Articulated Nothingness

Go ahead, get it off your chest.

Most coherent explanation for how the universe came to be:

some sort of higher power created the universe (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc)
3
21%
another spiritual explanation
0
No votes
just physics baby (athiest)
6
43%
there's no way to know (agnostic)
4
29%
there is no spoon (AN)
1
7%
 
Total votes: 14
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Articulated Nothingness

Post by mico saudad »

I was inspired to talk about this because of the Evolution/Creation debate thread. Every now and then I get and idea that I'm proud of. 'Articulated Nothingness' is a concept I've been playing around with for some time and I'm ready now to start taking it out for a test drive in discussion with other people and I figured - why not start here.

Here's where I'm going to go with all of this and some of my assumptions:
1.) No one knows the fundamental nature of our existence - therefore no one can know from whence we came nor why. Anyone that claims to know otherwise is mistaking faith for knowledge. (nevermind the whole philosophical game with epistemology, knowledge, and truth etc that I couldn't give a crap about).

2.) My particular untestable and unprovable explanation for the universe has apparent flaws in it (as does everyone else's. If you are not aware of the flaws in your thinking then I will be happy to point them out to you :roll: ).

3.) I might have found a way to make my explanation internally coherent. That does not mean that it solves the mysteries of the universe. It merely means that it is an original, complete, and interesting explanation that other people might be interested in hearing.

4.) So if you are interested in this then read on and please offer your thoughts pointing out potential flaws in my logic or gaps that should be patched in the spirit of helping me refine this concept that I hope to eventually publish in some form. If and when that happens you will all get acknowledged :).
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Post by erik »

I don't fully understand what Articulated Nothingness is supposed to be. Points 1 and 2 sound like agnosticism, and Point 3 sounds like you don't really believe in whatever the thing is you believe in.
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Post by mico saudad »

<b> Background </b>

Imagine the following scenario: you are watching a conversation between a person who believes that there is no god (Athy) and another person who believes that there is a god (Christy).

As Athy begins pointing out many of the contradictions of Christy's point of view, Christy responds by saying the following:

Christy - "Well if you don't believe in god or anything supernatural then how do you explain how the universe came to be?"
Athy - "I can't, but just because I can't explain it does not mean that there must be a god. How would you explain how God came to be?"
Christy - "God has always existed. We just can't comprehend his infinite existence because we're human."

I've heard this discussion play out in different ways depending on the skill and termperment of those discussing it, but this is always the crux of the argument where I feel like both sides of this debate break down. Athy just cannot explain the universe in a clear manner because it is way beyond us to understand while Christy relies on faith that god has always existed and that such an infinite existence is beyond us to understand. Neither footing is really a strong point to convince the other that they have some inherent truth. Both remain comfortable in their own beliefs, continuing the amicable standoff.

But it remains that both points of view end logically at the point where both sides realize that they have reached the limits of human comprehension.

<b> The goal </b>

My goal was and is to develop an explanation for the universe where at no point must one rely on human limits of comprehension in order to buy into the concept

<b> Assumptions </b>

This argument requires only two assumptions, but they are big ones -
1.) assume that the universe does not exist
2.) assume that nothingness equals zero in the mathematical sense

<b> Articulating Nothingness </b>

If the universe does not exist as we assume, then how does one even begin to explain the fact that I am typing at a computer right now? It would seem to be a non-starter for an assumption. But consider the follwing simple equation:

a + b = 0

'a' is something, and 'b' is something else entirely, yet under the conditions presented they 'add up' to nothing. Thus it is possible to 'articulate' nothingness into an infinite nuber of apparent realities:

a = 0
a + b = 0
(a * b)/c * log (d) = 0
etc.

Nothingness can therefore be articulated in forms ranging from the least complex articulation (actual nothingness) to immensely complex local realities (c * log d) that dissapear when you look at the big picture. remember that the examples above are limited only by my desire for brevity and simplicity.

<b> Stable Articulations </b>

If a universe is articulated as follows:
a+b = 0,
then that universe consists only of two parts: a thing and it's addition-ruled opposite. This universe is likely unstable and would 'dearticulate' instantaneously. Countless realities could articulate and dearticulate in the blink of an eye.

However, there are higher orders of mathematics than simple arithmetic. When one considers an articulation that involves geometry then the particular bits of the articulation become spread out in a newly articulated 'space'. This spatial component along with other features could provide a stability to a given articulation. It is by this method that a particular articulation could originate (perhaps a big bang style event) and persists as long as the stability enabling components allow. If this concept were applied to our universe, observations by physicists have suggested that our universe is almost permanently articulated (due to observations in the rate of expansion).

