On articulating existence [Archive]

Rafiq

24th August 2012, 00:02

The Jay

24th August 2012, 00:34

The short answer is yes, the Universe just is. There is no moral imperative or "spiritual" meaning that can be derived from the nature that things are as they are instead of some other possibility. Contemplating and being in awe of the facts of existence; however, is beautiful and is something to be cherished. If you want someone who articulates this sense of awe very well I would recommend some of the videos of Richard Feynman. I went through a similar pattern of thoughts as you seem to be doing now and don't consider it folly to have done so.

Here are some things you may find interesting, especially the first video if you watch the whole thing:

Bgaw9qe7DEE
V_I9cLKwRMw

PS: I've been procrastinating responding in the Idealism thread. Sorry about that.

Lynx

24th August 2012, 00:47

In the Steady State theory, the universe always existed. In the Big Bang theory, there is an event that created both space and time. I don't have a problem with either of these scenarios.

Zukunftsmusik

24th August 2012, 01:27

In the Steady State theory, the universe always existed. In the Big Bang theory, there is an event that created both space and time. I don't have a problem with either of these scenarios.

aren't there more scientific proof for big bang, though? I don't remember everything from my physichs-classes, but you have the background noise, for example (radiation from the time the universe was extremely hot and dense, IIRC). What proofs do the steady state theory build on?

RedHammer

24th August 2012, 01:40

That's an interesting question, and it reminds me of the position that it is futile to ask "What came before the universe" or "What caused the Big Bang", because causality itself is a product of time, and time didn't exist before the universe existed (according to modern physicists).

Existence is an amazing thing; I can't imagine non-existence.

Here's another interesting thought: you exist. It's too late to not exist, because you already do. The best you can do now is die, but you will still have existed - it's too late to not exist, it's too late for any of us to avoid existence.

I really hope there is something more to the universe - something spiritual, you could say. I hope there really is paradise awaiting us after death.

Zukunftsmusik

24th August 2012, 01:46

Does this, perhaps, stem from a form of reasoning which pressuposes in itself that Non existence even exists? Should we really be appalled at the existence of the universe, or should we, to be more precise, do away with this notion of non existence to begin with?

This reminds me of a thought put forward in an anti-religious novel, that said our biggest mistake is to think of a zero-point (ie nothingness, non-existence). First of all, non-existence can't "exist", that would contradict the non-existence of non-existence in the first place, but this is merely semantics (as I perfectly understand what you mean). It's an interesting thought, but as I think there are more proof favouring the theory of a big bang, I think it makes more sense to speak of a non-existence before existence started.

However, the laws of energy teach us that energy can't come from nothing -- energy only changes form. Does this mean, then, that the immense energy released in the big bang must have come from somewhere? The theory of the big bang says, again IIRC, that the whole universe, existence, if you like, came from an unimaginably small "dot" from which existence sprung -- the "dot" expanded/exploded with great speed. This contradicts everything we learn from the laws of energy (although, in astrophysics I think other phenomena also contradict the laws of energy or other laws). Is it then probable that there was a big crunch before the big bang, that another universe imploded, so to speak, before "our" existence, or the existence we exist in and can study, came into being? As far as I'm aware, it only comes down to speculation on this point.

But even then, that is hard to accept. Everything exists.... Why? No reason? They just do? [...] Perhaps... The universe is the answer to itself..?

In a sense, maybe it is.

Perhaps, maybe, just maybe, the way in which we perceive the entirety of everything that exists wreaks of human arrogance.

How does the present (ruling) theories of existence and its beginning "wreak of human arrogance"?

I mean, no wonder metaphysical dialectics came to exist, it at the least explains that although the universe is devoid of will and thought (in itself), there is a key phenomena that entrenches even to the social organization of the little shits that call themselves human, that existed since the beggining of everything (The 'dialectical' explanation for the big bang, which I hear is bullshit, but whatever).

I think you or someone else need to enlighten me on said theory. I'm not completely sure what you mean; that the social organisation of humans has its source in the big bang?

On a general note, my post probably reeks of misconceptions of astrophysics and the big bang theory etc, and anyone more enlightened must feel free to correct all errors or simplifications.

Lynx

24th August 2012, 01:51

aren't there more scientific proof for big bang, though? I don't remember everything from my physichs-classes, but you have the background noise, for example (radiation from the time the universe was extremely hot and dense, IIRC). What proofs do the steady state theory build on?
The Steady State theory has fallen out of favor among cosmologists and physicists. I used it to illustrate that there isn't a "coming into existence" issue if you describe the universe as being in a steady state.

Zukunftsmusik

24th August 2012, 01:55

The Steady State theory has fallen out of favor among cosmologists and physicists. I used it to illustrate that there isn't a "coming into existence" issue if you describe the universe as being in a steady state.

if the proof say there is a "coming into existence", you get a "coming into existence"-issue. One can't "choose" a theory to believe in because it takes away a probelm for you, if the proof for such a theory don't exist or are inadequate

Lynx

24th August 2012, 02:03

if the proof says there is a "coming into existence", you get a "coming into existence"-issue. One can't "choose" a theory to believe in because it takes away a probelm for you, if the proof for such a theory doesn't exist or are inadequate
I subscribe to the theory that is in fashion amongst those in the know. I'm comfortable with either theory (the Big Bang doesn't have a 'before' because time is created by that event).

