[lit-ideas] Re: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 17 May 2014 07:23:29 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 5/16/2014 1:01:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes (slightly adapted): "The Popperian (and
logical)
answer is not so straightforward. Anything (apart from nothing) may be taken
to falsify [(ii)] and [(i)]"
ii. There is (merely) nothing.
and simultaneously to confirm that
i. There is something (rather than nothing).
---- The gist of McEvoy's argument below*. My Griceian interpretation is
not that far different.
"There's something, rather than nothing IN THE FRIDGE"
My "in the fridge" corresponds to McEvoy's space-time coordinate x, y.
Now, my 'in the fridge' seems to provide answers to the 'why', which is the
second stage of the problem.
"Why is there nothing in the refrigerator, darling?"
"Oops, I did forget to go to the supermarket".
Similarly, and perhaps otiosely,
"Why is there something in the refrigerator, darling?"
"Well, I did NOT forget to to the supermarket, as I did last week,
remember?"
(They both laugh).
----
Now, B. B. Rundle, the Trinity philosopher at Oxford entitles the book,
"Why is there something rather than nothing". And McEvoy does mention 'the
universe' in the last paragraph of his post. So I would think that the
metaphysician may not be convinced that
"I did not forget to go to the supermarket; therefore, there is something
-- in the refrigerator (as opposed to nothing)"
responds to the answer in the way that "God exists" (the expected answer)
does.
Interestingly, "God exists" may explain why there is something (in the
universe, including the fridge) rather than nothing, but note that the reverse
also holds: "God exists" may be EXPLAINED, or taken to be explained by
"There is something". Explanandum and expanans seem sort of reversible here,
which doesn't sound right (for "God exists" vide T. Fjeld's post that
originated this thread).
The bibliography cited in the Stanford entry (on "Nothingness") focuses,
from what I see, on Spinoza's substraction argument, and an essay is
mentioned on seventeenth-century physicists who argued against the existence
of the
vacuum, and stuff. So there is some experimental side to this.
Rundle, who wrote the book, while Catholic at first, turned agnostic when
he was writing the book, so the obituary in I think the Daily Telegraph or
the Guardian tells us.
But even the 'theological' answer to 'why is there something rather than
nothing?' takes different forms, which Rundle goes to criticise.
And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
---
*McEvoy goes on: "If (ii) may be testable and falsified, its negation may
be testable and 'verified':
iv. There is nothing -- at space-time x.
may be falsified by
iii. There is something -- observed at space-time x.
And that observation also shows that
ii.
is true, given that from
[iv entails ii]
So
(ii)
"passes empirical tests" because (ii) "is deducibly true [or entailed]
from an empirically falsifiable statement: such as
(iv) "There is something rather than nothing at space-time x"
-- or a more specific version such as
(v) "There is a black swan, rather than nothing, at space-time x.
Or there is butter in the refrigerator, I bought it.
(versus "There's nothing in the refrigerator -- no food, I mean -- you
forgot to go to the supermarket altogether I take it?!" "No, the bags are in
the car! I forgot to bring them in!" "Oh, I apologise!).
McEvoy:
"An unrestricted existential statement such as
iv. "There exists something", and its counterpart
v "There exists nothing"
cannot in themselves be falsified."
In symbols
ExEx
(x)Ex
perhaps.
----
McEvoy: "They can only be VERIFIED by whatever verifies a restricted
existential statement from which the truth of the unrestricted existential
statement may be deduced."
McEvoy goes on to distinguish _senses_ as it were (or implicatures, as I
prefer -- do not multiply senses beyond necessity) of the premises involved:
"These statements," McEvoy notes, "must be distinguished from the claims"
vi. "All that exists (or all that is the case) is something (i.e. there
is no nothing)" and
vii. "All that exists is nothing (there is no something)": for
"There exists something" does not assert [or state, but merely implicae]
that
"All that exists, or that is the case, is something"
"but [STATES or 'explicates' rather than IMPLICATES] merely that among
what is the case is at least one something (the rest of what is the case may
be nothing)."
McEvoy:
"That
There is at least one something or other.
cannot be falsified, for no matter how many nothings we find (without
finding something) this would not falsify that, somewhere else, there IS
something."
Yet, I think that the theologian who thinks that 'there exists something'
PROVES 'God exists' should be contented by a specific fulfillment of 'There
is something' (as in "There's bread in the refrigerator", rather than
nothing). Cfr. the miracle of the multiplication of the fish ("Why is there
fish
rather than no fish?" "It was Jesus's miracle" (implicature: "Which proves
that he is God -- or 1/3 God -- he is the son, the other 2/3 being the
father and the Holy Ghost).
McEvoy:
"Conversely, no matter how many 'somethings' we find would not falsify that
somewhere else there is a point in space-time where
"There is nothing".
It is a logical confusion to take
"There is nothing" to mean
"All that is the case is nothing (i.e. there is no something)".
McEvoy notes that the 'explicature' as it were involves an exhaustiveness
clause, as it were:
"Rather this last claim is equivalent to
"There is ONLY nothing" or
"There is nothing except nothing".
So "There is nothing"
has as its negation that
"There is ONLY something", for
""There is something" and "There is nothing" do not themselves contradict,
being both compatible with there being 'something' at some somewheres and
'nothing' at some elsewheres."
Yet, we should perhaps clarify what would convince the 'theist'. It seems
that if there is SOMETHING somethere (e.g. butter in the fridge), then
'there is nothing' is REFUTED, in that the universal interpretation (of
nihilism) is meant. Yet, the oddity is that while a specific instantiation of
"There is something" (as in "There's butter in the fridge") seems to refute
"There's a universal nothingness", we seem to find sort of trivial answers to
specific instantiations ("Because I bought it in the supermarket and brought
it home") do not seem to convince the 'theist' in the way "Because there
is God" exists. On the other hand, it may seem sacrilegous to involve God in
the presence of butter in the refrigerator (although perhaps not to Geary,
because he is a pantheist -- vide "God in the Fridge") if not in the
presence of fish when those gathered around Jesus were _expecting_ them or
when
their desires were fulfilled when a mere fish was MULTIPLIED _out of
nothing_ almost ('ex nihilo', to use the Church Latin delension -- 'ex nihil'
in
Cicero).
McEvoy:
"As to WHY [there is something] rather than [...] nothing, this is a
separate question. Which I'll answer later."
McEvoy's actual phrasing involves the universe, or as I prefer, the
multi-verse (multiply multiverses beyond necessity).
Cheers,
Speranza
Good.
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