being exposed to Bruno's pov for years. Like any study in any domain. So simple as to not permit these sorts of facile generalization, The one is the simplest of all ideas is a facile abstraction. It is indeed too simple to talk about. Plotinus makes clear that his talk/writing is to be taken with grain of salt, and merely as if; merely some linguistic reasoning to encourage what is most important to him: entering into union with the one. And yes, this kind of point *would* be clear to any undergraduate reading some introduction text to negative philosophy or theology of Plotinus. or analysis as we know it (and this is consistent with inability to break something, which is the ultimate simple, down further), so simple as to elude people, try as they might to capture it or make it fit some personal agenda. I haven't noticed them having any difficult making it fit their personal agendas. It's vague enough to fit anything. It's not hard to find Plotinus quotes along the semantic lines: negative spiritual or theological path is a rational consequence of us not being able to affirm positive attributes (implying exclusion) of the one. Any thought or spirit directed at anything else than the one is under enchantment of illusion of appearances. For Plotinus all practical action, as well as thought associated with it in this world, is therefore dreaming under enchantment and not fully conscious, not in full contact with the one. (I could dig up precise reference, treatise/section/chapter + translation of Enneads if you really cared, but it's Plotnius 101, I think somewhere around 4,4 and somewhere around 40th Chapter with Chase's translation) Therefore to have a personal agenda is delusion at best, in Plotinus' terms. I agree that mysticism is abused in various ways. But this abuse highlights possibility of its rational use as well, and the negative theology of ancient Greece did well here. And Plotinus didn't do and/or even write much, again a subject of scrutiny for how to write about the one, without missing the point? Frequent uses of so to speak and as it were throughout the work are not weaseling in this case, but appropriate to unspeakable subject matter, a negative theology therefore, and an open admission of the limitations and strictures of language. Once wrestled with, the theology stands as one of the simplest and clearest. But getting there is, due to our cultural biases, a complex matter. Not because Plotinus message is complex, but mainly because of all the cultural baggage we habitually bring to the reading. And this is also fits with beings sitting in the dark of some cave of forms, easily mistaking such forms for reality, truth, god etc. Fits with is vague enough to fit with assertion. It just means a point for consistency, in asserting negative theology as a whole. Like Plato's cave, we don't get a why-answer for the one's existence, but we can query negative theology for the types of confusions in belief/dream that might arise and decide for ourselves whether we get closer to relating to a reality that these mystical propositions point towards or not. Value and precision with negation is asserted in a world of illusion in platonic tradition. Another common rhetorical device to convey this as reading that *forms* simplicity, rather than *informs* the reader with more new facts, and therefore a firewall for excessive literal interpretation is apophasis. This is not used as rhetorical trick, but reflects the as if status of statements, pertaining to something so beyond our ability to conceive (while also being under our noses) that it cannot be described in or analyzed in discrete terms. That is why questioning dialogue is appropriate to the pedagogical aspect of relating this kind of content better than detached passive voice and analytical exposition we have grown used to from western perspective, sweeping the respective scientists' theologies under the rug in most papers, from most domains of institutional scientific work, I come across these days. It follows that our current habits would be arrogant and excessive in Plotinus' view. Unless you are the devil. Unless you don't want to obey God's orders to stone adulterers and conquer unbelievers and tithe to the priests. Brent You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. - Anne Lamott The very idea of people's relation to god = who we should hate, superiority, politics etc. is already too low and worldly to start with, that it itself cannot be divine. So
Re: Democracy
On 5 Jan 2015, at 2:57 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 04 Jan 2015, at 00:30, Kim Jones wrote: On 4 Jan 2015, at 2:47 am, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: But this fearing of God is a mystery to me. God should be good. Only the devil should be feared. (between us). Is the devil not-God? Yes, we can say that in the Platonic context where the God is The Truth. Then the Devil is the False. Makes sense. Truly fascinating. We fear the false, then. I think the power of The False is that it can somehow dissimulate itself. One is likely to mistake The False for The Truth. Awareness of this pitfall means we fear our own weakness, our own tendency to get a mistaken belief about something, yes? This must be intuitive knowledge that is part of a racial memory or something. As such it does not exist in Platonia, but it can almost exist in the mind of the existing creature, and operate from there. This is due to the existence of false, yet consistent, proposition, relatively to models or local realities. But surely, The False exists? Or, when we think we have the devil by the horns, we are really being gored by our own fear of? Is it not that fear of the devil is the same as the fear of God (in some sense)? At the conceptual level, yes. Because once you have one, you have the other. Dualism. But is The False equivalent to evil. Most people talk about good vs evil which may or may not correspond to Truth vs False. I think evil is much worse in some way than simple falsity. In fact, I would say that evil is not really le faux. Evil is le mal, non? But we don't live at that conceptual level, How so? Are you saying we are somehow obliged to view the world as committed dualists? Can't we TRY to live at a conceptual level where we notice the way in which things are the same, rather than continually dwell on how things are different? and you better fear an hammer on the finger (example of bad, that is what the devil practically does) than a cup of coffee (as example of good, what God practically does). Sure Of course I assume the platonist link between God and Good here. that is not clear at all when you interview the universal machine (even with good being defined through self-survival ability). Ah.the Truth is a survivor! Even more interesting. But there can be levels