JPSartre12

24th August 2012, 02:05

Existence is an amazing thing; I can't imagine non-existence.

Here's another interesting thought: you exist. It's too late to not exist, because you already do. The best you can do now is die, but you will still have existed - it's too late to not exist, it's too late for any of us to avoid existence.

Existentialism centers around the enter concept of existence and, having read more existentialist literature than I ever thought possible in one lifetime, I'd love to pounce on this comment and give my two cents :lol:

Sartre eventually became a sort of Marxist-anarchist hybrid and, when he was first jumping into Marxist lit, he was obsessed with the idea of dialectics. He said that we never "exist", per se. The dialectic that he thought went like this: the thesis is Existence/Being, the antithesis is Non-Existence/Non-Being, and the synthesis is Becoming. I don't want to sound like a vulgar existentialist and just recite what he says without thinking critically about it for myself, but I think that that makes a lot of sense.

Zukunftsmusik

24th August 2012, 02:12

I subscribe to the theory that is in fashion amongst those in the know. I'm comfortable with either theory (the Big Bang doesn't have a 'before' because time is created by that event).

ah, my bad.

Existentialism centers around the enter concept of existence and, having read more existentialist literature than I ever thought possible in one lifetime, I'd love to pounce on this comment and give my two cents :lol:

Sartre eventually became a sort of Marxist-anarchist hybrid and, when he was first jumping into Marxist lit, he was obsessed with the idea of dialectics. He said that we never "exist", per se. The dialectic that he thought went like this: the thesis is Existence/Being, the antithesis is Non-Existence/Non-Being, and the synthesis is Becoming. I don't want to sound like a vulgar existentialist and just recite what he says without thinking critically about it for myself, but I think that that makes a lot of sense.

This thread is explicitly about the existence of the universe, though. I don't think existentialist glossary on existence (as it deals with human existence alone) is adequate in this sense. The same would go for Red Hammer's post.

ComingUpForAir

24th August 2012, 02:20

JPSartre12

24th August 2012, 02:30

This thread is explicitly about the existence of the universe, though. I don't think existentialist glossary on existence (as it deals with human existence alone) is adequate in this sense. The same would go for Red Hammer's post.

Oh, my bad, I just glanced at the thread quickly :blushing:

DasFapital

24th August 2012, 03:02

Alan Watts always had a lot to say on this subject. Here's a bit of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLrMVous0Ac

Rafiq

24th August 2012, 22:11

How does the present (ruling) theories of existence and its beginning "wreak of human arrogance"?

If "ruling theories" mean the perception of the commonfolk, yes, the conception of the universe does wreak of human arrogance. The concept that some human-like being had to exist before the entirety of what we call the universe is absolutely ridiculous and is arrogant.

Rafiq

24th August 2012, 22:13

Regarding the big bang, personally, I don't buy that it was the beggining of everything. I can perhaps accept it may be the beggining of our universe and time in our universe, though, what's to say that it occurred in an even bigger universe?

Rafiq

24th August 2012, 22:16

Check out Sam Harris' Lecture on Free Will -- It's a trip..

It will demonstrate that everything that's ever happened could not have happened any other way and that we are all intricately interconnected, etc.

Philosophical Determinism is also strongly correlated with Dialectical Materialism, IMO if you think about it -- FREE WILL goes hand in hand with Religion while Determinism goes hand in hand with Atheism and Marxism.

What a disgustingly Idealist critique of free will. "Philosophical determinism" and Dialectical materialism are diametrically opposed. Determinism is garbage. It was Marx for the first time, who held that everything that has ever happened could have happened in a thousand different ways and that if we went back thousands of years, without interfering, the world would look like a very different place today. We aren't all interconnected, that's Atheist spiritualist horse shit of the most disgusting variant. While Free will is bullshit, Determinism vs. Free will is false dichtomony. We are in a way comparable to robots, and yes, our mind operates in a way comparable to a computer, that's blatantly obvious. Yes, our choices are made not as an expression of some abstract "free will", but in the same way a computer makes choices while it's playing chess with you. That is correct. However, nothing is predetermined, on a universalist scale.

Zukunftsmusik

25th August 2012, 00:06

If "ruling theories" mean the perception of the commonfolk, yes, the conception of the universe does wreak of human arrogance. The concept that some human-like being had to exist before the entirety of what we call the universe is absolutely ridiculous and is arrogant.

I meant the theory accepted by the absolute greatest majority of scientists, but in the sense of "the perception of the commonfolk," you're right.

ComingUpForAir

25th August 2012, 21:21

I think you've extracted more from what I've stated that you ought to have..or perhaps I should have been a little more clear. I consider myself a philosophical determinist who believes very strongly in the role of free choice. Things happen not for A reason, but for myriad reasons that are out of our control and impossible for us to affect otherwise. The trick is that nobody knows how the future will be determined, and you don't know how things are to be determined until they are. Philosophical Determinism actually helps you see the importance of your everyday choices because you can't escape the causal chain of choice. If I were to decide to just stay in bed all day and do nothing because I know the future is determined, I am in that instance still making a choice -- in any case it soon becomes harder to stay in bed than to get out of it. I would say Marx was certainly a philosophical determinist, but he was not a Fatalist -- I think this is an important distinction. A Fatalist is someone who says that things are going to happen one way no matter what and there is no way to change that -- hence Marx would disagree with someone who would say that Socialism is historically determined as an event. Philosophical Determinism posits no such outcome because it does not claim to know how the future will be determined.

