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I've probably read more Nietzsche than any other philosopher, partly for the sheer joy of it, partly for the maddening challenge of it. - One of the biggest ideas that he (perhaps purposefully) never fully develops is the idea of the "Knot of Truths." He alludes to it in Daybreak but discusses it several times throughout the book "Also Sprach Zarathustra" and it was in thinking about this construct that lead me to posit the unholiest human thought of all... - At best, you get out of "the knot" a tangled web of causes that every human being is a part of when they join this world. However, there are no "causes" of the knot. It always is, and every human generation inherits the same knot and it is largely the source of all of our various maladies and mysteries. - An idea of profound proportions seizes my soul on occasion. Sometimes I come to the "divine realization" of nothingness, that is every once in awhile my brain will be able to reconcile the possibility that there is absolutely no meaning to anything at all. I mean this in a very "deep-down" sort of way. - I'm borrowing a bit from the post-modern playbook, but we have a world that has precious few objects that are very real (transcendental functions, atoms, etc.) but in the grand scope of things there is no meaning or order to any of it. No goal. No end game. Nothing at all. - I think of what happened when I was a kid and had to move away for the first time. That townhome we lived in--was a collection of timber and drywall yet I wept for leaving it. - I talked before about humans being godlike... well it is we humans that give all of these objects any meaning. We give things purpose. That also includes each other... - If I depress anyone by reading this, I don't mean to. I've sketched notes about these thoughts for some time and I've been debating actually putting something together to discuss Nietzsche's death of God (which has a very specific meaning) and western civilization's slow process of grieving over this death. But I think the generations just before mine looked at this idea of 'nothing' very briefly and shuddered. It was unthinkable before then. When Nietzsche suggested it, it wasn't even conceivable. - But I think my generation stares "nothing" in the eye and laughs back. And if you know anything about Nietzsche, you know he'd get a little bit of a kick out of that. - /reflection off

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I can't say I've ever understood Nietsche. I'm not sure he wanted to be understood. - xeno6696 wrote: "we have a world that has precious few objects that are very real (transcendental functions, atoms, etc.)" - I've no idea what you mean by "very real". I would class "transcendental functions" as part of the mathematicians' fantasy world, and "atoms" as part of empirical science, two very different aspects of knowledge. - xeno6696 continued:"... but in the grand scope of things there is no meaning or order to any of it. No goal. No end game. Nothing at all." - I prefer to think that everything is open for anything to happen, and for conscious life-forms to give order and meaning to it. I certainly prefer that to being a pawn in some superfascist's masterplan. - By the way why did Matt S transmogrify into xeno6696?

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GPJ

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I don't know why my name changed, i didn't do it on purpose. I just popped my name into the profile, we'll see if that changed anything. - As for N, (Short term for Nietzsche) he wanted to be understood, but only by those people willing to fight with him. You have to be able to read very holistically to understand him, and read him more than once on each book. Intra-textual and inter-textual references, aphorisms, and all sorts of difficult literary devices make him the hardest philosopher I'm aware of, and the only way to fully grasp his ideas is to read all of his works... it builds a "transcendent" narrative independent of the words. Part of his goal was to blend both eso and exoterism, but that is my own hypothesis, and is not scholastic canon. - If you want to see what he was capable of in terms of lucid writing, look up "Truth and Lies in an extramoral sense" sometimes tranlated as "Truth and lies in a Nonmoral sense." Look for a Kaupfman tranlsation. - We have a great similarity in thought though, what you call the ability for people to write and give meaning is exactly the kind of wonderment I appreciate. We're free to do so, but it is potentially illusion to think it means anything in the grand scale of things. - As for transcendental functions being "in the mind of the mathematician" only, I used to think that too except you can observe PI, e, and the golden ratio in nature. They are artificial in the realm that the symbols we use are only abstractions, or metaphors if you will, but whatever you choose to call PI its value is the same no matter where you are in the universe. The same goes for other numbers such as e. Those numbers transcend humanity, meaning the truth of their existence is independent of human thought. Strangely, contrary to what Dr. Turell states, I've seen this argument used by several physics guys to base their hunch that there is a creator to the universe.

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Those numbers transcend humanity, meaning the truth of their existence is independent of human thought. Strangely, contrary to what Dr. Turell states, I've seen this argument used by several physics guys to base their hunch that there is a creator to the universe. - I don't understand how this relates to me.

