How can a state of nothingness pass down any kind of a complex property like a negative charge of a sub-particle, if nothingness itself is void of any kind of properties. A state of nothingness has no properties. For example, there appears to be no rational reason to say nothingness can randomly produce that negative charge of a sub-particle, because then we will ask, what laws determined that negative charge and why wasn’t it another quantity? — telex

It doesn't get to the heart of your question, but just to clarify that no thing is created like this. Whatever the properties of the perhaps wrongly-monikered 'nothing' is, it does obey conservation laws. You cannot go from nothing to a single electron; rather, electrons and positrons are created in pairs. And in order to create anything with energy, you need to put energy in. The Big Bang, for instance, was an extremely energetic event. Where that energy came from is the biggest mystery in science. Anything that changes obeys such laws.

How can a state of somethingness have always existed? Somethingness implies some kind of a determined complexity. — telex

Whereas one of the biggest answers we've had in science is that complexity needs no teleology.

Yes here, I am using a sub-particle in this kind of an example, but as I mentioned, something else could be used as a better substitute. Yes, as you say in empiricism no thing is created like this, however, I'm making a more abstract argument in this sense.

Yes in science, that seems to be the case that there is a teleological approach. But here we are putting teleology aside, for philosophical inquiries.

I am using a sub-particle in this kind of an example, but as I mentioned, something else could be used as a better substitute. — telex

But what? If there has never been a thing created out of nothing, what possible substitute could there be?

Yes in science, that seems to be the case that there is a need for teleology. But here we are putting teleology aside, for philosophical inquiries. — telex

Do you have any non-religious problem with the idea that there was always been something, and that that something was no intended?

EDIT (premature ejaculation)

For example, a sub-particle with a certain positive charge will be a cause for concern as to how it has always existed with that numerical positive charge. Why hasn’t it always existed with another numerical positive charge. What laws determined that positive charge? — telex

This is the greatest mystery, and as far as I know, no one has an answer to it better than Multiverse theory.

In this universe, a charge can be positive or negative (or neutral, i.e. not a charge). What is the property of this universe such that that is the case? Could it have been different in the past? Might it be different in the future? Does it depend on what's in the universe? If no charges had ever been formed, would the universe still have the property of only allowing +e and -e as charges? Is this property a property of all universes, or just this one? Are there universes which allow any value of charge? Are there universes in which charge is impossible?

All these relate the question in the OP. Maybe the only solution is a multiverse in which everything is possible. But even that will probably have fundamental laws, such as: it cannot yield a universe with properties but no conservation laws.

But what? If there has never been a thing created out of nothing, what possible substitute could there be? — Kenosha Kid

I was thinking that maybe one of the readers, if they wanted to, could make a suggestion.

Do you have any non-religious problem with the idea that there was always been something, and that that something was no intended? — Kenosha Kid

In this discussion I am making the case that you could say that "nothing" is actually "something," and therefore, in this sense something has always been without any intention. However, in another sense, I am saying that this nothing, could still be interpreted by some as nothing. And therefore, some may still say, that nothing can produce something (Is this trying to have it's cake and eat it too? maybe someone will say that)

The non-religious problem is the second problem with a pre-face: "something from something" (right at the very beginning) ... I guess I wouldn't say I have a problem with it like I'm angry at it, but it is a paradoxical concern to me :)

:up: I think I misinterpreted your use of "determined". I gather you mean just causally determined, e.g. the charge is + because it has always been +.

That space, time and causality, esp. conservation laws, exist suggests that there is no true "nothing" possible in this universe, and never has been. It is likely that you cannot have time without energy and vice versa, and you cannot have space without momentum and vice versa. To put it another way, nothing can be transferred in space or time without having somewhere to go, and there can be nowhere or no-when to go unless something can transfer there. Things existing and there being some place and time to exist in are co-dependents.

Given that time began with something, and something began at the start of time, the second option -- something came from something -- seems the most accurate to me, but given that this something has properties, the origins of those properties are still mysterious.

Thanks! I appreciate your comment. I must nonetheless leave room for "something from nothing" argument. It is an argument brought up not only here but philosophy in general.

Let's toss the set of null sets into the pot, shall we?

Let's toss the set of null sets into the pot, shall we? — Torus34

Null set - would that mean that the state of nothingness has a measure of zero? Or absolute zero?

What would that imply about ad infinitum? In this case, zero is not infinity. So nothingness can't be infinite, if it's a null set or a zero. In that case, the argument may fall apart :)

Could we say negative infinity?

