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> I'm intrigued by commenter Roger's (attempted) answer of the question of whether there is something rather than nothing. Really? It's just playing semantic g
by adwn 7y ago
> I'm intrigued by commenter Roger's (attempted) answer of the question of whether there is something rather than nothing.
Really? It's just playing semantic games with the definition of "nothing" and "something". It doesn't explain anything: neither why there is something instead of nothing, nor why that something is the way it is.
Thinking about Roger's comment some more, I believe the error he makes is that he treats "nothing" like the empty set {}, which can be used to form non-empty sets {{}}, {{}, {}}, {{{}}} ("something"), when really the term "nothing" denotes a concept closer to the non-existence of the empty set and the construction of sets from other sets.
- lioeters 7y agoFrom my quick reading, it sounds like he's proposing that there is no such thing as "nothing", that what we call "nothing" is in fact like an empty set. There's still something there. I kind of see what he means - in his view, it is turtles all the way down, and the bottom turtle, what seems to us empty, is made of the same being/existence.
- stanfordkid 7y agoIt takes 1-bit to store the state “nothing” vs “something” — so it’s a question of information content — whether or not it is perceivable information is what we traditionally use to delineate existence vs. non existence.