Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad the Beggingthequestionist,

Why quantum fluctuation and not nothing?

Depends what you meant by "why". If you meant, "by what process?" or "how?" then quantum fluctuation is the most developed potential explanation so far, albeit a far from complete or tested one.

If on the other hand you meant by it, "for what purpose?" or some such, that's called begging the question because you'd need to demonstrate first an agency to decide that and then to carry it out. It's the same mistake you made a few posts back when you complained that irrealism doesn't produce "unequivocal" moral positions. You'd need to demonstrate first that moral statements would have to be unequivocal to be "real", rather than just provisional conclusions based on the instincts and reasoning available to us.     

Hillside.......I think you've hit the turd that will not polish.

Another fail. Why do you bother?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gabriella,

I'm afraid I have a work project to complete that'll take a of of my time over the next few days, so I won't have time to give your last Reply the time it needs. I will though come back to you when I can if that's ok.

In the meantime though, to keep the pot bubbling here's some Christopher Hitchens that seems to me to be on point:

"I’ve spoken at Unitarian churches very often. It seems to me, again, that they don’t give me enough to disagree with. But as for lumping them in, I’ll say this. Have you read Camus’s La Peste? At the end, the plague is over, the nightmare has dissipated, the city has returned to health. Normality has resumed. But he ends by saying that underneath the city, in the pipes and in the sewers, the rats were still there. And they’d one day send their vermin up again to die on the streets of a free city.

That’s how I feel about religion. Thanks to advances of science, education, political tolerance, pluralism and so on, religion can now be one option among many—who cares who’s a Unitarian or who’s a Congregationalist? But in the texts, the actual texts, there is always this toxin that’s ready to be revived. What I say is, “Do you believe this stuff or don’t you?” In other words, “In what respect are you different from a humanist?” The authority of the texts is always on the side of the extremists, because they do say what they say. So be aware of this danger. That’s all I’m arguing."

"You’re quite right. Atheism is a necessary condition for emancipation of the mind, but it’s not a sufficient one. You can free yourself from superstition and still end up a nihilist or a hedonist or a Stalinist. What’s innate in our species isn’t the fault of religion. But the bad things that are innate in our species are strengthened by religion and sanctified by it. The fact is, we are a mammalian species one half-chromosome away from chimpanzees, and it shows. Curing ourselves of religion is only a small step along the road. Fortunately, our brains seem to be evolving."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/07/transcending-god/306076/   

[Walter]

Vlad the Beggingthequestionist,

Depends what you meant by "why". If you meant, "by what process?" or "how?" then quantum fluctuation is the most developed potential explanation so far, albeit a far from complete or tested one.

If on the other hand you meant by it, "for what purpose?" or some such, that's called begging the question because you'd need to demonstrate first an agency to decide that and then to carry it out. It's the same mistake you made a few posts back when you complained that irrealism doesn't produce "unequivocal" moral positions. You'd need to demonstrate first that moral statements would have to be unequivocal to be "real", rather than just provisional conclusions based on the instincts and reasoning available to us.     

Another fail. Why do you bother?

IF  you wire up a parallel  circuit with a switch a power source and three light bulbs , but one of the light bulbs has blown , no matter how many times you flick the switch to ON , that blown bulb will never ever light up. so don't expect it to !

[floo]

Walter it talking about himself again!

[Walter]

Walter it talking about himself again!

YOU GOT ME !

[bluehillside Retd.]

Floo,

Walter it talking about himself again!

No, he's talking about Vlad.

[floo]

Floo,

No, he's talking about Vlad.

Really? I would never have guessed.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad the Beggingthequestionist,

Depends what you meant by "why". If you meant, "by what process?" or "how?" then quantum fluctuation is the most developed potential explanation so far, albeit a far from complete or tested one.

If on the other hand you meant by it, "for what purpose?" or some such, that's called begging the question because you'd need to demonstrate first an agency to decide that and then to carry it out. It's the same mistake you made a few posts back when you complained that irrealism doesn't produce "unequivocal" moral positions. You'd need to demonstrate first that moral statements would have to be unequivocal to be "real", rather than just provisional conclusions based on the instincts and reasoning available to us.     

Another fail. Why do you bother?

