Divinity does not have to be about a transcendent anthromorphic 'God'. There is the idea of divinity within as expressed by Walt Whitman. The poets often understood divinity as a source of inspiration. I am sure that William Blake saw it that way. — Jack Cummins

You are the temporary arrangement of the Permanent; so, you are It for a while.

divine magic — Arcane Sandwich

Not Divine, as in a 'God' Being…

In this lost haunt, on the Orion arm
Of the Milky Way, safe from the core’s harm,
We philosophers meet in the tavern,
As sleuth-hounds, unweaving the Cosmic yarn.

Hmmm... — Arcane Sandwich

The 'thing-in-itself' can't be made nor can it break, because it can't have any parts, which makes it to be eternal; its Existence has no alternative, no opposite, for 'Nothing' cannot be, since 'it' has no it.

It is truly "something else" in that sense. And it is, in my belief, identical to what Kant called "the thing-in-itself" — Arcane Sandwich

Newton’s fixed space and time got Einstein’s boot;
Particle spigots making fields went mute;
Classic fields had no fundamental loot.

What's left? The quantum vacuum with its quantum fields that rearrange to form the elementary 'particles' as stable quanta!

I don't have it, sir. Where can I find one? — Corvus

Amazon has 'Quantum X Upright Water Filter Vacuum'.

Hmmm... — Arcane Sandwich

Yes, but not Himmm.

That is indeed one of the things that I have been working on for the past year and a half, more or less. To prove, logically, definitively, that demons, dragons and other fictional entities do not exist. But it's a really difficult thing to prove, because that discussion is about the concept of existence itself. — Arcane Sandwich

There are no mythological creatures yet.

There is only the Permanent Existence; its rearrangements into temporaries are still It.

And from my observations, experiences and reasoning, the only place where God exist is the word God. Nowhere else in the external world I could observe God at all. Therefore my proof God exists in the keyboard of my computer still stands. — Corvus

Yes, all we have is a Ground Of Determination - the Quantum 'vacuum'.

What could transform the potential for life into life? — Corvus

To the Quantum Depths of the Poetic Universe:

Lost in the Haystack?

What great needle plays, stitches, winds, and paves
The strands of the quantum fields’ types of waves
To weave the warp, weft, and woof of our ‘verse
Into being’s fabric of living braids?

From quantum non-locality and entanglement, we know that information is more primary than distance, and that things don’t have to have the appearance of being near each other to be related or to cause an effect.

Everything connected to everything would seem to be a rudimentary 'perception’ as far as one could be had by that network. The all-at-once connections, as like in a hologram, might seem to provide for for the direction of what goes on in the overall information process. I am thinking like a yogi and a guru, the entire cosmos situated within me.

Quantum non-locality seems to imply that every region of space is in instant and constant contact with every other, perhaps even in time as well, and so the holistic universe is governed by the property of the solitary whole; so that could be the underlying guidance principle. An individual particle might know’ something about what to do, acting according to all the others.

Thus both our connections and the holistic universe’s, each having a singular nature, might be the clue. Perhaps they are of the same basis of connections’ doings, but separate as two manifestations, each pertaining to a different realm, internal and external, our internal connections giving us 'future’, and the external connections granting 'future’ to the universe. I don’t know which has the tougher job.

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.

Quantum entanglement suggests that each particle has the entire 3-D or 4-D map of the universe, the information ever updated, the universe being as a single entity. While this may not be perception at the level we have, it may help the universe accomplish something of the movements of particles and fields in their energy, mass, and momentum, in some global way that goes forward overall.

This may not seem to be saying a whole lot, in depth, but since the quantum realm is beneath everything then one would surmise that it must have all to do with everything that goes on.

It is still that the apparent atoms and molecules make the happenings, via physical-chemical reactions; however, this observation cannot be equated to an 'explanation’, for we must wonder what underlies the chemical mattering and reacting that seems to have a unity of direction to it.

I had finished with the yogis and the gurus, and the seers and the oracles only know of the future; so, I surmised, to uncover the deepness of the present, for nature and the conscious animates, I must seek out Nature’s Great Poet in her Uni-verse, in order to fully apprehend the ethereal phantasms of the entangled and enchanted branches in the forest of nature, bringing them into the light.

(Perhaps continued another time.)

What could transform the potential for life into life? — Corvus

Time and stardust made us Earth’s living guest,
When quick death sifted the rest from the best.
Those three, our birthright, write our epitaph:
RIP; time expires, death comes, dust is left.