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Those numbers transcend humanity, meaning the truth of their existence is independent of human thought. Strangely, contrary to what Dr. Turell states, I've seen this argument used by several physics guys to base their hunch that there is a creator to the universe.
> 
> I don't understand how this relates to me. - Still don't have my answer. Please.

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Those numbers transcend humanity, meaning the truth of their existence is independent of human thought. Strangely, contrary to what Dr. Turell states, I've seen this argument used by several physics guys to base their hunch that there is a creator to the universe.
> 
> I don't understand how this relates to me. - Well you talked about the (NIST? NSF?) poll that found 7% of physical science scientists were theist? - I just find that hard to swallow, because at my own (State) university, I seem to see more people who study physics that take the stance of a creator. Maybe that changes as time goes on and they become more entrenched in their field.

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I don't understand how this relates to me.
 
> Well you talked about the (NIST? NSF?) poll that found 7% of physical science scientists were theist?
 
> I just find that hard to swallow, because at my own (State) university, I seem to see more people who study physics that take the stance of a creator. Maybe that changes as time goes on and they become more entrenched in their field. - I was giving figures from a Sci. Am. article Sept. 1999, "Scientists and Religion in America", an historical review, with the latest figures from the NAS survey.

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I don't know why my name changed, i didn't do it on purpose. I just popped my name into the profile, we'll see if that changed anything. - 
Did you put your email address into the name slot?

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I don't know why my name changed, i didn't do it on purpose. I just popped my name into the profile, we'll see if that changed anything.
> 
> 
> Did you put your email address into the name slot? - Nope... If I could post a .jpg here I would. - user name = xeno6696 - I have my name down as "Matt Seil." Doesn't appear to be posting that way however...

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xeno6696: "As for transcendental functions being "in the mind of the mathematician" only, I used to think that too except you can observe PI, e, and the golden ratio in nature." - No you can't. Only approximations to them. And probably only to a few decimal places. 3.14159, 2.71828, 1.61803 are probably more than sufficent for most purposes. - What you have said about Nietsche confirms my view that he didn't want to be understood, at least among the hoi polloi like me!

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GPJ

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xeno6696: "As for transcendental functions being "in the mind of the mathematician" only, I used to think that too except you can observe PI, e, and the golden ratio in nature."
> 
> No you can't. Only approximations to them. And probably only to a few decimal places. 3.14159, 2.71828, 1.61803 are probably more than sufficent for most purposes.
> - You missed my point. The ratio that the number PI represents is a discrete and real truth. Though the search for an exact function is ongoing, the precision isn't as earth-shaking as the fact that the ratio both exists and is observable. PI can be calculated with arbitrary precision anyway, so in a practical stance it doesn't matter if it's approximate or not. The only mathematical debate of any importance is whether or not it can be considered a "Normal" number, an esoteric concept for anyone uninitiated. PI also comes up in quantum physics, though I'm not as familiar with how they use it beyond Euler's formula. - In the case of the golden mean, we see its existence in nature as plainly as we see electromagnetic forces, light, and any other physical property. Especially in biology. So again... they are objective truths. We didn't make them up. - > What you have said about Nietsche confirms my view that he didn't want to be understood, at least among the hoi polloi like me!
< - No, he was an elitist. (Not in the sense that Heidegger made him out to be, however.)

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xeno6696: "As for transcendental functions being "in the mind of the mathematician" only, I used to think that too except you can observe PI, e, and the golden ratio in nature."
 
> > No you can't. Only approximations to them. And probably only to a few decimal places. 3.14159, 2.71828, 1.61803 are probably more than sufficent for most purposes. - George is correct if you follow the discussion with Paul Davies here: - http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/04/19/160480.aspx - Davies insights into our 'biofriendly' universe have great import for this website.

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Thanks for that link to Paul Davies interview. I found it most interesting. Particularly this bit: - "We can work out the information-processing capacity of the universe. It's finite ... and it comes out with a very big number, about 10^122 /// the significant thing is that in the past, the number was much smaller. When you go back to the time when the structure of the universe was being laid down ... the time of inflation, 10^-34 seconds, the bits that the universe would have contained was only about 10^20. So if we restrict our description of the laws of physics to have that accuracy ... one part in 10^20 ... then that starts to become significant." - Presumably when you go back to time zero there were absolutely zero bits! - What I'm inclined to dispute is the supposed "biofriendliness" of the universe. Perhaps it is just a matter of the universe being able to support increasing complexity because of its increased computing power, and life is just incidental to that wider process.

