I wish we were friends! Lol I try to ask people around me how absolutely mind boggling it is that we are the ultimate thing. the universe is literally IT we are part of that thing and we have the ability to die within it.

It's very lonely and painful to be intelligent

This is a frightening concept to most, including me. 99.999 percent (rough estimate lol) of people do not want to think about this question even if they understand what you are asking.

@@allocke9446 all I want to do is think about that stuff lol. It can disconnect you from reality in ways though

​@@FRElHEIT lol I suppose that's true

You can go further. For example, why is there the *possibility* of something or nothing existing ?

Don't give you on your own history Braj... The answer is: साहचर्यम् Full explanation: किं न स्मरसि यदेकत्र नो विद्यापरिग्रहाय नानादिगन्तवासिनां साहचर्यमासींत् Māl.1; Ku.3.21; R.16.87; Ve.1.2; Śi.15.24.

Why something? Because... Nothing has ever been proven to exist. The notion of "Nothing" is utterly absurd...

@@typedef_ you don't know that the "possibility" exists. it might be that only one of them is "possible", and the other option is impossible since we exist, we happen to know which of the two happens to be the option that is true, and - if it's the only one possible - then - it couldn't have been otherwise, in any meaningful sense. i.e. - the thought that there could have been "nothing" is simply not true --- nothing could not be the state of things, "something" is the only state possible.

@@typedef_ I even solved your question in the comment section. There is a deeper question than that.

I don't believe that anyone has ever located any nothing. So there's no way to know whether something can come from it. I have never heard of a theory that says something can come from nothing. Where did you hear it?

@@russellmillar7132 wrote: "Where did you hear it?" Google is your friend.

Nothing, cannot be infinite. Consequently, it has a boundary. And every boundary is likewise bounded. So... the universe did erupt out of nothing. I'm writing a book - 'Read this First - on the origin of space, time, particles, people and minds'. We'll see what people think.

@@stephenanastasi748 How was it determined that "Nothing, cannot be infinite"?

Yea johndzwon, you so accurately described how the question (why something rather than nothing) nagged and perplexed me for years. Usually when waking up in the morning and coming back into consciousness, that strange sense of what the hell is going on? Exactly. It haunted and nagged me relentlessly. I was finally able to mostly resolve it by coming to terms with the apparent fact that nothingness is a fiction that resides in the imagination only. The question postulate nothingness as something that could've possibly existed, but the somethingness of reality completely and permanently negates that possibility. So the question itself is flawed because one of the 2 options is a literal/physical impossibility. Absolute nothingness has never and could never have existed. Like asking why do birds have wings instead of jet engines, lol. One of those options is an impossibility and so the question makes no sense. Why is nothingness an impossibility? Who knows, logic/observation just tells us that it is. Like why is it impossible for birds to have jet engines instead of wings? Because nature doesn't work that way and it doesn't have the capacity to create that sort of thing. Likewise, the nature of reality is existence, and for that reason nothingness cannot and could not ever have existed. It's not a full answer to the question of course, but for me it helped to re-frame the question to take most of the bewildering nagging edge off it, lol. Why does a flower bloom? Why does a tiger hunt? Why does reality exist? Because that is its nature. Why is that its nature? That's the real question, I believe.

God, Consciousness, The Mind, Theology, Philosophy, Ontology, Quantum Physics, Simulation Theory, Reality, Infinity, Cosmology, Aliens, Something, Nothing

@@genandnic does Robert ever post a discussion like this where the topic they're discussing is not one of Robert's "obsessions"?

I shouldn't be criticizing though. It's good for people to be thinking deeply about these important fundamental subjects

....just an inquiring mind. He's curious. That's good and makes for interesting content.

Same experience when we sleep. Apart from an occasional dream we are awake in the next instant having no memory of the last 8 hours. We have no concept of time. Does sleep simulate death? Did Closer to Truth try to answer that question? If not he can add another episode.

Occasionally I can get the same feeling waking up. You're a blank slate, no memories, and if you manage to pay close attention, then you can consciously observe what feels like a flood of memories of who you are and what your past is being progressively programmed into your brain like a boot up sequence for that day. Fun stuff :)

@rockwell marsh your raise some interesting questions about sleep, and I agree with you. Did you know that death is likened to a deep sleep? That is to awake again when he ( GOD) calls, and you will answer.

