I remember having a debate with @fishfry over whether a quantum field can be an ultimate explanation. I argued it is as good of an ultimate explanation as any.

Looking at the complexity of their posts on other threads, I'm lucky I didn't embarrass myself.

Looking at the complexity of their posts on other threads, I'm lucky I didn't embarrass myself. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I embarrass myself all the time around here. Thanks for the kind words.

I argued it is as good of an ultimate explanation as any. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Better, since also QFT works…

'From Nothing' reduces to 'Something Forever' because a spontaneous production of something from nowhere, no place, and no when, etc. requires a capability—and that is something, not a nothing.

So now what do we do about it? What are the implications, if any?

That does sound like Varela: — Joshs

It has a variety of sources. Determinism with a slight element of randomness comes from Neile Theise, Informational understanding is from all over the place.

“ It is perhaps is best to start with the notion of a state or phase space — Joshs

Yes, for me it starts in a phase of order. A thermodynamic / energy state that causes things to self organize, as apposed to very high energy state where this would be impossible, where chaos would prevail.

Theories need a unifying concept, for you it is time, for some it is entropy :grimace: , I'm thinking information may do it for me.

Can there be an explanation that does not admit further inquiry, even in principle? — jorndoe

Perhaps not, but this fact itself is part of the answer to the question. No? Or do we just stop enquiring?

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve. — Max Planck

That is very solipsistic of Max. I can just imagine him getting the Planck length down to 10^-40 odd, and saying - I've had my fill of this! :lol:

My point is, and as others have intimated, saying we "don't know" becomes an epistemic stance, which further understanding is built upon. So you don't get to sit this one out - whether you have a stance of understanding, or a stance of no understanding, you still have an understanding.

I'm with @Philosophim ( but not the god part :smile: ). There has to be a first cause. I think the anthropic principle is water tight. I think those who say there can be no understanding would, at least, have to find fault with the anthropic principle, for their argument to be logical.

What say you naysayers? Can you find fault with the anthropic principle? :smile:

What say you naysayers? Can you find fault with the anthropic principle? :smile: — Pop

As far as I can tell, it's merely a woo-of-the-gaps ex post facto self-flattering rationalization for violating the mediocrity principle (à la teleology (causal finalism), cosmic (metaphysical) PSR). :nerd:

I'm not arguing that the universe and we exist by design. Whether it arose by chance or not, the reason we are here is because the laws of the universe are such that they permit our existence. Change the laws of physics a little ( 5% ) and the universe would collapse - Would not be as it is, and so neither would we? This is a first cause, I'm not drawing any conclusions ( god ) from the cause.
Personally I believe ours would be a bubble universe caused in a larger big bang that created many universes, but this is immaterial to the topic at hand.

Change the laws of physics a little ( 5% ) and the universe would collapse - Would not be as it is, and so neither would we? — Pop

Except that the "laws of physics" only refer to the invariant structures of our physical models which are strongly correlated with observations of regularities of the universe but are not "caused" by, or properties of, the universe. Only our physical models are "anthropic" because they are man-made to suit human purposes (limitations).

Except that the "laws of physics" only refer to the invariant structures of our physical models which are highly correlated with observations of regularities of the universe but are not "caused" by the universe. — 180 Proof

Ha, Ha That's a good point. Laws of physics are mind dependent, so only relate to the observable universe. So we are really saying that the anthropic principle applies to a phase state of the observable universe - a pocket of order. I would accept that. :grimace:

BUT, now that we have reduced the universe to a pocket of order, my argument stands. :razz:

No, you're still confusing (your) maps with the territory. Re: anthropic fallacy (on the basis of a misplaced concreteness fallacy in your assumptions).

↪Pop No, you're still confusing (your) maps with the territory. — 180 Proof

Ha, Ha. Do you have territory without maps? For an idealist the maps are the territory.

Do you have territory without maps? — Pop

Check the pre-hominid fossil record.

For an idealist the maps are the territory.

No doubt. On this basis – conflation of epistemology with ontology (i.e. fallacious reifications e.g. platobic forms) – idealism only concerns the imaginary and not the factual, and is thus useless except for idle speculations and religious (e.g. woo-of-the gaps) apologetics.

Do you have territory without maps?
— Pop
Check the pre-hominid fossil record. — 180 Proof

What with, If not a map?