Or perhaps could we say that while we can toss a null set into the pot ... when we conceive nothingness, there appears to be an ad infinitum to it nonetheless. Or we can say that maybe zero is zero, however, does nothing = zero and zero = nothing. Maybe there's more here?

Or maybe I misunderstood your comment.

Null set - would that mean that the state of nothingness has a measure of zero? Or absolute zero?

What would that imply about ad infinitum? In this case, zero is not infinity. So nothingness can't be infinite, if it's a null set or a zero. In that case, the argument may fall apart :)

Could we say negative infinity?

Or perhaps could we say that while we can toss a null set into the pot ... when we conceive nothingness, there appears to be an ad infinitum to it nonetheless. Or we can say that maybe zero is zero, however, does nothing = zero and zero = nothing. Maybe there's more here?

Or maybe I misunderstood your comment. — telex

Hi.

The set of horses would contain all horses. The set of ice cream cones would contain all ice cream cones. A null set would be an empty set, containing nothing. It's just a concept. The set of all null sets, though, could be argued to be a real concept. Thus, nothing becoming something, even if it is nothing* more than a concept.

If, however, you are talking about nothing becoming something -- specifically an object as opposed to a concept, that's a horse of another color.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.

* Play on words intended.

If, however, you are talking about nothing becoming something -- specifically an object as opposed to a concept, that's a horse of another color. — Torus34

Hello. Thanks!

Ok I think I see what you're saying.

Based on the argument I presented, that would depend on our definition of nothing.

Ok I think I see what you're saying.

Based on the argument I presented, that would depend on our definition of nothing. — telex

More than one noted philosopher in the past has dealt with the concept of nothing. One, if I recall correctly, considered it of great importance in mathematics, where the concept of nothing, zero, as the start of natural numbers resides. You might find the book, A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy by Mr. Stephen Schwartz of interest.

Regards.

More than one noted philosopher in the past has dealt with the concept of nothing. One, if I recall correctly, considered it of great importance in mathematics, where the concept of nothing, zero, as the start of natural numbers resides. You might find the book, A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy by Mr. Stephen Schwartz of interest. — Torus34

Definitely. I will take a look. Thanks!

Rather than something from nothing, or something from something, the third option is something from everything. The Universe could have emerged as a generalised constraint on a state of "everythingness".

Many ancient cosmologies found this an obvious thought. First there was a formless chaos. Then it was "parted" in a series of symmetry breakings that brought about a state of organised materiality.

And that would fit a modern physics-informed view too.

So you imagine a nothingness as an empty void. But a void already has a concrete spacetime structure. It is already a highly ordered state of being in that it is already limited to just three spatial directions and is granted some meaningful sense of "time passing".

Quantum theory says a spacetime void is also already imbued with intrinsic energy. At a minimum, it is a sizzle of photons and other virtual particles. It has an information content as scaled by the Planck constants.

Your options thus become either imagining a state of nothing that is beyond any notions of spacetime extent and quantum content, or alternatively, a state of everythingness that is even less than the structured nothingness that is a quantum spacetime void.

A void with three spatial directions is a highly singular and constrained kind of space. Especially if you allow these directions to extend infinitely. And you imagine something like the speed of light exists to make time a thing in this 3D realm (that is, it would take time to get from A to B rather than no time to connect any two points in this void).

So subtract away those constraints to get a version of this void that is now "less than nothing". Allow there to be an infinity of dimensions - a space that isn't really any kind of space as anything that happens is going off in its own disconnected direction. And so there also isn't any kind of time or coherent restrictions on energetic events. All you have is a state of unbounded fluctuation. Any action happening in any direction with no constraint and thus no coherence or developing history.

This "everythingness" of fluctuations exists beyond any proper notion of spacetime or coherent content. And it would be a state of the highest symmetry. It would look the same no matter how you imagined cutting across it. And as a state of symmetry, we can imagine it being broken - starting to be organised in ways that limit its capacity for disorder. It could develop a "flow" that has a particular reduced spatiotemporal structure.

So we know a lot about the birth of our actual Cosmos - the one with a highly reduced number of dimensions and very strict conservation bounds around its energy or information content. And we can see it is indeed an entropic flow that begins with the Planckscale symmetry breaking of the Big Bang.

There are good arguments for why three spatial dimensions are thus significant as that is the only dimensional arrangement in which a powerlaw cooling and expansion towards a Heat Death void could work

Four spatial dimensions would dilute too fast. Two spatial dimensions would dilute too slow.

