Getting at the fundamental base reality of our universe

So to start, a number of observations and organizing principles:


1) We appear to be experiencing a material-based system. This system seems objective. It appears to follow discoverable patterns and laws. It seems internally consistent, and applying the scientific method is directly useful in understanding its features and structures.

2) Everything we have learned about this material system has been filtered to us via our senses. What we can see, hear, smell, feel, taste, experience, etc. All of the observations about the material system are in the form of sense data. Sense experiences are conscious experiences, meaning they are the experiences of a first-person entity.

3) So far we don't appear to have a satisfactory explanation for what conscious experiences actually are. The most immediate answer is that conscious experiences are a result of the material system we are now observing. There are clear arguments why:

a) The conscious entities of others appear to be connected to and dependent on their material bodies

b) We don't seem to have any reliable evidence of a conscious entity independent of a material body. Destruction of the material body that hosts a
conscious entity seems to nullify that conscious entity for every form that we can observe it.

c) We can observe a pretty direct relationship between brain structures and certain cognitive traits and abilities

There are many other strong arguments as well, of similar form. That said, there is still a problem, which has been sometimes called an "ontological gap": namely this is the concept that material systems have one set of properties, like mass, fundamental forces, and location, and conscious entities seem to have an entirely different set of properties that has no overlap with that set, such as a sensation of existence, identity, sense experiences which correlate to physical systems, but have qualitative descriptions that are experential, rather than quantitative ("looks red", vs light of wavelength X). There does not appear to be a satisfactory answer for how the ontological gap gets crossed yet. How is it that material with properties like spin and mass translates into a system that experiences itself?

A materialistic explanation of consciousness tends to rely on the idea of consciousness as an emergent property, something that arises out of arrangement of a system, sort of like molecule behavior arises out of atom behavior. But the problem is, molecular behavior is merely an extension of the same electromagnetic forces that dominate atomic behavior. The precursor state clearly explains the next emergent level. With consciousness, this is much less clear. There do not appear to be clear precursor properties in neurons that explain how a large group of them comes to have first person experiences. There are clear explanations of how the neurons perform the computing functions that our brains perform, this is much simpler to grasp, and a much more trivial problem. The big issue is how does an experiencing being arise from a system with no experiences or experential precursors. For an extended discussion of this concept, you can find some of the Essays of David Chalmers, who is famous for this idea, he labeled the "Hard problem of Consciousness". He was not the first person to think of this issue, but he is the most famous recent thinker about the issue. consc.net...

4) So where does that leave us? Our current situation is that we appear to be experiencing a material world, and we learn about this world through sense experiences, which are conscious experiences, and we have no satisfactory explanation for what conscious experiences are. We can establish a clear relationship between these conscious experiences and the material system, but no sufficient causal explanation for the exact properties the conscious system seems to have. In the absence of a full explanation, it feels like we ought to explore the world of possible explanations for this state of things, and reason about what explanations fit and what don't, based on what we can observe and reason. The fact that we can't resolve these fundamental problems probably means it is worth broadening our domain of solutions to contain both material and extra-material explanations, because the problem may be with considering the material paradigm we are experiencing to be the necessary base reality.

So what are the competing solutions?

a) The material world we are experiencing is in fact the base reality. Conscious entities are in fact an emergent property of material systems. Perhaps material systems actually do have hidden properties which are sufficient explanations for conscious systems. One version of materialism is called proto-panpsychism, and it is the idea that all matter has some sort of primitive conscious element to it, that assembles into a complex experiencing being as material complexity increases.

b) The material world we are experiencing is not the base reality.

ba) the material world is a simulated reality we are being fed through sense data (common simulation theory), and is embedded in another reality.

bb) the material world is an illusion. It is a very consistent, very thorough illusion that follows pretty rigorous laws, but it is only a construct of sense data which is the product of consciousness. Consciousness is the base reality, is in fact immaterial, and all material systems are just similar constructs being experienced by consciousness. This view actually has several advantages, such as lacking the need to explain how a material system generates experience from material that seems to lack precursor qualities. This view is sometimes called "Idealism", or Monism of Mind.

