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Why is there something rather than nothing?

This really depends on what you trust as your base source(s) of knowledge. The goal of mysticism is to see for yourself what's going on behind the curtain of apparent reality, rather than to take someone else's word. As such, it's entirely subjective. But mysticism therefore requires that you ultimately trust your own subjective experience more than you don't. I know I do, because ultimately, it's all I've got; the entirety of existence as I know it occurs completely within my mind. When it comes to matters of ultimate reality, I'm going to wager that my own intuition and some of the extraordinary experience I've had actually point the way, and are not just delusions. If I ultimately lose this wager, so be it, but I'm sticking with it.
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Surely though, your experiences are judged and filtered through your own reasoning, and are relative to what is rational. I trust my own experiences only on the basis that they are rational. If I took a bunch of mescaline and had a conversation with some supernatural entity, I would obviously conclude that the entity was a figment of my imagination primarily induced by the neurological reaction of mescaline. Mescaline does not possess any supernatural powers to bring one closer to the "truth". If anything it brings one closer to understanding ones mind. So if I were to take the route of a scientist, I would propose many theories as to my experience based on rational assessment. As a mystic, I would go about things such as claiming to have transcended this or that and saw the "truth". The scientist listens for the universe whereas the mystic has the universe speak to them.

To me, mysticism longs for infinity, non-causality, and non-identity through death. Despite whatever unintelligible causes they ascribe to their incommunicable feelings, whoever rejects reality in a sense rejects existence. And in a sense their motives from then on are hatred for all the values of man and they wish to see it all destroyed. It seems as if they relish the spectacle of suffering, poverty, subservience, terror, etc. as it gives them proof of the defeat of rational reality and a feeling of triumph.

Mysticism has experience as its evidence, but is not based on any sound reality of which to call it anything other than a phenomenon, it is closed minded and selective. Many things in science might not be able to be understood at first, but its attempts are to be relative to objective reality and non-contradictory. If there is a contradiction, it is acknowledged and followed by further investigation, that's why science proposes theories.
 
All our perceptions of reality are subjective. Including those of scientists. Mystics and scientist both assess their experiences rationally. We have no a posteriori access to knowledge about objective reality. Of course mysticism attempts to be relative to objective reality in the same way as science does, mystics are trying to get to truth about an external world as much as scientists are.
 
o can we really comprend a beginning? can we compend a beginning without an end?
i think no matter how openminded we stay (not believing in something but still saying that it could be possibe) we have to believe in things every day. our survival maintains that we have to believe in some things small things even subconsiously. dnt deny it denial iz a belief.lol
soz that was bs i dont know wtf im on bout:D
 
AfterGlow said:
nothing is the absence of something. that's not something. that's not anything.
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"Nothing" is what we call something devoid of everything. If we did not have this term, we wouldn't have concept of this. Nothing is something in the sense that without nothing, we wouldn't have anything to compare and understand something with.

Just to get a little Taoist with it.

Just because there is nothing in a vacuum doesn't mean the universe isn't there in that space.
 
I've thought about this question quite a bit. To me it's really a question of language rather than anything that is based on empiricism. The universe has a cause because our language dictates that this is a question that can be asked. Similarly, nothing exists because we can state it as an object and attach a verb to it.

So, in my view, the universe has no "why" any more than it has a "what", "who", "how", or "when". If it is everything that ever was, is, and will be, how can it be constrained by the parameters of any of these questions? It can't, unless we say it can. Further, how can there exist a separate entity, apart from everything, that has omnipotence? There can't be, unless we say there is. In either case these are only words manipulated for discussion, and have little to do with what we actually think we are talking about.

As for the idea that somehow our conscious observation is what creates the universe, I find that to be incredibly arrogant and anthropocentric. Forgive me for not reading the article right now, it's late.
 
honeyroastedpeanut u just nailed it.language itz a gift and a curse.
 
Before there was a universe, there was nothing. That was not something. They are opposites. Not opposite ends of a spectrum of the same thing. And nothing is not something simply because you find it easier to associate nothing with something.

