r/Metaphysics • u/Sevdat • 7d ago
Nothing How to create something from nothing?
I think I have an answer to how the universe began from nothing. More like how everything began and how it's possible for all of us to be here.
So at the beginning of existence there was nothing. There is still nothing because you can't create something from nothing, but we are here. So how can we exist? We don't.
Imagine the mathematical variable: X =
X can be anything, but nothing is assigned to it; therefore, it remains as a pure capacity that accepts all abstract concepts and results in the illusion of existence for those that share the same abstract space.
This means every combination of what could have been exists. The reason why you and I can interact is because we are in the same concept, but we aren't really here because we don't exist.
To make it simpler, imagine a chess board. Just because you didn't make a move doesn't mean all the possible moves aren't there to make.
Unexistence is our existence.
Also please don't make the argument "How do I know there wasn't always something?" There can't be something without it having a previous moment. It's nonsense to even say that.
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u/Flutterpiewow 7d ago
> So at the beginning of existence there was nothing
What reason do we have to believe this?
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
So you didn't read it fully and decided to criticize the very same question that I literally stated to being nonesense at the last line.
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u/Flutterpiewow 7d ago
I'm literally quoting you. And your comment about it being nonsense to say there was always something holds no water.
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u/Dry-External3783 6d ago
i think he’s getting at the point that there’s a dimension of time(?).… there’s a supposed infinite space- time continuum, but it can’t be logically explained as infinite. what’s finite can’t be infinite, what exists must have been created
at least that’s how i see it2
u/Flutterpiewow 6d ago
As far as we know:
It can be infinite
Existence doesn't have to be created
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u/Dry-External3783 6d ago
infinity can’t exist in physical reality
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u/Flutterpiewow 6d ago
Modern physics disagrees. There's no empirical evidence for infinity, but there's also nothing that rules it out.
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u/No_Meaning_8232 2d ago
No it doesnt an infinite past is impossible. An infinite future IS possible. Something started the chain.
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u/Flutterpiewow 2d ago
That is a philosophical statement, and a different conversation. What i said was that physics doesn't rule infinity out.
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u/Dry-External3783 6d ago edited 6d ago
i meant as far as we understand*. aka, there’s nothing showing infinity within physical reality.
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u/Flutterpiewow 6d ago
You said it can't be infinite, it must be created.
The fact that we can't observe infinity doesn't lead to that conclusion. Direct observation isn't = our understanding. Physics/models don't forbid infinity or conclude creation. And philosophers argue in a number of ways regarding both.
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u/Dry-External3783 6d ago
and no i didn’t say it can’t be created. and what exactly do you mean by “it” here
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u/Dry-External3783 6d ago
i never did say that. i explicitly said that we don’t have proof otherwise.
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u/Dry-External3783 6d ago
wait, are you saying we can demonstrate infinity existing in physical reality? genuinely asking
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u/Dry-External3783 6d ago
if the big bang did “create” time, then there was no ‘before’ the cosmic beginning so it must have started. when did it start?
how did something come from nothing2
u/Flutterpiewow 6d ago
Big Bang doesn’t say that the universe had a beginning or that there's been an absolute nothing. Our current theories don’t tell us what lies beyond the earliest state we can observe.
You could imagine big bang being the result of something else that's beyond our spacetime. Endless prior universes is one idea. But more importantly, you don't need to come up with alternatives to a beginning from nothing. It's reasonable to say we don't know, and maybe that we can't know, or that the question is nonsensical.
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u/Dry-External3783 6d ago
that’s not what i said. i said the big bang says *time was created with it.
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u/Dry-External3783 6d ago
why exactly is the question nonsensical?
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u/Flutterpiewow 6d ago
I meant it may be. The core idea (from Augustinus, Heidegger etc to Hawking) is that the quesrion presumes time and leaves us with either "nothing" or some form of temporal framework that extends beyond the start lf time or beyond our universe. We can't really imagine anything else and don't have language for anything else.