bc) the material world exists as matter and not merely sense data or conscious experiences. We are a conscious entity that is immaterial, but somehow interacts with this physical system. This view is generally called dualism, and is the view a lot of religions seem to promote. It is a trickier idea to explain than either Materialism or Monism of Mind, since you have the burden of explaining how material and immaterial things can interact, since if they could, there would be a common "physics" between them, which would make the immaterial thing "physical" by defintion, which would violate its identity as a non-physical immaterial entity.

I make no mistake that this is the view I am fastest to dismiss for this reason, but it is important to note it exists as a competing solution.

(continued in next post)

a reply to: joeraynor

5) We have a tremendous knowledge base about the material system we appear to be observing, but it is important to recognize that describing and understanding the behavior of this system is a separate problem from reasoning what system is actually the base reality. As an example, learning the rules of a computer game does very little to teach us about computer the game is running on. Knowing a physical law like Newton's law of gravitation describes the system we are observing, but does not make any headway into learning about whether the observed system is the totality of existing systems, or whether or not it may be embedded in a larger system it is dependent on.

The rules of the system we are observing may in fact be arbitrary, and may only apply to this system. They are fundamentally different from the laws of logic, which would seem to apply in any system.

--------------------

So given these observations and ideas, how do you personally go about reasoning about the base nature of our reality? Is it entirely outside of our grasp to know?

If you believe one of the explanations listed in 4, to the exclusion of the others, why are you comfortable excluding all of the competing solutions?

I have a "favorite" solution among these to be sure, but I don't exclude the other solutions as possible, since to me there doesn't appear to be sufficient explanation to do that.

--------------------


When you respond to this thread, keep the following in mind:

a) Did you carefully read ideas posted in the original post, and those of other posters, and is the response you are giving an actual reaction to those ideas?

b) Try to communicate your ideas in as universal a form as possible. In these sorts of discussions, there is often a need to lean on niche ideas or in-group knowledge, but try to explain these in-group concepts in a way a common outsider to those circles can understand it.

c) Are you contributing meaningfully, or making an ego-based statement? It is important to keep discussions like this focused, since they very easily degenerate.

a reply to: joeraynor

One version of materialism is called proto-panpsychism, and it is the idea that all matter has some sort of primitive conscious element to it, that assembles into a complex experiencing being as material complexity increases.

That's about where I am at now I think.
I've been trying to feel around my own consciousness for awhile now, and I've been noticing it's an illusion to think it's one self.. it's more like trillions of things all "voting" and all added together it somehow becomes one thing..

But I'm not sure is this atom consciousness?
or is it something talking to a separate mind?

One thing I do know for sure is that it's not just the brain that has thoughts..
bacteria in your gut even effect your food cravings.. your thinking, your actions.. So at least as far as every cell in the body does participate in mind, and I don't mean just through neuron pathways..

And then everything around you effects your mind, to a point you could wonder if you stop at the edge of your body even..
And further I have heard other people's thoughts out loud, so how does that work?

So what I am saying are there are layers to consciousness. One layer is for sure body connected, though I don't know that it has to be at all times.. but at a very base level, it's almost like consciousness is a dimension like space or time.. Fundamental fabric of reality, that is communicable to other levels of consciousness..

brain consciousness does feel emergent to me now, a cascading circuit effect, but I also feel I have something like a soul..
That could be an illusion of the prefrontal cortex, but then when you deactivate that maybe do to drugs or other means, the soul part stays around.. mostly separate from the emergent consciousness of body or brain, and much more in tune, with pan psychism level..

Those are my opinions, based on my own subjective experience, and I've experienced enough, to not know what my experiences mean anymore..

haha




ps. you posted again, let me go through it all, but I bet I leave my answer the same.