1:Asking by what process is no answer to the question ''why something and not nothing'' because even a process is a something and a something is not a nothing.
2: On the other hand for what purpose is a red herring on your part because there doesn't need to be a purpose does there?
But that needn't mean no purpose. The question ''why something and not nothing'' is a question any persons, theist or atheist,teleologist or ateleologist can posit.

There is no record of Krauss' pop science book being the thing which established either the process or the purposelessness of the universe popping out of nothing and certainly no method to test the idea.

A process is a something which brings us winging our way back to the question ''Why something and not nothing''?

But don't take my words for it there are scientific American blogs attacking the claims of Krauss and the endorsements of Dawkins and on www.Nauti.US on Krauss and the change the meaning of ''Nothing''.

I will present them presently.

Finally I credit Krauss with trying to have a cake and eat it. In other words reaching for a verbal formulation where the universe both pops out of nothing and is around for ever. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad the Beggingthequestionist,

Depends what you meant by "why". If you meant, "by what process?" or "how?" then quantum fluctuation is the most developed potential explanation so far, ?

So quantum fluctuation is the most developed potential answer to ''Why quantum fluctuation'' is it?

To quote Fagin from ''Oliver!'' I think you ought to think it out again! You seem to have made a real Lionel Bart of it.

[wigginhall]

Very good to see the analysis of 'why' by blue and I think also Outrider.   It does seem ambiguous, often used to mean 'how'.   See the famous examples such as 'why is the kettle boiling?', answers include, because water boils at 100 degrees C, and because I want a cup of tea. 

The sense of 'to what purpose' is daft, in relation to the universe,  unless you first argue that there is a purpose to it.   Well, there might be, or not, but you can't just assume that there is.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

"I’ve spoken at Unitarian churches very often. It seems to me, again, that they don’t give me enough to disagree with. But as for lumping them in, I’ll say this. Have you read Camus’s La Peste? At the end, the plague is over, the nightmare has dissipated, the city has returned to health. Normality has resumed. But he ends by saying that underneath the city, in the pipes and in the sewers, the rats were still there. And they’d one day send their vermin up again to die on the streets of a free city.

That’s how I feel about religion. Thanks to advances of science, education, political tolerance, pluralism and so on, religion can now be one option among many—who cares who’s a Unitarian or who’s a Congregationalist? But in the texts, the actual texts, there is always this toxin that’s ready to be revived. What I say is, “Do you believe this stuff or don’t you?” In other words, “In what respect are you different from a humanist?” The authority of the texts is always on the side of the extremists, because they do say what they say. So be aware of this danger. That’s all I’m arguing."

"You’re quite right. Atheism is a necessary condition for emancipation of the mind, but it’s not a sufficient one. You can free yourself from superstition and still end up a nihilist or a hedonist or a Stalinist. What’s innate in our species isn’t the fault of religion. But the bad things that are innate in our species are strengthened by religion and sanctified by it. The fact is, we are a mammalian species one half-chromosome away from chimpanzees, and it shows. Curing ourselves of religion is only a small step along the road. Fortunately, our brains seem to be evolving."

Shite?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Very good to see the analysis of 'why' by blue and I think also Outrider.   It does seem ambiguous, often used to mean 'how'.   See the famous examples such as 'why is the kettle boiling?', answers include, because water boils at 100 degrees C, and because I want a cup of tea. 

The sense of 'to what purpose' is daft, in relation to the universe,  unless you first argue that there is a purpose to it.   Well, there might be, or not, but you can't just assume that there is.

Shite!

[Outrider]

So quantum fluctuation is the most developed potential answer to ''Why quantum fluctuation'' is it?

No, quantum fluctuation is the most developed answer to 'How do we have something rather than nothing'.

O.

[Walter]

light bulb?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No, quantum fluctuation is the most developed answer to 'How do we have something rather than nothing'.

O.