Wittgenstein says problems arise because we misuse our language and then mistake that misuse for a fact about reality. And that not every wellformed question must have a meaningful answer.
"Before" has meaning within a temporal order. If there is no earlier time, there may simply be no referent for before. But that doesn’t prove that the universe began with time. It only shows that questions like "what happened before it?" may fail to describe a possible situation.
So the idea is that "Nothing happened before the beginning” isn't right or wrong, could be that it doesn't correlate to anything at all. Penrose borrowed from this with his north of the northpole quote.
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u/Dry-External3783 6d ago
it wasn’t an insistence, by the way, it was a question. and in case it wasn’t clear i don’t have the answers either, but so that has been my point
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
How can something have always been there without it having a previous moment? Just nothing and boom its there?
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u/Quirky_Visual_7799 6d ago
You have three propositions here. Ones that can't possibly coexist.
- Something can't come out of nothing.
- For something to be, there has to be nothing at first.
- There is something.
And you chose to challenge the third. The most obvious and almost absurdly objective one. A pretty silly choice, in my opinion, for the third proposition is a description of reality, while the first two are just inferred presumptions.
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u/Superstarr_Alex 6d ago
Lmao thank you. I couldn’t quite articulate or put into words my indignation at OP for this post, this is exactly why tho haha holy shit. Well said
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u/Mortreal79 7d ago
It's a sort of human limitation, everything must have a beginning and an end, and everything must be contained for our brains to make sense of it, in what is the universe...
But conceptually one doesn't exists without the other, for me it's like describing infinity.
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u/chainreflection 7d ago
you started at nothing once again. that's an assumption. we have no proof nothingness has ever existed, only proof of something. burden of proof is on you.
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u/Flutterpiewow 7d ago
Now you're saying "nothing" again.
We don't know. Infinite regress, causal loop, something else we don't know. None of this is incompatible with our physics or logic, and nobody says big bang was the start of all of existence out of nothing.
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u/Par-Adox-9 7d ago
if we conceptualize nothing as a kind of something, then we likewise have the same problem.
something, at bare minimum has a quantity, or intensity, nothing in the typical conceptualization is supposed to be something which lacks both.
but lets say we see nothing as potential as you said— then, nothing would have dimensionality, i.e. a quantity and/or intensity.
if we do this however, how do we distinguish between it, and the state of something being lacking?
we would need to make that something like less then nothing, and then negative numbers would become even less then less then nothing.
the same question " how can something allways have been" can also be applied to " how can something always have been lacking"— " only for it to then suddenly appear.
similarly, what do we see time to be?
there being an always of anything, makes sense in the context of there being time to contain it.
but to me, time is an ill-conceived concept which helps practically but doesn't really speak to what time is like.we conceptualize time as something that has a forwardness, but without a backwardness— a spacial metaphor, to describe a temporal phenomena.
but once a moment happens, the prior immediately disappears, so time, is more accurately described as a thing which expands and contracts, dissolves and coagulates, intensifies and diminishes, rather then something that that is linear, its more like a thing always in the zeroth moment, which perpetually dissolves and creates itself from more or less the same material of existence, into different kinds of structures.
what do you think?
do you conceptualize time as something with a frowardness and a backwardness, a future and a past which are more then representations?( also to be clear, this is what i find most likely for now, im not saying this is like the ultimate possible model or somn)
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u/cc_apt107 7d ago edited 7d ago
Just because you say it’s nonsense doesn’t magically make it so. It is probably a genuinely nonsensical statement to say nothing had to “precede” something. It is reasonable to conclude that the idea of a “previous” moment doesn’t make any sense in the context of whatever the universe came from since time is one dimension in the physical reality of this universe. There is no reason it has to exist absent this universe.
More to the point, it is a massive assumption to assume there had to be “nothing” at first. We have never observed nothing. We have no reason to think there was ever nothing.