I might be closest to dualism, but what you said about it, if it affects physical reality it must have a common physics, and is physical.. Well, maybe it's in the naming that is the issue.. What if dark energy is consciousness?

maybe I'm a mix (my ideal) of bb and bc?

originally posted by: joeraynor
So to start, a number of observations and organizing principles:
1) We appear to be experiencing a material-based system. This system seems objective. It appears to follow discoverable patterns and laws. It seems internally consistent, and applying the scientific method is directly useful in understanding its features and structures.

There is a lot of evidence from experiments in quantum mechanics that seems to indicate material reality does not exist. It's only at the moment of observation is reality fully realized. Whatever the IT is that decides which quantum state gets realized is beyond our experience and perception.

Contrary the comfortable idea the Universe is a like a clock running a computer simulation, experimental results prove otherwise:



Based on this evidence, all our abstractions about reality, all the language we use to represent natures behavior, does not appear to be absolute truth but some kind of context specific truth. Reality at its smallest point of perception cannot be abstracted. People have argue knowing probabilities is just as good as hard determinism. But the video above described how experiments have shown probabilities a way of having implications at the macro level of reality as well.

Good luck in making sense of it all.

a reply to: Reverbs

That's about where I am at now I think. I've been trying to feel around my own consciousness for awhile now, and I've been noticing it's an illusion to think it's one self.. it's more like trillions of things all "voting" and all added together it somehow becomes one thing..

So under the proto-panpsychist worldview, we would be a collection of perspectives which is somehow experiencing itself as a single perspective. When I look at my own mind, this seems true in a sense as well... we do seem to have "parts" of ourself that have their own opinions. But these parts seem to be entire brain structures (like an amygdala), and I don't feel like a comittee, I feel like a singular person. Feelings don't necessarily indicate the reality of things, but then it leaves the question of how we transition from a reality of being massively multi-partite to feeling like we are one being with executive control, but sometimes at war with itself.

One thing I do know for sure is that it's not just the brain that has thoughts.. bacteria in your gut even effect your food cravings.. your thinking, your actions.. So at least as far as every cell in the body does participate in mind, and I don't mean just through neuron pathways..

Hard to say. It does seem like our microbiome is influencing us by some means, but then that means wouldn't necessarily need to be by conscious direction- mere mechanical / biochemical signaling seems sufficient to explain the influence, and would also probably be the simple answer.

it's almost like consciousness is a dimension like space or time.. Fundamental fabric of reality, that is communicable to other levels of consciousness..

Something does seem strangely fundamental about consciousness, insofar as it doesn't easily reduce to known material rules, which suggests it may either be a fundamental property of matter not yet discovered, or a fundamental extra-material thing.

At some point "material" becomes "material". Just before that point there is only quantum physics. If you only consider that scale then of course there is no material, you didn't zoom out far enough yet.

Zoom out really far and there are macro physics that we can see but don't fully understand, like strings of galaxy clusters.

Our whole observable universe could be a thought between the synapses of God.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Yeah it is still pretty tricky though, for me at least.

There are some complicating factors...

One of them is that the state of knowledge of quantum mechanics is always in flux and changing. The experiments themselves don't change, but how we interpret them does.

I think the public and the popular media tends to latch onto quantum mechanics as a defense for their various sacred cows, because it seems to say everything and nothing, and thus can be recruited in the defense of a multitude of ideas.

There are still competing views in QM as I understand it too... Bohmian mechanics doesn't appear entirely dead, and it is this idea that quantum behavior is indeed deterministic, but so complex that it just appears as a probability field to us observers. And then there is the idea that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle isn't so much a statement about conscious observers, so much as it is just about the precision of our measurements and instruments not being able to make an observation without altering the thing being observed.

I have heard various physicists explain consciousness-centric and consciousness-independent explanations of state duality... personally I don't feel confident enough in my ability to identify the winners. QM to me seems like a large field of questions and novel observations with competing solutions. I am not confident that I understand the reality of it well enough to draw conclusions from it.

a reply to: joeraynor

what about the supposed quantum eraser effect?

