there is an inherent element of unpredictability at the most basic strata of nature. — Wayfarer

At the lowest strata of the bedrock of All, where the bucks stops, we can deduce total randomness, given that there can't be any certain direction supplied to it at its most basic level. The same if it always was (eternal). The same if it somehow had a beginning for no reason.

In a way science became its own atheistic religion. People believe in science just like people believed in gods. — Elnathan

No, the religious wish and hope that there is a God, unshown, which is called 'faith'; then, sadly, misleadingly preach and teach as if 'God is true'; not honest.

People trust in science that works and is shown as proven; honest.

The fixed, determined, unfree will grants us consistency (without it, then what?).

In reference to fatalism people still have desires to do and experience things and your choices still matter in a practical sense. — Captain Homicide

Yes, it seems that experiencing is the main benefit of being alive.

Our learning and decision-making processes are shaped by external influences and do not stem from a truly autonomous free will. — Echogem222

Yes, the will is fixed to what the will has amounted to up to the moment. There cannot be a "truly autonomous free will" such as in not using the will, meaning that one is somehow a first cause, so that kind of 'free' is impossible.

The 'free' in free will needs to be defined. I gave one case of free versus fixed, but of course one cannot be free of the will, so that 'free' doesn't mean anything but to help emphasize the robot shock of the will being fixed to influences, etc..

Others might define 'free' as when not being coerced.

The court system's 'free' is as one being held responsible versus being not sane or being extremely emotional as temporarily not sane, and thus not responsible.

The religious might mean 'free' as that matching God's will.

Using 'free' to merely mean that the will is able to operate is trivial, with the 'free' not meaning anything.

Other words that want to take on a life of their own apart from their definition are 'infinite', as an amount or a number (the infinite never completes; one cannot have it) or 'Nothing' (an 'it' trying to be an it).

'No free will' seems to sound like some sort of a bad thing, on the surface, as if there was an alternative, such to be had by adding 'free' to it to make it magic.

The just plain will (with no adjective needed) is dynamic in time and so it can change, yet its still robotic and deterministic, but granting us consistency.

Your intro post is long winded.

In the same sense, we could all have been created by something that we have no awareness of, which would be nothing to us, therefore, nothing creating everything is reasonable given that we currently lack the means to say otherwise using logical reasoning. — Echogem222

You are overloading the word 'nothing' to also mean 'having no understanding, having no awareness of', so it is that you are saying it is reasonable that we don't know how we became. A person blind in a primary color could use some wave frequency instrument to learn more about a color not registering.

As an aside, we do know how we and all the other temporaries were created, via instruments and math, yet it's true that we can't be aware of noumena directly nor if there is more that we can't get at in any way, say, something that can't exchange energy, which, of course thus has no effect whatsoever.

How can something that seems to be nothing have properties? — Echogem222

The hole is not 'nothing'; there is no paradox; it has quantum field. 'Nothing' cannot have properties, much less be. Your other "sure's" don't apply. In this thread's terminology, "nothing" is also standing in for not understanding, yet I understand All.

By that reasoning, you're saying you understand everything already, preventing what you once didn't understand being equal to nothing, becoming something you now do understand. With that, there would be no gaps in your reasoning, but to make such a claim requires a lot of evidence to back it up. — Echogem222

Yes, indeed, I understood Everything when science confirmed my First Philosophy, but this thread is about holes (which cannot be, because 'nothing' cannot have existence), unless you want to broaden it to the understanding of the Eternal/Permanent Basis of All and it's temporaries, and on up to life now and into the future.

Things don't pop up for no reason, in fact, that is an assertion that implies a cause(in this case, 'no reason'). Given this, it is wiser to assert that the universe came into existence by some manifestation in, per se, a multiverse, than it is to park randomly on the conjecture it just popped up for no reason. — Barkon

I would surmise that the universe's bang had a cause because, at least, it was able to happen - and that ableness is a something, not a 'nothing'.