<b> Our Articulation </b>

If nothingness can be articulated, and it can be articulated in a stable fashion, and articulations can rise and fall depending on the stability that their articulations provide or lack, then it is not surprising that an articulation like our universe could exist. As proponents of supernatural explanations of the universe correctly point out, there are very many attributes of our universe that are highly improbable. Given that nothingness has an infinite amount of time to test an infinite number of articulations, however, it is easy to see how at least one of those articulations could yield a universe like what we see around us.

<b> The Implications of Articulated Nothingness </b>

There is no stable bridge between physics and articulated nothingness, and I would not even suggest that my explanation could possibly be tested or validated. The only implications of this concept to my mind is that it provides me with at least one coherent way to explain how the universe can exist without a god and without relying on an explanation that leaves me shrugging my shoulders.
Last edited by mico saudad on Fri Apr 01, 2005 2:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by mico saudad »

15-16 puzzle wrote:I don't fully understand what Articulated Nothingness is supposed to be. Points 1 and 2 sound like agnosticism, and Point 3 sounds like you don't really believe in whatever the thing is you believe in.
sorry I meant to post my explanation before anyone read the preface
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Post by jimtyrrell »

Are the dialogue attributions reversed in your example? Is Athy saying Christy's lines, and vice versa? 'Cause I'm confused already.
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Post by erik »

Nothingness is considered entropic, as potential realities include less formative opinions on life's substantiation, just overrepresenting kinetic energy.
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Post by mico saudad »

jimtyrrell wrote:Are the dialogue attributions reversed in your example? Is Athy saying Christy's lines, and vice versa? 'Cause I'm confused already.
oops
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Post by mico saudad »

15-16 puzzle wrote:Nothingness is considered entropic, as potential realities include less formative opinions on life's substantiation, just overrepresenting kinetic energy.
Am I being assaulted by the battlestar sarcastica :)
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Post by erik »

abecedarian wrote:Am I being assaulted by the battlestar sarcastica :)
Never! It's called "examination", abecedarian. Please remember, ideologies lacking foundations only offer lies. Science (judiciously ordered) keeps evolving.
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Post by mico saudad »

15-16 puzzle wrote:Never! It's called "examination", abecedarian. Please remember, ideologies lacking foundations only offer lies. Science (judiciously ordered) keeps evolving.
Keep in mind I'm a scientist so I kind of buy into the whole observation based approach to building a coherent understanding the universe. But there are questions that science cannot answer that are very important, such as:

-what should I do with my life? what is a good use of my time?
-is there a reason that I'm here?
-how should I behave?

Currently religions are by far the most influential entities that provide guidance along these lines, and they have played an undeniably powerful role in the course of human events.

Science can help someone understand the world if they truly want to and have the patience, but what does a scientist do when he reaches the end of science? He develops the most simple hypothesis to explain the rest while simultaneously understanding that his ideas remain only logical possibilities until supported by evidence.

I wouldn't say that my explanation lacks foundation. In fact it is founded on the assumptions I layed out. If that foundation is correct, then the concept is also correct. If the foundation is wrong then my concept is wrong. Unfortunately there is no way to test whether or not the assumptions are correct.

That doesn't mean it's not an interesting or worthwhile counter-argument to all other ideologies that gain credence and influence regardless of their similar lack of evidence.
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Post by erik »

Dude, I'm sorry, I thought this was an April Fool's gag. I can't make heads or tails of what you have outlined, and have no way to offer anything in earnest. My humblest apologies.
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Post by roymond »

15-16 puzzle wrote:Dude, I'm sorry, I thought this was an April Fool's gag. I can't make heads or tails of what you have outlined, and have no way to offer anything in earnest. My humblest apologies.
HAHAHAHAHA

Anyway. Once you know everything I figure life gets pretty boring. To assume we can ever know everything about creation is absurd. To attempt to know everything is awesome and thrilling.

I also figure that scientists feel the thrill of looking and finding. That religious folk feel the thrill of looking for and finding god, who supposedly knows it all (the faith vs knowledge thing).

Either way, feel the thrill!
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Post by mico saudad »

15-16 puzzle wrote:Dude, I'm sorry, I thought this was an April Fool's gag. I can't make heads or tails of what you have outlined, and have no way to offer anything in earnest. My humblest apologies.
Heh! Funny. No apologies please! You sir must never ever apologize again (unless there is some accident in the future involving human excrement or something like that). I am being serious, but I don't take myself that seriously.