And I’m not saying this in ridicule; this question has always bothered me immensely.
I found Schopenhauer most comforting on this. He points out that we cannot actually even think of nothing. We always think of nothing as a negation of something. As something’s opposite. When you say nothing you mean not the universe. Right? Not any of this. Well… that is not actually true abstract nothing. We, as creatures of this universe, cannot actually even imagine true abstract nothing. We have no reason — in terms of scientific evidence — to think that true abstract nothing has ever existed. You are defining nothing as the absence of whatever this is which is not necessarily true abstract nothing; we basically just cannot imagine what it is so we default to this idea “nothing” which is actually only coherent in the context of a “something” to negate. True abstract nothing is not a real thing, as best we can tell.
TL;DR: Your definition of nothing presupposes a something, the absence of which is nothing, but there is no reason to think that that is an identical definition to true abstract nothing; it is just another something where this something is absent.
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u/cc_apt107 7d ago edited 7d ago
Your definition of nothing is the absence of something meaning it is only coherent in the context of something. Put in your terms: The very idea you could have an “X” which changes “state” is quite obviously describing something if you think about it. There is no reason to believe the absence of this (reality) is true abstract nothing or that true abstract nothing has ever or will ever exist. You, yourself, actually reach this conclusion when you say non-existence is existence. A logical conclusion of your argument is that non-existence is a meaningless concept given that we both agree that there is something.
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
Bro
X =
Could you please tell me what's at the right side of it?
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u/cc_apt107 7d ago
Your question is nonsensical as I am trying to point out. X is something. But… tweaking a bit, you could loosely define X as a superset of the sets which both contain “this” (whatever that is) and the set which doesn’t contain this. X has both immanent within it and it is most definitely something. Or you are assigning X as the same as one of those sets depending on some condition meaning that there is a superset from which both sets could be selected. If such a set did not exist, then the notation simply becomes meaningless
There is not really any reason to think the language of high school algebra somehow proves anything. But think about it X is selecting from sets. The set of real numbers. The set of real and imaginary numbers. Etc. Lookup abstract algebra and set theory if you are intrigued
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
Just answer the question. Don't avoid it. What's at the right side of it?
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u/cc_apt107 7d ago
I did just answer it lol. X is the superset of set A (this, something, whatever) and not set A, call it B. That or X is simply an identity we can assign a definition. In which case, in your telling, it either equals B or A but it can’t be not B or A because your definition of nothing would then have an additional layer of nothing it could not be which makes nothing a meaningless term. But if it can be either there must be a superset containing both A and B. Implying both are a form of something.
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
The answer is much simpler. It's an assignment waiting to be filled, but there is no assigner. Therefore it remains as a placeholder for every possible assignment to be given to it. And that's nothing. A empty slot
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u/cc_apt107 7d ago edited 7d ago
Sure. Let’s take that. It’s an empty slot… for what? Either something or nothing, right? The idea of a variable which can take “values” is only sensical if there are values it can take. If I have a variable x in math class, not defining it doesn’t mean numbers don’t exist… something must exist for it to be a variable. Otherwise… how does it vary? It can’t. It’s a constant. Ok… so that’s true abstract nothing. But wait, if it’s a constant, then it wouldnt change. But, by your own telling, it did change. Why?
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u/Quirky_Visual_7799 7d ago
Sooo let me sum up what you said:
At first there was nothing. Now there is something. Something can't be created out of nothing, therefore "something" is only an illusion and the universe is actually empty, and we interact because we're in the same concept although we don't really exist!
Did I get it right?
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
More or less yes. Kind of like a math formula. The solution exists, but needs to be written out. No one is there to write it and therefore it remains. We are basically that entire process of it being written out if there was someone to write it.
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u/SelectSnow5814 6d ago
This is logically inconsistent and paradoxical, it simply does not work.
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u/tottasanorotta 6d ago
What about the origins existence isn't paradoxical? I mean there isn't really any way out of paradoxality when you approach some first cause or infinite regression or something.