Comrade I recommend you take a look at or listen to that lecture I've posted (Sam Harris on Free Will). I think you'll find it particularly enlightening..and I believe some of your misconceptions on Determinism will likely be corrected.

Rafiq

25th August 2012, 22:05

white picket fence

26th August 2012, 02:31

do math or do physics, make mistakes learn a discipline that asks fundamental questions about existence - the heuristics you learn from doing actual practical science will get you closer then any speculation starting with inherently flawed linguistic concepts. <-- and that too thinking about cognitive biases, limits of language or w/e can also help you think about how not to think about the universe.

RedHammer

26th August 2012, 06:35

What a disgustingly Idealist critique of free will. "Philosophical determinism" and Dialectical materialism are diametrically opposed. Determinism is garbage. It was Marx for the first time, who held that everything that has ever happened could have happened in a thousand different ways and that if we went back thousands of years, without interfering, the world would look like a very different place today. We aren't all interconnected, that's Atheist spiritualist horse shit of the most disgusting variant. While Free will is bullshit, Determinism vs. Free will is false dichtomony. We are in a way comparable to robots, and yes, our mind operates in a way comparable to a computer, that's blatantly obvious. Yes, our choices are made not as an expression of some abstract "free will", but in the same way a computer makes choices while it's playing chess with you. That is correct. However, nothing is predetermined, on a universalist scale.

That's a good way of looking at it, but there is an element of choice in the human condition. We are economic actors and reactors. "Free will" is idealistic garbage, because free will is destroyed at the very point of birth; but a capacity for choice does exist, at least to some extent, and those choices impact material conditions. Hence man has some level of influence upon the world which shapes him.

Thirsty Crow

26th August 2012, 12:08

No, not our existence, or the existence of the Earth (It's fairly easy to grasp), but the existence of the universe as a whole. The common Idealist reaction to conceiving the vastness of the universe is that some "being" that is capable of consciousness has to be "Behind" it all, that there must be a "reason" as to why the universe exists, or why things exist in general. Does this, perhaps, stem from a form of reasoning which pressuposes in itself that Non existence even exists?

I think that, at the core, this is a simple argument from ignorance. It would go something like this:
"I can't imagine such a complex world, and living things inside it, to come about any other way than by conscious design".

So what is really at stake is appeasement of ignorance. It turns it upside down and produces claims actually originating in that same ignorance. And most of all, it equates the universe (everything that exists), though implicitly, with a manufactured item, which entails the fallacy that human production is the only kind of production that can ever exist (here I somewhat stretch the word "production" - as in, the "production of the species homo sapiens sapiens, or the production of nebulas and quassars)

Should we really be appalled at the existence of the universe, or should we, to be more precise, do away with this notion of non existence to begin with?
You're right to some extent that this also relies on the notion of non-existence. Theist deity is non-existence (and existence at the same time - how's that for dialectical thinking :lol:), as far as can tell. And yes, of course, we should do away with it. It's useless unless it refers to death. This is non-existence (of a concrete individual).

But even then, that is hard to accept. Everything exists.... Why? No reason? They just do? Please don't dismiss this (something I would probably do without thinking twice about it). Perhaps... The universe is the answer to itself..? No, no, again, that attributes conscious characteristics to a clusterfuck devoid of a conscious nucleus. Why need a reason? Again, there must be a reason someone produced a specific handicraft - it must fulfill a purpose, be it only to induce aesthetic pleasure. But that is the world of human production, something different from nebulas, stars and all the wonderful and completely usless things that exist without a reason (if you're an atheist and scientifically minded). And the linguistic fallacy - the universe isn't a "question", it has no answer. It just is.

Why is it hard to accept this for you? (that's an honest question)

Perhaps, maybe, just maybe, the way in which we perceive the entirety of everything that exists wreaks of human arrogance. No, not just maybe, but absolutely. What I said about inscribing the characteristics of human production into every other natural phenomena reeks of arrogance.

Maybe in a month I'll look back on this thread and think about how stupid I was.Why? Nothing you said is stupid.

That's a good way of looking at it, but there is an element of choice in the human condition. We are economic actors and reactors. "Free will" is idealistic garbage, because free will is destroyed at the very point of birth; but a capacity for choice does exist, at least to some extent, and those choices impact material conditions. Hence man has some level of influence upon the world which shapes him.
Without it, the whole notion of the revolution of the working class (and conscious effor of revolutionary minorities) would go out the window since it would presuppose the autonomous existence of these "material conditions" as entities apart from, and overpowering, human beings. That's not how it works.

So, the only way to conceive revolution would be telological and quasi-religious. Destiny.

Philo

30th August 2012, 22:52

There are two distinct questions at play here; a physical question about how our universe came to be (by what mechanisms, etc.), and a metaphysical question about "why" anything exists at all.