I've seen experiments where there are like 8 to 10 light collectors arranged in a way that if a light "particle" goes down a one particular way, then it's a known quantity by process of elimination, BUT by no detector at this point.. Later it appears as a particle..

Or the experiments that measure something AFTER it goes through one or the other or both, slits, but the decision is made after the fact of going through the slits, and it looks like the decision in the future changed the past..

Sort of like it's a simulation and quantum weirdness is like error correction, "oh # he noticed this" change everything to make that make sense as one reality..

And then Reverbs gets dejavu as the only fleeting consequence.. Dejavu movies that can be fast forwarder like memories, and then I know the very near future, said out loud those around me see that I am remembering the future.. Hasn't happened in some time but it really nags at me.

in other words extremely advanced simulation, that is not coming from another reality.. It is all there is.. So one would call it then reality, but reality that follows rules of simulation..

In case anyone is wondering.. superpostion is now up to what 800 atom molecules.. Is an 800 atom molecule a molecule or a wave?

here is the paper

The quantum superposition principle, a key distinction between quantum physics and classical mechanics, is often perceived as a philosophical challenge to our concepts of reality, locality or space-time since it contrasts our intuitive expectations with experimental observations on isolated quantum systems. While we are used to associating the notion of localization with massive bodies, quantum physics teaches us that every individual object is associated with a wave function that may eventually delocalize by far more than the body's own extension. Numerous experiments have verified this concept at the microscopic scale but intuition wavers when it comes to delocalization experiments with complex objects. While quantum science is the uncontested ideal of a physics theory, one may ask if the superposition principle can persist on all complexity scales. This motivates matter-wave diffraction and interference studies with large compounds in a three-grating interferometer configuration which also necessitates the preparation of high-mass nanoparticle beams at low velocities. Here we demonstrate how synthetic chemistry allows us to prepare libraries of fluorous porphyrins which can be tailored to exhibit high mass, good thermal stability and relatively low polarizability, which allows us to form slow thermal beams of these high-mass compounds, which can be detected in electron ionization mass spectrometry. We present successful superposition experiments with selected species from these molecular libraries in a quantum interferometer, which utilizes the diffraction of matter waves at an optical phase grating. We observe high-contrast quantum fringe patterns with molecules exceeding a mass of 10 000 amu and 810 atoms in a single particle.

Here it is in english

Of course, nobody has seen the quantum superposition of a baseball or anything anywhere near that size. The experiment would be impossibly difficult. But physicists have seen this wave-particle duality for protons, atoms and increasingly large molecules such as buckyballs.

And that raises an interesting question: how big an object can physicists observe behaving like a wave? Today, Sandra Eibenberger at the University of Vienna in Austria and a few pals say they’ve smashed the record for a quantum superposition by observing wavelike behaviour in giant molecules containing over 800 atoms.

Don't you guys ever get that weird feeling, if you could just turn around quick enough you could catch the editing before it's real?

I don't know if we will ever be able to tell whether it's the act of measuring physicaly "touching" that changes the light or particle or wave or whatever.. Or if it's the seeing of the instruments readings, consciousness.. At some point someone is looking.. I imagine entangled particles already "see" each other anyway, which brings back up consciousness as a base reality..

the base-reality, or starting point is that the physical, material universe in which we live our lives and sense/experience is created from The 'Waters' of the 'Deep', which we partially understand as Quantum Reality

our physical universe is only the shell we inhabit/ the containers available to us, which acts as a living record & 'report card' of our choices/ or our trials in connection with circumstances we did not select (fates & destiny)…

We are not always the captain-of-our-ship... sometimes we are nothing more than the flotsam & jetsam from an ill-designed vessel (sins of the fathers can be ingrained for 3 generations)

our real reality is fashioned like the Gordian Knot...not like a assembly line of factory products sequenced in a production line from start to finish (like perfectly developed/idealized, Ken & Barbie articulated, action figures)

No our reality is like a huge sack of Santa's Misfit toys

a reply to: joeraynor

Before moving on to the next part of your post I have one small adjustment from my own comprehensions.

ba) the material world is a simulated reality we are being fed through sense data (common simulation theory), and is embedded in another reality.