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GPJ

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Thanks for that link to Paul Davies interview. I found it most interesting. Particularly this bit:
> 
> "We can work out the information-processing capacity of the universe. It's finite ... and it comes out with a very big number, about 10^122 /// the significant thing is that in the past, the number was much smaller. When you go back to the time when the structure of the universe was being laid down ... the time of inflation, 10^-34 seconds, the bits that the universe would have contained was only about 10^20. So if we restrict our description of the laws of physics to have that accuracy ... one part in 10^20 ... then that starts to become significant." - >> Presumably when you go back to time zero there were absolutely zero bits! - I found this part interesting as well. I appreciate Davies ability to answer these questions in layman terms so that even I could understand much of what he was saying. He said a whole lot in a small space. - To my way of thinking, I do not see that if you go back in time you come to zero bits. You might come to just one bit...but not zero. And within that one bit is all that's needed for what we now have. The whole idea of 'zero' is believed and pursued religiously and is possibly just another myth, just as the word "beginning" is. Of course we created these ideas of nothing/zero/beginnings in our own minds in the first place and science carries this torch ideal of nothing religiously. What proof is there of zero or a beginning? Both are another word for nothing and no proof has ever been made of nothing (but it's a great idea for spending lots of money and keeping lots of scientist eating). Nothing is the holy grail of science. There never was nothing and there never will be. The idea's of past and future are right up there with zero and beginnings, yet much of science is based on the pursuit of knowing more about all of these ideas of nothing. - Of course I could be entirely wrong, I'm the first to say I could be. Nothing (zero, beginning, past, future) may be just as real as something. As long as man thinks it's real, it's real..until he can prove it's not, it is.

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Thanks for that link to Paul Davies interview. I found it most interesting. Particularly this bit:
> > 
> > "We can work out the information-processing capacity of the universe. It's finite ... and it comes out with a very big number, about 10^122 /// the significant thing is that in the past, the number was much smaller. When you go back to the time when the structure of the universe was being laid down ... the time of inflation, 10^-34 seconds, the bits that the universe would have contained was only about 10^20. So if we restrict our description of the laws of physics to have that accuracy ... one part in 10^20 ... then that starts to become significant."
> 
> >> Presumably when you go back to time zero there were absolutely zero bits! 
> 
> I found this part interesting as well. I appreciate Davies ability to answer these questions in layman terms so that even I could understand much of what he was saying. He said a whole lot in a small space.
> 
> To my way of thinking, I do not see that if you go back in time you come to zero bits. You might come to just one bit...but not zero. And within that one bit is all that's needed for what we now have. The whole idea of 'zero' is believed and pursued religiously and is possibly just another myth, just as the word "beginning" is. Of course we created these ideas of nothing/zero/beginnings in our own minds in the first place and science carries this torch ideal of nothing religiously. What proof is there of zero or a beginning? Both are another word for nothing and no proof has ever been made of nothing (but it's a great idea for spending lots of money and keeping lots of scientist eating). Nothing is the holy grail of science. There never was nothing and there never will be. The idea's of past and future are right up there with zero and beginnings, yet much of science is based on the pursuit of knowing more about all of these ideas of nothing. 
> 
> Of course I could be entirely wrong, I'm the first to say I could be. Nothing (zero, beginning, past, future) may be just as real as something. As long as man thinks it's real, it's real..until he can prove it's not, it is. - bbella, - You need to spend some time investigating eastern philosophy, they have much more to say about the nature of 'nothing.' - I do find it interesting you seem to state science studies "nothing?" - Mathematically speaking though, you do get to 0 bits.

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bbella,
> 
> You need to spend some time investigating eastern philosophy, they have much more to say about the nature of 'nothing.' 
> - I have spent time investigating eastern philosphies; Taoism, Confucianism, Zen Buddhism, etc. The nothing they speak of is something (which then is nothing) as well as nonaction, etc, but just because any man (religion or science) expounds on the many aspects of nothing as if it is something dosent make it any more real (something). - > I do find it interesting you seem to state science studies "nothing?" - Ok, I apologize for that too general of a statement...we all have benefited from science and I am thankful for that and wish for them to continue their pursuit of understanding of WHAT IS. 
> 
> Mathematically speaking though, you do get to 0 bits. - Yes, mathmatically speaking my bank account can get to 0 too....but just because we've created a word for nothing does not make it something.