As for the ultimate basis of All, it would have to be causeless because Existence has no opposite, it thus having to be unmakeable and unbreakable, it necessarily having no parts and thus being continuous, and eternal.

By that reasoning you are saying that a circle is a square at the same time because they're both shapes. In other words, since they're both similar to each other, they must be the same thing. — Echogem222

No, not said. 'Nothing' has no existence and 'it' cannot even be meant.

There cannot be spacers or holes of 'Nothing' in the Permanent or in its rearrangements into temporaries; all is continuous field.

This scenario seems to indicate a problem with the concept of an infinite-sided die, possibly even suggesting that such a die cannot exist. — keystone

"Infinite" is not a number as an amount of sides but is that which cannot be gotten to since it never completes, but to play along, the die is ever becoming more of a higher and higher resolution smoother sphere.

And on and on and hosanna — schopenhauer1

Unto the end… (I've been making musicals lately)

whether Nirvāṇa is something that can really be obtained is an open question. — Wayfarer

Nirvana is the realization of impermanence, no absolutes, and emptiness through and through.

We still wonder who is doing the "obtaining" or the realization.

What is the nature of an illusion ? — Sirius

why do you claim it is unethical to state 'God is true' — javi2541997

More so when they teach/preach it to others.

Is every category of philosophy a type of metaphysics? — ucarr

Philosophy proposes a truth based on the logic of reasoning for science to dispose of or confirm.

religious faith and groups usually tend to make me wonder about a lot of questions rather than give me answers.
This makes me struggle to understand religion... — javi2541997

There is not much to understand but that religious 'faith' is a wish or a hope that 'God' exists and the rest is the dishonor of acting, saying, and preaching as if 'God' exists, and then layering more 'truths' upon unto many myth-takes.

Their ingrained beliefs the priests’ duly preach,
As if notions were truth and fact to teach.
Oh, cleric, repent; at least say, ‘Have faith’;
Since, of unknowns ne’er shown none can e’er reach.

To be honest a cleric or a believer might ever only refer to the maybe/perhaps/hoped for 'God' instead of the misleading/unethical 'God is true' proclamation.

Since philosophy is abour truth, it looks like it has no links to science and explanations. — Agent Smith

Who needs a proof when one has found a truth?

Not that science can't confirm to satisfy our curiosity for a proof.

it can't explain Everything — Tate

That which is by necessity causeless and eternal has no alternative but to be; no option; no opposite.

I then conclude that ‘something’ has always existed and has done so eternally.

Case closed ? — Deus

Yes, for there is no "come from" for the Eternal.

One can go on to conclude that the temporaries produced by the Permanent Eternal have to be its rearrangements, such as the elementary 'particles' that are directly the quanta of fields.

We can't tell the universe what to do, the universe tells us what to do, and it gets us to do what it wants by making us think it is our "freewill". What we call "freewill" is really the will of the universe itself, and even the universe itself doesn't have freewill it's just "will". — punos

Good post.

Since outputs always have inputs, so true,
Then what, we wonder, should we try to do?
It’s the other way around, oh, brain stew,
For cause, time, and the universe do you!

I found the link:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/19364/1/Physics-Time%20and%20Qualia%20-%20Smolin-Verde-7-24-2021-FINAL.pdf

excerpts:

We must then make a distinction between events which generate a constant statistical distribution of outcomes, whose causal future is at least on a statistical level, a consequence of their causal past, and those which are not governed by any evolution law, deterministic or stochastic. We will call the first kind, precedented or habitual events; the latter unprecedented or “free” events.

How does the universe choose the outcomes of preparations which have no or few precedents? We propose that the novel states or events are the physical correlates of conscious events. At these moments, the universe has perhaps some degree of freedom to choose what happens next. It is these moments of freedom which make up conscious experience.

Those unprecedented moments are presumably common near the universe's origin, and spread throughout the universe. As the universe ages, it takes a higher degree of complexity for a state to be unprecedented. But we can wonder whether complex biomolecules might serve as a reservoir of novel states. Might the biosphere and the brain have evolved, to make use of the special properties of novel states, including the freedom present at those moments to choose a small part of the future. It is not difficult to see that this access to novel states might give an animal a selective advantage.