The former question is one we don't have an answer to yet, but are closing in on. A more precise answer hinges on a successful theory of quantum gravity, which would allow us to understand the workings of the universe prior to the 'big bang singularity," i.e. below the planck scale.

This is a common misunderstanding of the big bang "singularity." The "singularity" refers to the point that our existing models (general relativity and linear quantum mechanics, in this case) break down. More specifically, what happens is, in an extreme nutshell, that if you take the equations of general relativity and project arbitrarily far back in time, spacetime (which in GR is something called a Riemannian manifold) reaches a point in infinite curvature. There's actually a theorem called the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem which deductively proves this, more precisely that if one assumes an inflationary cosmology (which is correct) and existing theories (GR + QM), the universe must have a "beginning," i.e. the first "moment" at which spacetime does not have infinite curvature. Of course, this behavior is in some ways asymptotic, so there is in fact no one such point. The point is though that the "big bang singularity" is more like the square root of two is for the "model" of integers than it is an event.

Personally, the approach I favor for unifying these two theories (which is the central problem of theoretical physics) is called loop quantum gravity (and its cousin loop quantum cosmology). It's worth noting that a couple of years ago, it was demonstrated by LQC theorists that the "big bang" was really more of a "big bounce." This does not assume LQC either - it holds for all quantum gravitational theories which fulfill the assumptions of canonical quantum gravity - so string theories and everything.

There's an excellent article on arXv summarizing, but I cannot post links. It is: Singh, P. and Ashtekar, A. 2011. "Loop Quantum Cosmology: A Status Report." Class. Quant. Grav. 28: 213001,2011

Now, on the metaphysical question of existence, I think the answer is much easier. The idea that there needs to be some kind of "necessary" or "final" cause that is the "ground" of being is predicated on woefully outdated Aristotelian metaphysics. I don't think the notion of nothing existing makes sense. In other words, "nothing exists" cannot be true, it is incoherent. "Nothing exists" cannot be false, because it describes a state of affairs - that of nothing existing, which "exists" in some minimal sense.

Sea

31st August 2012, 05:25

I don't think the notion of nothing existing makes sense. In other words, "nothing exists" cannot be true, it is incoherent. "Nothing exists" cannot be false, because it describes a state of affairs - that of nothing existing, which "exists" in some minimal sense.A state of affairs in this sense is a misnomer. Nothingness isn't a state of affairs but rather a lack thereof. Maybe this is why the concept of nothingness seems contradictory to you. A perfect vacuum is an example of nothing existing albeit in closed quarters. Lest, of course, one were to suppose omnipresence of some sort or otherwise have a problem with (philosophical) materialism, but I think we're both beyond that.

Philo

31st August 2012, 07:49

A state of affairs in this sense is a misnomer. Nothingness isn't a state of affairs but rather a lack thereof. Maybe this is why the concept of nothingness seems contradictory to you. A perfect vacuum is an example of nothing existing albeit in closed quarters. Lest, of course, one were to suppose omnipresence of some sort or otherwise have a problem with (philosophical) materialism, but I think we're both beyond that.

I disagree. There are multiple ways we can look at this. A vacuum is something, it's a vacuum.

Let's look at how we usually use the term "nothing." Suppose I'm being asked what I'm doing right now, and I answer "nothing." Now, this is understood to mean that I'm not doing anything that would prevent me from doing something my interlocutor is going to suggest. Or, I might say that there is "nothing left" of a house after it is razed by a tornado. By this, I am understood to mean that there is not a certain configuration of a certain part of reality called "a house." Clearly, on another level there is plainly something left - the land the house was on, for one - and this applies to the first case too; I clearly am doing something, namely answering a question, but it was understood that answering a question was not in the range of activities I was being queried about.

The point is that the negation "nothing" always applies to some determined subset of all the possible things we could be talking about, and not reality itself. I still don't see how you could give the proposition "reality does not exist" sense, i.e. the ability to be true or false, without a very odd and most definitely idealist theory of truth. Even a deflationary theory like that of Tarsi or Horwich or most coherence theories wouldn't go this far. Also, some specific points of contention:

Maybe this is why the concept of nothingness seems contradictory to you.

I don't think it's merely contradictory, I think it's incoherent. Note that I am referring to absolute, metaphysical nothingness, because plainly there are more qualified contextual uses of "nothingness" which make sense.

Lest, of course, one were to suppose omnipresence of some sort or otherwise have a problem with (philosophical) materialism, but I think we're both beyond that.

It has nothing to do with "omnipresence" within reality, unless of course you would also deny that reality is omnipresent in some sense, which seems like more incoherence to me. Also, unless you are referring to some very strange sort of "philosophical materialism," your contentions seems misplaced. Historically speaking at least, it has been broadly "materialist" thought that has been sympathetic to the notion that reality is necessarily existent and this fact requires no explanation, i.e. denying the coherence of reality not existing. Why do you think, whatever word they used, folks like Epicurus, Democritus, Leucippus, Spinoza, d'Holbach, La Mettrie, Meslier, etc. keep banging on about matter being "eternal?" The whole point was to respond to those like Socrates or Plato (though there were many presocratics both in the "materialist" camp and otherwise) who thought that existence itself needed further, mystical explanation. Hell, the origin of Aristotle's telos (final cause) was introduced in his Physics and Metaphysics to counter the mystical notion that there needed to be a "ground of being" (God, "the good," whatever) to explain existence - it made reality self-sustaining and necessarily existent. As many Christian apologists seem to forget, Aristotle's "final causes" are not temporally, but logically prior to other things - he thinks that reality is "eternal" in the sense that it could not not exist - the notion didn't made sense.