A 3D universe is the Goldilocks arrangement that would out-compete all the alternatives if the Big Bang is regarded as some kind of Cosmic evolutionary story where the original everythingness state would have tried every possible way to get organised and our particular Universe is the arrangement that emerged as being the most optimal.

So the argument is that we know something exists - our Universe. We even know a heck of a lot about that Universe in terms of its structure - the way it is indeed a dimensionally organised flow that developed through a succession of symmetry breakings or phase transitions.

And then positing that all this flow could have arisen out of actually nothing makes no sense. We can't even imagine that. A flow can begin somewhere. But it would logically begin from some state of whatever is the opposite of a lack of flow.

Then something from something isn't really an explanation. It is just setting up an infinite regress.

In talking about "the nothing that is a bare void", that is an attempt to argue backwards from our complex Universe full of structured stuff towards the maximal simplicity of a naked empty spacetime. Yet quantum laws forbid any coherent spacetime from being actually empty of stuff. And a void already limited to a 3D space and a measurable passage of time seems suspiciously well set up for hosting a cooling~expanding entropic flow. That is a void which is a very definite kind of something.

So we can keep on going and arrive at a something out of everythingness story. The origin of our Universe would be the beginnings of a super-organised flow - the Big Bang - in being the birth of a universalised state of constraint. So therefore what it arose from was the opposite thing of a least constrained state of being. However we might imagine that.

A state of unbounded fluctuation – of infinite action in infinite directions, and thus the least possible coherent structure – becomes how we could envisage things "before" the Big Bang.

If you have chaos, then order is already an inherent possibility as its "other". And because we do indeed have order - we know all about how that is manifested in our Universe - then it seems well justified to imagine the "other" to that order as a matching ultimate lack of it. A formless chaos.

quantum laws forbid any coherent spacetime from being actually empty of stuff. — apokrisis

Thank you for your lengthy and well thought out comment. I will have to read through your post multiple times, as there is lots of information there.

What I can say so far. I guess on the empirical view regarding quantum mechanics you could mention a book :) -> "A Universe from Nothing" by Lawrence M. Krauss (a theoretical physicist). (It's been a very long time since I've looked at it).

However, I'm sure that in the book Lawrence does not simply discuss a completely empty void, but mentions quantum fields and virtual particles constantly popping in and out of existence.

Finally, I can say that this is nonetheless an empirical argument. It's still a good argument. Although here, we could say that an empirical argument is going against a a priori point of view. So, maybe they don't necessarily clash head on :) (i guess i do use some empirical examples, like a sub-particle, etc .. )

However, I'm sure that in the book Lawrence does not simply discuss a completely empty void, but mentions quantum fields and virtual particles constantly popping in and out of existence. — telex

Exactly. If you wind back quantum theory all the way back to the beginning, you still arrive at something rather than nothing. Indeed you arrive at the everythingness of the most indeterminate state imaginable.

The problem with Krauss is rhetorical. He is selling this as something out of nothing. But it is something as the result of quantum constraint - a universal wavefunction - applied to unbounded quantum possibility.

So it is about how you tell the story.

Do you emphasise the quantum surprise that even an empty spacetime void can fluctuate - produce virtual particle pairs without violating the classical laws of energy conservation?

Or do you instead emphasise the fact that this empty spacetime void is what eventually emerged from the Planckscale Big Bang as a classical suppression of quantum fluctuations? Our Universe is a definite structured something because its thermal flow has decohered all that inherent quantum uncertainty. The radically indeterminate has become the overwhelmingly determinate in terms of the physics.

The reality we know is a place where quantum "weirdness" is both fundamental and now extremely constrained. The void - as an empty and infinite expanse of spacetime - is what we are asymptotically approaching as our Universe trends towards its Heat Death. And we are now only 2.7 degrees K away from hitting that target.

(i guess i do use some empirical examples, like a sub-particle, etc .. ) — telex

Note that all the particles of the Standard Model reflect the constraints imposed by the mathematics of symmetry. So we know from the structure of what exists that there are "particles" due to the fact that the expression of an interaction is already severely limited in the form it can take.

Again, the idea is an old one. Take Greek atomism and the thoughts it had about the Platonic solids.



If you apply a general constraint on geometry - like make every possible 3D solid with regular faces - then it turns out that there are very few actual regular solids.

So again, the same logic. Start by allowing anything to be the case. Then demand that unbounded possibility "flow" towards its most ordered or constrained state of being. That selection principle will result in something crystalising out of everything.