Consciousness is connected with - in fact, created by - the resolution of indefinite states. This ties qualia tightly to quantum theory – especially when that is looked at with the perspective of a world created by an active time. This implies a heightened sensitivity to novelties. The ability to detect novelty is not a peripheral or optional feature of the mind/brain-it is its main function. Qualia, we conjecture are signals of the recognition of novel situations. We and other creatures have evolved the ability to do so through evolution - as a creature that can resolve ambiguities quickly will, all things being equal, survive better.

Are there any strong arguments for free will? — TiredThinker

Lee Smolin thinks that what is novel/unique requires consciousness to resolve it (somehow free will?), whereas what has happened before goes on auto pilot, or something like that. I can't find his write-up.

The 5D quantum vacuum itself has no direction in time. — Hillary

Why 5D?

Which raises the question, what caused the acausality lying beneath all phenomena? — Hillary

This is getting near to doomed notion that something can come out of a true lack of anything or 'Nothing'. If something pops out out, then was there was still something behind it, which is the capability for it and so that would be the something that is eternal.

Every notion ever gets down to an eternal something that is unmakeable and unbreakable, such as quantum fields are close to being. All further temporary forms, then, are but arrangements of the eternal something, as they would have to be, again such as 'particles' are directly the quanta of fields, not some new substance.

I already said my view, which you had previously quoted, that the seeming temporal change from "nothing" to "something" is like an artifact imposed by our minds. That is, "that the human mind can view the switching between the two different words, or ways of visualizing "the lack of all", as a temporal change from "was" to "now". — Roger

So, the mind makes a false artifact, thinking that a lack of anything can have being. This leaves The Existent to have no opposite and no alternative. Parmenides said that 'Nothing' cannot even be meant.

The weave of the quantum fields as strokes writes
The letters of the elemental bytes—
The alphabet of the standard model,
Atoms then forming the stars’ words whose mights

Merge to form molecules, as the phrases,
On to proteins/cells, as verse sentences,
In to organisms ‘stanza paragraphs,
And to the poem stories of the species.

Of this concordance of literature,
We’re the Cosmos’ poetic adventure,
Sentient poems being unified-verses,
As both the contained and the container.

We are both essence and form, as poems versed,
Ever unveiling this life’s deeper thirsts,
As new riches, through strokes, letters, phonemes,
Words, phrases, and sentences—uni versed.

We have rhythm, reason, rhyme, meter, sense,
Metric, melody, and beauty’s true pense,
Revealed through life’s participation,
From the latent whence into us hence.

Oh, those imaginings of what can’t be!
Such as Nought, Stillness, and Block’s decree,
As well as Apart, Beginning, and End,
Responsibility, Free Will, and Theity.

I'm not a big fan of Sean Carroll's because his final answer to the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" is that it's a brute fact. — Roger

What would make it such that The Existent has no alternative? There can't be a sequence in time from 'Nothing' that has no time nor has anything.

That's great! If quantum fields are "the basis of all that is possible" and "the fundamental strokes", who am I to argue with great literature?! I withdraw my previous criticism of physicists' nothing! :smile:
If you wrote that, nice writing! — Roger

You are adaptable, a good sign.

Everything is now physically known about our everyday lives:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.07884.pdf

When you hear physicists talk about something coming from nothing, the nothing they're talking about still contains the laws of quantum physics, quantum fields, abstract concepts like the laws of logic or mathematical constructs. — Roger

What’s continuous means a field that waves,
Naught else; ‘Stillness’ is impossible.
A field has a changing value everywhere,
Since the ‘vacuum’ e’er has to fluctuate.

The fields overlap and some interact;
So, there is one overall field as All,
As the basis of all that is possible—
Of energy’s base motion default.

From the field points ever fluctuating,
Quantum field waverings have to result
From points e’er dragging on one another.
Points are bits that may form letter strokes.