Here, for my own musings, I have for the time being, adjusted ''embedded in another reality'' to ''embedded as part of a broader reality.'' For me, at least at this time, allows for the elimination of some of the classic critisims of ''dualism''.

Further, as you seem to have done, an adjustment of patterns of thought from ''belief'' and ''is'' etc, to ''seems'' and ''may be's'' etc, can be a great facilitator in considerations of these topics you are discussing here.

a reply to: Reverbs

Sort of like it's a simulation and quantum weirdness is like error correction, "oh # he noticed this" change everything to make that make sense as one reality.. And then Reverbs gets dejavu as the only fleeting consequence.. Dejavu movies that can be fast forwarder like memories, and then I know the very near future, said out loud those around me see that I am remembering the future.. Hasn't happened in some time but it really nags at me. in other words extremely advanced simulation, that is not coming from another reality.. It is all there is.. So one would call it then reality, but reality that follows rules of simulation..

This is an interesting view. If our material system was in fact the base reality, and not a simulation, but did exhibit traits we would only expect in a simulation (ie: error correction with respect to conscious beings) why would you suppose things would be arranged this way? It seems like an unlikely way for the world to operate...

Don't you guys ever get that weird feeling, if you could just turn around quick enough you could catch the editing before it's real?

yeah all the time... I ask myself if there really are any planets at all outside of this solar system, or just the least necessary data modeling a macro object's effect on its parent star we would need to be shown based on our current means of observation, like we are getting Truman Showed' in some dome. I don't think this is the most likely answer, but it is interesting to entertain and I can't fully exclude it!

a reply to: St Udio

We are not always the captain-of-our-ship... sometimes we are nothing more than the flotsam & jetsam from an ill-designed vessel (sins of the fathers can be ingrained for 3 generations)

Perhaps, but I haven't really seen any evidence that we are punished for the sins of our fathers, outside of their poor economic choices at times, or their bunk genetics, hehe.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

ere, for my own musings, I have for the time being, adjusted ''embedded in another reality'' to ''embedded as part of a broader reality.'' For me, at least at this time, allows for the elimination of some of the classic critisims of ''dualism''.

Sure, that is a broader phrasing of that view.

And just to emphasize, these aren't necessarily any of the views I hold in section 4, just a listing of what appear to be front runners. Like you say, I think it is very important to entertain views that are not our own. A lot of human problems seem to result from the inability or refusal to do that.

My own favored view is both the one that seems the easiest to argue for to me, and I also consider it the most interesting, so that might reveal a personal bias, hehe.

I see it that everything is just energy, when you structure energy it forms mass. All the bonds of energy create a dense substance, the stronger the bonds the heavier it appears. Our knowledge is relative to what we think is going on. The truth is most people have been taught what is relevant to our senses because that is important to us. When energy balls up it forms all the things we see. Even the way we measure weight is relative in comparison to what we experience on this planet.

We are here, we are nothing more than structured energy. Our DNA structures how the energy is put together to form us. That is dependent on the frequency of the environment, our earth has a frequency signature. It is amazing when you start to be able to comprehend this kind of stuff. For us to assemble on this world is almost a miracle. People take it for granted that this world exists, if we change the frequency we vibrate at too much we may start to look like aliens. Frequency is also governed by diet and enzymes, which tend to create homeostasis to keep the frequency stable. Our cravings are part of this balance. Everything fits together to make us who we are.

From reading a lot of research I have found that most people are taking things apart to show something, you need to always look at the whole picture when evaluating things. What knowledge man has accumulated is so tiny when evaluating the whole picture, but many people believe they know everything. I know I need to keep learning till the day I die.

