In conclusion, this is the argument as to why Potential stands as a better reasoning for existence than something coming from nothing. — Benj96

What you've described isn't really an explanation at all. You have assumed that something can't come from nothing, so you put a name to what something something comes from and describe the characteristics you think it must have. In reality, you've just renamed what others might have called God, or perhaps the Tao. It's metaphysics. It doesn't explain anything.

Why is there something instead of nothing? — Benj96

Heidegger believed the very way the question is posed forces a certain way of looking for an answer. The question opposes being and nothing, privileging the former and treating the latter as lack. It assume we can’t think these two together. Doesn’t potential imply change, and doesn’t change include both presence and absence?

The question Leibnitz asks is: Why are there beings at all, and not rather Nothing? If we do not remain within metaphysics to ask metaphysically in the customary manner, then this might be asked as well: How does it come about that beings take precedence everywhere and lay claim to every "is," while that which is not a being - namely, the Nothing thus understood as Being itself- remains forgotten? How does it come about that with Being It is really nothing and that the Nothing does not properly prevail? Is it perhaps from this that the as yet unshaken presumption has entered all metaphysics that an understanding of "Being" may simply be taken for granted and that the Nothing can therefore be dealt with more easily than beings? That is indeed the situation regarding Being and Nothing. If it were different, then Leibniz could not have said in the same place by way of an explanation: "For the nothing is simpler and easier than any thing."

What you've described isn't really an explanation at all. You have assumed that something can't come from nothing, so you put a name to what something something comes from and describe the characteristics you think it must have. — T Clark

I have assumed that something cannot come of nothing. Correct. Because I'm at a loss as to how that would be possible logically speaking.

If you can posit a way in which everything can arise from nothing (a state devoid of all potency, property, ability and/or agency) then have at it.

I then went on to describe something that could "appear like true nothingness" (dimensionless and immaterial) without in fact being Nothing. Which is the next best thing, by the principle of occams razor the next simplest possibility.

So actually I do think I explained a lot, despite you not thinking so.

The name is also important because of the implications that follow.

I didn't pluck "Potential" out of the air as some random stand-in name for a first principle of existence. The word Potential and all that it implies and is associated with (as I characterised in the points) was very deliberate/intentional.

Why use a term like God which is so heavily loaded and ranges from everything between a bearded man in the clouds to just about every other conception out there when Potential is much more open to a logical discussion and exacting definition as a physical law rather than an anthropomorphised entity.

I think "true nothingness" is actually a fallacy, a false dichotomy, because of the conservation laws of physics which state that at the very least energy is indestructible.

True nothingness cannot exist. So the question itself -why cam something come from nothing is no less absurd than saying why can +1 come from -1.

So the real question for me is what could exist - that is the simplest existant neccesary to derive all subsequent ones ie a "nothingness" that isn't actually nothing, it just seems so from the perspective of the material world and everything relative to it.

The "potential to be" is a property sufficient for "being" without itself being manifest into being (subject to spacetime, energy and material). But its also not nothing. Nothingness is absurd.

. It assume we can’t think these two together. Doesn’t potential imply change, and doesn’t change include both presence and absence? — Joshs

Nothingness only takes meaning from the existence of its opposite: somethingness. They require one another for context and meaning. You can't have all nothingness and no somethingness or all somethingness and no absence/lack thereof.

Potential elicits change, change is thus ever present in its own right. Absence and presence is thus only applicable to what becomes/unbecomes through change, but not change itself, or the potential to do so.

Potential - not being anything specific but rather the ability to become a specific thing, need not be subject to the idea of presence or absence..

It cannot be present as it is not temporal or spatial but it can also not be entirely absent, as it would not be potential in that case - it would not demonstrate existence through its action of doing just that.

If potential creates time, it creates change. But if time does not create potential, then change is subordinate to potential, not it's superior. The absence and presence associated with change through time, is then also not applicable to Potential

Nothingness only takes meaning from the existence of its opposite: somethingness. They require one another for context and meaning. You can't have all nothingness and no somethingness or all somethingness and no absence/lack thereof. — Benj96

There is more to it than that for writers like Heidegger and Nietzsche. Nothing isn’t just the empty, generic opposite of a something. When we use the concept of nothing in actual contexts, it means something substantive in its own right. Nothing always points to a particular kind of nothing. It isnt just the taking away of a thing, but an affirmative move in its own right, a reaching out ahead. To reach out into the nothing is to connect with unheard of potentialities and possibilities.