As sums of harmonic oscillators,
Fields can only form their elementaries
At stable quanta energy levels;
Other excitation levels are virtuals.

Since the quantum fields are everywhere,
The elementaries, like ‘kinks’, can move
To anyplace in the realms of the fields.
As in a rope, only the quanta move.

At each level of organization
Of temporaries in the universe,
New capabilities become available,
And so they take on a life of their own
In addition to what gives rise to them.

The great needle plays, stitches, winds, and paves
As the strands of quantum fields’ webs of waves
That weave the warp, weft, and woof, uni-versed,
Into being’s fabric of Earth’s living braids.

Quantum fields are the fundamental strokes
Whose excitations at harmonics cloaks
The field quanta with stability
To persist and obtain mobility.

As letters of the Cosmic alphabet,
The elementary particles beget,
Combining in words to write the story
Of the stars, atoms, cells, and life’s glory.

1. The words "was" (i.e., "was nothing") and "then"/"now" (i.e., "then something") in the first paragraph imply a temporal change, but time would not exist until there was "something", so I don't use these words in a time sense. — Roger

Good one! I would stick with that.

If the particles are spread out in space then they obviously have a spatial structure. — litewave

Yes, which are the directly structure of the quantum field. That elementary particles go through two slits shows that they are field quanta, that is that they have a wave nature, which is also. in short, why there are stable rungs of quanta. We are getting close to the One, for a wave is continuous, having no parts. An electron given energy make quantum jumps in an atom, for its wave cannot just be cut at any old place but must become a multiple for it to remain intact.

I can see why some may still see quantum fields as a system, since there are 25 of them; however, the quantum vacuum that isn't a vacuum contains them all.

So I think that even elementary particles have a structure although it may be physically inaccessible for us, or even physically inaccessible in general if laws of physics prevent the probing of such structure (for example, laws of physics seem to prevent probing of spatial distances smaller than so-called Planck length). — litewave

Elementary 'particles' are directly quantum field quanta; there is no further structure. These field lumps of field excitations are conveniently called 'elementary particles', but they are not pinpoints and are spread out; an electron has a volume.

As for consciousness, see http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/19364/1/Physics-Time%20and%20Qualia%20-%20Smolin-Verde-7-24-2021-FINAL.pdf

state of being for the cosmos and quantum fluctuations is its default energetic state — Nickolasgaspar

You are heading the question of the thread in a good direction, that of matching the physics to the philosophy for confirmation.

We note that the candidate for the base existent cannot be composite, for then it couldn't be fundamental since its parts would have to be more fundamental. This suggests that it has to be partless as well as of the least size. The quantum 'vacuum' fits the bill or is close to it. The base existent is therefore unbreakable, unmakeable, and thus eternal.

What’s Fundamental has to be partless,
Permanent, and e’er remain as itself;
Thus, it can only form temporaries
Onward as rearrangements of itself.

The Simplest can’t be made; it has no parts;
Likewise, it can’t break; ne’er ‘Nothing’ starts;
Thus, Necessity, without alternative,
Makes the Big Bang and our transient hearts.

All the temporary complexities
From the Eterne will someday fade away,
Even the universe with its grandness
Will disperse its greatness into blandness.

In between, the Basis sets a story
That gets lived by the mutable within,
As life and all the stars, moons, and planets—
In a book from the Babel Library.

What’s Fundamental has to be partless,
Lest its parts be more-so and it be less;
It’s ever, ne’er still, else naught could happen;
The quantum ‘vacuum’ weaves the universe’s dress.

The elementaries of a type are
The same, being woven by the same weave,
Only at the stable rungs of quanta;
They’re well anchored, but they’re secondary.

Are the fields spooky as non physical?
Since the elementaries are physical,
And because they are outright field quanta,
The quantum fields are purely physical.

Change, change, change… constant change, as fast as it
Can happen—the speed of light being foremost
The speed of causality—o’er 13 billion years now,
From the simple on up to the more complex.

