Category: Nothingness
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Something and Nothing Again: Krauss Takes Another Stab at Defending His ‘Bait and Switch’
In the pages of Scientific American, Lawrence M. Krauss writes: As a scientist, the fascination normally associated with the classically phrased question “why is there something rather than nothing?”, is really contained in a specific operational question. That question can be phrased as follows: How can a universe full of galaxies and stars, and planets…
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The Ultimate Explanation-Seeking Why-Question and Contrastive Explanations
I argued yesterday that the following questions are distinct: Q1. Why does anything at all exist, rather than nothing? Q2. Why does anything at all exist? Today I explore a little further the difference between non-contrastive and contrastive explanations. Consider the difference between: 1. Why is Mary walking rather than swimming? 2.…
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Why Something Rather Than Nothing? The Debate Goes On
Ah yes, these big questions never get laid to rest, do they? Man is indeed a metaphysical animal as Schopenhauer said. Here are some links courtesy of Alfred Centauri: John Horton, Science Will Never Explain Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing. Horgan and Krauss have at it in the ComBox. Victor Stenger contributes a…
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A Universe From Nothing? Krauss Reviewed
I had fun back in January pilloring the scientistic nonsense Lawrence M. Krauss propagates in his recent book, A Universe From Nothing. Meanwhile the book has shown up at the local library and tomorrow I will borrow it. I would never buy a piece of crap like this, though, to be fair, I will first…
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Some Aphorisms of E. M. Cioran with Commentary
How to disentangle profundity from puffery in any obscure formulation? Clear thought stops short, a victim of its own probity; the other kind, vague and indecisive, extends into the distance and escapes by its suspect but unassailable mystery. (131) Excellent except perhaps for ‘victim,’ which betrays Cioran’s mannered negativism. Substitute ‘beneficiary’ and the thought’s…
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If the Universe Can Arise out of Nothing, then so can Mind
Over breakfast yesterday morning, Peter Lupu uncorked a penetrating observation. The gist of it I took to be as follows. If a naturalist maintains that the physical universe can arise out of nothing without divine or other supernatural agency, then the naturalist cannot rule out the possibility that other things so arise, minds for example — a result that appears curiously…
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On Reconciling Creatio Ex Nihilo with Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit
This post examines Richard C. Potter's solution to the problem of reconciling creatio ex nihilo with ex nihilo nihil fit in his valuable article, "How To Create a Physical Universe Ex Nihilo," Faith and Philosophy, vol. 3, no. 1, (January 1986), pp. 16-26. (Potter appears to have dropped out of sight, philosophically speaking, so if…
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Thinking About Nothing
Suppose I try to think the counterfactual state of affairs of there being nothing, nothing at all. Can I succeed in thinking pure nothingness? Is this thought thinkable? And if it is, does it show that it is possible that there be nothing at all? If yes, then (i) it is contingent that anything exists,…