It's not just that. Nothing is an imaginary concept. Nothing is actually something - an idea.

What about zero probability (ie. impossibility)? Is impossibility something? Like nothing, impossibility is a concept, not something that exists ontologically, as what is impossible, by definition, cannot exist. — Harry Hindu

Nothing is nothing, absolutely nothing. <Nothing> is the concept of nothing. It is a real concept, not imaginary. The idea of nothing, as idea, is indeed something, but it is the idea of the opposite of something: namely nothing.

Impossibility is not something existing, but the condition that some particular thing cannot be. If nothing at all existed then there would be neither possibility, impossibility nor probability; that is the point.

Using this example, there are far more configurations of god than of not-god, making the existence of god more likely over time. — Harry Hindu

If there are indeed configurations of God possible. Note that I restricted myself to possible universes, whatever they might be.

what I find interesting is ‘the realm of possibility’. It’s a real realm, in that there are real possibilities, but by definition, possible events are not existent, but potentially existent. Something cant move from the impossible to the existent, but events can move from the potential to the actual - it happens all the time. (I think the wave function has something to do with this.)

//so the philosophical question is - what is the ontological status of ‘the potential’ or ‘the possibile’. It’s neither is (1) nor is not (0) - but somewhere in between. That’s what is interesting.

Nothing is nothing, absolutely nothing. <Nothing> is the concept of nothing. It is a real concept, not imaginary. The idea of nothing, as idea, is indeed something, but it is the idea of the opposite of something: namely nothing. — Janus

I didn't mean that concept itself isn't real. Concepts have causal power. Concepts are real and they are something - that I think we can agree. My point is that the concept doesn't correspond to anything real in the world. It's just a concept. We can imagine things that have no corresponding ontological reality to them. I challenge you to point to nothing in the world, like you can point to something. Are you talking about a vacuum?

Impossibility is not something existing, but the condition that some particular thing cannot be. If nothing at all existed then there would be neither possibility, impossibility nor probability; that is the point. — Janus

It's the same point I made on page 2 of this thread - the concept of nothing is something. I'm still waiting on someone to show me that nothing is more than just something as a concept, but as something that exists ontologically as opposed to just epistemologically.

what I find interesting is ‘the realm of possibility’. It’s a real realm, in that there are real possibilities, but by definition, possible events are not existent, but potentially existent — Wayfarer

It is interesting that the web of actuality entails possibility, but then if there is to be any change, how could it be otherwise? I'm wary of referring to it as a "realm of possibility" because that makes it sound platonic. Possibilities are real because they just are the ways in which actuals can change. Possibilities are (for us temporal beings at least) not existent just because they are not actual. An interesting question is whether all real possibilities are actualized; on the presupposition of determinism real possibilities would necessarily be actualized.

//so the philosophical question is - what is the ontological status of ‘the potential’ or ‘the possibile’. It’s neither is (1) nor is not (0) - but somewhere in between. That’s what is interesting. — Wayfarer

I'd say that a possibility or potential is not until it is; when it ceases to be a possibility or potential and becomes an actuality; which leaves the question of whether a present potential or possibility will or will not be fulfilled, and whether it could be a real possibility or potential if it never comes to be. We can of course imagine all kinds of possibilities; anything which is not logically incoherent; but there is a valid distinction between real and merely logical possibilities, I think.

I challenge you to point to nothing in the world, like you can point to something. Are you talking about a vacuum? — Harry Hindu

Of course there could be no nothing in this world, because this world is everywhere something. Even if there could somehow be a totally empty space it would not be nothing, but would be an empty space.

It's the same point I made on page 2 of this thread - the concept of nothing is something. I'm still waiting on someone to show me that nothing is more than just something as a concept, but as something that exists ontologically as opposed to just epistemologically. — Harry Hindu

I don't think anyone has argued that a nothing could "exist ontologically" (not sure what the 'ontologically' is doing here); to argue that would be absurd since anything that exists is something, not nothing. I think you might be attacking a strawman of your own devising.

There's a philosopher of physics, Ruth Kastner, who argues for the reality of Aristotelian 'potentia', based on an insight from Werner Heisenberg's Physics and Philosophy and also ideas by an earlier physicist John G. Cramer. (Note this paper was co-authored with Stuart Kaufmann whom we have discussed recently).

[In this paper], three scientists argue that including “potential” things on the list of “real” things can avoid the counterintuitive conundrums that quantum physics poses. ...At its root, the new idea holds that the common conception of “reality” is too limited. By expanding the definition of reality, the quantum’s mysteries disappear. In particular, “real” should not be restricted to “actual” objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or “potential” realities, that have not yet become “actual.” These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are “ontological” — that is, real components of existence.