By the way, I am not a neo-Aristotelian, I'm just trying to place the relation of my thought to "materialism" in context. I'm a radical Sellarsian, non-reductive, naturalist. Although, to some extent I do take issue with the term "materialism," I don't think it is very useful anymore. I prefer "naturalist" and "(scientific) realist."

Sea

31st August 2012, 09:52

I disagree. There are multiple ways we can look at this. A vacuum is something, it's a vacuum.

Let's look at how we usually use the term "nothing." Suppose I'm being asked what I'm doing right now, and I answer "nothing." Now, this is understood to mean that I'm not doing anything that would prevent me from doing something my interlocutor is going to suggest. Or, I might say that there is "nothing left" of a house after it is razed by a tornado. By this, I am understood to mean that there is not a certain configuration of a certain part of reality called "a house." Clearly, on another level there is plainly something left - the land the house was on, for one - and this applies to the first case too; I clearly am doing something, namely answering a question, but it was understood that answering a question was not in the range of activities I was being queried about.

The point is that the negation "nothing" always applies to some determined subset of all the possible things we could be talking about, and not reality itself. I still don't see how you could give the proposition "reality does not exist" sense, i.e. the ability to be true or false, without a very odd and most definitely idealist theory of truth. Even a deflationary theory like that of Tarsi or Horwich or most coherence theories wouldn't go this far. Also, some specific points of contention:

I don't think it's merely contradictory, I think it's incoherent. Note that I am referring to absolute, metaphysical nothingness, because plainly there are more qualified contextual uses of "nothingness" which make sense.

It has nothing to do with "omnipresence" within reality, unless of course you would also deny that reality is omnipresent in some sense, which seems like more incoherence to me. Also, unless you are referring to some very strange sort of "philosophical materialism," your contentions seems misplaced. Historically speaking at least, it has been broadly "materialist" thought that has been sympathetic to the notion that reality is necessarily existent and this fact requires no explanation, i.e. denying the coherence of reality not existing. Why do you think, whatever word they used, folks like Epicurus, Democritus, Leucippus, Spinoza, d'Holbach, La Mettrie, Meslier, etc. keep banging on about matter being "eternal?" The whole point was to respond to those like Socrates or Plato (though there were many presocratics both in the "materialist" camp and otherwise) who thought that existence itself needed further, mystical explanation. Hell, the origin of Aristotle's telos (final cause) was introduced in his Physics and Metaphysics to counter the mystical notion that there needed to be a "ground of being" (God, "the good," whatever) to explain existence - it made reality self-sustaining and necessarily existent. As many Christian apologists seem to forget, Aristotle's "final causes" are not temporally, but logically prior to other things - he thinks that reality is "eternal" in the sense that it could not not exist - the notion didn't made sense.

By the way, I am not a neo-Aristotelian, I'm just trying to place the relation of my thought to "materialism" in context. I'm a radical Sellarsian, non-reductive, naturalist. Although, to some extent I do take issue with the term "materialism," I don't think it is very useful anymore. I prefer "naturalist" and "(scientific) realist."The nothing I speak of isn't the colloquial nothingness but a literal nothingness, an absence of matter. The philosophical materialism I speak of is the notion that reality exists within and not outside of the material world. To be perfectly honest I didn't bother with "proper" terminology as I didn't expect such thoughtfulness on the subject.

As for nothingness being something, the only way I can really envision this is if the concept of nothing and what it represents are seen as one. Nothing being something, being the term used to prescribe the concept of nothingness.

Thirsty Crow

31st August 2012, 12:29

As for nothingness being something, the only way I can really envision this is if the concept of nothing and what it represents are seen as one. Nothing being something, being the term used to prescribe the concept of nothingness.
How can you see a concept - a lexical item, a semantic unit - and the thing "as one"? You're not being so clear here as there is a definite difference between the lingustic unit and its referent.

As far as the example of vacuum is concerned, from my admittedly layman understanding (I'm sure that Anarcho-Fox will correct it at least due to one point of misundesranding), vacuum is colloquially considered as "nothingness", the lack of matter, since its constituents are of a scale so smaller than that usual in saying something "is there".

Note this from wikipedia on vacuum:

Outer space (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space) is an even higher-quality vacuum, with the equivalent of just a few hydrogen atoms per cubic meter on average.[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum#cite_note-tadokoro-3) However, even if every single atom and particle could be removed from a volume, it would still not be "empty" due to vacuum fluctuations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluctuations), dark energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy), and other phenomena in quantum physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_physics).
Obviously, "a few" hydroge atoms per cubic meter is not "nothing", "not a thing".

