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Survivor bias. If nothing existed [1], we wouldn't be here to ask the question. It's like asking what is P(A|A). The question "Why do I not exist" has never a

Survivor bias. If nothing existed [1], we wouldn't be here to ask the question. It's like asking what is P(A|A). The question "Why do I not exist" has never and will never be (seriously) asked. [1] To be clear, if only nothing existed, and there existed nothing other than nothingness. [2] [2] I sense epistemologists warming their guns here, asking if the "existence" of "nothing" counts as the existence of "something". I.e. is "nothing" something?

amelius 4y ago
It is still possible that nothing exists. For example, if physics rules are an algebra where you start with nothingness, and nothingness is then combined with nothingness in various ways. Then, from the inside it appears as if things exist, but from the outside it seems that nothing exists. Somewhat similar to a computer game which may look like an entire world from the inside, but you see only a bunch of computer chips from the outside.
- criddell 4y ago
  Are you talking about the mathematical universe hypothesis where everything is just mathematics?
mecsred 4y ago
You say this like it's a solved issue, but you're still debating with yourself in the footnotes.
dibujante 4y ago
I don't think so. There has to be a plausible survivor for survivorship bias. Living forever is advantageous to being a member of a survival cohort, and yet survivorship bias hasn't discovered any immortal people. Is there a plausible reason for things to exist that would explain why existence survived as an outcome?
gnulinux 4y ago
Isn't it the opposite of what you suggest? If there was nothing, there would be nothing to investigate; but now that we now the universe exists, it does make sense to ask why is that something exists rather than nothing.
captainclam 4y ago
Doesn't this just completely dodge/dismiss the original question? If I asked how biology worked, you wouldn't say "Survivorship bias: if biology didn't work, you wouldn't be here to ask the question."
- Victerius 4y ago
  I see what you mean. But with biology, every organism has a different biology. I can take a plant or an animal and study its biology as an external and impartial observer. With respect to the question of the existence of everything, I can't take the Universe or a Universe and study its properties as an external and impartial observer. If I was the only organism in the Universe, I could still try to study my body and reach limited conclusions, like we do with physics, but I couldn't go further without dissecting myself or injecting myself with potentially hazardous substances, which would kill me. And I certainly would never be able to answer the question of where I came from if I didn't know about the concept of gender, sex, and reproduction, which I couldn't know about if I was the only organism to have ever existed from my point of view. So I am dismissing the original question.
nsxwolf 4y ago
Stephen Hawking famously confused gravity for "nothing" when he said “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing." He was an incredible intellect, but not everything he said is going to be a winner.
xnoreq 4y ago
Anything exists because of survivor bias? That's backwards logic / you've missed/evaded the question. It's not like asking P(A|A), it's not even asking why P(A) > P(N). It's asking why P(A) > 0, which it evidently is. Statistically, one could make the argument that there are infinite possibilities of A(nything) and just one of N(othing), so the odds are stacked infinitely high against nothingness.
- User23 4y ago
  > Statistically, one could make the argument that there are infinite possibilities of A(nything) and just one of N(othing), so the odds are stacked infinitely high against nothingness. This reminds me of the classic joke that all probabilities are 50/50. Either a thing happens or it doesn't.
  - xnoreq 4y ago
    In frequentist statistics it's either 1 or 0 after the experiment (dice roll, card flip or universe creation). Either it happened or it didn't.
ptmvp 4y ago
I don't get what point you're trying to get across with this comment. The question at hand is essentially one of causality, but you seem to be avoiding it? Addressing your points one by one: >Survivor bias. If nothing existed [1], we wouldn't be here to ask the question. Survivor bias leading to the question is not the reason anything exists, in the same way you being alive to ask this question is not the reason you're alive. In both cases existence is simply a pre-requisite to asking the question, but it does not answer it. >It's like asking what is P(A|A). No, that is misinterpretation of the question. The question is not "What is the probability that anything exists, given that anything exists?", it's asking "Why does anything exist?", as per the title. >The question "Why do I not exist" has never and will never be (seriously) asked. Haven't given much thought to this, and at face value, yes, you're right. But "seriously" is ambiguous and there are some interesting questions here regarding the possibility of an evil demon like entity, or, more interestingly, GPT-3 posing this question.
deleted 4y ago
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JoshCole 4y ago
Is this really a dismissal? You say "it is like asking what is P(A|A)" but that is just another notation for the logical proposition A. Saying something is like someone asking questions about logical propositions generally isn't considered bad form: logic actually has more to recommend it than probability theory - logic is when probability theory suggests certainty and probability theory is what you get due to logic applied to hidden information. Logic is therefore always more certain and stable than probabilistic claims: it is what you have when certainty exists. I don't find the statement which translates to it being like reasoning perfectly to be particularly strong as a dismissal. It doesn't even seem to merit the rank of disagreement - the article does go into discussion of logical propositions and has it very near the fundamentals. So saying it is like it is effectively just a repetition of what the article states, but using different words. You appear to me to be stating premises within the text and implying that the existence of logical reasoning means you disagree, but that doesn't quite make sense to me. To dismiss the argument would require that you first disagree with it at least once, which you haven't done, and probably ought to have a stronger foundation that the rejection of logical relationships. After all, if you reject those, then you've also rejected probability theory - with it your reject observation, which is related to both logic and probability via sampling. The rejection on the basis of being like logic has corollaries of claiming to be both blind and incapable of coherent reasoning. This isn't a very strong basis for dismissal.