My answer is completely subjective with no evidence to support it. I have no desire to tie this in with science. I have witnessed multiple sides of this debate and it appears that evidence can be produced to support a multitude of views. People like to believe objective descriptions of this reality are possible. I think this reality is clever enough that that it will not be so easily compartmentalized.

I think this world is build upon the material. The material with physical properties that are bound by rules. Rules that operate down to the smallest particle, what ever that may be, up to the organization of entire galaxies. Rules that we don't understand. We can witness the effects of these rules but our understanding to create theories seems a bit lacking, but full of entertainment at the same time.

We are souls. Souls comprised of energy/vibrations/spirit that is bound to this mortal shell which allows us to interface with this reality. I am starting to lean in the direction that outside of our personal bodily possession, we are unable to interact with the material through our spirit but we are able to interact with other souls through our spirit/vibrations/energy.

This reality is way smarter than we are. Or said another way, the creator of this reality is smarter than we are. They or it understands that to for us to understand this reality would remove the magic. Just like being able to see beyond the veil of death would destroy the nature of this reality. The veil is one of the best parts of this creation. The unknown is glorious.

We like to think we are so scientific and advanced. But we can't even explain how they created the pyramids or many of the ancient megaliths/monoliths.

a reply to: joeraynor

My rational mind appreciates that we live in a material area of the known universe. It exists whether my senses experience it or not. The lump of brain that houses my thoughts also exists no matter what belief system I choose as a filter. If someone takes a steel-press to my head and squeezes the life from 'me,' the material world will continue.

People and groups with better minds than I possess have invented techniques and technology that can measure nearly everything. They've elevated 'sense data' and empiricism to another level. We can detect cosmic rays and identify their origins in many cases. Cloud chambers can demonstrate the existence of them and independent observations can form a consensus that they do exist. It's not always about LHCs and transient bosons.

It's natural to get philosophical and wax lyrically about what 'reality' actually means. Is everyone a figment of my imagination (solipsism)? Am I a figment of someone else's mind or an iteration of some simulation? Or are we all an aspect of something greater? Who knows? It's hard to get emphatic when there are so many aspects of cosmology waiting for grand unifying explanations.

What I feel sure of is that it doesn't matter. Simulated or not. Imaginary or not. It's trivia when there must exist a material world to house simulations or solipsistic personalities. Even if consciousness exists outside of what we currently consider 'the material world,' it'll still be bound by laws of physics and measurable at a point in the future.

I was about to hit 'reply' and realised how simplistic this post appears. Life and materiality are profoundly complex and I'm not saying otherwise.

The rules of the system we are observing may in fact be arbitrary, and may only apply to this system. They are fundamentally different from the laws of logic, which would seem to apply in any system.

Anthropic Principle seems relevant here. We're products of the laws of physics in our part of the known universe and are bound by them regardless of how arbitrary their origin story may be.***

*** I wish I hadn't opened your thread now. It's given me a headache...or the perception of one.

This is an interesting view. If our material system was in fact the base reality, and not a simulation, but did exhibit traits we would only expect in a simulation (ie: error correction with respect to conscious beings) why would you suppose things would be arranged this way? It seems like an unlikely way for the world to operate...

Everything is an unlikely way for the world to operate.. What in the world would be a simple explanation to you? The only reason this only freaks a few people out is normalcy bias. Its terrifying that I came to be. A simulation from another "real" world? that just pushes the question down another peg.

none of it makes any damn sense, and so the logical answer might be the most illogical actually.

does physicality create physics laws ?
or are the odds something comes out of nothing reliant on some property of nothing? and if nothing has a property then it is something and why does something ever exist in the first place?

its just my new vein of exploration like an extension of dualism. mirror worlds that bounce inside out to each other through a center point of nonexistence. both sides are connected but are largely tangential to consciousness.

