As we know energy can not be created or destroyed, but simply re-used. So one wonders how it could possibly be that energy itself even exists at all. it's really quite the puzzle.. — Albert Keirkenhaur
The Big Bang was apparently a singularity - a planck-length point of existence that contained anything and everything that could have ever became. — Albert Keirkenhaur
How is it that matter and space itself exist when the absence of anything could have more than easily sufficed? — Albert Keirkenhaur
Personally I think that the only necessary constraint is the complete lack of necessary constraints, i.e. radical contingency, and an evolution of systems-within-constraints allows the emergence of stability. — darthbarracuda
In regard to db's and PN's belief in "radical contingency" would this mean that whether anything exists at all is also radically contingent? In any case nothing is not really nothing, right? It is not the complete absence we usually try to imagine, but rather the absence of anything we could know about; even though we try to grasp it by referring to it as "quantum foam" or whatever. — John
]The logic that seems to govern the formation of the elements, and the combination of elements to form compounds, seems to be very strictly invariant. Can we conceive any systematic way in which reality might have been totally different, with a whole range of totally different elements, and hence compounds?
Perhaps there might have been no gravity, and therefore no formation of stars and planets, solar systems and galaxies; meaning that no elements (at least beyond hydrogen?) would have formed either. But to reiterate the question, given that we imagine that gravity would exist in all possible worlds; is it actually possible that the elements might have different? — John
it's really quite the puzzle. — "Albert
Quantum theory says at the Planck scale, these two things are at unity in some way that adds up to the most radical kind of uncertainty about anything existing. — Apokrisis
Lemaître was determined to discourage the Pope from making proclamations about cosmology, partly to halt the embarrassment that was being caused to supporters of the Big Bang, but also to avoid any potential difficulties for the Church. ...Lemaître contacted Daniel O'Connell, director of the Vatican Observatory and the Pope's science advisor, and suggested that together they try to persuade the Pope to keep quiet on cosmology. The Pope was surprisingly compliant and agreed to the request–the Big Bang would no longer be a matter suitable for Papal addresses. ...
It was Lemaître's firm belief that scientific endeavour should stand isolated from the religious realm. With specific regard to his Big Bang theory, he commented: 'As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question.' Lemaître had always been careful to keep his parallel careers in cosmology and theology on separate tracks, in the belief that one led him to a clearer comprehension of the material world, while the other led to a greater understanding of the spiritual realm.... Not surprisingly, he was frustrated and annoyed by the Pope's deliberate mixing of theology and cosmology. One student who saw Lemaître upon his return from hearing the Pope's address to the Academy recalled him 'storming into class...his usual jocularity entirely missing'.
The logic that seems to govern the formation of the elements, and the combination of elements to form compounds, seems to be very strictly invariant. Can we conceive any systematic way in which reality might have been totally different, with a whole range of totally different elements, and hence compounds? — John
In regard to db's and PN's belief in "radical contingency" would this mean that whether anything exists at all is also radically contingent? In any case nothing is not really nothing, right? It is not the complete absence we usually try to imagine, but rather the absence of anything we could know about; even though we try to grasp it by referring to it as "quantum foam" or whatever.
We might wake tomorrow to find "different laws" in place-- nearby masses might start repelling each other; we could find ourselves floating off into space tomorrow morning — TheWillowOfDarkness
If this were the case, that would still not matter much, from my point of view, because such a model would not really describe "reality" in its entirety, but rather physical matter. — Pierre-Normand
To go for radical contingency is to throw most of human discourse in the dustbin; history loses all its sense, because even the past might change. — John
The reason I claimed it would have been much easier for there to have been nothing, is because the very thing you need for any existence of any kind is space. — Albert Keirkenhaur
Thanks for your well thought answer Pierre. I have really only one question regarding what you wrote:the current view of science is that everything real is either matter/ energy or some function of matter/energy. So, if the matter/energy is necessarily combined in the ways it has been (of course with local variations due to asymmetries) to make up the elements, and determinism is really the case, then every single thing and event would then seem to be radically necessary. Of course, if determinism is not the case and causality is ontologically and/or metaphysically, and not merely epistemically, probabilistic then the way everything is would still be necessary, but only within certain parameters. — John
If radical contingency were the case you could have no warrant at all for thinking that you could even know what "passing historically-situated notions" either are or have been. — John
So,if radical contingency were the case this would mean that there are really no laws of nature at all , and it would mean that things just happen to behave the way they seem to for no reason at all. If this were true then the only necessity, as Meillassoux argues in After Finitude would be contingency. But, then we would have no way of knowing how often nature changes its behavior radically. If nature is not necessarily stable at all, then all the words in all the texts from what we think is history might be changing all the time, and our memories might be changing all the time, and even the past itself might change. In that case we could have no warrant to claim anything at all about anything at all; that was the kind of point I was making. I hope this clarifies it. — John
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