By the way, I am not a neo-Aristotelian, I'm just trying to place the relation of my thought to "materialism" in context. I'm a radical Sellarsian, non-reductive, naturalist. Although, to some extent I do take issue with the term "materialism," I don't think it is very useful anymore. I prefer "naturalist" and "(scientific) realist."Maybe you should open another thread or even explain it here in a nutshell. I'm intrigued :)

Philo

31st August 2012, 16:22

As far as the example of vacuum is concerned, from my admittedly layman understanding (I'm sure that Anarcho-Fox will correct it at least due to one point of misundesranding), vacuum is colloquially considered as "nothingness", the lack of matter, since its constituents are of a scale so smaller than that usual in saying something "is there".

This is actually more or less right. To me, though, the most interesting thing about the vacuum is the "quantum foam" of quantum field theory.

The idea is actually really simple. You are probably familiar with the basic fact of quantum mechanics that particles/the system in question are/is described by a probability distribution of possible states and do not take a "definite" value until measured - the observer effect. This goes for position as well. An important corollary is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the relevant version of which is:

(σ_x)(σ_p) ≥ ħ/2

Where _ denotes subscript, σ_x is a standard deviation of position, (σ_p) is a standard deviation of momentum, and ħ is the reduced planck constant (this is also sometimes written as ΔxΔp ≥ ħ/2, but the sigma notation is more formal for probabilistic/statistical purposes).

Why is this significant? Well, obviously neither σ_p or, more importantly σ_x can take a value of 0, since ħ/2 is a nonzero quantity. But the consequence of this is that for any given point in spacetime, there is a nonzero probability that a particle is "there." It may seem innocuous, but this is actually critical for our understanding of quantum field theory, the Hawking radiation emitted by black holes, and a host of other phenomena.

My main objection to Sea's position is actually much simpler though. Basically, I take issue with his identification of "an empty space" with "nothing." Clearly, if we interpret this according to my analysis, this makes sense - there are no objects in the space, which is what we were wondering about. However, the space still exists. The point is that this supposed "literal" nothingness is just a more general extension of the concept of "nothing" I described, and does nothing to problematize my assertion that reality not existing is incoherent and thus the existence of existence (more or less) requires no further explanation.

Maybe you should open another thread or even explain it here in a nutshell. I'm intrigued :)

Sure thing! I will write a post summarizing what I mean by these positions later.

Sea

31st August 2012, 19:49

How can you see a concept - a lexical item, a semantic unit - and the thing "as one"? You're not being so clear here as there is a definite difference between the lingustic unit and its referent.I don't, I'm just trying to wrap my head around the idea that the presence of nothing could be seen as something, making that false assumption being one way a layman could. Anarcho-fox is clearly not a layman though.
As far as the example of vacuum is concerned, from my admittedly layman understanding (I'm sure that Anarcho-Fox will correct it at least due to one point of misundesranding), vacuum is colloquially considered as "nothingness", the lack of matter, since its constituents are of a scale so smaller than that usual in saying something "is there".
Note this from wikipedia on vacuum:
Obviously, "a few" hydroge atoms per cubic meter is not "nothing", "not a thing".Space isn't a perfect vacuum. The fact that it's dotted with hydrogen atoms makes it just as much of an imperfect vacuum as the fact that it's dotted with galaxies on a much larger scale. I agree wholeheartedly that space doesn't represent absolute nothingness; it's not an absolute vacuum.
My main objection to Sea's position is actually much simpler though. Basically, I take issue with his identification of "an empty space" with "nothing." Clearly, if we interpret this according to my analysis, this makes sense - there are no objects in the space, which is what we were wondering about. However, the space still exists. The point is that this supposed "literal" nothingness is just a more general extension of the concept of "nothing" I described, and does nothing to problematize my assertion that reality not existing is incoherent and thus the existence of existence (more or less) requires no further explanation.But in an absence of matter there must also be an absence of material reality as there is nothing for reality to act upon, no?
Sure thing! I will write a post summarizing what I mean by these positions later.Looking forward to it! :)

Philo

31st August 2012, 20:28

But in an absence of matter there must also be an absence of material reality as there is nothing for reality to act upon, no?

This is one of the problems with the term "materialism" - it slips ambiguously between two senses. The first is to contrast with "idealism," for which a better term is "realism" - there is a mind-independent reality which to some extent we can know. The second is a sort of thesis about the nature of being, not the fact of being, e.g. materialism about the mind. I think this second use of the term is hopelessly confusing and reliant upon atomist assumptions, so I prefer terms like "physicalism," which says that the sorts of things described by physics and the other natural sciences (which supervene on but are not reducible to physics) are what reality is actually like/the nature of the sorts of entities and processes that exist.*

*For an example of this, I am a "property dualist" concerning the mind. That is, I think that when we theorize about and do things involving "minds," there are mental properties which are not dissolvable to physical properties. However, I am an anti-realist (or better yet quasi-realist) about properties, so I'm still a monist physicalist ontologically speaking.

Thirsty Crow

31st August 2012, 20:35

Space isn't a perfect vacuum. The fact that it's dotted with hydrogen atoms makes it just as much of an imperfect vacuum as the fact that it's dotted with galaxies on a much larger scale. I agree wholeheartedly that space doesn't represent absolute nothingness; it's not an absolute vacuum

But the concept of "perfect vacuum" is only a model with no real referent. There is no "nothingness" in reality. Maybe you should go over the wikipedia excerpt and note the phenomena at the quantum level. Sure, you can "abstract" from even these, but the result you'd end up with is a series of words which form no coherent message.