Potential - not being anything specific but rather the ability to become a specific thing, need not be subject to the idea of presence or absence — Benj96

Think about how you use the concept of potential when you think it. It has meaning for you, and a use, and a history. First is the potential, and then the actual emerges out of it. So potential is the condition of possibility for the creation of something. If potential is the ability to be anything then it is just the generic name for thingness in general. We can think thingness as an empty category, with no specific content other than that we are thinking something rather than nothing. Adding that this empty category precedes the generic variety of actual things doesn’t change the fact that it is the thinking of a substantive object of thought, the meaning of that generic category that leads to actual things. Isn’t that exactly the role potential plays when you think it? And as a substantive meaning, doesn’t it co-imply its opposite, the absence of the ability to become a specific thing?

Why is there something instead of nothing? — Benj96

This is a pseudo-question because of its 'something/nothing' (fluctuation/vacuum) false dichotomy. The physical fact is 0.999 of every something (nonzero dimensional X) is nothing (zero dimension).

'Nothing' is unstable. — Frank Wilczek, theoretical physicist

Also, there is no ultimate "why" that doesn't beg the question except There Is No Ultimate "Why" – existence (i.e. fundamental disorder-dynamics-void fluctuations ... 'necessary contingency') is the brute fact.

:up: :up:

I have assumed that something cannot come of nothing. Correct. Because I'm at a loss as to how that would be possible logically speaking.

If you can posit a way in which everything can arise from nothing (a state devoid of all potency, property, ability and/or agency) then have at it. — Benj96

It is not a matter of logic whether something can come from nothing. It's either a metaphysical assumption or a matter of fact, probably the first. For that reason, I don't have to "posit a way in which everything can arise from nothing." If it's a matter of fact, I don't have to provide an explanation, I only have to make an observation. If it's a metaphysical assumption, there is no explanation.

I then went on to describe something that could "appear like true nothingness" (dimensionless and immaterial) without in fact being Nothing. Which is the next best thing, by the principle of occams razor the next simplest possibility.

So actually I do think I explained a lot, despite you not thinking so. — Benj96

Just because you can describe something doesn't mean it exists. Describing isn't the same as explaining.

Why use a term like God which is so heavily loaded and ranges from everything between a bearded man in the clouds to just about every other conception out there when Potential is much more open to a logical discussion and exacting definition as a physical law rather than an anthropomorphised entity. — Benj96

As Phil Conners said in "Groundhog Day," I'm talking about a god, not the God. So then, do you acknowledge that your "potential" is just another word for "a god" that you like better? Yes, of course I know that's not what you mean. It isn't a physical law unless you can at least suggest a way of testing it empirically.

True nothingness cannot exist. So the question itself -why cam something come from nothing is no less absurd than saying why can +1 come from -1. — Benj96

How do you know true nothingness can't exist. I'm not even sure it can be defined. If you're right, your question - "Why there is something rather than nothing?" - has been answered and you don't need to propose a new entity called potential.

So the real question for me is what could exist - that is the simplest existant neccesary to derive all subsequent ones ie a "nothingness" that isn't actually nothing, it just seems so from the perspective of the material world and everything relative to it. — Benj96

Modern physics describes what is known as a quantum vacuum state.

...According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is "by no means a simple empty space". According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of the quantum field..." — Wikipedia - Quantum vacuum state

I don't think that's what you're talking about, but if it is, we don't need a new concept.

Potential is a characteristic of things. You seem to be reifying it, suggesting it exists independently. That seems unwarranted.

a better reasoning for existence than something coming from nothing. — Benj96

False dichotomy: something from nothing is logically impossible, so any alternative would be "better".

In conclusion, this is the argument as to why Potential stands as a better reasoning for existence than something coming from nothing. — Benj96

"Something from Nothing?" is a valid, ever-recurring philosophical/metaphysical question. But some posters will say that such a question is un-scientific or illogical, hence absurd. Ignore them.

This is a philosophy forum, not a physics forum. If there was nothing, there would be no physics or physicists. But since there is something, some of those real "things" are thinkers who go beyond the obvious to inquire into the imperceptible. To go beyond the Actual (physical) to inquire into what's logically Possible (meta-physical).