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ps...I meant to mention one of my favorite eastern philosophers quote: - A dog is not reckoned good because he barks well, and a man is not reckoned wise because he speaks skillfully. - Chuang Tzu

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ps...I meant to mention one of my favorite eastern philosophers quote:
> 
> A dog is not reckoned good because he barks well, and a man is not reckoned wise because he speaks skillfully.
> 
> Chuang Tzu - Sounds like he had listened to Cicero...

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bbella,
> > 
> > You need to spend some time investigating eastern philosophy, they have much more to say about the nature of 'nothing.' 
> > 
> 
> I have spent time investigating eastern philosphies; Taoism, Confucianism, Zen Buddhism, etc. The nothing they speak of is something (which then is nothing) as well as nonaction, etc, but just because any man (religion or science) expounds on the many aspects of nothing as if it is something dosent make it any more real (something).
> 
> > I do find it interesting you seem to state science studies "nothing?" 
> 
> Ok, I apologize for that too general of a statement...we all have benefited from science and I am thankful for that and wish for them to continue their pursuit of understanding of WHAT IS. 
> > 
> > Mathematically speaking though, you do get to 0 bits.
> 
> Yes, mathmatically speaking my bank account can get to 0 too....but just because we've created a word for nothing does not make it something. - You're confusing the mathematical concepts of 0 and the empty set. "0" is not "nothing." Mathematically, the only concept that means "nothing" is the empty set. - 
Going to 0 bits doesn't mean "no bits." The expansion they're talking about is an infinite exponential progression where all mass was contained in an infinitely small point. All matter and energy were there... so instead of saying "no bits" they say "singularity." This distinguishes it from the concept of "nothing" and I doubt you'd hear too many physicists agree that the singularity qualified as "nothing." The singularity contained *everything,* and therefore cannot by definition be "nothing."

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xeno6696 wrote: "You're confusing the mathematical concepts of 0 and the empty set. "0" is not "nothing." Mathematically, the only concept that means "nothing" is the empty set." - This depends how you define the terms. Some axiomatisations of set theory, and cardinal number theory, define 0 as the empty set {}. The number 1 could then the set containing the empty set {{}} and so on! - xeno6696:"Going to 0 bits doesn't mean "no bits." The expansion they're talking about is an infinite exponential progression where all mass was contained in an infinitely small point." - You are talking there in terms of classical continuum mechanics. Nowadays you have to take account of quantum mechanics. - xeno6696: "All matter and energy were there... so instead of saying "no bits" they say "singularity." This distinguishes it from the concept of "nothing" and I doubt you'd hear too many physicists agree that the singularity qualified as "nothing." The singularity contained *everything,* and therefore cannot by definition be "nothing."" - You need to read Victor J. Stenger! He argues that the total ampunt of energy in the universe is zero, being made up of the positive energy tied up in mass (mainly) and the negative energy tied up in gravitational potential (and dark energy) responsible for the expansion. - Edit: So in a sense everything IS nothing!

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GPJ

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xeno6696 wrote: "You're confusing the mathematical concepts of 0 and the empty set. "0" is not "nothing." Mathematically, the only concept that means "nothing" is the empty set."
> 
> This depends how you define the terms. Some axiomatisations of set theory, and cardinal number theory, define 0 as the empty set {}. The number 1 could then the set containing the empty set {{}} and so on!
> 
> xeno6696:"Going to 0 bits doesn't mean "no bits." The expansion they're talking about is an infinite exponential progression where all mass was contained in an infinitely small point."
> 
> You are talking there in terms of classical continuum mechanics. Nowadays you have to take account of quantum mechanics.
> 
> xeno6696: "All matter and energy were there... so instead of saying "no bits" they say "singularity." This distinguishes it from the concept of "nothing" and I doubt you'd hear too many physicists agree that the singularity qualified as "nothing." The singularity contained *everything,* and therefore cannot by definition be "nothing.""
> 
> You need to read Victor J. Stenger! He argues that the total ampunt of energy in the universe is zero, being made up of the positive energy tied up in mass (mainly) and the negative energy tied up in gravitational potential (and dark energy) responsible for the expansion.
> 
> Edit: So in a sense everything IS nothing! - Wrote the author down. I've heard his result (That the sum total of all energies is 0) - Here's a question though, there's a debate going on about whether or not dark energy/matter isn't simply the accretion of errors resulting from cosmological computations. If that's the case, then Stenger's idea is tossed out isn't it? - Another (elegant) solution is to abandon the cosmological principle altogether, thus suggesting that our location in the universe is actually NOT normal for the entire universe. - The idea is that the distribution of matter throughout the universe is not uniform, and that we live in an area of low density in terms of matter, a 'void' in comparison to other parts of the universe. This elegant explanation explains the cosmic model in a way that we need not invoke dark matter or energy at all. (Last month's Scientific American.) - Aside from that quarrel, we also have no verification that Dark energy or matter actually exist. So in that view, I can't accept Stenger's view out of hand. - Which book is it, by the way? The library shows a laundry list.