The ‘vacuum’ has to e’er jitter and sing,
This Base Existent forced as something,
Due to the nonexistence of ‘Nothing’;
If it ‘tries’ to be zero, it cannot.

At the indefinite quantum level,
Zero must be fuzzy, not definite;
So it can’t be zero, but has to be
As that which is ever up to something.

(Perhaps more another time…)

theoretically & statistically probable — Gnomon

From quantum non-locality entanglement,
We know that information’s primary
Over distance, that objects don’t have to
Be near each other to have relation.

Everything connected to everything
Would seem to be a ‘perception’ as an
All-at-onceness, so a particle
Might ‘know’ something about what to do.

Informationally derived meanings
Unify in non-reductive gleanings,
In a relational reality,
Through the semantical life happenings.

This is a realm of happenings, not things,
For ‘things’ don’t remain the same on time’s wings.
What remains through time are processes—
Relations between different systems.

Syntactical information exchange,
Without breaking of the holistic range,
Reveals the epic whole of nature’s poetics,
Within her requisite of ongoing change.

So there’s form before gloried substance,
Relationality before the chance
Of material impressions rising,
Traced in our world from the gestalt’s dance.

All lives in the multi–dimensional spaces
Of basic superpositional traces
Of Possibility, as like the whirl’s
Probable clouds of distributed paces.

"The past and the future are quantum potentials, and conscious beings are continually creating the most likely futures and the most likely, consistent pasts. Meaning arises as a result of the decoherence of these potential states." — Gnomon

So, we have that 'potentials' can be treated as being real, from your other sources; thus, the wave-function and the quantum fields are real, not just math tools/descriptions; They are sculpted by the All.

I still doubt that the All would have a brain and a will, although when we look at ourselves this would seem to give us a clue as to the nature of the All. There is an unbiased fairness to my wandering wonderings. Perhaps entanglement and the holistic nature of the All grants some rudimentary will due to its all-at-onceness connection.

Thus both our consciousness and the holistic universe, each having a singular nature, could be a clue. Maybe they are of the same basis of fundamental consciousness, but separate as two manifestations, each controlling a different realm, such as internal and external, our internal consciousness giving us ‘future’, and the external consciousness granting ‘future’ to the universe. Lee Smolin has it that qualia are intrinsic, as fundamental, and Chalmers has it that information is fundamental and can express itself in two ways, in consciousness and in matter.

Giorbran would also have all the superposed balances tracing forward to the ultimate balance at the End.

Or, or in conjunction, of all the possible superposed paths those paths that go the furthest come to dominate the wave function of the All, they becoming the paths that get actualized.

the human Will could convert ideal Potential into real Actual. — Gnomon

A "homeodynamic" process spontaneously reduces a system's constraints to their minimum, as exemplified by the increase in entropy described by the second law of thermodynamics. Although a large number of objects interacting in a system exert efficient causality on one another, an increase in entropy arises from the statistical form of the system as a whole, in which disordered macro-states far outnumber ordered states; in that sense the homeodynamic process exhibits formal causality.

I have been getting these quotes from reviews of Deacon on Goodreads.

So now I have as much free will as there can be. Hurray!

Thus oppositions are necessary for the creation of difference and for the "endless forms most beautiful" that Darwin extolled. In my thesis, I call that pushing & pulling creative force : EnFormAction. — Gnomon

The All keeps the number of protons and electrons equal, another balance of opposites; the universe is electrically neutral, else some possible disaster befall, perhaps.

The All has to provide the curious symmetry in free space of there being only one main stable positively charged matter particle—the proton, one negatively charged matter particle—the electron, and one stable energy particle—the electron, with no uncharged matter particles and no charged energy particle.

The positive kinetic energy of stuff will be paid for by the debit of the potential negative energy of gravity, another balance.

The inevitable future of equilibrium symmetry carefully designs/forces the stable particles with properties that will produce the periodic table, molecules, even DNA.