of self-survival ability, yet Truth is surely an Absolute, the zero. Why would a UM not experience a strong link between God and Good? Who or what IS this devil character anyway? Is such a concept necessary? I'm afraid yes, in its most primitive sense of bad. OK. But I'm still hitched on the devil, the bad, the false or whatever as something which doesn't exist in Platonia, as you wrote earlier. The very notions of Truth and False are platonic. How can ideas, concepts NOT reside in Platonia? As you say, for a platonist the ideas exist, and for a computationalists, they all have an infinity of Gödel numbers, or relative programs, or relative engrams, relative to some universal number(s). With computationalism, you cannot escape the fact that some solution of diophantine equations incarnate hellish experiences. I, like you, am OK with cannabis, but I think I might stay away from these diophantine equations. I don't really want to have any hellish experiences. Then the higher level devil is just a poetical view of the idea of the moral bad thing, or even the more general idea, and easier to define (as non linked to moral issue) that in a reality where you can augment the good for everybody, i.e. harm reduction for everybody, there will be situations where individuals or groups of individuals can accelerate the augmentation of their good by deceiving those outside the group: it is stupid in the sense of going from a win/win game to a win-a-lot/loss-a-lot game, but it makes sense locally, and nature does that a lot of times itself. That's really scary, isn't it? So when someone rips you off, you can console yourself by saying they were only imitating Nature. It is a sort of constant prisoner dilemma. It is part of the nature of life, at the border between the computable and the non-computable. (from 3-1p: the sigma_1 leafs of the universal dovetailer versus its complement in arithmetic). It is an intrinsic weakness of God, Only Bruno Marchal would have the gall to write this! I love it! I'm so glad God has an intrinsic weakness. Kind of de-Gods him/her/it a bit. It can't make the devil disappear, Ecoute, mon ami. Dieu a fait le diable, non? What is all that tra la la about serpents in gardens etc. Where did this serpent satané arise from? Fallen angel my foot! God put the snake there on purpose! God has LIED to Man about the nature and the purpose of the snake. Unless God is not running the show? K but It can help to make it
Re: Intelligence Consciousness
On Sun, Dec 28, 2014 at 2:33 AM, zibblequib...@gmail.com wrote: I've been over this many times on this list, a rock may be conscious But there's no reason to entertain a rock is conscious to begin with. If the rock behaved intelligently then I would think it's conscious, but it doesn't so I don't. But you don't think my reasoning is valid so I want to know why you believe a rock is not conscious. In all cases, natural selection sits with the universal principle.the laws of symmetry, the conservation lawsall of which are variations on the concept Energy. The universal principles are always about energy. Natural selection.is just like 'conservation laws', 'symmetry laws', What the hell?? The more efficient energetic structure, out endures the lesser. The organism that gets more of its gens into the next generation out-competes the competition, energetic structure is just unnecessary bafflegab. So all this hocus pocus about consciousness being special and somehow immune from natural selection. If consciousness effects behavior then it is NOT immune from natural selection and the Turing test can detect both intelligence and consciousness. If consciousness has nothing to do with behavior then the evidence that a rock is conscious is just as good as the evidence that one of your fellow human beings is. I think a rock is not conscious. my fellow human beings are, and intelagent behavior is a marker of consciousness. Consciousness is the product of millions of small or large efficiency differences, Differences in the efficiency OF DOING SOMETHING. Behavior. We draw on common human understandings for the knowledge being under anesthesia or whatever knocks out consciousness. What's with this we business? What makes you think that anybody except you understands anything? in the technological civilization, despite blatently following a completely different sequence than biological evolution...and has access to energy sources and material bioloy never has. So in effect you're saying that whatever biology came up with (including consciousness) technology can come up with it too, and do it better. I agree. So if nature came up with feeling first and high level intelligence only much much later I don't see why the opposite would be true for our computers. It's a hell of a lot easier to make something that feels but doesn't think than something that thinks but doesn't feel. Yeah? Yeah. Historical biology was driven by NATURAL SELECTION. And random mutation and natural selection is a ridiculously slow and inefficient process, it is also incredibly cruel, but until it got around to inventing brains (after about 3 billion years of screwing around) that was the only way complex thing could get made. However now we have brains and brains begat technology and it will very soon far outstrip anything in biology. Conscious intelligent technological being choose their own preferred sequent. So there was a reason that being X went left rather than right, preference Y caused him to go in that direction. And cog X in the cuckoo clock turned left rather that right because cog Y caused it to go in that direction. There are values of a truism nature to what you say here. The Turing test may SEE insights popping up about intelligence and consciousness. Why not. But the point isl the test does not DEPEND on any useful measurements of such quantities taking place. More critically the test does not DEPEND on non-vague definitions of intelligence or consciousness. There is NO DEPENDENCE on progress being made defining and understanding this pair of nebulous vague conceptions. Can't comment, I don't know what any of that means. Niels Bohr said I refuse to speak more clearly than I think, perhaps you feel the same way. I repeat my question, if you don't use the same thing that the Turing Test uses, behavior, how in the world do you tell the difference between a genius and a moron? You don't understand the turing test. Fine I don't understand the Turing Test, but I repeat my question for a third time, if it isn't behavior how do you tell the difference between a genius and a moron? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
Chris,
I have nothing important to say! :-) Nothing and something are kind
of good areas for puns, double entendres and jokes. After all, Jerry
Seinfeld had a whole show about nothing!