Well, either there is nothing after death, or we are eternal spirits who are having fun in this temporary physical reality. I like to think its the latter. And if not? Well, if there is nothing and I am dead, I won't be disappointed, because I am DEAD!! It's not that I am dead and think "darn, I fooled myself, there is nothing, what a bummer", because if I could think that, I would not be dead. But I hope of course that we are indeed eternal spirits and that the physical reality is merely a play ground that prevents us from going crazy, with nothing to do but being aware that we are. And in that scenario, death is merely an awakening, in which we remember our true eternal self and can relive all the adventures we (collectively) experienced. And when we get bored up our spiritual butts, we can be born again, as whatever. And while alive we forget our true nature, because remembering would spoil the fun. It's either that, nor nothing at all. At least that is my hope :)

@@m.k.wallner3145 I like that! ☺️

And Popper knows this exactly how? He is a nihilist mind-destroyer.

But he wasn’t completely certain of that, was he?

I read your comment a few times and it’s quite a mind bending. So if I’m understanding you correctly…existence or something has always been?

@@tonymclaughlin4053 Well, yes. How can something be created from nothing? That would be magic. If you believe in magic that's one approach but hardly true because to prove something as exotic as magic it would probably be harder than to prove God exists. Something emerging from nothing is far more unrealistic and exotic than something emerging from some kind of supreme consciousness.

@@tonymclaughlin4053 If you take the mathematical and more logical approach: if you have zero (which equals to nothing) and you add one more zero, you still have nothing. The only way for zero to disappear is by adding something, but if there's something, zero doesn't exist, it's only there as an abstract concept, same for negative numbers. I would even say imaginary numbers but I do not know enough about complex numbers and their implications to have an opinion on it, yet.

@@privateaccount8027 No, I went in the Santa Claus school.

Wild stuff, I said the *exact* same thing and so did another commentor on here. Uncanny, love it.

Well, if we assume our universe is all there is, and you run the "movie" of the universe backwards, you will arrive at a time when nothing existed. That would be than your absolute nothingness, which we perceive as space. But if there is no matter in space, space for all purposes does not exist, it only exists "potentially" and is "potentially" infinite. Same with the past and the future: our past is only potentially infinite, since regardless how many years we count backwards, we will never arrive at the lowest possible number, because there is none. Same with the infinite future: Think a ahead as far as you want, you can always add more and more years to it. You will never reach an end. Same with space. There is also talk that space and time are the same. Possible, since space only starts to matter once matter appeared, and that is also true for time.

It's not possible to imagine "nothing" because the act of imagining it is actually thinking of it as something that you decide to call "nothing". Hence true nothing is abstract and cannot be thought of consciously.

I still own the first book I ever read by Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint.

I read most of his books. They are really good.

I was twenty in 1997 and I remember reading everything he had published up to that year by around that year. I too loved it. Hope I get back into reading, it's taken an unwanted break from "life"

The ultimate question, the one from which all other questions have their source . . .

The #2; the #1 question is "does she loves me?" 😊

A cause actualizes a particular outcome. If there is no cause, no particular outcome or possibility is actualized over any other. Therefore, in the beginning, all possibilities exist on equal footing in superposition because there is no individual cause to cause reality to be a certain way. Perhaps God as the “uncaused cause” is this superposition? This is the best answer I found so far.

@@pabloquesadamartinez5405 The answer for 1st question is yes. Now something rather than nothing becomes your first question lol

@@pabloquesadamartinez5405 Followed by, 'who farted?' and 'who let the dogs out?'

"if's" don't fly, because that would mean that my uncle would be a bicycle IF he had paddles instead of feet.

Not a lot. Basically said he didn't know and hopes science can figure it out someday.

The anthropic principle explains nothing; my oven allows a cake to be baked but for some reason there’s no cake there, no matter how often I look.

@@thomasengle1686 You clearly don't understand the anthropic principle, not even vaguely.