In other words, "absolute nothingness" is a figment of linguistic fancy, a misuse of language from the standpoint of communication.

.But in an absence of matter there must also be an absence of material reality as there is nothing for reality to act upon, no?Looking forward to it! :)
Nope, these hydrogen atoms constitute "material reality".

Again, from wiki:

Matter is generally considered to be anything that has mass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass) and volume (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume)
Matter is thus a general term for the substance of which all observable physical objects (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_body) consist.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter#cite_note-Penrose-1)[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter#cite_note-mcgrawhill-2) Typically, matter includes atoms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom) and other particles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_particles) that have mass, but this definition confuses mass and matter, which are not the same.[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter#cite_note-Mongillo-3) Different fields use the term in different and sometimes incompatible ways; there is no single agreed scientific meaning of the word "matter," even though the term "mass" is better-defined.Though, I'd like to comment, again from my layman perspective, that this conclusion that the definition confuses mass and matter is definitely contardictory to the first sentence.

If "matter" refers to any object in space which has mass, then atoms are rightly referred to employing the term "matter". No other way around it really (someone correct me if I'm wrong). In this sense atoms in space constitute material reality or better yet, "material reality" has a definite referent in this case - atoms.

DIT: failed to comment on this:

The second is a sort of thesis about the nature of being, not the fact of being, e.g. materialism about the mind. I think this second use of the term is hopelessly confusing and reliant upon atomist assumptions, so I prefer terms like "physicalism," which says that the sorts of things described by physics and the other natural sciences (which supervene on but are not reducible to physics) are what reality is actually like/the nature of the sorts of entities and processes that exist.*

Can you give an example or explain differently since this sounds really idiosyncratic to me (honestly, I've never encountered such a sense of the term "materialism", at least not in various Marxist discourses)?

The Jay

31st August 2012, 20:36

*For an example of this, I am a "property dualist" concerning the mind. That is, I think that when we theorize about and do things involving "minds," there are mental properties which are not dissolvable to physical properties. However, I am an anti-realist (or better yet quasi-realist) about properties, so I'm still a monist physicalist ontologically speaking.

Are you referring to emergent properties here?

Philo

31st August 2012, 20:46

Are you referring to emergent properties here?

Somewhat. I don't think all emergent phenomena can be, or have to be, articulated semantically in terms of different sorts of properties - I am a realist about ontologically irreducible emergent phenomena. I'm more specifically accounting for certain types of emergent phenomena, such as "mind" in terms of irreducible properties. But being an anti-realist about properties means that this is a semantic irreducibility, not an ontological one.

In other words, I think that mental properties have no ontological status but are semantically irreducible descriptions of ontologically irreducible phenomena. What this allows is for me to remain a naturalistic monist (I don't have to posit a substance dualism of, say, "mind" and "matter") while at the same time avoiding panpsychism (everything having a mental dimension).

The Jay

31st August 2012, 20:53

Why not just call yourself a monist and address mental activity or consciousness as an emergent phenomenon? Also, why are you saying that it is an irreducibly complex phenomenon?

Rafiq

3rd September 2012, 16:24

It has nothing to do with "omnipresence" within reality, unless of course you would also deny that reality is omnipresent in some sense, which seems like more incoherence to me. Also, unless you are referring to some very strange sort of "philosophical materialism," your contentions seems misplaced. Historically speaking at least, it has been broadly "materialist" thought that has been sympathetic to the notion that reality is necessarily existent and this fact requires no explanation, i.e. denying the coherence of reality not existing. Why do you think, whatever word they used, folks like Epicurus, Democritus, Leucippus, Spinoza, d'Holbach, La Mettrie, Meslier, etc. keep banging on about matter being "eternal?" The whole point was to respond to those like Socrates or Plato (though there were many presocratics both in the "materialist" camp and otherwise) who thought that existence itself needed further, mystical explanation. Hell, the origin of Aristotle's telos (final cause) was introduced in his Physics and Metaphysics to counter the mystical notion that there needed to be a "ground of being" (God, "the good," whatever) to explain existence - it made reality self-sustaining and necessarily existent. As many Christian apologists seem to forget, Aristotle's "final causes" are not temporally, but logically prior to other things - he thinks that reality is "eternal" in the sense that it could not not exist - the notion didn't made sense.

But surly, you realize that this conception of materialism, this form of materialism was furtherly pressuposed by Marx, and does not at all amount to both Dialectical and Historical materialism, no?

By the way, I am not a neo-Aristotelian, I'm just trying to place the relation of my thought to "materialism" in context. I'm a radical Sellarsian, non-reductive, naturalist. Although, to some extent I do take issue with the term "materialism," I don't think it is very useful anymore. I prefer "naturalist" and "(scientific) realist."
[/QUOTE]

I have qualms with this notion of "non reductive naturalism". Our universe, no matter how complex and dynamic, of course can be reduced to something, at least in a very minimal sense. Though it depends on what you mean by materialism. That "matter" only exists? That's metaphysical nonsense. That the universe exists independently of thought and consciousness, and that the latter is a product of material reality, and not the other way around? Then of course, this is true. Of course, we're not speaking of Historical materialism, which is something else entirely.