For an idealist the maps are the territory.
No doubt. On this basis – conflation of epistemology with ontology (i.e. fallacious reifications e.g. platobic forms) – idealism only concerns the imaginary and not the factual, and is thus useless except for idle speculations and religious (e.g. woo-of-the gaps) apologetics. — 180 Proof

Except that the "laws of physics" only refer to the invariant structures of our physical models which are highly correlated with observations of regularities of the universe but are not "caused" by the universe. Only our physical models are "anthropic" because they are man-made to suit human purposes — 180 Proof

- an idealist argument - I love it! :smile:

This is a first cause, I'm not drawing any conclusions ( god ) from the cause.
Personally I believe ours would be a bubble universe caused in a larger big bang that created many universes, but this is immaterial to the topic at hand. — Pop

Either Or Poem

‘God’s’ image reflects the mottled colors
Painted by human artists upon the air
Where the wormed apple was before the fall
That rotted away truth’s tree of knowledge.

Or

The Eternal has to be everything,
Superimposed, not a certain pathing;
It can’t have inputs, with no beginning;
So, what chose the song our universe sings?

The Permanent is all that there is,
It’s transmutations the temporary fizz.
It can’t have direction, with no inputs,
So, it multi verses, seeming as a Wiz.

The Eternal is as a multiverse,
Potentially, with no information,
As in Bable’s Library of all books,
Being as useless as Nothing’s zero.

The universes might all spring forth, somehow,
Most inert or not going far enough,
With some reaching life after a long time,
Such as ours, precarious as it is.

Or

Forecasting the Cosmos

The Programmer sets the if-then switches,
Like eight-way 3D Rubic Cube intercepts,
After having set the quarks and leptons,
And coding stars to generate atoms.

Then more precise tweaks, to dark energy,
To umpteen decimal places so rare,
And the forming of the DNA code
To blend life’s ingredients, stirring slow.

Darn, the n-body problem is so tough,
For unforeseen side-effects e’er arise,
Among branches of the would-be life-tree,
A zillion variables overlapping.

Damn!

…

Extinctions swept away many a kind;
Chromosomes fused, leaving the chimps behind;
DNA remembered the survivors;
‘Good fortune’ smiled on the Sapiens mind.

Unintelligently programmed, many climbs
Had to be of the off-the-shelf reach’s grimes,
As dickering Rube Goldberg ‘inventions’,
Our nervous systems ruled by ancient times.

Finally, after some fourteen billion years,
Proto-man and then homo Sapiens
Arrived, after seven million more years
Of tinkering with monkey chromosomes.

But yet something worked; here we are!

Oh Man! What a piece of work—the mind;
What noble deeds done and undone in kind.
What coding updates programmed all upon—
In the layers of brains the mind is made upon.

What is this sapiens mammal animal?
Still made from slime but of a higher call!

Well, I guess, when you're a flathead driver everything looks like a screw.

There are many possible answers, but among them some will be better then others, though none will be absolutely true. Not knowing the foundation of reality is a real bummer! :smile:

However all of the answers will be made of information, and they will all come from a self organizing system, that relies upon the anthropic principle for its existence. Within such an overview some answers have already arisen, and more may yet arise. We cannot know for sure, until we try and either fail or succeed.

Well, I guess, when you're a flathead driver everything looks like a screw. — 180 Proof

You got me there! :chin:

Not knowing the foundation of reality is a real bummer! — Pop

Yes, but we seekers shall not tire of exploration…

Why do we wander around in the dark,
In the middle of the night like this?

Well, if I knew the answer to that one,
I would have been home hours ago.

Do we not tire, e’er walking, looking, lame?

At first, we did, yes, but then beauty came—
The grand moment of wings grown; lifting, new.
The rhythm flies us—our music plays through.

Such we are stirred, so touched by the starlight,
That it seems we’ll ne’er be the same again.

Do we sense the euphony of the spheres?
Can we fathom the theory of everything?


Of we philosophers…

The Seekers Gather in the Forum Tavern

In this lost haunt on the Orion arm
Of the galaxy, safe from the core’s harm,
We philosophers meet in the forum,
The sleuth-hounds unweaving the Cosmic yarn.

We search for the Start of the Universe,
The End, the Before, the After, the Kinds,
The Measures, and All That Lies Between:
The Music of the Spheres’ Magnificat.