Do you emphasise the quantum surprise that even an empty spacetime void can fluctuate - produce virtual particle pairs without violating the classical laws of energy conservation?

Or do you instead emphasise the fact that this empty spacetime void is what eventually emerged from the Planckscale Big Bang as a classical suppression of quantum fluctuations? Our Universe is a definite structured something because its thermal flow has decohered all that inherent quantum uncertainty. The radically indeterminate has become the overwhelmingly determinate in terms of the physics. — apokrisis

I'm afraid I cannot emphasize any of these things in relation to my argument, as they are once more grounded in empiricism. However, aside from that, I do like the quantum surprise - that even an empty spacetime void can fluctuate and produce virtual particles.

However I could say that once again, we could insert doubt here. After the fluctuation, can we most certainly be sure that the next step are a pair of virtual particles? Perhaps there is one step or a million steps that we are missing between the fluctuation and emergence of virtual particles. And these steps are not "caught" by scientific instruments. Or maybe not. I have no experience with such instruments. :)

Now that I think about your post more. :chin: I have another comment ...

Rather than something from nothing, or something from something, the third option is something from everything — apokrisis

Perhaps this is already the case from OP. If nothingness is ad infinitum (infinite simple space fabric), from which everything is "molded" into - an ordered state (or a certain state), then something from everything equates to something from ad infinitum nothing. As in this sense, this ad infinitum nothing is everything.

If nothingness is ad infinitum (infinite simple space fabric), from which everything is "molded" into - an ordered state (or a certain state), then something from everything equates to something from ad infinitum nothing. As in this sense, this ad infinitum nothing is everything. — telex

My argument is that we have to start from where we are as the thing we are certain about.

So if we are certain that there is no such thing as an empty spacetime of any orderly extent - because quantum theory actually works as our best description of nature - then you don't have a very good justification for trying to use that concept as your start point.

Now an infinite empty 3D space was a very natural kind of concept for 1600s classical mechanics. The physics of Newton, Descartes, etc. That was the best fundamental description of nature available at the time and so got rather lodged in the popular imagination.

But from the vantage point of 2020, the idea of an "infinite simple space fabric" has long fallen out of favour. It is anachronistic. Any serious metaphysics would start from the physics of today.

So it is still all speculation. But it is grounded in the most up to date way of thinking.

My argument is that we have to start from where we are as the thing we are certain about.

So if we are certain that there is no such thing as an empty spacetime of any orderly extent - because quantum theory actually works as our best description of nature — apokrisis

Any serious metaphysics would start from the physics of today. — apokrisis

I guess on one hand you could say this - there was a New York times article in 2019 titled: "Even Physicists Don't Understand Quantum Mechanics." [Worse they don't seem to want to understand it]

But again all of this grounded in empiricism. Perhaps again a priori reasoning is, in my opinion, the better justification vs. empiricism based in quantum mechanics. We can employ much doubt about quantum mechanics and in a sense not be certain about it. (i.e. doubt, skepticism, problems in empiricism)

However, I definitely believe your opinion about quantum mechanics is worthwhile to consider.

Any serious metaphysics would start from the physics of today. — apokrisis

:up: very much
At the least, a 21st Century metaphysics should not be in ignorance or violation of recent science.

[@Moderator, please remove this, thank you.]

I guess on one hand you could say this - there was a New York times article in 2019 titled: "Even Physicists Don't Understand Quantum Mechanics." [Worse they don't seem to want to understand it] — telex

Maybe what folk mean here is that quantum theory can't be understood in classical terms? There is no point banging your head against that particular wall.

Instead you can move on to more interesting questions like what does metaphysics look like once you give up on locality as a fundamental property of reality and start treating it as an emergent limit?

But again all of this grounded in empiricism. Perhaps again a priori reasoning is, in my opinion, the better justification vs. empiricism based in quantum mechanics. — telex

But I've pointed out that your a priori reasoning is a straight reflection of 1600s empiricism.

Newton and others invented this notion of space and time as abstract dimensions, divorced from the material actions taken place within the stage that created. So its your 1600s empiricism against my 2020 empiricism.

And what do you really mean by a priori reasoning as a contrast?

I think it is fairly easy to show that the history of metaphysics is based on dialectical reasoning. We deduce our way to the complementary limits of what is possible.