That said I still hold out hope for someone to seriously challenge me on this.
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Post by Kapitano »

Thanks for posting this, Abecedarian. Here's my immidiate reaction. It's not a response, or a counter-hypothesis. Just a reaction.
Abcedarian wrote:[discussion between atheist and christian]
The positions you've outlined are both dead ends. In fact they may be the same dead end. The christian is saying: "Something created the universe, and I have no way of knowing what this 'something' is. But I call it 'God'."

The 'atheist' is saying something remarkably similar. "The existence of the universe is an effect, of a completely unknowable cause. I don't give the cause a name because I know nothing about it."

There are differences in detail, of course. The christian hopes that this 'god' is not just a creator, but also a caring protector who provides an afterlife. The atheist is uninclined to suggest that the 'first cause' had some kind of volition behind it, to say nothing of benevolent intentions.

But both positions are solipsim. And solipsism is by definition nonscientific, because it can accommodate any argument or evidence - it can't be disproven in it's own terms.
There is no stable bridge between physics and articulated nothingness
No bridge? You've just created one. Albeit one of mathematics, not of physics.

You say you have no patience with philosophy, but what you write reminds me of several European enlightenment philosophers. In particular Immanuel Kant (who, you remember, was also a notable astronomer).

His insistance on an unbridgable gap between science and (for want of a better term) theology, echoes what I quote above.

Unfortunately, one of the few useful things written by Jaques Derrida was his commentary on Kant, in which he pointed out that, in order for Kant to draw a line between the knowable and the unknowable, he had to see slightly beyond the line.

It's like trying to see the point where your field of vision ends.

You are (I think) trying to create a scientific (rational, empirically rooted) model of an area which you say is beyond science, investigation, and human rationality. It's the cosmological equivalent of having your cake and eating it.
it provides me with at least one coherent way to explain how the universe can exist without a god and without relying on an explanation that leaves me shrugging my shoulders.
Ah, you really are a philosopher! Trying to understand what you're pretty sure isn't understandable because it just doesn't feel right that the universe should keep us in ignorance.
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Post by mico saudad »

Kapitano wrote:You are (I think) trying to create a scientific (rational, empirically rooted) model of an area which you say is beyond science, investigation, and human rationality. It's the cosmological equivalent of having your cake and eating it.

Ah, you really are a philosopher! Trying to understand what you're pretty sure isn't understandable because it just doesn't feel right that the universe should keep us in ignorance.
Thanks Kapitano, I enjoyed reading your reaction. You've caught me in a bit of a contradiction where you have seen me hint at my distaste for philosophers (which I credit to a Richard Feynman-esque scientific stance), but in my reaction I've become the distasteful. Of course I have reasons for doing it...

As far as having my cake and eating it too, I don't think I've stepped away from science at all. I've offered a hypothesis that, if it were possible to test, could be disproved. It would take the ability to observe articulations appearing and dissappearing in the universe or the ability to observe the effects of their appearance and disappearance. Of course there is no way to test that now, which makes it an untested hypothesis, but there are many theories that cannot be tested until long after they are made. There is a difference between expanding the boundaries and overstepping them. Which I'm doing here is anyone's guess.

That aside I must admit some aesthetic liking for this idea. It 'smells' like our universe to me. We know that things pop in and out of existence on a quantum scale all of the time yet the large cosmological scale plods on methodically and predictably.
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Post by Me$$iah »

What can I say


I just love the sound of
super-strings colliding within the 11th dimension creating the multiverse all the time in some wonderful Choas driven M-Theory of everything

Its all physics just damn wierd shit I mean 11 dimensions WTF


Itll take a few minute to plot the coordinates into the navicom
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Post by Hoblit »

I'm all like...wha?
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Post by the Jazz »

My goal was and is to develop an explanation for the universe where at no point must one rely on human limits of comprehension in order to buy into the concept
I see this as a nonsensical goal, because the explanation which you are developing is not for an objective reality, but rather a subjective perception of reality which is already subject to "human limits of comprehension". You cannot exceed the limits of your own comprehension, except in some manner which is incomprehensible by nature.

I have a problem with your assumption that "zero" is equal to "nothing". I think it would be more appropriate to say that zero is equal to balance, neutrality, or a state of rest. The ultimate fate of an entropic system.

