According to my crap knowledge of physics, there is no such thing as "nothing" scientifically speaking. What we call empty space is still full of fields and infinitesimal quantum particles popping in and out of existence (or is that arising from and going back into the background field? Depends on one's view of quantum mechanics?) Philosophically, I've been told that "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is a nonsense question because we cannot conceive of true nothingness and thus have no reference point from which to talk about it.
As I understand him, this is basically what Stephen Hawking means when he says that the universe creates itself without a God. He considers nothingness to be impossible and since there there is no such thing as a "beginning of time" therefore the universe must have an eternal past. I think Hawking killed my belief in a traditional Creator with this. All I'm left with as an alternative is the possibility of a God "eternal creating" the universe and providing a reason for it to exist rather than nothing at all. So, pretty much, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is my last recourse at having anything like a reason to believe in God. I know the idea of a "First Cause" just pushes the question of "why?" back one layer, but I'm trying to tackle one issue at a time here.
I'm not sure true nothingness really is an oxymoron, though. I feel like I can, in fact, imagine nothingness. If I think of a finite particle or field, then I also have to think of the places beyond it's reach, the places where it does not exist. What's to stop me from adding "this field is not here" to every field I can think of until I've imagined a "place" in which there none of the fields in the universe are, in fact, located.
I liken it to the way in which we speak about fictional characters. To say that Batman does not exist doesn't mean that I am speaking gibberish when I talk about Batman. The word, "Batman" has a referent. There are certain qualities and attributes and ideas that we have agreed to associate with the word, "Batman." There is no Batman in the real world and yet the idea of Batman still exists.
One could reply that the referent for the word, "Batman" can never be as coherent as the referent, "Kevin Conroy" is because Conroy is a real person and Batman is a fictitious construct of literary devises and tropes designed to partially simulate a real person but that have no actual subject outside the mind of the speaker. However, there is enough of an agreed standardization of the character that we can refer, broadly, to the Batman and not just an arbitrary thing that each individual decides to subjectively call, "Batman" for themselves, right? It will never be as precise as the layers we refer to when we name a real person, but we can still at least know what we are talking about.
In the same way, I think I can conceive of nothingness even if I've never experienced it and even if I can only think of a limited number of fields to negate and "add up to" nothingness. And if I can conceive of nothing, then I'm also allowed to ask why there is something rather than nothing.
Am I making any sense?
As I understand him, this is basically what Stephen Hawking means when he says that the universe creates itself without a God. He considers nothingness to be impossible and since there there is no such thing as a "beginning of time" therefore the universe must have an eternal past. I think Hawking killed my belief in a traditional Creator with this. All I'm left with as an alternative is the possibility of a God "eternal creating" the universe and providing a reason for it to exist rather than nothing at all. So, pretty much, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is my last recourse at having anything like a reason to believe in God. I know the idea of a "First Cause" just pushes the question of "why?" back one layer, but I'm trying to tackle one issue at a time here.
I'm not sure true nothingness really is an oxymoron, though. I feel like I can, in fact, imagine nothingness. If I think of a finite particle or field, then I also have to think of the places beyond it's reach, the places where it does not exist. What's to stop me from adding "this field is not here" to every field I can think of until I've imagined a "place" in which there none of the fields in the universe are, in fact, located.
I liken it to the way in which we speak about fictional characters. To say that Batman does not exist doesn't mean that I am speaking gibberish when I talk about Batman. The word, "Batman" has a referent. There are certain qualities and attributes and ideas that we have agreed to associate with the word, "Batman." There is no Batman in the real world and yet the idea of Batman still exists.
One could reply that the referent for the word, "Batman" can never be as coherent as the referent, "Kevin Conroy" is because Conroy is a real person and Batman is a fictitious construct of literary devises and tropes designed to partially simulate a real person but that have no actual subject outside the mind of the speaker. However, there is enough of an agreed standardization of the character that we can refer, broadly, to the Batman and not just an arbitrary thing that each individual decides to subjectively call, "Batman" for themselves, right? It will never be as precise as the layers we refer to when we name a real person, but we can still at least know what we are talking about.
In the same way, I think I can conceive of nothingness even if I've never experienced it and even if I can only think of a limited number of fields to negate and "add up to" nothingness. And if I can conceive of nothing, then I'm also allowed to ask why there is something rather than nothing.
Am I making any sense?
Comment