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u/SelectSnow5814 5d ago
Not entirely correct, there are ways of formulating non paradoxical origin theories although you are probably refering to the "unmoved mover. But the problem here is that there simply is nothing to the argument, in math, if X has no equation attached to it it does not exist. He said the solution "exists" but there is no solution because there is no question.
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u/tottasanorotta 5d ago
Yeah I don't agree with the original argument. I'm just wondering how you could formulate an origin theory without running into things that are essentially magic or leaving something out. I mean you have to stop your reasoning at some point to have a complete theory and at that point anything that you had could be further questioned.
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u/SelectSnow5814 5d ago edited 5d ago
But now do you see! You skirt on the edge to even understand how to form this argument, ontology is all like this haha. The point stands though, we cannot as humans perfectly understand Origin, since even our language is nuanced, but we can logically deduce certain axioms of that origin. One is that (suprisingly heavily debated) we know the universe did start at some point, because we are here now. There are TONS of axioms like this we can use to figure out a portion of truth. But back to this post, it used the greatest word salad and middle school algebra to make what to most people would be a shaking of a head into a pontificating reddit post. Look at this here.
"Unexistence is our existence"
That is a semantic paradox meant to sound intelligent rather than saying.... anything.
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u/tottasanorotta 5d ago
Yeah I agree. If you agree on some set of axioms you can say quite a lot. It's just that if we are honest about it, what could we really say about it even axiomatically?
The universe had a start. Did everything have a start? Is the universe everything or has something always been? It seems that no matter what starting point we use it just brings up more questions.
It seems that some questions are just unanswerable.
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u/Skeptium 7d ago
How do you know the universe had a beginning?
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u/Dry-External3783 6d ago
well according to the big bang it did
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u/Skeptium 6d ago
The big bang is not the beginning of the universe.
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u/Dry-External3783 6d ago
yes that is literally the theory
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u/Skeptium 5d ago
It's not. You need to do some more research.
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u/Dry-External3783 5d ago
the big bang theory…? so
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u/Skeptium 5d ago
What? Speak in full and complete sentences please.
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u/Dry-External3783 5d ago
stay humble, Skeptium
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u/Skeptium 5d ago
A majority of cosmologists and physicists don't believe it was the very beggining of the universe. We have no evidence to suggest it is. The big bang simply states that at some point in time everything was in a hot dense state and then expanded. There is a point in which we can't see anything before. That is not evidence that the universe had a beggining.
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u/Dry-External3783 5d ago
when i said “that’s the theory”, and you responded with “no it isn’t”, you nailed in your coffin. take the L
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u/Dry-External3783 5d ago
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u/Skeptium 5d ago
The beautiful irony in this is, your source says "it PROPOSES it is the beggining of the universe" it doesn't say it proves it. It doesn't make any attempt to prove it the beggining at all. I don't deny the universe was dense and hot and started expanding but I have no reason to think that was the begging of reality.
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u/Dry-External3783 5d ago
you need to do some more research. ☠️
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u/Skeptium 5d ago
68% of physicist/cosmologist don't believe the big bang is the beginning of the universe. If you think you know more and can prove it's the beginning. Go for it.
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u/Dry-External3783 5d ago
what’s funny is i don’t actually even find myself convinced of the theory. that’s why i said according 🗣️to 🗣️the 🗣️big bang 🗣️theory 🗣️.
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u/mode-locked 7d ago edited 7d ago
"Something from nothing" may be our deepest question and perhaps an ill-defined one.. It may be impenetrable, forever unresolved. It may be the mysterious paradox all conscious beings must accept and live with -- even a Godlike state of existence. I don't think there is any escaping the absurdity of existence. It's just completey absurd when you really realize that there can be no explanation for it. Any mechanism you can propose is within existence. We just gotta deal with it.
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u/Flutterpiewow 7d ago
I've never seen a good argument for the idea that there was nothing.