But, granting you your assumptions for the sake of argument, I have other problems. You have time as a factor without explaining its nature; and since it is an integral part of your theory, to explain it by means of the same theory would be circular logic. You assume that a more complex articulation would take longer to "dearticulate" than a very simple one, but what says that the basic fabric of the universe has limited processing power? It might take me half an hour to solve a complex equation to figure out the path a body would take in a gravity well, but the gravity itself just happens. Unless time is a factor in your equation, then there is no moment of articulation or of dearticulation, and they are effectively simultaneous (and everlasting). They would be more concurrent states than separate events, and since the articulation and dearticulation are opposite, the result is a state of neutrality. Music can help to illustrate my point in a way, actually - think of two identical waveforms which are cancelling each other out because they are out of phase. The result is complete neutrality. You can extrapolate the existence of an infinite number of infinitely complex waveforms, and all of them exist in theory in that neutrality (your "zero"), however none of them actually exist in fact. The state of the waveform is that there is no waveform.

I might not be articulating myself (pun not intended, until I noticed it, at which point I guess it became intended) well enough, but hopefully you can see what I mean. Everyone takes time for granted.

I can appreciate that you are attached to the idea, though, and I thought up something along similer lines some years ago that I thought was quite elegant as well, but really they are just intellectual constructs, riddled with the faults of our own assumptions and perceptions. The more detailed you get, the farther you travel from the truth.

I once thought up a similar type of construct which I thought was quite elegant and aesthetically pleasing. I was trying to think of a reason for the existence of life (or sentience) as something more than an infinitely complex set of natural phenomena. I realized that I could comprehend no reason that life should (or could) exist, however I refused to consider the possibility that life did not exist, because if that is true then it invalidates my construction of a logical argument, which is self-defeating, not to mention downright boring. So I based my construct on paradox, with the following assumptions:
1. Everything must have a reason.
2. There is no rational reason for life to exist.
3. Life exists (I exist).
So the reason for life to exist must therefore be irrational. My hypothesis was that any particular soul (quantity of life) exists by its own denial of the fact that it cannot exist. Because this denial (or alternately, will) cannot come into being independant of life, there can be no point at which life came into being; life exists only by virtue of will, which exists only by virtue of life; it's the chicken or the egg as long as you insist upon a moment of genesis, therefore in order to exist at all it must exist/have existed at every point in time without a beginning or an end.

There are a few reasons I found this idea so compelling (although it is even more obviously circular logic, and just as flawed as any other construct of this sort). The embrace of paradox seems appropriate when I consider that I am searching to comprehend that which is beyond my comprehension; paradox is by nature beyond comprehension. And the idea that life comes about through raw power of will seems quite elegant, most likely because it is flattering to the ego. I like it also because it is relatively abstract, as existential constructs go, and that makes me think it is close to truth.
I don't think I've stepped away from science at all. I've offered a hypothesis that, if it were possible to test, could be disproved.
Anything which can be tested can be disproved. Because your hypothesis cannot be tested it is not science; it is philosophy.

I would be careful if I were you to take quantum physics with a heavy grain of salt. Saying that we "know" anything because of quantum sounds to me suspiciously like a scientist hundreds of years ago claiming to "know" anything because of spontaneous generation. It may be that some time from now a discovery will be made which totally invalidates quantum physics, and we will realize that things only appeared to be popping in and out of existence when something entirely different was going on, only we lacked the tools to observe that process.
Let cake eat them.
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Post by sparks »

I'm saddened to find more and more that the Matrix is proving to be a source of pseudo-philosophy quotations for my generation. I realize you may just be quoting the movie to provide the most publicly accessible example of the concept, but... eh, tasteless, right?

Anyway, the Matrix situation would be a lot more like nihilism, but that's not really a creation scheme. And, additionally, the movies indicated that there -was- a "real" reality, but that people just lived in the fake reality. Which was based on the real reality, except it was evil and fake, just like machines. The first? Entertaining distraction. A trilogy? Is everything a franchise today?

Okay, I got distracted. I voted agnostic, if anyone actually cares. I'm violently agnostic, even if I subdue myself most of the time. I don't know, and if you think you know, you're a silly bastard. But I don't expect people to actually sit down and think things through any real portion of the time, at least not when it comes to anything even remotely abstract.

Frankly, if you believe something with only half your mind, clinging to some paper-thin millenia-old fable simply because you can't stand not to think you know (a condition I would attribute to a majority of the educated population of the world), I'll call you agnostic too, whether you like it or not. And I think I'd be accurate in doing so.


As for articulated nothingness... the problem with nihilism is that it is neither defensible or assailable. Look at it this way: If what we percieve as something... is actually nothing... then neither word has any actual meaning. In the attempt to "articulate" your nothingness, you manage only to reduce your philosophy even further into the realm of gibberish. Adding mathematical figures into the matter doesn't exactly help you--if anything, it makes your argument all the more pretentious.

