The Theory of Nothing - Again!

[melanie]

We are all accustomed to believe that everything is made of something.
We are taught that matter consists of molecules and that molecules are made of atoms
which are themselves made of even smaller components.
This line of reasoning makes sense initially but, as seen below, it cannot be sustained.

The notion that matter is made of something quickly leads to an infinite regress.
If something is made of other things, what are the other things made of?
And so on, ad infinitum.
We are left with no choice other than to accept the truth that matter is made of nothing.
But how can this be?
How can something be made of nothing? What is the logic?

The best way to understand the logic behind an ex-nihilo universe is to use an analogy.
Just as zero is the sum of all positive and negative numbers, nothing is the sum of everything positive and negative.
It sounds absurd but nothing is, in reality, everything.
This means that all properties/things must come in complementary/opposite pairs so as to sum up to nothing.
It follows that any imbalance (a non-zero sum) must be corrected so as to conserve nothing.
Change/motion is thus nature's way of correcting a violation of the mother of all conservation principles, the conservation of nothing.
This law is applied universally, i.e. non-locally.
The universe is one, as it's name implies.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Yes, the real stuff, yes, really real, is a distributed form of Nothing, such as in the positive/negative number analogy, for an absolute Nothing cannot exist in its totally zero form, which is too perfect and therefore not stable; in fact, it, being the simplest state, is perfectly unstable, as well as its basic stuff of opposite pairs and further, to a lessor and lessor degree on up, which is why they readily rearrange and combine into more complex forms, all the way up to us, and more, until making stable higher systems.

It is in Totality's overview that all sums to Nothing—the only possible prime mover.

As all pairs are made together, there is no second thing that some first thing needed before it for itself to be.

Again, just remember, that the distribution of Nothing makes for real items, just as the number '5', at least in math, is a real number (ha-ha), although canceled in the overview by '-5'.

So, no infinite regress of stuff, nor any stuff sitting around already made without ever having been made, nor any 'consciousness' making anything—which would lead to another infinite regress, for systems requires parts, etc.

The TOE is solved.

Note, too, that physics then applies to the stuff, just like always.

[Meem]

Still we go on, never asking why?

[austintorn@aol.com]

And let us thank Meem, again, for he was the inventor of the word 'sumthing' that well signifies the distributed balance of Nothing.

[Lloyd Gillespie]

'Nothing' is an infinite regress__in any guise or formlessness__thus is an absolute impossibility to sound logical truth__without deadly contradictions__dis-qualifying it from all truth systems...

Yes, the real stuff, yes, really real, is a distributed form of Nothing, such as in the positive/negative number analogy, for an absolute Nothing cannot exist in its totally zero form, which is too perfect and therefore not stable; in fact, it, being the simplest state, is perfectly unstable, as well as its basic stuff of opposite pairs and further, to a lessor and lessor degree on up, which is why they readily rearrange and combine into more complex forms, all the way up to us, and more, until making stable higher systems.

It is in Totality's overview that all sums to Nothing—the only possible prime mover.

As all pairs are made together, there is no second thing that some first thing needed before it for itself to be.

Again, just remember, that the distribution of Nothing makes for real items, just as the number '5', at least in math, is a real number (ha-ha), although canceled in the overview by '-5'.

So, no infinite regress of stuff, nor any stuff sitting around already made without ever having been made, nor any 'consciousness' making anything—which would lead to another infinite regress, for systems requires parts, etc.

The TOE is solved.

Note, too, that physics then applies to the stuff, just like always.

[SteveA]

We are all accustomed to believe that everything is made of something.
We are taught that matter consists of molecules and that molecules are made of atoms
which are themselves made of even smaller components.
This line of reasoning makes sense initially but, as seen below, it cannot be sustained.

The notion that matter is made of something quickly leads to an infinite regress.
If something is made of other things, what are the other things made of?
And so on, ad infinitum.
We are left with no choice other than to accept the truth that matter is made of nothing.
But how can this be?
How can something be made of nothing? What is the logic?