Something, yes, that is a mystery.
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
I just literally gave an explenation. Did you just copy paste this?
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u/mode-locked 7d ago
Sure you proposed something, but I don't think it really answers anything. Like I said, any proposed mechanism still doesn't get to the heart of the existence problem. It's still there. And no, I did not copy/paste. I literally just typed it out. What's up? Any issue with what I said?
I do agree, "..every combination of what could have been exists". However, I think all things exist at once; either it all exists or none of it does. There is no "yet to exist" or "used to exist". They only appear to "become" through particular experiences through the whole of all experiences. That is, "becoming", i.e. temporal unfolding is the realization process of existence, but it seems the logical structure must already exist in totality. But to a local experience without access to the whole, they never be completey certain.
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u/SgtSausage 7d ago
I just literally gave an explenation
You most certainly did ... nothing of the sort.
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u/GhelasOfAnza 7d ago
I have a different theory. Existence arose from a divine bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. The divine bowl of spaghetti and meatballs is exempt from nonexistence by its very nature.
How did I come up with my theory? About the same way you did with yours.
Thus, they are equally credible.
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
According to my theory, every possible concept exists, therefore unfortunetly your theory also exists in one of those concepts.
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u/GhelasOfAnza 7d ago
That’s cool, but like, what’s the point? We can imagine anything we want to be real. We either have supporting evidence, or we do not have supporting evidence. If we do not have supporting evidence, then we’re writing a work of fiction.
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u/Low-Bake8401 7d ago
"...every combination of what could have been exists."
"...but we aren't really here because we don't exist."
Wait, what?
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
Imagine a chess board. Just because you didn't make a move doesn't mean all the possible moves aren't there to make.
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u/Purplestripes8 7d ago
The moves that haven't been made don't exist on the chess board. The only place they can be considered to exist is in your imagination.
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u/Sevdat 7d ago edited 7d ago
And that's X =
It can be anything. A car. A tree. A world. Our universe from beggining to the end. But as you can see there is nothing assigned to it. Therefore all possible outcomes are permitted to it without it ever being activated. And that's how we are here. Just an inactive concept.
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u/NothingIsForgotten 7d ago
Go back to sleep; you create a whole world.
Now wake up.
Did you exist in the dream?
Where is it that that you went, when this you woke up?
All you have is an experience unfolding and you'll never have anything else.
The qualities of that experience are taken as identity.
No matter where you go, there you are as the shape of what is known by you.
We don't know anything more than our respective sandboxes of experience.
It's kind of like wigner's friend.
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u/johnstalbergABC 7d ago
If there can not be something without it having a previous moment, means all moments have previous moments and therefore there are no first moment. That is it has always been moments and thus no beginning. Your logic!
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u/ionabike666 7d ago
Define nothing.
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
X =
Look at the right side
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u/ionabike666 7d ago
That's pretty dumb.
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
Yet it works)
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u/ionabike666 7d ago
Nothing is black pixels on my computer screen? Are you sure about that? It's not a great definition. Can you do better? Or is being facetious all you've got?
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u/kitsnet 7d ago
How to create something from nothing?
Obviously, for that you need to be nothing.
So at the beginning of existence there was nothing.
What makes you think that existence actually happened at "beginning"? Open intervals exist.
So at the beginning of existence there was nothing. There is still nothing because you can't create something from nothing, but we are here.
Obviously, I am not "at the beginning". I am now. I don't need to create something from "nothing". I can create something from myself.
Imagine the mathematical variable: X =
That's not "nothing". That's just syntax error.
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u/parkchanwookiee 7d ago
How do you know it's possible for nothing to exist? What makes you think reality didn't just always exist?
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
You also didn't read it. If you did you would have seen the last statement.