You damn right

Here’s a paper on it: www7.bbk.ac.uk/tpru/BasilHiley/DelayedChoice.pdf

Qbism is certainly in the “observer-centric” side of the QM interpretation spectrum. Everettian Many Worlds is the hard physicalist bookend whereby the von Neumann-Wigner interpretation, Wheeler’s participatory model, and Donald Hoffman’s Conscience Realism model all make up the “idealist” bookend. So pick your flavor of absurdity.

@ Jan-Peter Schuring I hung a question mark after QBism because it’s not clear to me how exactly it would deal with Wheeler’s delayed double-slit experiment. It seems to require something like the following reading: our past subjective probabilities are affected by our future measurement operations. My hesitation was because it is not clear to me that this epistemic casting of the problem is any less weird than Wheeler’s radical-sounding “participatory reality". The two readings often get lumped together, so it makes sense that they should have similar features. It seems to me that Bohmian mechanics interprets Wheeler’s experiment most elegantly - or, at any rate, whilst doing least violence to ordinary realist notions. The past is mind-independent and determined, but the subsequent change of the measurement apparatus instantly (because of non-locality) alters the quantum potential which forms the guiding wave of the particle, thereby determining whether it will exhibit “wave” or “particle" behaviour upon interacting with the measurement apparatus. Of course, Bohmian mechanics has its own flavour of strangeness, and is clearly an incomplete physical theory, but it seems to have the advantage in accounting for Wheeler’s delayed-choice experiment. I tend to think these little victories in explaining quantum conundrums count for something, because in the absence of empirical means by which to sift through interpretations we are simply confronted with a choice of which philosophical prejudices to trade-off against one another. Action-at-a-distance and “hidden” unobservables are a heavy price to pay, but in return we seem to have a relatively uncomplicated realism. I’m more interested in the physics than the philosophy, but quantum mechanics is plainly unsettling and it should disturb us all. I can’t take Bohmian mechanics too literally - it seems to be a good heuristic for one or two particle non-relativistic systems, but beyond that it loses its ‘picturable’ ontological simplicity, and the peculiar quantum potential seems rather unnatural and ad hoc. But QM forces us to entertain bizarre ideas.

* Or, equivalently perhaps, QBism says that our present measurement operations affect our subjective probabilities of the past. I struggle with the intimation of backwards causation here. How could our present measurements "defuzz" our past knowledge without retroactively *changing* it? There seems to be an asymmetry here: there is nothing mysterious our present measurements affecting our present knowledge of future events, because this does not involve any backwards causation. It seems that, to avoid these difficulties, Wheeler takes the very radical step of dissolving time into an ontology consisting only of observer-event interactions. This seems to be more extreme than is required. And it seems that QBism bottoms out at saying “this is just how the predictive machinery of QM works”, and we can ask nothing further about why our subjective probabilities and our acts of observation are related in such peculiar and unintuitive ways. Perhaps this sort of refusal to be drawn into the swamp of unobservables is intellectually hygienic, but it nevertheless feels unsatisfactory. The only sorts of “realism" that can survive this kind of approach seem rather obscure and anaemic.