But after some reflection,
I understand the Ultimate Something as death. Eventually everything and every life dies by the natural law. Hence we could say Death is the Ultimate Something.

The Ultimate Something has no opposite? I agree. Death has no opposite. Death is nothing. The opposite of Death is life, but once dead, it is impossible to go back to life, no alternative. — Corvus

The Permanent Ultimate Something is not alive, but as we see, the potential for life was there for the Temporaries.

But in the case of deducing something Permanent and Eternal being, I have no real life experience pertaining to the concept, hence I am not sure what could be the basis for such deduction or inference. — Corvus

‘Nothing’ cannot even be meant, as per Parmedies’ philosophy; therefore, the Ultimate Something has no opposite, and as such it has no alternative; so, it has to be.

Fundamental First philosophy indicates that the Ultimate Something cannot have parts, lest the parts be even more fundamental; thus the Ultimate Something must consist only of itself, thus being unmakeable and unbreakable, which tells us that it is Eternal.

Science shows us a simpler and simpler basis underlying the universe’s present complexity, on down to the elementary ‘particles’ that have wave-field-like properties of a further Something beneath; so, this accords with our philosophy, so far, we now suspecting the wave-field as the prospective Ultimate Something, but we cannot see it directly.

We make an educated philosophical guess that waves make up the Something, since waves have no parts and also because waves are ubiquitous everywhere we look, because, again, science has confirmed a wave nature.

Waves are 2D but make for fields in 3D; a field has a value at every point, such as with a temperature field.

If we can model these quantum fields and then build working devices from the model, then we have the quantum field theory (QFT), and our guess was correct. This has been done and it is the most successful theory in the history of science!

The modeling, in short, has to do with all kinds of waves moving about being shown to be equivalent to sinusoidal waves, via a Fourier Transform. A property of this situation is that the elementary ‘particles’ will form at stable rungs of quanta energy, such as when an electron in an atom, when receiving energy, can only quantum jump to a multiple of its energy level, showing the quantum discreteness. Good guess!

The elementaries are directly field quanta; they are not new substance. There is only the Permanent and the Temporary.

The Temporary can only be made by the arrangements of the Permanent, just as we thought, via logical philosophy, since the permanent must ever remain as Itself. Science confirms the lumps of quanta. Philosophy is not dead.

This has not shown ‘God’ in the way we think He ought to be, but at least it points to an Ultimate Eternal Something, which could be called ‘the G.O.D.’ (the Ground Of Determination).

An Eternal Basis has to be so,
For a lack of anything cannot sow,
Forcing there to be something permanent,
As partless, from which composites can grow.

There can’t be other directions given,
To that which no start; it is undriven;
So, it is as Everything possible,
Either as linear or as all at once.

(We don’t know the mode of Time.)

Consider quantum fields of waves atop
One another: waves are continuous,
And so qualifiy as Fundamental;
Quanta lumps make ‘particles’, and us.

The temp-forms last from unit charge or strength;
The Basis is coterminal with them.
The information content of the
All of Everything
Is the same as Null!

There is no meaning.
There is no place or before to impart
Direction to what is Eternal.

Note that there is no other remaining theory:
Newton’s fixed space and time got Einstein’s boot;
Particle spigots making fields went mute;
Classic fields had no fundamental loot.

My belief of its existence is as firm as any other knowledge I have for certain. — Corvus

We can deduce a Permanent Eternal Something that rearranges itself to form the temporaries, its state ever remaining the same, the elementary 'particles' not being new substance, but direct and rather stable lumps of It, so then, poetically:

Permanent Presence, through transient veins,
Running Quicksilver-like, fuels our gains—
Taking all the temporary shapes as
They change and perish all—but It remains.

the existence of God is a matter of conjecture and personal faith.

It is an illogical statement to say God exists. The correct way of saying that statement is, one believes in God. — Corvus

Now, that's an honest way of speaking.

Intellectual Dishonesty:
The preachers claim ‘perhaps’ as fact and truth.
Their ingrained beliefs the priests’ duly preach,
As if notions were truth and fact to teach.
Oh, cleric, repent; at least say, ‘Have faith’;
Yet, of unknowns ne’er shown none can e’er reach.

Unfortunately, for believers, a being cannot be First and Fundamental; look to the more complex future for higher beings, not to the simpler and simpler past.

So you think processes such as cell replication or photosynthesis come to be by pure chance? — kindred

'Pure chance' is not the scientific alternative to Intelligent Design:

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.

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.