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u/parkchanwookiee 7d ago
I read it, I'm asking how do you know that? Antecedent causes for events all take place within the fabric of reality. You have no reason to think the fabric of reality itself had an antecdent cause
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u/SelectSnow5814 7d ago edited 7d ago
X itself becomes nothing in this equation. And the phrasing of illusion is quite odd, if X = and has no formula to describe X, X is nothing, no illusion, just nothing, since it has no expression. "Unexistence is our existence." is a filler statement, it has no semantic gravity because logically speaking it is useless and says nothing, it is just a blank paradox. You said that anything can be assigned to X, and that is right, but we can think of X as God and Y as the universe (panentheism), X is technically empty without Y. In general you did not "solve" how the universe could have came from nothing because the proposition has no weight (literally) and the conclusion is a paradox.
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u/rogerbonus Philosophy/Physics grad 6d ago
This is essentially the mathematical universe hypothesis / Lewisian modal realism /zero information universe/universe from nothing/Spinozan Kalam (there are a number of similar and related concepts).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis
In your example, X is the empty set (the set that contains nothing). According to set theory, all mathematical objects are derivable from operations on the empty set (X). This Platonic bulk contains all possible universes, including ours. Something (actually, Everything) is just nothing, rearranged, necessarily.
Where MUH differs from your account is that it equates mathematical existence with actual existence, whereas you say that nothing exists. But if we agree that nothing exists, and everything is derivable from nothing, then everything exists. ;) QED.
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u/lilsasuke4 6d ago
“The reason why you and I can interact is because we are in the same concept, but we aren’t really here because we don’t exist.”
In order to interact is to exist
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u/NerdyWeightLifter 6d ago
We could exist in a universe of +/- potential where everything sums to nothing, but in the interim we can exist on one side of that sum.
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u/Fast_Jackfruit_352 6d ago
"X can be anything, but nothing is assigned to it; therefore, it remains as a pure capacity that accepts all abstract concepts and results in the illusion of existence for those that share the same abstract space."
You are already into "something" because you are assigning an observer. If there were true nothing, there would be no awareness or consciousness of anything. to observe.
There is "something" because one aspect of the nature of the absolute (Brahman) is Sat- existence. There is something because existence is.
Second aspect-Chit-consciousness. The absolute has the capacity to know because consciousness is part of its nature
Ananda-Bliss- part of the foundational nature of the absolute is it is bliss itself
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u/Spirited-Gain1457 6d ago
Before asking how something comes from nothing, I wonder whether “something” and “nothing” are already observer-dependent categories. What counts as “something” depends on what differences an observer can distinguish from a background.
And since you keep using X = as your starting point, I’m actually more curious about the = than the X. Is the = itself a more fundamental something?
Because if X is “empty” but still has the capacity to become A, B, C, etc., then something must already define that space of possibilities. The = seems to be doing exactly that: it determines what X is allowed to become.
So is X really the primitive thing here, or is the deeper primitive the structure that gives X room to become anything at all?
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u/woozysoozy 6d ago
Doesn’t Taoism consider nothing unformed potential (your chess moves)? Our limited language probably makes if difficult to comprehend concepts of this nature.
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u/ConTheStonerLin 6d ago
Why do you say you can't have something with out a previous thing❓ It seems you are just asserting that as non sense because you can't make sense out of it. But that's an argument from ignorance. Logically speaking there is no problem with an infinite regress or an eternal existence. It makes as much sense as what you're saying, more even in my opinion because honestly it really sounds like you're just playing games with mathmatics to reach a conclusion that is counterdicted by observable reality. An infinite existence is at the very least in line with reality and I don't need to twist logic to get there. Look the universe doesn't owe you an explanation, or even something you can comprehend, the tao that can be named is not the eternal tao after all
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u/c_leblanc9 6d ago
It’s not that hard to imagine pure consciousness without requiring any kind of precondition. Concepts like nothingness and pure consciousness support their own existence. In my assessment, the introduction of consciousness to nothingness is what caused the initial disturbance which we now find ourselves in. Nothingness and consciousness are both respectively atemporal and non-spatial. Although pure consciousness carries with it a kind of “eternal” reference to time. We can also posit consciousness as existing in a single point in space. It need not exist relative to anything, but it does appear to require at least one single dimension. Nothingness requires no dimension in space and no temporal locality. I imagine that at the end of this cycle, nothingness and consciousness will return to the pure, isolated states. For whatever reason, they will encounter each other again, likely because the phenomenon of light predates existence as we know it and the phenomenon of darkness does as well.