The best way to understand the logic behind an ex-nihilo universe is to use an analogy.
Just as zero is the sum of all positive and negative numbers, nothing is the sum of everything positive and negative.
It sounds absurd but nothing is, in reality, everything.
This means that all properties/things must come in complementary/opposite pairs so as to sum up to nothing.
It follows that any imbalance (a non-zero sum) must be corrected so as to conserve nothing.
Change/motion is thus nature's way of correcting a violation of the mother of all conservation principles, the conservation of nothing.
This law is applied universally, i.e. non-locally.
The universe is one, as it's name implies.

I believe part of the issue here is one of cyclic definitions.

If we were to say that dividing a length of "empty space" in half results in two "empty space"s, then this implies that there is no difference between any of these and it implies the infinite recursion that dividing space continually leads to indistinguishable space being left.

If we look a physical space, then dividing a segment of space requires some manner to do this and it is not space itself, but instead matter or some other property that allows for a boundary between these spaces to be established. So we could instead be more precise and say that space and be subdivided when we add or include some additional property to it, which is not itself also space.

In that case we have structures that are creating in a single causative direction and lead toward things of greater complexity and diversity, though it requires that we pay careful attention to details are recognize the uniqueness of all things (even if that uniqueness is indirectly inherited from the context in which it occurs).

Still ... why is it that there appears to be no limit to the complexities or diversity of structures that at least potentially could exist?

For example, at one point we might have considered atoms to be the limit in describing what material properties could exist, but subatomic properties appear to go beyond that, and then there are unique properties that arise in terms of aggregate atomic structures such as nanoclusters with unique properties not directly possessed by any of the elements individually involved ... heck, a personal computer is a physical object and I doubt anyone knows everything that Windows does anymore and space still appears to possess properties beyond that solely describable in terms of matter.

Something fundamentally creative appears to be at work in that respect and it escapes description as a precise finite thing and its capabilities might not even be describable in terms of a finite set of possible processes ... ?

At a minimum it's interesting doing some sightseeing

[Meem]

I thought you might like this

Story
hint

[SteveA]

I thought you might like this

Story
hint

Four krosha, each of which was the length of
One thousand arcs, each of which was the length of
Four cubits, each of which was the length of
Two spans, each of which was the length of
Twelve phalanges of fingers, each of which was the length of
Seven grains of barley, each of which was the length of
Seven mustard seeds, each of which was the length of
Seven particles of dust stirred up by a cow, each of which was the length of
Seven specks of dust disturbed by a ram, each of which was the length of
Seven specks of dust stirred up by a hare, each of which was the length of
Seven specks of dust carried away by the wind, each of which was the length of
Seven tiny specks of dust, each of which was the length of
Seven minute specks of dust, each of which was the length of
Seven particles of the first atoms.

Excellent example, Meem.

That's how to count forward instead of in circles

[melanie]

'' Julian Barbour, a theoretical physicist, has worked on foundational issues in physics for 35 years. He is responsible for a radical notion of "time capsules which explain how the powerful impression of the passage of time can arise in a timeless world".

He lives on a farm north of Oxford village and for the past 30 years he has made a living translating Russian while pursuing his interests in physics.

"I've been working for myself, following my ideas," he says. I wanted to be independent because I'm not the sort of person who can produce a lot of research papers with equations, on a regular basis — I've got quite a good intuition, at least it seems to me I'm always coming up with ideas at least for myself, and some of them stand up to the test of colleagues. I just wanted to be away of all pressure to publish just for the sake of having a publication.

In a profile in The Sunday Times (October, 199eight Steve Farrar wrote: "Barbour argues that we live in a universe which has neither past nor future. A strange new world in which we are alive and dead in the same instant. In this eternal present, our sense of the passage of time is nothing more than a giant cosmic illusion. 'There is nothing modest about my aspirations,' he said. 'This could herald a revolution in the way we perceive the world.'" Cosmologist Lee Smolin notes that Barbour has presented "the most interesting and provocative new idea about time to be proposed in many years. If true, it will change the way we see reality. Barbour is one of the few people who is truly both a scientist and a philosopher."

[melanie]

NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING

Life is Life seeing itself as Itself which is Everything.

It watches Itself change from one form to another, all the while the seer seeing never changes.

And, what is life for, but to perceive and see?
Is life perceiving, life seeing, seeing what? What can life, being all, see but Itself?

It sees Its own infinite qualities and attributes.