Can't have a 'God'-Being as First and Fundamental; any being is a system, its constituents having to come before, so a being can't be fundamental. Look to the future for higher beings, not to the past.

Or perhaps, the model of my model. — Brendan Golledge

Since the model as the content of consciousness binds everything together in a unity and seamlessly stitches onto it the new events going along, then this must be a useful input into further brain analysis, else why would there be qualia.

Yes, how? Do tell! — Wayfarer

Well, the result in consciousness of the reflected prior subconscious voting/analysis does not cause what it is about in consciousness, for it comes too late in the process, but perhaps the result is an input to further subconscious figuring; however, I don't see why the subconscious couldn't just continue on its own without the quale of what it just came up with, unless qualia are part of the brain's own invented communication language that it has to use.

Though causing nothing except in itself,
As in ne’er doing but only as being,
Leaving intelligence for the doing.

Summary of Feinberg and Mallatt with a few of my own thoughts:

— Dissolving the Mysteries of Consciousness —

Consciousness is a brain process. It cannot float around in space by itself. Every so-called ‘thing’ is a process, an event, some of which may continue for a long time, like a tree or the sun.

The content in consciousness correlates to what the brain has already analyzed and produced in the subconscious, this neural ‘voting’ being quick, but not instant, taking about 300-500 milliseconds. The content reflects the brain’s mapping, which map is the territory since the noumena are left behind.

Consciousness makes no reference to brain states, which is called ‘referral.’

Neuroscience informs us of the ‘projection’ of neural states with no perceiving of neural firings/states, else we wouldn’t know about the ‘basement’ first storey, being unaware of it in our already written conscious second story.

So, consciousness is not live, but a kind of tape-delayed broadcast, ever showing the just past. Thus consciousness does not cause anything right then and there, for it arrives too late in the process. This rather tricks us into thinking that consciousness is in control, as directly causal.

The consciousness brain process is ever ongoing; other interested brain areas will respond with their products, and so it goes, even into long ruminations.

Conscious is Compositional; It is structured with many phenomenological distinctions. It is Intrinsic, as one’s own, as independent. It is Informational, as particular and specific. It is Integrated/Whole, as Unified and no longer Reducible. It is Exclusive, as having Definite content, no more and no less.

It is Subjectively felt. In addition to the ‘referral’ already mentioned, there is Mental Unity, as Experienced as a unified field, whereas its sources are all over the brain.

There are Qualia, as the felt qualities of sensory consciousness. It has Continuity, as the seamless stitching of the ongoing changing contents.

Mental causation?—How can consciousness itself right then and there—an intangible, unobservable, and fully subjective entity—cause material neurons to direct behaviors that change the world?

Subconscious brain analysis, taking 300-500 milliseconds to complete, is all done and finished in its result before consciousness gets hold of the product.

Consciousness has Uses/Advantages over such as reflexes or all purpose schemes, for it grants Flexibility of Reaction, as we’re better able to react to conscious content, in our further subconscious decisions beyond just the automatic reflex-like responses triggered by non conscious content. There’s Focus, as Selective Attention allows the brain to focus its activity on what’s important, so that our subconscious decisions can attend to that foremost.

It grants Evaluations, the Feelings make one aware of what is good or bad, from both emotions and logic. It grants Survival Value, as Complex decisions are possible.

We have Behavioral Flexibility, as unlimited associated learning combines multiple cues into a single perception. There’s Discrimination, making small perceptual differences possible, such as between good and poisonous food.

For Diversification of Species, such as in the Cambrian explosion and a kind of evolutionary arms race in finding new ways to avoid detection, spurring predators to become more sophisticated. Beauty appears, such as plants evolving colorful flowers to attract pollination. For Actionizing, as the pondering of the consequences of scenarios before committing to action.

There is reality ‘out there’, for sure;
We have senses to take it in, as pure.
The brain paints a useful face upon it,
Such as colors for wave frequencies, etc.

Consciousness is ever a brain process,
One which can be halted, never-the-less,
By anesthesia, poison/drugs,
A blow to the head, a faint, or by sleep.

Change the brain and consciousness changes too.
Take drugs and the emotions change, anew.
Damage the brain and the mind’s damaged too.
Consciousness emerges only from the brain!

In identifying consciousness,
We often confuse what is floating in
The stream of consciousness with the water itself;
Thus, we note not the sea in which we ‘see’.

The brain interprets reality, and puts
A face on the waves of sound, light, color, touch,
And a sense on molecules’ smell and taste.
Consciousness is the brain’s perception of itself.