Roger – you have much to say about nothing [just joking]
You mentioned:
I agree with the distinction you make between nothing arrived at through
the negative process of removing everything that exists until nothing is
left versus the nothing **that is** everything.
Further down, if I follow you, you are making the point that if we are
speaking about the **nothing that is the set of everything there is** then
even if this is an empty set, by virtue of a set being something – a
conceptual entity – then even the absolutely empty universal set {} exists
as a conceptual entity at least.
Is that a fair recap of your intent; or am I off the mark?
I think that's a good recap of my intent. If we can visualize the
absolute lack-of-all where all things traditionally thought to exist,
including our minds doing the imagining, that nothingness would be
everything there is. And, then as you say, I think everything there is is
a grouping defining what is contained within and therefore an existent
entity. A set is also a grouping defining what is contained within, so
this situation would be similar to the empty set. I think this fundamental
existent entity similar to the empty set is the fundamental unit of our
physical universe.
Also, you mentioned in a later post:
Something is the “inside view” of Nothing”I agree with the premise
that perspective is paramount in coming to terms with and to understand
the spooky weird nature of quantum reality; perspective also provides a
powerful tool to explain the “something from nothing paradox”. Something
does seem like it could be how Nothing looks from the perspective of being
within itself – as opposed to the bird’s eye view from outside
I totally agree that perspective is paramount in deciding whether the
absolute lack-of-all is something or nothing. But, I always like to
think that when we're inside nothingness, that means we're also like
nothingness, so this nothingness just looks like nothing. But, if we
could step outside that nothingness, we'd see that it is the entirety of
all there is and thus an existent entity.
In regard to Russell's stuff on nothingness, I can't remember the
details now, but I think I read about it at one time and don't remember its
really answering any questions.
Have a good week!
Roger
This is exactly what I'm suggesting. It would not remain nothing. We
usually think of the situation when you get rid of all matter, energy,
space/volume, time, abstract concepts, minds, etc. as nothing. But, what
I'm saying is that this supposed nothing really isn't the lack of all
existent entities. That nothing would be the entirety of all that is
present; that's it; there's nothing else. It would be the all. An
entirety is a grouping defining what is contained within and therefore an
existent entity, based on my definition of an existent entity. So, even
what we think of as nothing is an existent entity or something. This
means that something is non-contingent. It's necessary. There is no
such thing as the lack of all existent entities.
Roger – you have much to say about nothing [just joking]
I agree with the distinction you make between nothing arrived at through
the negative process of removing everything that exists until nothing is
left versus the nothing **that is** everything.
Further down, if I follow you, you are making the point that if we are
speaking about the **nothing that is the set of everything there is**
then even if this is an empty set, by virtue of a set being something – a
conceptual entity – then even the absolutely empty universal set {} exists
as a conceptual entity at least.
Is that a fair recap of your intent; or am I off the mark?
-Chris
On Saturday, January 3, 2015 1:17:27 AM UTC-5, cdemorsella wrote:
*From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] *On
Behalf Of *meekerdb
*Sent:* Friday, January 02, 2015 9:44 PM
*To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com
*Subject:* Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum
theory to dialectics?
On 1/2/2015 9:05 PM, 'Roger' via Everything List wrote:
Even if the word exists has no use because everything exists, it seems
important to know why everything exists. How is it that a thing can
exist? What I suggest is that a grouping defining what is contained within
is an existent entity. Then, you can use this to try and answer the other
question of Why is there something rather than nothing?.
If everything exists, what doesn't exist? Nothing.
If nothing existed; would it remain nothing?
-Chris
Brent
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