To assume that Nothing can come from Nothing is a valid philosophical hypothesis. And in the real world we find no exceptions to that Law of Thermodynamics. Except when astrophysicists found evidence that our universe originated at Time Zero, and some curious minds logically wondered, "how is that possible?" One answer is that Cosmic Potential --- prior to space-time --- would include all possibilities. But only Cosmic Intention could narrow the list down to a single possibility, and then actualize it into a real instance.

Various philosophers and physicists have written books on that mystery. And the physical answer is usually some form of "our finite universe is just one instance of an (unknowable) infinity of universes". In other words, our some-thing came from some prior-thing. But that is an a priori*1 meta-physical guess presented as-if it's a physical fact. It's no more valid as a scientific answer, than your unstated implication of an unknowable a priori something that possessed the causal power (potential) to produce a Cosmos.

Even physicists must make use of the concept of Potential to explain such phenomena as Gravity & Electricity. For example, you can hold a AA battery in your hand without getting shocked, because the electric current is only Potential, not Actual. At sea level gravitational force on a body is moderate, but at the top of a mountain gravitational potential is higher. So the notion of Potential is not just some religious fantasy, it's a "theoretical deduction".

In scientific Big Bang & Multiverse & Many Worlds theories, the a priori Potential is assumed to be something akin to our physical Energy and Natural Laws*2. In religious myths of Origins, the a priori something is assumed to be similar to a human artist. We have experience of something new emerging due to the efforts of a creative mind. As when Da Vinci began with a blank canvas and bequeathed upon subsequent generations the Mona Lisa. Did that work of art come from nothing, or from the Potential we call Artistic Imagination?

Some posters think your notion of Something from Nothing is "logically impossible". Which is why the existence of our world is logically impossible, unless there was some a priori Potential. In any case, the minimum creative power would require both Causal (energy) and Logical (mind, law) operations. Hence, you could legitimately call it the Potential for Cosmo-Logical Origin. :smile:


*1. A Priori : relating to or denoting reasoning or knowledge which proceeds from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience. ___Oxford dictionary

*2. In physics, the concept "nothing can come from nothing" generally aligns with the idea that based on our current understanding of the laws of physics, something cannot spontaneously arise from a complete absence of matter, energy, or even space - essentially, a true "nothing" cannot create something; this is often linked to the principle of conservation of energy, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.
___ Google AI overview

Addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/953124

To go beyond the Actual (physical) to inquire into what's logically Possible (meta-physical). — Gnomon

This assumes that "beyond the Actual" – possibilism¹ – makes sense whereas beyond the merely "logically possible" – actualism² – is a much more reasonable and parsimonious metaphysical approach.

[1] countlessly many merely possible worlds of which the actual world is only one possible world (S. Kripke, D. Lewis)

[2] factually possible ways the actual world could have been (or can be described / modeled) i.e. actual world-versions rather than "possible worlds"

a more (orthodox) academic summary ...
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/possibilism-actualism/

@Ben96

Since 'Nothing' is impossible, fundamental Something has no opposite and thus no alternative; so, Fundamental Something has to be. Thus, Fundamental Something is unbreakable, as eternal and permanent, for it cannot have parts, plus the parts would have to be even more fundamental.

Such, the Permanent can only give rise to the temporary elementaries ('particles') by rearrangements of itself, such as at stable rungs of quanta, the Permanent ever remaining as itself, as the elementaries can 'melt' back into it.

Of course, the elementaries give rise to further higher level temporaries, such as us.

Potential - not being anything specific but rather the ability to become a specific thing, need not be subject to the idea of presence or absence.. — Benj96

By "not specific", I assume you are not making any religious claims of an ideal omnipotent Creator as the First Cause of the Real World. Just leaving the door open for discussion of Possibilities regarding the Potential-to-become behind the Big Bang burst of Actuality.

says, referring to the metaphysical notion of Creative Potential : This assumes that "beyond the Actual" – possibilism¹ – makes sense whereas beyond the merely "logically possible" – actualism² – is a much more reasonable and parsimonious metaphysical approach. He provides links to a discussion of the long-running Possible/Actual debate*1. If I was a professional physicist, I would have to agree that "actualism is more parsimonious". A pragmatic scientist seeks to "broaden his understanding of what actually exists", what is "present" in the real world. To do that, she limits her search to the material world. Materialism makes "sense", but does Potential make "meaning"?

