**The Necessary Reality Argument**

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Well, I don’t think I have to do that. I think you have to justify your claim that nothing can come from nothing.
 
No it is you that needs to justify that possibility!!! Its a contradiction… Absolutely nothing is the absolute absence of reality, thus it is a contradiction for reality to come from it. Its metaphysically impossible.
 
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It may be metaphysically impossible. It certainly is a puzzling idea. But since you have based your entire argument on Claim 1, you need to justify it. So far you haven’t. Shaking your head and saying it can’t be done doesn’t count. 🙂
 
PickyPicky said:
It may be metaphysically impossible. It certainly is a puzzling idea. But since you have based your entire argument on Claim 1, you need to justify it.
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I really don’t. The fact that it is metaphysically impossible is the justification for it. Its not just “puzzling”, its impossible. Lol
 
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pocaracas, everything you say happened may be true. However, none of it could have emerged from nothing unless the Heisenberg uncertainly principle (etc.) applies even in a state of nothingness. That being so, nothingness is not absolute nothingness, it has features, so is not absolute. It is this “quality of nothingness” that I, and I think IwantGod, are exploring. IwantGod describes it as “necessary reality” and I have described it as “operative” laws. I agree with IwantGod that the term ‘operative laws’ is not as clear as one would like, and may consist of separate entities - the rules of operation, the operator, and the thing being operated on. Where we differ is in IwantGod’s insistence that intelligence, or, in his latest post, intellect, is necessarily a concomitant of their existence. After all, the OP was presented as a ‘proof of God’, so simply being a metaphysical possibility is not good enough to establish that. Which is probably why the world still contains entirely rational, logical, intelligent… atheists (even if they’re wrong).

PickyPicky, the idea that “objects behave the way they do because … they do” is unsatisfactory to me for several reasons. I may never have dropped this apple before, but when I do it behaves exactly as if it were following the same set of laws that seem to have applied to everything else in the universe since time began. This does not seem to me to be random, or for a satisfactory reason to be ‘because it does.’
 
IWantGod said:
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PickyPicky:
It may be metaphysically impossible. It certainly is a puzzling idea. But since you have based your entire argument on Claim 1, you need to justify it.
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I really don’t. The fact that it is metaphysically impossible is the justification for it. Its not just “puzzling”, its impossible. Lol
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Although I am a theist, I think I have to agree with PickyPicky on this one. Ex nihilo nihil fit strikes me as a working assumption based on experience, not logic. At bottom, it is a way to characterize our observation that everything in the world seems to be contingent rather than necessary.
 
So its not clear to you that reality cannot arise from the absolute absence of all reality? You cannot see that proposing the possibility involves a metaphysical contradiction, a reductio ad absurdum? You cannot see why it is absurd to ask me to defend premise 1?

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree, because its very clear to me.
 
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lisaandlena said:
At the very least you’re going to have to explain what you mean by “reality” and “absence of all reality”.
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I do? Absolutely Marvelous.

How about the absence of any possible reality or realities.

Or maybe how about the absence of any possible existence in general.

How about the absence of any possible being.

Okay…let me make this easy for you. since you are the only one that exists, how about the absence of you?

Do you comprehend what i mean?

Because if you don’t, not only are you not a very good philosopher, i fail to see how you could possibly know whether or not any of my arguments have flaws in them.
 
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If you do not know what it means for a thing to exist and not exist, i am not going to school you.I’m sorry.
 
IWantGod said:
The problem is, what quantum physicists describe as nothing is not to be confused with the concept of absolutely nothing. Quantum physicists would be out of a job if they were really arguing what you seem to be implying.
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Exactly.

E.g., Lawrence Krauss’ argument that “nothing” is simply just a great “cosmic vacuum” of sorts. Which is Krauss’ bait and switch; Nothing is a state of absolute negation and hence cannot ever be empirically observed, because there isn’t anything to observe. No thing --including cosmic vacuums.
 
lisaandlena said:
2: The things that I’m conscious of. (whether real or illusory)
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We all have other things to do so no problems.

But i just want to ask, if a thing is illusory and not real, what do you mean exactly? Are you talking about mistaking an object of your experience for something else or are you saying illusory in the sense of it being a projection of your mind like an hallucination?

Because if its just a projection of your mind would that not contradict your earlier point that the mind cannot just exist by itself and be conscious, but rather it needs an object other than itself to give rise to consciousness? And how would an illusion cause conciouness to exist?
 
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Hugh_Farey said:
pocaracas, everything you say happened may be true. However, none of it could have emerged from nothing unless the Heisenberg uncertainly principle (etc.) applies even in a state of nothingness. That being so, nothingness is not absolute nothingness, it has features, so is not absolute
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Yes, I understand the distinction between absolute nothingness and quantum foam.
That’s why I don’t contest premise #1.

I contest the assumption that absolute nothingness can be a state of affairs, given our existence. A state of affairs that, through the “action” of some consciousness, somehow became populated with space, time, matter and energy.
It is my opinion that, if we factor in the unknowns in the quantum “world”, it is possible that the quantum foam, or space-time as I’ve been calling it, can be an answer to the prime mover argument here presented. By “can” I mean that we cannot rule it out… But I’m open to opinions.
 
pocaracas said:
I contest the assumption that absolute nothingness can be a state of affairs, given our existence. A state of affairs that, through the “action” of some consciousness, somehow became populated with space, time, matter and energy.
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Its not nothing that becomes populated. Nothing is not real and so it is not a state of affairs, you are certainly correct… it is necessary reality that becomes populated.
 
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pocaracas said:
It is my opinion that if we factor in the unknowns in the quantum “world”, it is possible that the quantum foam, or space-time as I’ve been calling it, can be an answer to the prime mover argument here presented. By “can” I mean that we cannot rule it out… But I’m open to opinions.
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I do see where you are coming from and i appreciate your argument.

The problem is this quantum foam is changing, it is realizing potential, In other-words its going through a process in-order to produce the objects that result. In premise 4 of the OP i explain why such a being cannot be thought of as necessary reality.
 
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Very well… Then I think your premise 4 is too stringent, too limiting… And not properly justified. Seems to just be an assertion custom made to reach the end result.
 
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