Consider that color is the perception of light wavelength and intensity. When there is no electromagnetic energy at all for our vision to perceive, we would call it black. Black is associated with color, but it is not really a color itself. It is the lack of any color. We just are more familiar associating it with colors because it's easier to think of it that way. But the lack of light energy is not light energy.

capstone said:
"Nothing" is what we call something devoid of everything. If we did not have this term, we wouldn't have concept of this. Nothing is something in the sense that without nothing, we wouldn't have anything to compare and understand something with.

Just to get a little Taoist with it.

Just because there is nothing in a vacuum doesn't mean the universe isn't there in that space.
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I got your point. When it's a matter of comparison, you can think of things however you want for convenience's sake. That's why I used the black is not a color analogy. But the way you think about it so you can understand it does not change its fundamental nature or the truth of reality.

We cannot know for certain if there was something or nothing before the universe existed. But in the same way I accept the concept of infinity I am also willing to accept the concept that our universe may have had a beginning with nothing preceding it. Just as I accept that infinity goes on forever and there is nothing that lies beyond it.
 
^Fair enough. Just as long as you can see that the universe may or may not have had a beginning, if it truly is infinite, just as there may or may not have been something preceding it.

How can the universe go on forever if nothing is beyond that? Doesn't this imply that nothing as a something?
 
A cause in the strictly temporal sense doesn't imply purpose, simply a previous event that result in an effect (the universe coming into being) Not that it's necessarily valid to assume time worked in the same way before (if that is even a valid word to use in this instance) the universe existed.
 
It's hard to say. Under our current laws of physics, time and space are indivisible. With no universe, presumably a different set of laws are in effect so time may not exist at all.
 
Carsick said:
It's hard to say. Under our current laws of physics, time and space are indivisible. With no universe, presumably a different set of laws are in effect so time may not exist at all.
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This is also a factor of language. Science and mathematics are an extension of our language, as well as the laws of physics and our conception of time. In our language, time is quantified and measured. In other languages, for example the Hopi, have no conception of time as an individual entity, merely a kind of feeling of sooner or later (Link). For us it is a way of quantifying experience (especially labor) so that it can interact with other numbers on a mathematical level, because after all, time is money. Time is a human construct and, IMO, doesn't actually exist.

I also don't think that the universe, as infinity, can realistically have a beginning or end, and therefore no before or after simply because we can postulate these concepts using our language.
 
HoneyRoastedPeanut said:
I also don't think that the universe, as infinity, can realistically have a beginning or end, and therefore no before or after simply because we can postulate these concepts using our language.
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These concepts of an infinity do surpass our limited language to define certain phenomena and hypothetical, fun to think about ideas. I guess the best we can do is understand it the best we can, especially in those realms of the personal human mind where thought has no words.

Ketamine helps. Then come up with new words to describe new concepts. Expend the potentials of the human comprehension, and we'll at least be able to understand these things better than we do now. Even though it would take a long time to understand them fully.

Why I read all the occult and esoteric material to sort of give me jump start to do this.
 
rpm said:
No it's the reverse. Non-existance does not exist. The set of things that exist does not include the things that do not exist. Simple.
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Wait I'm confused. You do know that I was responding to the other poster that by saying "nothing is something" is like saying "non-existence exists"?
 
I'm not very current on physics, but when I last studied it, there was a constant called Planck Time. This is the amount of time that it takes for the smallest thing that can happen, to happen. While your point that not every culture thinks about time in the same way is valid, it doesn't mean that the universe behaves in a different way for each person or purely because different people have different opinions that the lowest common denominator applies.
Space and time are just there. They don't care what we think. Time still happens to things that are not conscience of it. Ultimately nothing could change, ever, if time was not happening.
 
Time isn't just there it is brought about by consciousness. Planck time cannot measure the "smallest" occurrence as there is always something infinitely smaller. Planck time measures the "smallest" unit of time that can be detected by man. And by assuming "ultimately nothing can change" you are taking upon the position of a timeless-block universe.
 
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