Nevertheless, theoretical philosophers, especially amateurs on a philosophy forum, tend to seek "beyond what actually exists" in search of the ultimate ontological source of all that could possibly exist. And to do that, they extend the metaphysical chain of Causal Logic beyond the known Effects (Cosmos caused by?) into the unknown beyond Actuality. Unfortunately, the answer to ontological questions (the cause of being) is "absent" from the world of actual things. Which is why the debate has see-sawed back-and-forth for millennia. I suppose that some early scientists hoped that their Empirical methods might put an end to this foolishness about Potential vs Actual*1.

But in early 20th century those empirical methods raised even more questions about Reality and Actuality, when their experiments yielded only uncertain statistical results. For example, the Schrödinger equation includes the concept of Quantum Potential : "Q"*2. It's a combination of mathematical (statistical) Information and causal Energy. Ironically, one of the implications of statistical Possibility and philosophical Potential on the sub-atomic level is "non-locality", which could also translate into "non-actuality"*3.

Actualism is a good practical assumption for Physics (Science). But it would hobble the imagination of theoretical Meta-Physics (philosophy). For example, physicists --- frustrated by the whence & why implications of Big Bang theory --- have put on their philosopher hats, and speculated beyond the Actual evidence into the realm of Possibility. The Multiverse theory of some scientists is a metaphysical conjecture that "goes beyond what actually exists". 180's reference to Plantinga's Haecceitism (essence of a thing) is way too technical for my amateur abilities. But it sounds like a Latin word for the Greek concept of ideal Essence vs real Substance. So I'll let professional philosophers debate the never-ending Ontological question. For the purposes of this forum, you could just say we have differing opinions of the usefulness of the notions of Possibility & Potential. :smile:


*1. The Possibilism-Actualism Debate :
Possibilists claim that we can: we must simply broaden our understanding of reality, of what there is in the broadest sense, beyond the actual, beyond what actually exists, so that it also includes the merely possible. In particular, says the possibilist, there are merely possible people, things that are not, in fact, people but which could have been. So, for the possibilist, (4) is true after all so long as we acknowledge that reality also includes possibilia, things that are not in fact actual but which could have been; things that do not in fact exist alongside us in the concrete world but which could have. Actualism is (at the least) the denial of possibilism; to be an actualist is to deny that there are any possibilia. Put another way, for the actualist, there is no realm of reality, or being, beyond actual existence; to be is to exist, and to exist is to be actual. In this article, we will investigate the origins and nature of the debate between possibilists and actualists.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/possibilism-actualism/
Note --- Are theories, such as String Theory, Actual or Possible? Is a Multiverse logically possible? If possibilia are denied as valid for philosophical reasoning, why theorize at all?

*2. Quantum potential :
Initially presented under the name quantum-mechanical potential, subsequently quantum potential, it was later elaborated upon by Bohm and Basil Hiley in its interpretation as an information potential which acts on a quantum particle. . . . how the concept of a quantum potential leads to the notion of an "unbroken wholeness of the entire universe", proposing that the fundamental new quality introduced by quantum physics is nonlocality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_potential


*3. Possibility vs Actuality :
The philosophy of possibility is concerned with the nature and existence of possible things, and how to determine if claims about possibility are true or false. It's a fundamental modality in logic and metaphysics, and is closely related to the concepts of necessity, contingency, and actuality. ___Goggle AI overview

Wilzek isn't talking about nothing there, he is talking about the "metric field," space-time.

I have read a bunch of Wilzek's stuff and I have never seen him slip into Davies' unfortunate mistake of trying to explain the existence of existence in terms of quantum fluctuations.

Saying (relatively) empty space-time is unstable is not equivalent with saying nothing, an absence of being, is unstable. The "nothing" in question is most definetly a something. As Wilzek says, "the void weighs."

It would be strange indeed if physics, the science of mobile being, could tell us something about non-being.

Potential is the intersection of space and time. Or perhaps a synonym of an instant in time. Just rambling.

I think you are (like most others) confusing nothing with nothing-ness (which is self-contradictory or impossible). I agree F. Wilczek is not talking about nothing-ness when he says "nothing" and neither am I in my previous post .

In conclusion, this is the argument as to why Potential stands as a better reasoning for existence than something coming from nothing. — Benj96

There is potential / possibility in the Permanent Fundamental Something as well, for an eternal First couldn't have any design going into it but for what constrains it; so, in a linear, presentist time, it could amount to anything possible, and in an eternalist block time it could be everything possible in a superposition. We don't know the mode of time, though.

Is there a distinction in quantum theory between "nothing" and "nothing-ness?"