If the universe doesn't exist, there's nothing there -not- to exist. It's a position without any sort of ground or foothold. Bootstrapping. If you wish to further pursue dissociative philosophy, I strongly suggest you engage in some sort of psychoactive overdose. It's really the only way to get a full grasp on the material.

No, really, I was all about this shit when I was sixteen. It's not a philosophy. It's an enjoyable, dissociative fixation. Don't bother trying to articulate your nothingness, it's probably much more enjoyable before you do.
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Post by sparks »

All that said, your math is flawless. Have you learned the gospel of the <a href="http://www.timecube.com">Time Cube?</a>


Image

Or the <a href="http://www.somethingawful.com/learning_ ... ">Learning Triangle</a>?'
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Post by Adam! »

abecedarian wrote:What if...
Interesting idea(s), Abe. They sound quite similar to a more common model based on the idea of quantum fluctuations. Now, let me disclaimer here that I've taken enough post-secondary physics classes to know that I hate Quantum Physics, it's startling lack of causality, and all those that blindly espouse it. That said, let’s pretend for a second that Quantum Physics is sound. In that case then the idea is that energy can be borrowed spontaneously from a zero-energy vacuum in accordance with the expanded Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle: ∆E * ∆t ≥ h, where E is energy, t is time, and h is related to Plank’s constant. How it works is in an empty vacuum “pockets” of energy (called quantum fluctuations or vacuum fluctuations) appear, last a short while, and then disappear again. The total energy in the long run is zero. Due to the wibbly-wobbly nature of space this is happening constantly. If a fluctuation occurs such that ∆E * ∆t = h (the most likely situation), then you either get a pocket of low energy that lasts a [relatively] long time, or you get a pocket of high energy that is exceedingly ephemeral. However as ∆E * ∆t gets larger more energy can be borrowed for longer periods of time. These large fluctuations are less likely to occur; I don’t remember the function that defines their probability of occurrence, but the idea is that large pockets of energy can be borrowed for long periods of time every once-in-a-blue-moon.

So by default just empty space exists, and these rare flare-ups appear from time to time. Most have enough energy to collapse from a single high-energy photon into a small shower of particle / antiparticle pairs including leptons and maybe even baryons that exist for a short period of time before mutually annihilating back into energy, which is returned to the empty void. But every once in a really long while there is enough energy borrowed to produce something a little heftier.

Now, the universe is fucking big. It’s also been around for fucking long. The improbability of a universe-sized amount of energy being borrowed for a couple-a billion years is truly staggering. But, no matter how small, the probability is still there, which means it should happen once every 10^some-really-big-number years or so. It’s not like empty space has anything better to do. Hell, how do you even think about time in a vacuum?

So the idea is that just empty space exists, energy exists only as fluctuations in the vacuum, and that given a long enough period of time a fluctuation (or Big Bang, if you like) large enough to spawn a universe like ours (a.k.a. sizeable and permanent enough to give rise to sentient life like ourselves) must necessarily occur. Sounds like your theory.

Too bad quantum physics is bullcrap.

the Jazz wrote:I would be careful if I were you to take quantum physics with a heavy grain of salt. Saying that we "know" anything because of quantum sounds to me suspiciously like a scientist hundreds of years ago claiming to "know" anything because of spontaneous generation. It may be that some time from now a discovery will be made which totally invalidates quantum physics, and we will realize that things only appeared to be popping in and out of existence when something entirely different was going on, only we lacked the tools to observe that process.
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Post by Kapitano »

I'll get to the rest when I have a bit of time. In the meantime...
the Jazz wrote:
abcedarian wrote:]I don't think I've stepped away from science at all. I've offered a hypothesis that, if it were possible to test, could be disproved.
Anything which can be tested can be disproved. Because your hypothesis cannot be tested it is not science; it is philosophy.
Yes I think we're all familliar with Karl Popper's falsificationism. It is the standard definition of science given by a philosopher. And we've probably all read Carl Sagan's final book too.

The trouble with strict falsification is, it's impossible to practice consistantly. It takes no account of measurement errors, or measurement uncertainty.

There is no distinction made between evidence which conclusively disproves a hypothesis, and evidence which casts doubt. There is no notion of 'sufficient evidence', or indeed a proper definition of 'evidence'.

Popper's idea is beautifully simple, but it was superseeded years ago by Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyarabend (not the 'mad anarchist' caricature you get in most textbooks).

If you want to know more, the standard introductory work seems to be 'What is this thing called science?' by Alan Chalmers.
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