Consciousness mediates thoughts versus outcomes,
And is distributed all over the body,
From the nerve spindles to the spine to the brain—
A way to actionize without moving.

Physics describes well the extrinsic causes,
While consciousness exists just for itself,
As the intrinsic, compositional,
Informational, whole, and exclusive—

As the distinctions toward survival,
Though causing nothing except in itself,
As in ne’er doing but only as being,
Leaving intelligence for the doing.

The posterior cortex holds correlates,
For this is the only brain region that
Can’t be removed for one to still retain
Consciousness, it having feedback in it;

Thusly, it presents a unified Whole,
And this Whole forms consciousness directly,
A process fundamental in nature,
Or it’s the brain’s own symbolic language.

The Whole can also be well spoken of
To communicate with others, as well as
Globally informing other brain states,
For nonconscious states know not what’s been formed.

I simply ask, what IS it that is beyond oneself? Turns out to be a fascinating question in phenomenology. — Constance

Beyond is whatever evolution gets to in the future; quantum fields are the root before in the past.

There is no space in which particles move. Like frames of a film, a series of interactions can give the impression of continuous movement in space. — Treatid

OK if the mode of time is not Presentism but Eternalism; however, we don't yet know the mode of time. If Presentism, the 'particles' roll along their fields, like a kink in a rope moves.

Guess #1: A vacuum fluctuation. — 180 Proof

Yes, and a 'particle' could pop out, along with virtuals coming and going that didn't make it to a stable quantum energy rung.

A wild guess for why fluctuations happens is that is if 'they try' to be zero/nothing they cannot do it. The so-called zero-point energy is not zero, although it is not a useable energy.

The simplest fundamental would have no parts, which is fine, for elementary 'particles' would be rather stable arrangements of it, such as in QFT (Quantum Field Theory).
— PoeticUniverse

'Nothing' is certainly simple... but it isn't really a building block.

A field is hardly simple. You have an n-dimensional continuous field which can be infinitely sub-divided.

It took Russell hundreds of pages of dense mathematics just to get to 1+1=2. I'd have to look to see if there is any construction for real numbers.

It is true that Euclidean Geometry (and many non-Euclidean counterparts) take a field of some kind as a given.

In this sense, fields are certainly foundational/fundamental to large parts of mathematics and physics.

However, it isn't clear to me that Fundamental == Simple.

I'm not saying you are wrong - I'm saying you will have to do much more than mentioning the idea of fields to persuade me that fields constitute simple, let alone simplest. — Treatid

Having no parts is not 'Nothing'. The Fundamental can't have parts because those parts world be more fundamental; thus, the fundamental consists of only itself; it does not get made and it cannot break, so there is no sub-dividing it. For example, a wave would be continuous and have no parts. Waves are also ubiquitous in physical nature. The Fundamental has to be the simplest, by the necessity shown above. We can also see this trend as we look more and more 'downward'

An electron is directly a quantum of the quantum electron field, which field appears to be fundamental.
— PoeticUniverse

There is some ambiguity in your statement. Are you saying an electron is fundamental, or the quantum electron field?

In either case... Okay. And?

I don't know how to engage with your comment. I don't know if you are just expanding on the idea of fundamental properties in Quantum Mechanics or you are correcting a misapprehension you think I have.

Perhaps you are just adding your own snippet to the conversation.

My expectation from philosophy forums is a discussion of ideas. A dialogue.

Your expectation doesn't have to match mine. It just means I'm likely to bug you to expand on your point until I can see something I can engage with. — Treatid

An electron is temporary, as is all else but the permanent quantum fields. An electron can be annihilated by a positron, but electrons can persist awhile in the right emvironment.

If we were to create a universe, what are the simplest possible building blocks that we could use? — Treatid

The simplest fundamental would have no parts, which is fine, for elementary 'particles' would be rather stable arrangements of it, such as in QFT (Quantum Field Theory).

In Quantum Mechanics (QM), an electron is a fundamental particle. (the name 'particle' is a bit of a misnomer, particles in QM are wave functions). — Treatid

An electron is directly a quantum of the quantum electron field, which field appears to be fundamental.

"The One" is unbounded nature (or existence) and materialism is one way of talking about, or describing, nature that explicitly excludes "immaterial" entities. — 180 Proof

The Permanent One of Existence would be such as the quantum 'vacuum' fields, they forming all else, the temporaries, beginning with field quanta, via arrangements of itself.

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.