The questions: "why existence?" "why the singularity?" or "why cosmic inflation?" is, pace your invocation of "theoretical physicist" (who I am pretty sure does not share your view), and the opinions of most cosmologists, not a "pseudo-question" but something people spend a lot of time theorizing about.

An appeal to physics does not make the answer obvious, certainly not in the way physics can provide solid answers for "why does solid water float in liquid water," or "why are lipids hydrophobic."

Is there a distinction in quantum theory between "nothing" and "nothing-ness?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I do not think either term is used in QT. Afaik, "nothing-ness" is a nonsense term only used in naive metaphysics.

Is there a distinction in quantum theory between "nothing" and "nothing-ness?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I suppose that "nothing" is a mathematical concept encapsulated in the word : "Zero". But "nothingness" is a philosophical Qualia, a human experience of Lack, Void, Nihility. But, when says "nothing-ness" is a nonsense term only used in naive metaphysics", he seems to be speaking from the perspective of an empirical scientist. In which case, the assertion may be true. Yet, the concept of non-existence has been debated by feckless philosophers for millennia*1. Why is that? Why does the concept of negation even arise in a universe of substantiation?*2

In a world of material things, the concept of Nothing appears to be a Paradox*3. And apparent paradoxes have been the fodder of philosophy since Socrates and Plato. So yes, Nothing might be a legitimate mathematical, hence scientific, concept. But the metaphysical idea of Nothingness was characterized by Martin Heidegger as the most fundamental issue of philosophy : "Why is there something rather than nothing?". And that question requires (necessitates) the complementary concept of Potential in order to formulate an answer. :smile:


*1. The concept of nothingness, or "nonbeing," has been a central topic of philosophical debate since ancient times.
___Google AI overview

*2. In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo contrasts universal negation with universal affirmation:
All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word ‘no.’ To ‘no’ there is only one answer and that is ‘yes.’ Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives more by affirmation than by bread. (1862, 439).
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nothingness/

*3. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
The book offers a comprehensive look at number 0 and its controverting role as one of the great paradoxes of human thought and history since its invention by the ancient Babylonians or the Indian people. Even though zero is a fundamental idea for the modern science, initially the notion of a complete absence got a largely negative, sometimes hostile, treatment by the Western world and Greco-Roman philosophy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero:_The_Biography_of_a_Dangerous_Idea

BEING AND NOTHINGNESS

Someone like Aristotle and Aquinas could easily turn around and say you're committing the Parmenidean fallacy of thinking there is only actual being or nothingness.

For Aristotle, being also exists in potentia. Potentiality is also a mode of being and it is directed towards actuality, and change and time are what happen when potentiality becomes actuality.

Thing is, potentiality is still being, just a lesser form of being. It's not solving the primordial existential question of why there is something rather than nothing, since potentiality is something, no matter how far it is from actuality.

What you need is something that can cross the infinite divide between literal non-being and actuality (and all the potentia in between).

For theists, that is God, since the divide between potential and actual needs a causal power proportional to the size of that divide.

Nothing is the reduction of everything from everything, only then would you have nothing. To claim that things ever were a state of nothing, or that things begin from nothing, requires justification for that point. How do you know that there wasn't something before the beginning of time? It's my guess that in times before the beginning, was something strange, without form, that much like OP recommends, evolved through the potential for something more to come.

Aristotle took recourse to a distinction between the eternal and the "temporary" to arrange his cosmology:

Now there are two meanings of “cause,” one being that which, as we say, results in the beginning of motion, and the other the material cause. It is the latter kind with which we have to deal here; for with cause in the former sense we have dealt in our discussion of Motion, when we said that there is something which remains immovable through all time and something which is always in motion. To come to a decision about the first of these, the immovable original source, is the task of the other and prior branch of philosophy, while, regarding that which moves all other things by its own continuous motion, we shall have to explain later which of the individual causes is of this kind. For the moment let us deal with the cause which is placed in the class of matter, owing to which passing-away and coming-to-be never fail to occur in nature; for perhaps this may be cleared up and it may become evident at the same time what we ought to say about the problem which arose just now, namely, about unqualified passing-away and coming-to-be. — Aristotle, Coming to be and Passing away, 318a

The arguments made against Parmenides in that work do not subtract from the transition of something from "nothing" that happens with actual beings but puts those events into a larger context. Potentiality is not a feature of eternal beings.