So if you say everything is discrete and atomistic, I say everything is continuous and a single holistic flow. Likewise, every possible distinction becomes well-formed to the degree it gets expressed with the logical precision of a dichotomy - a definition in terms of the mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive.

Dialectical reasoning is the engine of metaphysics. It has generated all the "unities of opposites" such as discrete vs continuous, stasis vs flux, one vs many, local vs global, chance vs necessity, space vs time, being vs becoming, atom vs void, order vs chaos, matter vs form, signal vs noise, and so on and so forth.

That is why quantum mechanics seems so well founded in its anti-classicalism. It no longer tries to fight the inherently complementary nature of Being. It mathematically embraces complementarity as its principle.

Classically-mind folk are so used to thinking that reality must be actually divided into these polar oppositions. Either the Universe is fundamentally grainy - as quantum mechanics supposedly tells us - or it is fundamentally continuous, in the fashion of Newtonian dimensionalism.

But quantum theory has come along and said, hey, nature is dialectical. Any pair of extremes we can imagine logically are just two effective limits on what can be the case.

Particles can be waves and waves can be particles. One is just the most localised view. The other the least localised one. And here's the maths that lets you shift smoothly between the two.

That should be a significant fact. Quantum theory is the maths that makes sense of a dialectical metaphysics.

Classical physics broke things apart in reductionist fashion. Like a kid pulling apart a clock, bits were left spread out all over the floor.

It was a necessary first step. Then physics started putting itself back together again. The Newtonian picture - the one that presumed space to be an infinite, perfectly flat and regular, expanse - became something that actually had a relativistic, and then quantum, holism.

With Newton, space and time were seen as two extremes of the one thing. With Einstein, spacetime and energy density were seen as also two halves of the one geometrodynamic whole - a gravitationally shaped curvature. A major reconnecting step with a mathematical basis.

And when quantum gravity (QG) theory next unites general relativity and quantum field theory, then all the complementary aspects of nature will be smoothly joined by the one mathematical framework. We will have a "theory of everything" as they like to say.

So there is a big empirical project going on here. But it is resolving a dialectical metaphysical conception of nature. It is all about symmetries and symmetry-breakings. It is all about establishing a unity of opposites in a way that is mathematically water-tight and answers to the available evidence.

And if we want to say anything about the big question - why something instead of nothing/why anything at all? - this is why a theory of quantum gravity is our base camp for mounting that particular philosophical expedition.

If you click on the three dots at the bottom of your post, you should find a pencil edit icon that let's you change stuff yourself. :ok:

Maybe what folk mean here is that quantum theory can't be understood in classical terms? There is no point banging your head against that particular wall. — apokrisis

I'm not sure if your summary of the article is accurate.

This is something direct from that NY Times article titled "Even Physicists Don't Understand Quantum Mechanics." [Worse they don't seem to want to understand it]:

"But what is the wave function? Is it a complete and comprehensive representation of the world? Or do we need additional physical quantities to fully capture reality, as Albert Einstein and others suspected? Or does the wave function have no direct connection with reality at all, merely characterizing our personal ignorance about what we will eventually measure in our experiments?

Until physicists definitively answer these questions, they can’t really be said to understand quantum mechanics ... few modern physics departments have researchers working to understand the foundations of quantum theory. On the contrary, students who demonstrate an interest in the topic are gently but firmly — maybe not so gently — steered away, sometimes with an admonishment to “Shut up and calculate!” Professors who become interested might see their grant money drying up, as their colleagues bemoan that they have lost interest in serious work."

But I've pointed out that your a priori reasoning is a straight reflection of 1600s empiricism. — apokrisis

I believe I've used empirical examples, but have maintained a priori reasoning.

It seems like what you're saying is that since my argument is grounded in a priori but quantum mechanics is grounded in empiricism, you are attempting to make my argument into an empiricist argument, so that you are able to argue with it head on.

I don't believe you need to do this. I think you can state your pro-argument for quantum mechanics, however, I must once again mention that this discussion is for a priori. They are not the same arguments.

However, I can still consider your argument for quantum mechanics as worthwhile.

The article also concedes....
— telex

The situation might be changing, albeit gradually. The current generation of philosophers of physics takes quantum mechanics very seriously, and they have done crucially important work in bringing conceptual clarity to the field. Empirically minded physicists have realized that the phenomenon of measurement can be directly probed by sufficiently subtle experiments. And the advance of technology has brought questions about quantum computers and quantum information to the forefront of the field. Together, these trends might make it once again respectable to think about the foundations of quantum theory, as it briefly was in Einstein and Bohr’s day.