I really don't base this on anything.

what is the difference in your mind between a simulation and a reality? If reality is based on rules..
I cant see a difference? other than a psychological distinction to placate human egos.

quantum mechanics seems to have been needed before reality came into being.

may as well say god did it, it all sounds the same to me.

yeah all the time... I ask myself if there really are any planets at all outside of this solar system, or just the least necessary data modeling a macro object's effect on its parent star we would need to be shown based on our current means of observation, like we are getting Truman Showed' in some dome. I don't think this is the most likely answer, but it is interesting to entertain and I can't fully exclude it!

that last part is not what I really think, its just a fun game I play with myself to try and grasp just a little more of what this all could be.
most of what I said is like that actually.
Im grasping at something much thinner than thin air or straws.

lol

a reply to: Kandinsky

People and groups with better minds than I possess have invented techniques and technology that can measure nearly everything. They've elevated 'sense data' and empiricism to another level. We can detect cosmic rays and identify their origins in many cases. Cloud chambers can demonstrate the existence of them and independent observations can form a consensus that they do exist. It's not always about LHCs and transient bosons.

Yeah, but you also seem to appreciate that this is all stuff we learned through our senses, as you highlighted. And of course all the normal Cartesian doubt about the nature of our senses is ever present. Descartes wasn't really fully able to exorcise that ghost, and it doesn't die easy, that's for sure. I believe in reason and evidence. A great many incredible things have come to us through those tools about this bewildering world we live in, but that same reason tells us that we can't we sure that world is the absolute, because we have no ways of getting at the "things themselves", rather than just the representations of our senses, which could be a baroque story authored by an "evil demon" or a computer.

I am not even completely sure we are in disagreement fundamentally, lol. I think the main difference is I seem to be less confident than you that this physical world is something truly substantial.

What I feel sure of is that it doesn't matter. Simulated or not. Imaginary or not. It's trivia when there must exist a material world to house simulations or solipsistic personalities. Even if consciousness exists outside of what we currently consider 'the material world,' it'll still be bound by laws of physics and measurable at a point in the future.

Sure, but then if it is not simulated but "imagined" (as a construct of pure consciousness) it needn't live in a physical world, at least not physical as we know it to mean. You also seem to appreciate the degree to which "physical" can merely mean a system governed by consistent laws though, so again, not sure I disagree here.

Describing exactly what an immaterial system would be is quite tricky, since it is hard to imagine a system apart from any laws... but maybe I am just taking "immaterial" to merely mean a material system with radically different laws, and probably less of them. Not that that makes literal sense...

I think you have hit upon a truth. And You can be sure it will not be well received. As always Science verses Deity comes into play, where it then descends into a debate and then off the rails.



a reply to: ClovenSky

a reply to: Reverbs

Everything is an unlikely way for the world to operate.. What in the world would be a simple explanation to you? The only reason this only freaks a few people out is normalcy bias. Its terrifying that I came to be. A simulation from another "real" world? that just pushes the question down another peg.

I would most expect there to be nothing at all. It is the easiest thing to explain... because the fact of there being something always leads to the question of... why this particular something and not some other something? Nothing has the beautiful trait of not really needing to justify itself, it is the expected. It is literally baffling that we have all this something.

There is a gross lack of symmetry in a universe that contains things. Sure, everything might sum to zero. All the charges might cancel out. The mass might equal zero net. But why does it take the form it does, and not any other possible form? Does it imply there are a set of other universes that are out there that contain all other combinations of laws and contents? The arbitrary is pretty uncomfortable in cosmology, and leads a person to think up all manner of seemingly unlikely alternatives like that.

or are the odds something comes out of nothing reliant on some property of nothing? and if nothing has a property then it is something and why does something ever exist in the first place?

Yeah that's it... is nothing inherently unstable? Does it have this need to bifurcate endlessly into pairs of opposites? What causes it to do that at some times but not others? Like why was it able to go from nothing to a singularity of so many somethings only that one time at the big bang? Why don't we see similar behavior from other nothings out there? Why don't universes just spring up from empty space? Is the space of this universe too much of a something to be a nothing?

mirror worlds that bounce inside out to each other through a center point of nonexistence.

That does seem to be how this physical world works