Quantum fluctuations e’er wave their sea,
So that Nothing can never come to be.
Here we must walk the Plank mysterious
To the min of Max into the abyss.

We’re the flesh to the backbones of the stars,
Those ghosts of the suns that no longer are—
They having transformed their energy’s ways
To base atoms, plus more—supernovae.

Heaven’s stars spread the primeval dust eterne;
Time’s deep seas to evolve the species in turn.
From time, death, and dust we at last became,
And to this, thus, and that we must return.

Time and stardust made us Earth’s living guest,
For quick death sifted the rest from the best.
Those, our birthright, wrote our epitaph, too:
RIP; time expired, death came, dust was left.

Death, evolution’s lone selector,
Stalked the sillier from the wise of yore,
Preserved the more useful from the useless,
And favored the pointed o’er the pointless.

…

From a drop of water one could infer
The existence of Niagara Falls
And even the great Atlantic Ocean.

Sherlock, even as a baby just born
In a dark cave could infer the universe
From a grain of sand between his toes.

“I love this detective school, Sherlock.”

“Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary.”

“This class of opium is great, too!”

“High school, Watson.”

I agree that the idea of a 'spontaneous production of something from nowhere' is interesting with regard to how anything ever came into existence at all. We could ask did matter exist always or did some underlying invisible force bring it into being? I think that this also applies to the whole process of creation and destruction as aspects of existence, even though they are not necessarily unrelated to matter. I know that, as @180 Proof, has pointed out, purpose is a human construct related to intention, I am not sure that this overrides the process of creation and destruction itself, although, of course, it is our interpretation which names them in that way.

I agree that the idea of a 'spontaneous production of something from nowhere' is interesting with regard to how anything ever came into existence at all. — Jack Cummins

Thus, it ought to be still happening everywhere all the time. Hope not near me, but I'll keep an eye out!

You may not be producing something out of nowhere, but I think that you truly understand the process of creativity, as demonstrated in the illustrations, which you gave links to in the thread about thinking about the Bible from a philosophical point of view And, for anyone else reading this, I recommend looking at these illustrations, on page 14 of that specific thread, because they are superb.

Perhaps not, but this fact itself is part of the answer to the question. No? Or do we just stop enquiring? — Pop

Stop? Heck no. :) We don't need omniscience to know something. And curiosity is also a thing.

How can we explain the existence and development of life at all? — Jack Cummins

reality is eternal and infinite

life doesnt exist only reality exists

solved

The sequence of subsequent states evolving according to the dynamical rule describes a
trajectory in state space. In the case of continuous time, the system is defined as a flow.” — Joshs

I agree that the idea of a 'spontaneous production of something from nowhere' is interesting with regard to how anything ever came into existence at all — Jack Cummins

We don't need omniscience to know something. And curiosity is also a thing. — jorndoe

you're still confusing (your) maps with the territory. Re: anthropic fallacy (on the basis of a misplaced concreteness fallacy in your assumptions). — 180 Proof

Have you ever considered whether information is the fundamental stuff? That everything is a system in the process of accumulating and integrating information?

Energy ( electromagnetism ) is currently the fundamental stuff, we know of it via information we have about it. We don't know its ingredients, but when we do find out, we will know of them via their information. Information is the constituent factor. If a first cause was found, we would know about it via its information. So "information" is a fundamental stuff - it will be a factor at rock bottom, though it can not exist on its own - must exist as the description of something ( the form giving co-element of something ). This is necessarily so from a mind dependent perspective ( idealist ), but works equally well from a realist perspective.

It is information that is evolving, in a non linear and emergent process, creating existence.

The Rock Bottom Flow of Information

(It will move or else you can click on it to get it to move.)

:up:

Have you ever considered whether information is the fundamental stuff? That everything is a system in the process of accumulating and integrating information? — Pop

That's like saying "signals without noise" are fundamental (or even that noise is only emergent from / dependent upon signals) which is completely inconsistent with e.g. entropy. A glance at the starry night sky, for instance, also shows what's (more) fundamental than "information".

A glance at the starry sky will provide you with information about it.

That's like saying "signals without noise" — 180 Proof

So "information" is a fundamental stuff - it will be a factor at rock bottom, though it can not exist on its own - must exist as the description of something ( the form giving co-element of something ). — Pop

https://www.informationphilosopher.com/introduction/information/entropy-expansion.gif