“This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of ‘what is real’ to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility,” write Ruth Kastner, Stuart Kauffman and Michael Epperson. ...

Considering potential things to be real is not exactly a new idea, as it was a central aspect of the philosophy of Aristotle, 24 centuries ago. An acorn has the potential to become a tree; a tree has the potential to become a wooden table. Even applying this idea to quantum physics isn’t new. Werner Heisenberg, the quantum pioneer famous for his uncertainty principle, considered his quantum math to describe potential outcomes of measurements of which one would become the actual result. The quantum concept of a “probability wave,” describing the likelihood of different possible outcomes of a measurement, was a quantitative version of Aristotle’s potential, Heisenberg wrote in his well-known 1958 book Physics and Philosophy. “It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.”

Quantum mysteries dissolve if possibilities are realities (bolds added.)

Seems interesting, thanks, I'll look at it.

As I've said above, I consider that there are real possibilities or potentials; I don't see how it could be otherwise. It might even coherently be said that they are actual; actual possibilities and potentials, insofar as they can act to produce change. I think it's fair to say they consist in the actual conditions of entities and environments, but they are not themselves actual entities or environments. So, it might be better to say, not that they exist as potentials and possibilities, but they subsist.

Since real entities and environments are constantly changing (according to their possibilities and potentialities) it is only the temporal thinking that favours the exclusive reality or existence of the present moment (which is problematic since the present moment itself is a kind of dimensionless plane conceptually inserted between past and future) the very separation between actuality and potentiality/possibility may be nothing more than a formal convenience. This would also be so on the eternalist view.

I think much of this is more about different possible ways of talking and usages of terms than anything else.

:up: :ok: Thanks for the video link. Will watch it later

Well, your argument doesn't have any evidence in observation as far as I know. I don't think any scientist have found "something to come out of nothing (vacuum)" even though the probability of something is greater like you said. The only time something came out from nothing is when the Big Bang happen. And we found no evidence of such ever since.
I think Heidegger ask that question with assumption that everything start from nothing. So a better question is "Why is something come out from nothing rather than it keep being nothing?"

I've been peddling the transactional interpretation of QM for a while in the Philosophy of Science forum as a bit of a quantum cure-all for a few metaphysical ills recently.

I'm less taken with this 'quantumland' idea, but I'll need to read more into it. In the transactional interpretation, the wavefunction still evolves in normal spacetime as a retarded wave, it's just that it doesn't become real until a matching advanced wave is sent back from one of the potential final states, lifting it from potential to actual.

It is not the absence of spacetime that makes the pre-handshake state potential as opposed to real, but its complex (i.e. literally, mathematically not real) value. Kastner knows QM and the transactional interpretation very well, so I'm intrigued by how she got to this 'quantumland' idea. I already have her book on the subject, handily.

I think much of this is more about different possible ways of talking and usages of terms than anything else. — Janus

It's not simply 'a way of talking', it's a different conception of the nature of reality. If you admit 'possible existence' as real, then that has ontological ramifications - 'what is real' overflows the bounds of 'what exists'. Put another way, 'existence' is no longer a binary value - either 1 (exists) or 0 (doesn't exist) - but it's a scale of possibility; there are 'degrees of possibility' meaning 'more or less existent'. And all those possibilities also interact. I'm sure Kenosha here will understand the math a lot better than I would, but it seems a philosophically fecund idea to me.

I already have her book on the subject, handily. — Kenosha Kid

I'm thinking it's one philosophy of science book I ought to read. I've also been impressed with Heisenberg's Philosophy and Physics, I think he has considerable philosophical depth.

I don't think any scientist have found "something to come out of nothing (vacuum)" — hans solace

Lawrence Krauss wrote a book on this idea, Universe from Nothing. It was discussed up-thread.

These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are “ontological” — that is, real components of existence. — Wayfarer

This is exactly what I've been grappling with for quite some time. We say that cars and elephants exist but that unicorns and god do not. Isn't that what you would say if the mental world were treated as if not part of this universe? But, the catch is, the mental world, even if only, on occasion, dealing with objects that aren't physically instantiated, is a subset of the universe. What I'm driving at is that just as a car or an elephant is said to exist in the universe, a unicorn or god too exists in the universe. True that one exists in the physical and the other in the mental but both worlds are, at the end of the day, part of the universe.

I'd say that a possibility or potential is not until it is; when it ceases to be a possibility or potential and becomes an actuality — Janus

How do you know it wasn't an actuality all along and only appears to be a potentiality because we are simply ignorant of the actuality in the future. Isnt it strange that actuality only exist in past evenrs and potentiality exists in future events that corresponds to our knowledge of such events?

I don't think anyone has argued that a nothing could "exist ontologically" (not sure what the 'ontologically' is doing here); to argue that would be absurd since anything that exists is something, not nothing. I think you might be attacking a strawman of your own devising. — Janus

Then you haven't read the OP, or the back and forth between us?