Along the road from grouping order to symmetry order that causes diversity, we will invariably observe galaxies which reflects the widest range of configurations, plus ranges of solar systems, planets, moons, asteroids. We will observe the whole range of geography, the whole range of possible chemistry, the whole range of other lifeforms, the whole range of personalities.

However, a similar concept has been proposed by biologist & neuroscientist, Terrence Deacon, in his book Incomplete Nature. There, he introduces the notion of Constructive or Constitutive Absence, as a "state of things not yet realized". He suggests that is a "defining attribute of life and mind" as well as of "ententional' phenomena, such as functions, thoughts, adaptations, purposes, and subjective experiences". Deacon's Absence also seems to be similar to Aristotle's Potential. — Gnomon

Defined as constraint, form refers in a way to what isn't physically present, and yet what has definite causal consequences. Final causality is the ability of a synergistic system of forms to become its own cause by perpetuating itself.

Mind isn't a ghostly immaterial entity existing beyond causality, but neither is it causally epiphenomenal (inconsequential). It is a dynamic process that evolved because of its function in sustaining and coordinating bodily activity in a very subtle way, through the perpetuation of constraint. Since mechanistic models only consider the extrinsic force exerted on one part by another in a deterministic system, they overlook the spontaneous propagation and self-persistence of constraints that organize our world while leaving it open to further organization.

Heraclitus, also anticipated the Eastern notion of Yin-Yang in his concept of "unity of opposites". This is a way of reconciling all dichotomies by merging antithetical polar opposites into a synthesis of Unity (the One). For example, Hegel, lecturing on Heraclitus explained his notion of Unified Identity : "Subjectivity is the opposite of Objectivity, and since each is the 'other' of the 'other". He went on to assert that "thought itself is the true Being". And in the 21st century, we could substitute shape-shifting "Enformation" (energy / matter + life / mind) as a modern version of ancient Logos and Tao. Like abstract Energy, we don't know what BEING is, only what it does : cause beings & things to exist, and to desist.

Since "Absolute BEING" encompasses all possibilities, including Positive & Negative, Freedom & Determinism, the Yin-Yang notion of Freedom within Determinism could suggest a solution to the "free quandary" in a cause & effect world. Randomness explores all possibilities, but Selection chooses what becomes Actual. — Gnomon

We see that the All had to employ the opposites of matter and anti-matter, which in addition to being mirror opposites have opposite electrical charge; so now we know that the All couldn't have done it with just one type of matter. We can surmise that other opposites were also of necessity, such as positive kinetic energy and negative potential energy.

The All also had to induce matter-antimatter asymmetry or else naught would matter. There are something like 10 billion photons for every proton, indicating 10**9 annihilations early on.

… ?

We are left with forms that matter, and still humongous amounts of it, which means that it was easy to come by… Why?

…

We are profiling the All in order to figure out how it works…

The All has to make sure that time moves forward.

Kevin Giorbran had an idea, in ‘Everything Forever’, but he killed himself, so I can’t get any more out of him…

The beginning of the universe with separated matter and anti-matter, though seemingly improbable, is indeed necessity since that’s what happened, the why being that this is the most complete grouping order, for only then will there be the overall pull toward symmetry, which is the featureless blend at the end of the universe as the ultimate symmetry order.

With the All having to be as everything in a great all-at-once superposition of potentials / probabilities, all the possibilities of all the imbalances must trace back and actualize to the one and only state of the necessary beginning of all, the separation of matter and anti-matter, the greatest imbalance of all.

A divergence ensues unto a convergence: top-down from the end of the universe drives the bottom-up events from the beginning, the future ever affecting the present. So to speak, the flat whiteness of the Omega End brings forth the diversified prismatic colors from the Alpha Start.

There would be an Enfoldment/Unfoldment: electrons, protons, seem ‘bottom-up’ only, but are ‘enfolded’ in the top-down whole, as with Bohm’s implicit order guiding the blooming, unfolding, explicit order.

Why Free Will Is Real : — Gnomon

I argue that agency, choice, and control are emergent, higher-level phenomena,

Hope so!

I just moved my coffee so I can't knock it over.