This is one of the problems with the term "materialism" - it slips ambiguously between two senses. The first is to contrast with "idealism," for which a better term is "realism" - there is a mind-independent reality which to some extent we can know. The second is a sort of thesis about the nature of being, not the fact of being, e.g. materialism about the mind. I think this second use of the term is hopelessly confusing and reliant upon atomist assumptions, so I prefer terms like "physicalism," which says that the sorts of things described by physics and the other natural sciences (which supervene on but are not reducible to physics) are what reality is actually like/the nature of the sorts of entities and processes that exist.*

Excuse me, but I'm quite lost here. You're obviously much more knowledable in regards to the subjects being demonstrated here, so I'll take a shot. When you say "things described by physics and other natural sciences are what reality is actually like", do you mean, described by us, or, in other words, the things being described through the medium of human consciousness? As in, the way in which humans conceive and describe reality, is precisely how reality is like?

*For an example of this, I am a "property dualist" concerning the mind. That is, I think that when we theorize about and do things involving "minds," there are mental properties which are not dissolvable to physical properties. However, I am an anti-realist (or better yet quasi-realist) about properties, so I'm still a monist physicalist ontologically speaking.

Elaborate. What exactly do you mean? Why? Why aren't they "dissolvable" to physical properties? What exactly do you mean? That, there is a dimension that is exists, i.e. Thought, which cannot be directly reducible to the physical forces which preceded it?

In other words, I think that mental properties have no ontological status but are semantically irreducible descriptions of ontologically irreducible phenomena. What this allows is for me to remain a naturalistic monist (I don't have to posit a substance dualism of, say, "mind" and "matter") while at the same time avoiding panpsychism (everything having a mental dimension).

Again, you'll have to excuse me, again, I'll sound very stupid regarding the matter. Surly, you recognize that this conception of materialism preceded Marx, and Marxian materialism is something entirely different, no? (Besides, of course, the pressuposions of the materialism you are describing?)

MotherCossack

12th September 2012, 12:34

but????? erm????? I...
OOPs... my head just exploded all over my living room, and my poor little brain has completely evaporated!!!! hang on...... where am i .... that looks like the orion nebula....
ooh look ...i'm a star!!!!

sorry.... couldn't resist it........
seriously though .... i was so keeping up and proud of it [with this thread, that is]...... until it turned bonkers...... let me try and pinpoint when....

MotherCossack

12th September 2012, 13:27

Somewhat. I don't think all emergent phenomena can be, or have to be, articulated semantically in terms of different sorts of properties - I am a realist about ontologically irreducible emergent phenomena. I'm more specifically accounting for certain types of emergent phenomena, such as "mind" in terms of irreducible properties. But being an anti-realist about properties means that this is a semantic irreducibility, not an ontological one.

In other words, I think that mental properties have no ontological status but are semantically irreducible descriptions of ontologically irreducible phenomena. What this allows is for me to remain a naturalistic monist (I don't have to posit a substance dualism of, say, "mind" and "matter") while at the same time avoiding panpsychism (everything having a mental dimension).

think this is it.......i mean....filofosizing about fings is great an'all'dat blad, but 'ave an 'eart.... we cant awl be alfed epstein or olivia newton or even sir roger moore
wiv a pinnacle in one eye..... and awl dem quotations like.... E=MC shit ... where is the little 2? bleedin hell.... how can you do equations on a keyboard????
or E to the I x pi +1 = 0.[thats the best i can do wiv no fancy mafematicawl computer!]

no... really.... dead interesting all this........... do i exist??? but wait....... does the universe exist????? mega!!!!!!!

I always thought the big bang notion was well dodgy.....there are laws in place..... universal laws.... that say you cant get more from less so you certainly cant get more from nuffink.

And in the begining... there was.... ...... imagine.......... what black emptiness ..... no...... a speck of a ... what ..... all this stuff that fills the universe was ...... where ...exactly???

(Now this is layman's philosophy!!! Dont get all superior..... it is still interesting.... just the ideas behind it..... not much detail... or mathematical reasoning you lot can do that i suppose ..... but for us lot ... well me anyway.... it is every bit as mind-blowingly epic and worthy of discussion.
Anyway ... there must be room for all of us.... from the super-scientist to the academic to the learner to the total pea-brain who wants to learn more!!!!

PetyaRostov

15th September 2012, 02:00

What a disgustingly Idealist critique of free will. "Philosophical determinism" and Dialectical materialism are diametrically opposed. Determinism is garbage. It was Marx for the first time, who held that everything that has ever happened could have happened in a thousand different ways and that if we went back thousands of years, without interfering, the world would look like a very different place today. We aren't all interconnected, that's Atheist spiritualist horse shit of the most disgusting variant. While Free will is bullshit, Determinism vs. Free will is false dichtomony. We are in a way comparable to robots, and yes, our mind operates in a way comparable to a computer, that's blatantly obvious. Yes, our choices are made not as an expression of some abstract "free will", but in the same way a computer makes choices while it's playing chess with you. That is correct. However, nothing is predetermined, on a universalist scale.

If all of our chices are the mere result of a sort of input/output type of scenario, how is it not predetermined (on a universalist scale)? Multiple agents seem only to add complexity to the equation, they do not stop it from being deterministic.