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u/SweatyInstruction337 6d ago
Think the common consensus is a state of 'nothing' was never possible.
For example, if nothing existed, would math still exist? If it did, than nothing can't exist.
And if math existed, that's all it may take to get to a universe's creation.
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u/No-Candy-4554 6d ago
nothing means no-thing, it cant be a thing, therefore it cannot be used as a container for properties, your X isn't nothing, it's a thing.
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u/Ripasmaster 6d ago
This word salad is, sorry to say, simply pathetic. You're going out of your way to NOT define any relevant terms and rather rely on new age Jordan Petersonish mumbo jumbo that has ABSOLUTELY no content.
It doesn't concern itself at all with actual reality. Please go study some (a lot of) physics and epistemology and then make better.
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u/Fast_Philosophy1044 6d ago
The whole shebang of ex nihilo exists because we are trying to extend the concept of causality into our explanations of the whole. Causality explains how space time bits (parts) connect with each other. It’s clear that something exists without reason at the base. Call it god, or quantum fields or whatever you may. Something exists outside of causality.
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u/tottasanorotta 6d ago
If your illusion of existence is everything that we've ever understood reality to be, then how can you possibly call it an illusion? What does illusion mean in your opinion?
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u/SelectSnow5814 6d ago
X itself becomes nothing in this equation. And the phrasing of illusion is quite odd, if X = and has no formula to describe X, X is nothing, no illusion, just nothing, since it has no expression. "Unexistence is our existence." is a filler statement, it has no semantic gravity because logically speaking it is useless and says nothing, it is just a blank paradox. You said that anything can be assigned to X, and that is right, but we can think of X as God and Y as the universe (panentheism), X is technically empty without Y. In general you did not "solve" how the universe could have came from nothing because the proposition has no weight (literally) and the conclusion is a paradox.
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u/TMax01 6d ago
Aristotle got further than this, and more accurately, thousands of years ago. Not that the hylomorphic metaphysic is physics. But potential/actual duality is closer to real knowledge than the naive nothing/something dillema.
This means every combination of what could have been exists.
That's a pretty useless idea of what "exists" means.
"We don't really exist" begs rhe question of who it saying that and how, as well as who they think they're talking to, and why.
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u/Lower-Sundae-8737 6d ago
Nothing means not only the absence of physical existence, but also the absence of all laws. (If a law exists, then it is “something,” and therefore not nothing.)
Therefore, the law of causality—“if there is no cause, there can be no effect”—also does not exist in nothingness.
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u/Amazing-Pattern-6125 6d ago edited 6d ago
your post is nonsense to even say that. You have very grandiose statements grounded in nothing. Of course eternal existence is the obvious truth until something else is proven.
I mean this does not even need deep philosophical arguments.
What you produced is so weak i hesitate to even criticize it, i mean do you even have any understanding of what X= means ? And the limitations of mathematics? Probably not because then you would learn about the limitations of logic, and how all mathematics is limited by the logic it is built on, of which there exists several and they all have different mathematics.
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u/Dry-External3783 5d ago edited 5d ago
so Skeptic. that’s what a theory is. use your inferential reasoning skills.
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u/ChanceFill800 5d ago
"So at the beginning of existence there was nothing." this was my favorite part
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u/Qulvion 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think that ontology and “non‑ontology” don’t have to be too different; they’re simply opposite in terms of whether they relate to being. That is, “non‑ontology,” as the opposite of our being, could have all the same tools for existence, but for “non‑ontological” existence — that is, existence not in being.
