The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician (2001) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician (2001)

#21

Post by lifeformed » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 5:07 AM UTC

d0lph wrote: post #12

GW150914 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s similar only if you misunderstand the questions physics seeks to answer. “If we rewind time according to present observations and theories, what do we see?” The answer is a Big Bang event, but that is just the answer to the question posed, not the deeper one posed by the wiki article. If you ask “why is there something rather than nothing?” physics has no single clear answer. Science takes very limited questions…

I think the question in that case is what existed before the Big Bang, has a vacuum always existed before? Or are we on a constant loop of universes forming and disintegrating.

I think the answer is that the concept of "before the Big Bang" doesn't make sense. Time is a part of the universe, and so there is no "missing" time or space before it. I think Steven Hawking said that it's like asking what is north of the north pole.

Re: The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician (2001)

#22

Post by beaconstudios » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 12:23 PM UTC

lifeformed wrote: post #21

d0lph wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question in that case is what existed before the Big Bang, has a vacuum always existed before? Or are we on a constant loop of universes forming and disintegrating.

I think the answer is that the concept of "before the Big Bang" doesn't make sense. Time is a part of the universe, and so there is no "missing" time or space before it. I think Steven Hawking said that it's like asking what is north of the north pole.

I think the heart of the issue is that the big bang is confusing to our understanding of causality. What caused the matter to exist in the original singularity? Before it was a singularity, was it some other form or had it always existed as such? What triggered the big bang?

Based on the first law of thermodynamics we can figure that a constant quantity of energy (in the form of both energy and mass) has always existed, but then the question remains - why does it exist?

Re: The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician (2001)

#23

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 26, 2018, 3:25 PM UTC

antonvs wrote: post #10

joshuaheard wrote: post #7

The link in the article to the institute was broken. Here is an updated link: https://www.comingtounderstanding.com/ Interesting the institute calls itself "Ammonius", not A.M. Monius. And the author of "Coming to Understanding" is clearly identified as Marc Sanders.

> And the author of "Coming to Understanding" is clearly identified as Marc Sanders. The Slate article is a republishing of a Lingua Franca article from 2001. Author identification was presumably only added after the author's cover was blown. The 2000 and 2007 versions of the document don't mention his name. The acknowledgements in the 2010 version mention his brother, Dr. Michael Sanders, and the included review by…

[deleted]

Re: The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician (2001)

#24

Post by d0lph » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 8:55 PM UTC

lifeformed wrote: post #21

d0lph wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question in that case is what existed before the Big Bang, has a vacuum always existed before? Or are we on a constant loop of universes forming and disintegrating.

I think the answer is that the concept of "before the Big Bang" doesn't make sense. Time is a part of the universe, and so there is no "missing" time or space before it. I think Steven Hawking said that it's like asking what is north of the north pole.

How could time not exist?

Re: The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician (2001)

#25

Post by darkmighty » Mon, Jul 30, 2018, 9:36 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #6

Oh, that A. M. Monius thing again. "Does reality have a purpose? Why are things intelligible at all?" Those questions run into the usual problem when looking for a First Cause: "God created the world." "Then who created God?" "Shut up, kid." Some philosophers get into this mess by starting from the assumption that there must be something more than the physical universe, so that it somehow "makes sense". With that bia…

I understand the consideration that this Universe is all that exists. But isn't that... weird? That there's no 'why' to this particular existence? We could be much more complicated if you consider all possible things that could exist. Is it simply senseless to ask 'why this'?

This view is argued here by Sean Carroll: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.02231

Personally, I'm not convinced, although I see the merits of the argument.

Of course as you noted, if you simply assume a parent system you get into an infinite that may or may not be reasonable (the parent system must have a parent, and so on, an infinite stack of parents; this infinite stack of parents also lies in another infinite stack, and so on). I think the only possible alternative to brute fact is to just assume everything exists, to different extents. Then after a lot of handwaving you can sort of explain why the universe is kinda simple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...

I haven't picked a side, but I have to say I'm more weirded out by the proposition that this is everything that exists than the proposition that essentially everything exists.