@@Samgurney88 I think you have formulated the issues and paradoxes very well and you seem to have a very informed understanding of the overarching thorny problems that need to be resolved. It astounds me that this years Nobel hasn’t illicited more extrapolations of foundational questions in regards to what Bell’s inequalities are possibly telling us about reality. Most of the discussions are about the practical applications such as in encryption technologies and perhaps one might see a passing comment about non-locality and realism-but with no words added about what the implications of what this startling fact even means. It tells me that the deeply held presuppositions on a “realism based reality” is a sacred cow that is inviolably sacrosanct. I greatly appreciate that while you too seem to hold realism (wishing to minimize violence to it) and perhaps also seeing it as a somewhat sacred and necessary presupposition you have at least done the necessary thought experiments to see the underlying absurdity issues lying within each postulate. Yes Wheeler’s participatory universe is radical and absurd but likewise my understanding of Bohmian mechanics-with such features as a super deterministic hidden variable aspect to it-is in my opinion equally shocking to our deep intuitive notions of what reality is. Sean Carroll who is a strong advocate of many worlds-but who at least cognitively entertains other interpretations-has said that you need to grant one absurdity/ miracle to each postulate. The epistemological data and the science is giving us a radically counterintuitive picture-perhaps beyond our sensory capacities to truly capture and ever to understand. Unlike you I care more about the metaphysical and philosophical questions underlying what the weirdness of the data might be telling us. For me the mind/body question is of equal and perhaps even of tangental importance. I of course realize that the minute one conflates these two deep mysteries howls of dispersions will arise. Wheeler certainly gets a lot of grief for his bold endeavor to bring the observer fully into the equation. The idea that perhaps time-space and the phenomenal appearance of an objective and material “world out there” is the extension of “mind stuff” rather than from the ontological primitive of matter can-like Bohm’s postulate-resolve a lot of the weirdness. Of course the price for this inverted reality-where matter is derivative of mind- is the abandonment of the most cherished and deeply held presupposition of local realism. But I ask why make this one metaphysical assumption so sacrosanct? One can keep naturalism and explanatory causal chains intact if one sees a paradigm of a network of consciousness interlinked “events” (Carlos Rovelli’s and Alfred North Whitehead’s model) leading to this phenomenal experiencing of “a world in spacetime” -thereby in essence projecting a fully mental derivative -one that has material qualities in tight correspondence to the contextual “mental reality substrate.” Under this metaphysical paradigm we end up with the “hard problem of matter” rather than the “hard problem of consciousness.” Of course this naturalist version has “phenomena” -coming to us via a mind stuff substrate-as the “observable epistemological layer”-however the predictive scientific modeling and the manipulation of such phenomena remains fully intact. It is only on extreme close observation at the micro-scale that the classical edifice is cracked. When we look really closely the phenomenal veneer becomes incomplete showing us that we cannot capture all aspect of it. The observer suddenly becomes central. Donald Hoffman ( who coined this “conscious realism”) compares reality to a representative-dumbed down-version of a computer desktop-whereby we (entities made from a vast network of smaller nested conscience agents) have evolutionarily formed our filtered down “physical interface” from the much more chaotic and overwhelming underlying “mind reality.” We live out functionally on this “lived experience of physicality” within this projection of spacetime-allowing for much easier fitness goals to be achieved. This is actually how Wheeler himself portrayed underlying reality-an entropic chaotic soup of potentials and where physical laws are without laws -only our “observation based world” puts order and solidified perceptibles into place. Of course this world view requires a deep adjustment to our deepest experiences of a material world “out there.” In any case I appreciate the discussion and your wonderful response has motivated me to reinvestigate Bohm’s work. I will attach a fairly brief chapter from a textbook by Wheeler that I feel explains his thoughts on this very well-but it is no less radical by any means. psychonautwiki.org/w/images/3/30/Wheeler_law_without_law.pdf

awareness is that intelligent design which is not something you do it,s all ready their ocean of awareness the more aware you are more intelligent you are since awareness is not a thing there is no limit to it.

@@Braun09tv An infinite universe is more less likely than a universe that had a beginning. Because everything that we know in science has a Cause and Effect. Law of Thermodynamics, Law of Cause and Effect, law of karma , etc . An infinite universe doesn't compute . A fixed state universe has already been disproven by the Big Bang theory.

If that is proof of intelligent design, the who designed the designer?

@@m.k.wallner3145 a system can start just with a 0 (nothingness) or a 1.., since we know that there is no nothingness i deem more probable the starting with a 1 (god or an absolute consciousness) that something in the middle (some quantum fields and some material or whatever) that have no explanation to be there in that form.

You said EXACTLY what I always think .... only that you put it so nicely.. 🌸🌺🌸🌺🌸🌸🌺😊

The definition of philosophical topics is, ideas for which an answer cannot be verified. Thus centuries of ruminations and competing conclusions, the sum of which can be boiled down to: that’s, like, just your opinion, dude.

Dig a little bit deeper and you will understand you are more significant then you think you are...

We don’t lose my friend, we live it and realize we are here. That’s cool stuff. It is comforting like you said

@@skeptic_al This is your definition. It is not what philosophy really is.

That nothing is awareness which is background of everything ocean of awareness without boundaries.

How about this: Why are you alive now, and not 200 years ago? What condition stopped you from being born two hundred years ago? Every ingredient possible for you to exist today is occurring right now, but these same ingredients were also here 200 years ago. So why now, but not then?