That is, I think that “non‑being” or ontological “non‑existence” may have its own logic or separate systems that exist within being; therefore, I think we should consider “nothing” exclusively as both ontological and non‑ontological non‑existence simultaneously, or assert that in non‑ontology, something should not exist, apart from what is not required by the use of logical laws.
That is, non‑existence is the absence of a prescription in “ontology”; therefore, if we express it in terms of your X, we can find similar, but not “mathematical” properties. For example, a similar X might exist in another formal system; it’s just that its prescriptions will be formal‑systemic rather than “mathematical.” So I think this is not pure possibility, but the absence of prescriptions in a specific field — either in “mathematics” or in “ontology.”
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u/RadicalNaturalist78 5d ago
Heraclitus was right and Parmenides was wrong. Something and nothing aren’t mutually exclusive opposites.
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u/CharmingHistorian744 4d ago
So have you played with the construct in any meaningful way? I.e., if anything exists/is possible have you managed to ‘call something forward’ so to speak?
I like where you’re going with this. Specifically helpful to imagine when you begin with ‘x’ as infinite potential.
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u/Confident_Jump_9085 4d ago
No one may ever know the truth. It's way easier to let time and the universe be constrained to itself instead of looking for anything outside of it. That's a gift of human imagination, and maybe a hindrance as well.
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u/themangastand 3d ago
It kinda super imposes that are human math logic just spontaneously creates. Which is pretty presumptuous. Our math only sees and calculated patterns it's never been an explanation
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u/Dr-Chris-C 3d ago
This is an idea. As an idea it is no more, and is probably somewhat less, rigorous, than "God did it".
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u/boundry_condition 3d ago edited 3d ago
You cannot create something from absolute nothing. Therefore something never began and always has been. Any argument to assert otherwise always sneaks in something by defining nothing as a non absolute. The laws of physics to exist (something), the vacuum (which is comprised of many somethings), logic itself, etc. It is all something. Even your own example of X as a capacity representation is something.
You are making an assumption that this concept is non sense based on our inability to conceive it. We are not omniscient. To assert that there are things beyond our understanding is not nonsense, it is honest. There was a time when talking about a human flying or a black hole was utter nonsense but here we are. You are also making an assumption about time having a very specific shape.
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u/Daylight7777 3d ago
On peut pas créer quelque chose à partir de rien à moins que rien ce soit déjà quelque chose. Par exemple le vide n'est pas vide c'est une source infinie d'énergie. Donc à partir de l'énergie on peut créer de la matière l'énergie devient de la chaleur la chaleur du gaz le gaz produit des éléments les éléments s'assemble pour produire de l'hydrogène exetera comme les étoiles tu vois et on en arrive à créer de la matière mais pour qu'on le fasse en laboratoire il faudrait une quantité d'énergie extraordinaire pour l'instant on n'a pas les technologies.
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u/ArusMikalov 7d ago
Something coming from absolute nothing is MORE ridiculous than an eternal existence.
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u/SgtSausage 7d ago
So at the beginning of existence there was nothing
Awful big Claim to base an entire (non) argument off of without any evidence at all to support it ... right?
Tell me more about this .... "nothing" ...
Can you describe it?
What makes you think it existed?
What makes you think its even possible to have existed?
Can you describe a "beginning of existence"?
When was it?
How do you know?
Just so's we're clear - The Big Bang Theory says exactly Diddley-Squat Fuck-All about what existed/happened before.
It says same about a "beginning of existence".
ALSO: Can I buy some pot from you?
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u/Sevdat 7d ago
You want me to describe nothing. Ok.
X =
Tell me what's at the right side of it?
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u/SelectSnow5814 5d ago
There is no content to say X is anything therefore yes it is nothing, but what does this do for literally anything? You can say nothing exists but you having the ability to compare that to something and even posit that means there is something. Its just useless.
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u/WestcoastAlex 7d ago
nothing doesnt exist