In other words, the probability of something is greater than the probability of nothing, and that's why there's something rather than nothing. — TheMadFool

Seems to me that the MadFool is implying that nothing is as real as something, but is the opposite of something and that something can come from nothing.

Seems to me that if nothing is only a concept then nothing, as a concept, came from something as a concept. There is also the concept of opposite, combined with the concept something begats the concept of nothing.

And here you seem to be saying that there is nothing that exists as a concept (epistemological) and as something else (ontological) like a vacuum:

Nothing is nothing, absolutely nothing. <Nothing> is the concept of nothing — Janus

I don't think any scientist have found "something to come out of nothing (vacuum)" — hans solace

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

The something in the question, if that something is claimed to be more than ONE in number, has to be made up of distinct individuals. — TheMadFool

Why are we claiming that there is more than one something? We have one ocean. It has different names for different areas but it is all the same salty piece of water. Why should not the same apply to "something"? If everything is the same something, and simply the counterbalance to nothing, then everything would, in effect, be something and nothing at the same time.

Alternately we could all be part of nothing and dreaming of being something...

It's not simply 'a way of talking', it's a different conception of the nature of reality. If you admit 'possible existence' as real, then that has ontological ramifications - 'what is real' overflows the bounds of 'what exists'. Put another way, 'existence' is no longer a binary value - either 1 (exists) or 0 (doesn't exist) - but it's a scale of possibility; there are 'degrees of possibility' meaning 'more or less existent'. — Wayfarer

Different ways of talking about the nature of things are different conceptions of reality, though. If we want to think about ontology what else can we do but talk about it, whether to others or to ourselves? If we had never learned to talk, do you think we would be able to think about ontology?

I don't find the idea of "degrees of existence" to be intelligible; something either exists or it doesn't. There are different ways of existence, though. So possibility exists, but in a different way than sensible entities do. Possibility is inherent in sensible entities, but its existence is not visible, or available to any of the senses.

It doesn't seem strange to me, but in accordance with how we understand past and future.

Yes a nothing cannot be anything more than a conceptual fiction, otherwise it would not be a nothing, but a something.

Lawrence Krauss wrote a book on this idea, Universe from Nothing. It was discussed up-thread — TheMadFool

I read the review on the book.
Seems like quantum fluctuation is one of the key idea of how universe come into existence from nothing.
Though in my understanding quantum fluctuation is just something 'semi-real' in which particle and antiparticle come in and out of existence and only the effects can be observed. Still, this theory in a way support my argument because that means nothing have a tendency to keep being nothing. No something has really come out from that quantum fluctuation as the particle-antiparticle keep collapsing back to nothingness. If scientist found evidence of 'real' particle created (or observed) out of that nothing without immediately collapsing again, then my argument really fall apart. Something really can come out of nothing.

Anyway after thinking some more on your original thesis, I think there's some hidden assumption there. Your conclusion of P(S) > P(N) assume that the probability of each S is the same as the probability of N.
But, what if the probability of N is 0.99 and the probability of each S is just 0.00001? Maybe the universe is more like a weighted dice, in which the probability of one side of the dice 'face' (for example 3) is a lot higher because there's a weight put inside on the opposite side. For example 3 has 0.8 chance of being on top, and the other number only has 0.04 chance of being on top because of the weight.
Maybe the probability of nothing is a lot higher than the probability of something, even though that something numbered more than one. Or maybe the probability of 'nothing keep being nothing' is enormously high, likewise the probability of 'something keep being something' is also enormously high. Anyway that's quite a huge assumption to make about the nature of matter and until it's cleared I don't think the conclusion holds.

Yes a nothing cannot be anything more than a conceptual fiction, otherwise it would not be a nothing, but a something. — Janus

A conceptual is a something that points to nothing, except for the causal process that created the concept, like I already showed:
<Something> + <Opposite> = <Nothing>

What I'm driving at is that just as a car or an elephant is said to exist in the universe, a unicorn or god too exists in the universe. True that one exists in the physical and the other in the mental but both worlds are, at the end of the day, part of the universe — TheMadFool

I agree. But some would separate the physical universe from its mental counterpart and suggest "universe" is only the physical universe. Same with "objects": physical and mental. In the quantum world things become fuzzier it seems.

<Something> + <Opposite> = <Nothing> — Harry Hindu

I think you've broken new ground here. :roll:

But some would separate the physical universe from its mental counterpart and suggest "universe" is only the physical universe. Same with "objects": physical and mental. — jgill

They would need a good reason to do that. What would be the reason when we know that the physical and mental causally interact? Seems to me that the physical and mental are all part if the same causal universe.