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You need to read Victor J. Stenger! He argues that the total ampunt of energy in the universe is zero, being made up of the positive energy tied up in mass (mainly) and the negative energy tied up in gravitational potential (and dark energy) responsible for the expansion.
> > 
> > Edit: So in a sense everything IS nothing!
> 
> Wrote the author down. I've heard his result (That the sum total of all energies is 0) 
> 
> Here's a question though, there's a debate going on about whether or not dark energy/matter isn't simply the accretion of errors resulting from cosmological computations. If that's the case, then Stenger's idea is tossed out isn't it? - 
Alan Guth made the same comment about the universe being something from nothing, in his book, The Inflationary Universe, 1997, before dark matter and further increasing expansion rate were a big issue (as based on supernova analysis and the guessing about dark energy); his first chapter is "The Ultimate Free Lunch".

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Here's a question though, there's a debate going on about whether or not dark energy/matter isn't simply the accretion of errors resulting from cosmological computations. If that's the case, then Stenger's idea is tossed out isn't it?
> 
> 
> Alan Guth made the same comment about the universe being something from nothing, in his book, The Inflationary Universe, 1997, before dark matter and further increasing expansion rate were a big issue (as based on supernova analysis and the guessing about dark energy); his first chapter is "The Ultimate Free Lunch". - < - I still find it downright ludicrous though for anyone to really try and explain something like "what happened before the big bang" because in what I've read to date... there is no answer whatsoever.

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Mr. Jeliss, - I also forgot to address your math point. - The context of the discussion was in dealing with physical models, in which time is typically treated as an exponent. Then you have a system that simply becomes infinitely small as you move the dial into the negative numbers. (Oversimplification, but the algebraic property is right.) - More intriguing to me is the use of complex numbers in quantum physics... that's an entire black box to me right now. Much math to study... too little time.

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My reference to dark energy in my account of Stenger's ideas may have misled you. I don't think it is an essential part of his scheme. The only actual book I've read of his is "God the Failed Hypothesis", though I've also read several articles online. I'd like to read "The Comprehensible Cosmos" some time. - I don't think the use of complex numbers in quantum theory is an essential part of it. It just happened to be available to formulate the equations in a simple manner. There is a readable account in Atkins' book on chemistry. - Edit: On this page there is a PDF just below "Where do the laws of physics come from" that explains a great deal very succinctly. - http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/nothing.html

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GPJ

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My reference to dark energy in my account of Stenger's ideas may have misled you. I don't think it is an essential part of his scheme. The only actual book I've read of his is "God the Failed Hypothesis", though I've also read several articles online. I'd like to read "The Comprehensible Cosmos" some time.
> 
> I don't think the use of complex numbers in quantum theory is an essential part of it. It just happened to be available to formulate the equations in a simple manner. There is a readable account in Atkins' book on chemistry.
> 
> Edit: On this page there is a PDF just below "Where do the laws of physics come from" that explains a great deal very succinctly.
> 
> http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/nothing.html - Thanks, - I apologize for my absence the past few days, my laptop had to be serviced and I don't like accessing internet portals on public networks. (I'm a bit of a security nut.) - Version 1 of my "chance" primer should be done before the end of July. My goal is to have it done by the 23. (The 22nd is when I take my GRE.)

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Holy f*in crap George... - That paper just blew my world. I'm going to have to read "Comprehensible Universe" next, out of pure principle... - I never thought that those theorems would be so comprehensible... - And from a few bits of linear algebra he goes on to derive... well, quite a bit of our laws. - It's so satisfactorily nullifying to most of my previous ignorance on the subject. - I frankly never thought that physics at that level would be so comprehensible...

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Thanks for that link to Paul Davies interview. I found it most interesting. > What I'm inclined to dispute is the supposed "biofriendliness" of the universe. Perhaps it is just a matter of the universe being able to support increasing complexity because of its increased computing power, and life is just incidental to that wider process. - Remember that Davies has expressed an extreme interest in the Origin and Meaning of Life: - http://www.amazon.com/FIFTH-MIRACLE-Search-Origin-Meaning/dp/068486309X

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