There is of course a central unresolved tension in quantum theory - the issue of wavefunction collapse. The maths works beautifully right up until the point that it suddenly doesn't. And that results in some extravagant metaphysics, like the Many Worlds Interpretation.

If you are trying to teach students, it probably does seem good policy to tell them to shut up and first learn how to calculate.

But I don't see much evidence that physicists actually stopped trying to crack the riddle. The attitude Carroll cites certainly exists. But that itself is a metaphysical position - the epistemic response known as positivism. The contraption works, so you don't need to understand it. :grin:

It seems like what you're saying is that since my argument is grounded in a priori but quantum mechanics is grounded in empiricism, you are attempting to make my argument into an empiricist argument, so that you are able to argue with it head on. — telex

Nope. What you are denying is that you are expressing a Newtonian era conception of nothingness when you speak of it as a void with no properties - and yet still "a void".

Let’s start with the simplest thing we possibly can. Absolute Nothingness. What can you see when you think of nothingness? Nothing. Black. An infinite non-ending void. If there was an end to this black void, would that imply some kind of a boundary? And isn’t a ‘boundary’ something? — telex

So this posits an unbounded dimensionality as the simplest possible thing. It is empty of particles, but to be empty requires that it is a space. And probably a space of three dimensions - an empty volume. You didn't specify, but the absent particles imply this. One presumes you mean little located point objects with 6 degrees of freedom - three directions of translation, plus three directions of spin.

Even in mentioning particles as an intelligible concept, you are giving necessary structure to your void.

That is what I mean about dichotomies. That is why I say we need to step up the a priori metaphysical reasoning by realising what we are presuming and then finding a way to dispose of both particles and their embedding void in some principled way.

Perhaps, we can say that Nothingness has at least one property of being infinite. — telex

Infinite in just its extent? Are you thinking of Nothingness as a single direction - an endless line? Or did you really have in mind an unbound volume - an infinite 3D Euclidean space?

A single direction would have some kind of ultimate simplicity I guess. But why one direction rather than no direction? And if one direction, why not any number of directions? Why not an infinity of directions. Let's start thinking what that looks like.

And if we have a willingness to talk about unbounded in a directional sense, why not unbounded in an energetic sense? Why not an infinity of fluctuations? What might that look like as the other aspect of an unbounded dimensionality.

So you can see I am taking a perfectly "a priori reasoned" approach here. I say if you are arguing a principle, you will want to take it to its most general extreme. If one direction, then why not any number? If a direction, then why not an action, and thus also any number of actions?

So you can see I am taking a perfectly "a priori reasoned" approach here. I say if you are arguing a principle, you will want to take it to its most general extreme. If one direction, then why not any number? If a direction, then why not an action, and thus also any number of actions? — apokrisis

I don't believe you are arguing for a perfect a priori reasoning. Sure, you can say it goes in one line. But that's again your interpretation of this.

And again, the quote you presented says "Empirically minded physicists." Quantum physics is an empiricist point of view. This is a a priori argument. The argument for quantum mechanics does not clash head on with this argument.

What you are denying is that you are expressing a Newtonian era conception of nothingness — apokrisis

There can be similarities, however, this argument is for a priori. Your arugment is for empiricism.

Sure, you can say it goes in one line. But that's again your interpretation of this. — telex

Well what are you giving as the proper interpretation of what you had in mind?

Quantum physics is an empiricist point of view. This is a a priori argument. — telex

What's your argument for a priori reasoning being exempt from empirical content? I guess you may be claiming Kant as your model. But clearly I'm not persuaded by that kind of idealist manoeuvre here.

I mean famously Kant claimed that space could only be imagined as Euclidean - then whoops, along came non-Euclidean space.

There can be similarities, however, this argument is for a priori. Your arugment is for empiricism. — telex

So you keep repeating. Now you need to lay out the argument why this makes any difference.

My own argument is pragmatic. So it explicitly fixes the hole in Kantian epistemology. Reason and evidence are the two halves of the one larger whole. Human thought goes nowhere unless it ties the two together.

That again is why I talk about the value of revisiting the "why anything?" question from the latest available vantage point. We have new ways of making our ideas more precise.

Having been caught out once in a big way with presumptions about the "naturalness" of Euclidean geometry, we can see how to avoid such clangers again.

Human thought goes nowhere unless it ties the two together. — apokrisis

I don't believe we need to tie anything together. This is very simple. You present empiricism. And my argument is for a priori.