amelius 4y ago

It is still possible that nothing exists. For example, if physics rules are an algebra where you start with nothingness, and nothingness is then combined with nothingness in various ways. Then, from the inside it appears as if things exist, but from the outside it seems that nothing exists. Somewhat similar to a computer game which may look like an entire world from the inside, but you see only a bunch of computer chips from the outside.

criddell 4y ago
Are you talking about the mathematical universe hypothesis where everything is just mathematics?

mecsred 4y ago

You say this like it's a solved issue, but you're still debating with yourself in the footnotes.

dibujante 4y ago

I don't think so. There has to be a plausible survivor for survivorship bias. Living forever is advantageous to being a member of a survival cohort, and yet survivorship bias hasn't discovered any immortal people. Is there a plausible reason for things to exist that would explain why existence survived as an outcome?

gnulinux 4y ago

Isn't it the opposite of what you suggest? If there was nothing, there would be nothing to investigate; but now that we now the universe exists, it does make sense to ask why is that something exists rather than nothing.

captainclam 4y ago

Doesn't this just completely dodge/dismiss the original question? If I asked how biology worked, you wouldn't say "Survivorship bias: if biology didn't work, you wouldn't be here to ask the question."

Victerius 4y ago
I see what you mean. But with biology, every organism has a different biology. I can take a plant or an animal and study its biology as an external and impartial observer. With respect to the question of the existence of everything, I can't take the Universe or a Universe and study its properties as an external and impartial observer. If I was the only organism in the Universe, I could still try to study my body and reach limited conclusions, like we do with physics, but I couldn't go further without dissecting myself or injecting myself with potentially hazardous substances, which would kill me. And I certainly would never be able to answer the question of where I came from if I didn't know about the concept of gender, sex, and reproduction, which I couldn't know about if I was the only organism to have ever existed from my point of view. So I am dismissing the original question.

nsxwolf 4y ago

Stephen Hawking famously confused gravity for "nothing" when he said “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing." He was an incredible intellect, but not everything he said is going to be a winner.

xnoreq 4y ago

Anything exists because of survivor bias? That's backwards logic / you've missed/evaded the question. It's not like asking P(A|A), it's not even asking why P(A) > P(N). It's asking why P(A) > 0, which it evidently is. Statistically, one could make the argument that there are infinite possibilities of A(nything) and just one of N(othing), so the odds are stacked infinitely high against nothingness.

User23 4y ago
> Statistically, one could make the argument that there are infinite possibilities of A(nything) and just one of N(othing), so the odds are stacked infinitely high against nothingness. This reminds me of the classic joke that all probabilities are 50/50. Either a thing happens or it doesn't.
- xnoreq 4y ago
  In frequentist statistics it's either 1 or 0 after the experiment (dice roll, card flip or universe creation). Either it happened or it didn't.

ptmvp 4y ago

I don't get what point you're trying to get across with this comment. The question at hand is essentially one of causality, but you seem to be avoiding it? Addressing your points one by one: >Survivor bias. If nothing existed [1], we wouldn't be here to ask the question. Survivor bias leading to the question is not the reason anything exists, in the same way you being alive to ask this question is not the reason you're alive. In both cases existence is simply a pre-requisite to asking the question, but it does not answer it. >It's like asking what is P(A|A). No, that is misinterpretation of the question. The question is not "What is the probability that anything exists, given that anything exists?", it's asking "Why does anything exist?", as per the title. >The question "Why do I not exist" has never and will never be (seriously) asked. Haven't given much thought to this, and at face value, yes, you're right. But "seriously" is ambiguous and there are some interesting questions here regarding the possibility of an evil demon like entity, or, more interestingly, GPT-3 posing this question.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

JoshCole 4y ago

Is this really a dismissal? You say "it is like asking what is P(A|A)" but that is just another notation for the logical proposition A. Saying something is like someone asking questions about logical propositions generally isn't considered bad form: logic actually has more to recommend it than probability theory - logic is when probability theory suggests certainty and probability theory is what you get due to logic applied to hidden information. Logic is therefore always more certain and stable than probabilistic claims: it is what you have when certainty exists. I don't find the statement which translates to it being like reasoning perfectly to be particularly strong as a dismissal. It doesn't even seem to merit the rank of disagreement - the article does go into discussion of logical propositions and has it very near the fundamentals. So saying it is like it is effectively just a repetition of what the article states, but using different words. You appear to me to be stating premises within the text and implying that the existence of logical reasoning means you disagree, but that doesn't quite make sense to me. To dismiss the argument would require that you first disagree with it at least once, which you haven't done, and probably ought to have a stronger foundation that the rejection of logical relationships. After all, if you reject those, then you've also rejected probability theory - with it your reject observation, which is related to both logic and probability via sampling. The rejection on the basis of being like logic has corollaries of claiming to be both blind and incapable of coherent reasoning. This isn't a very strong basis for dismissal.