No. because quantum fluctuation is a something. If it isn't what business does it have fluctuating?
We can go into the work in progressness of it, proof for it, the evidence for it, the probability of it, The problems with a popping out of nothing which HUme didn't get, quantum accountancy, justification for scaling up and putting prior to the existence of the universe......but why even bother when quantum fluctuation fulfils the definition of being something?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad the Avianist:

1:Asking by what process is no answer to the question ''why something and not nothing'' because even a process is a something and a something is not a nothing.
2: On the other hand for what purpose is a red herring on your part because there doesn't need to be a purpose does there?
But that needn't mean no purpose. The question ''why something and not nothing'' is a question any persons, theist or atheist,teleologist or ateleologist can posit.

There is no record of Krauss' pop science book being the thing which established either the process or the purposelessness of the universe popping out of nothing and certainly no method to test the idea.

A process is a something which brings us winging our way back to the question ''Why something and not nothing''?

But don't take my words for it there are scientific American blogs attacking the claims of Krauss and the endorsements of Dawkins and on www.Nauti.US on Krauss and the change the meaning of ''Nothing''.

I will present them presently.

Finally I credit Krauss with trying to have a cake and eat it. In other words reaching for a verbal formulation where the universe both pops out of nothing and is around for ever.

Like playing chess with a pigeon: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pigeon_chess

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No, quantum fluctuation is the most developed answer to 'How do we have something rather than nothing'.

O.

No, God is isn't he ?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad the Avianist:

Like playing chess with a pigeon: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pigeon_chess

You're the one trying to say that something is nothing.

The only good thing about Rationalwiki is that it appeals to my love of uncurated jumble.

[Outrider]

No. because quantum fluctuation is a something. If it isn't what business does it have fluctuating?

You have nothing. That nothing fluctuates at a quantum level, and you briefly get minute 'particles' and their 'anti-particles', and then they collapse. The net energy remains zero, you still have nothing, that nothing has just briefly split in two (or more).

We can go into the work in progressness of it, proof for it, the evidence for it, the probability of it, The problems with a popping out of nothing which HUme didn't get, quantum accountancy, justification for scaling up and putting prior to the existence of the universe......but why even bother when quantum fluctuation fulfils the definition of being something?

Yes it does qualify as something. It's something that happens to everything... including nothing.

O.

[Outrider]

No, God is isn't he ?

I don't think I've ever seen anyone depict god as the answer to 'how', no. I've seen people answer the begging question 'why' with 'god(s)', but not 'how'.

Not that 'god' is a particularly developed answer, of course, it's got no more evidentiary support now than it had thousands of years ago when it was first proposed in the absence of any rational answer.

O.

[Walter]

You have nothing. That nothing fluctuates at a quantum level, and you briefly get minute 'particles' and their 'anti-particles', and then they collapse. The net energy remains zero, you still have nothing, that nothing has just briefly split in two (or more).

Yes it does qualify as something. It's something that happens to everything... including nothing.

O.

unfortunately ,for some people this concept is forever outside their comprehension   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You have nothing. That nothing fluctuates at a quantum level, and you briefly get minute 'particles' and their 'anti-particles', and then they collapse. The net energy remains zero, you still have nothing, that nothing has just briefly split in two (or more).

Yes it does qualify as something. It's something that happens to everything... including nothing.

O.

Hello nothing....or should I say fluctuations in what physicists call the metastable false vacuum?

let's face it you are trying to have your cake and eat it a nothing and an eternal metastable false vacuum or should we call it the unconscious creative mechanism.

So nothing is a metastable false vacuum?

False vacuum? False vacuum sounds the best description for something that you could ever get!

So why a metastable false vacuum and not nothing?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

unfortunately ,for some people this concept is forever outside their comprehension

No, somebody could accept and understand this process perfectly....and still deny that a metastable false vacuum, the thing which is fluctuating is nothing.

The process of changing the definition of the word nothing to justify Krauss pop science is an antitheist one and fuck all to do with science or philosophy.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Universe_from_Nothing

Note the quote from Sean Carroll.

[Alan Burns]

You have nothing. That nothing fluctuates at a quantum level, and you briefly get minute 'particles' and their 'anti-particles', and then they collapse. The net energy remains zero, you still have nothing, that nothing has just briefly split in two (or more).

Yes it does qualify as something. It's something that happens to everything... including nothing.

O.

I do not think you have fully grasped to concept of "nothing".
In absolute terms, "nothing" is not just a vacuum in our current universe - it is a complete absence of material, space and time.