@@nativeamericancowboy5028 A lizard or a plant alive 200 years ago would be indistinguishable from a descendant today. Humans however are different due to consciousness. The studies of near death and after death experiences shows that we are unique and have a purpose aligned to the circumstances of our lives and the interactions with everyone around us. For me every bit of science I learn leads me to believe in God. You and I were in contemplation at the commencement of the universe and we are alive today for a specific purpose unique to ourselves and our time. One of these interviews they discussed how scientists have been able to bring together every protein and element needed for life but not been able to create life. Some people say that God has a purpose for everyone of us and when we die we find out what we did to muck it up. These interviews are great fodder for the mind - so much to think about ... Have a great weekend!

Indeed! The discursive mind can never understand Brahman anymore than I could put the Earth in my pocket!

I would propose that time does "potentially" exist in nothingness, but it does not matter, since it needs matter to matter (no pun intended).

interesting point.

I answered it in the comment section.

awareness base of our observations which not a thing that,s why it has no boundary which is background of everything

@@djsahilking3807 I won't try to figure this one out.

@@bobtimster62 Because you can,t it is not a thing let me ask you one simple question how do you know that you exist.

Observations tell you "what." They don't tell you "why." This is about why.

@@fluffysheap I was quoting what Davies actually said. Exactly what constitutes a measurement, e.g. in quantum mechanics? When the observer makes the measurement? When a recording device does? When someone/something does the measuring? This is something that physicists still can't agree on. The Schrodinger equation tells you how the quantum state of a system evolves in time. But the "collapse of the wavefunction", i.e., when a measurement is made, is not described by the Schrodinger equation. So what exactly constitutes a measurement? I think that's a "what", not a "why" question.

Nothing is more likely I would say from a naturalistic perspective.

@@mrshankerbillletmein491 There's not even entropy at the place just above the North Pole, so the ignition of non-existence into existence is absolutely bizarre and highly unlikely. No chicken. No egg. No hen house. Our universe can be explained by the multi-verse, an logical antecedence. But ultimately once you work through the regressions, you arrive at a starting point. And the question remains. Existence out of non-existence, it's crazy unlikely. I bet a mathematician can put a number on it.

@@ejw1234 And life from non living matter conciousnes from unconcious matter highly unlikely as you say yet here we are.

@@mrshankerbillletmein491 Yes, you're right, the same can be said about the emergence of consciousness. Highly unlikely, but slightly more likely once the laws of physics promulgated the universe.

well it's all speculation, it might be that existence is inevitable. my pet theory is that life pops up everywhere, but it's rare because the universe is just really a lot better at killing than survival.

I wonder if that would depend on who observed the content first?

A turtle

@@baronvonhoughton 🤣

Wow I was saying the same thing pretty much lol, nice, uncanny even. That the question itself is flawed because nothingness is a fiction that exists in the imagination only. Of course saying that doesn't solve the riddle of existence or anything but it does explain how the question is nonsense. 5 stars for you my friend, namaste.

I know where those reasons came from it came from awareness which is base of reality which is not a thing.

Maybe the best answer as to "why" the universe exists is "because it can".

The root problem is that.modern science reduced its notion of cause to efficient causation only. But if the laws of physics are a cause, they are a formal cause, not an efficient cause. They are asking for a grounding of the fundamental material cause, in the form of an efficient cause of the formal cause of everything. And getting perplexed when they notice they can't make sense of anything when they try to do that.

We have no idea how this current state of affairs occurs as a real state (only that it does). So why ask why the non-existent could occur? We probably won't be able to find out. However, total non-existence of the physical world seems to be a coherent concept: it can be intuited in thought, is not logically contradictory, and can be semi-formalised within modal metaphysics.

Nothing can exist do you want to know what that nothing is. It,s awareness let me ask you a simple question how do you know that you exist right now what is base of that.

@man with a username So when you are in deep sleep. When there is no thought you does not exit that what your are saying right

Your comment reads like word soup that purposely tries to sound more clever than it needs to in order to get your point across.

@@TheSpeedOfC Actually I tried to make it as simple as possible.

@@glidingforward oooooooh ahhhhhhh

That's only a thought experiment - not a real scientific claim. And it's not really possible in the expanding universe we live in.