I’ve argued before that if we presume there was once absolutely nothing, we actually end up with an infinite multiverse (Ex Nihilo Onus Merdae Fit). Which eliminates the fine tuning argument, by statistically guaranteeing any universe will randomly exist, no matter how improbable its arrangement of fundamental properties. Here I walk you through the logic in a way easier to understand and impossible to escape.
Metaphysical Deduction Not Physical Presumption
I want to make perfectly clear from the start that what I am doing here is not what Krauss and others are doing, which they have been rightly criticized by theologians for as missing the point. That a multiverse is inevitable given an initial state of nothing is not because of quantum cosmological calculations showing it’s not just possible but actually likely that a complex universe or even a multiverse would spontaneously arise from any arbitrarily tiny bubble of absolute vacuum. Like the He-Gao-Cai thesis: “Spontaneous Creation of the Universe from Nothing,” Physical Review D 89 (2014). Because that still presupposes the existence of the vacuum, the bubble. They are starting from the assumption that some quantum of space-time exists, and obeys certain laws of physics. That’s still pretty impressive, one must admit. But theists will complain that we then have to explain how that quantum of space-time came about. Why was it there at all? Why does it obey those laws of physics? The theologian’s idea of nothing means absolutely nothing. Not even physics or tiny empty spaces. Hence, missing the point.
Although what I shall do here does combine with the well-established scientific deduction that once “inflation” starts in inflationary models of the universe, it never ends: it is future eternal. Which means even if the whole thing did have a beginning, that there was a first moment of “everything,” infinitely many universes are an inevitable outcome. Simply because the inflationary expansion will continue producing them forever. See Alan Guth’s demonstration in “Quantum Fluctuations in Cosmology and How They Lead to a Multiverse,” Proceedings of the 25th Solvay Conference on Physics (2013), which summarizes his and others’ previous peer reviewed work (assembled in the bibliography).
Notably, even the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin thesis theologians love to cite—which actually only applies if singularities exist, when quantum mechanics entails they don’t: see Gabriele Veneziano, “The Myth of the Beginning of Time,” Scientific American 290 (2004)—does not say our Big Bang was the first one. See the original paper: “Inflationary Spacetimes Are Not Past-Complete,” Physical Review Letters 90 (2003). We could be at the end of trillions of Big Bangs; and exist alongside countless googols more of them, in parallel limbs branching out from the tree of the original expanding inflaton.
And indeed there are already in fact a lot of reasons to conclude a multiverse exists: not only might there be ways to directly observe evidence of it someday (e.g. if another universe has ever collided with ours), it’s also explanatorily superior to theism on every scientific measure. See my summary of six good reasons. And then see the many reasons summarized by Paul Davies, “Multiverse Cosmological Models,” Modern Physics Letters A 19 (2004) and Andrei Linde, “A Brief History of the Multiverse,” Reports on Progress in Physics 80 (2017).
This is all compatible with what’s to follow. And it’s notable physics is finding results congruent with metaphysical certainties deduced from basic logic. Indeed, the following argument tracks closely to the very similar argument of Maya Lincoln and Avi Wasser in “Spontaneous Creation of the Universe Ex Nihilo,” Physics of the Dark Universe 2 (2013): 195–99.
So, to my version of that kind of argument I now turn…
The Only Possible Kind of Absolute Nothing
- Proposition 1: That which is logically impossible can never exist or happen.
I suppose weirdos like presuppositionalists might try to deny this and assert that logically contradictory states of affairs can exist or happen, but for God stopping it with his magical mind rays. But that’s honestly just tinfoil hat. It’s really hard to fathom what one could even mean by saying logical contradictions can obtain in the real world, that the logically impossible is still nevertheless possible. And most theists really won’t go there. After all, they love the ontological argument, which argues that that which is logically necessary, necessarily exists. They try to get a god to be one of those things. That never works. But still. Finding such a proof is a Holy Grail of theology.
Nevertheless, the very notion that logically necessary things necessarily exist, necessarily entails logically impossible things never exist. Because one of the things that necessarily exists, is the absence of logically impossible things. Otherwise, we could not in fact say logically necessary things necessarily exist. Because that is claiming it’s logically impossible they could “not” exist; but we just admitted logically impossible things can happen! If the logically impossible can actually happen, then it’s possible logically necessary things don’t exist. Down goes the ontological argument.
There are actually good reasons to conclude the logically impossible cannot exist (in any meaningfully relevant sense), but I won’t go further into that here (see Sense and Goodness without God, index, “contradiction, nature of,” and my remarks on the point in response to Reppert). I’ll just say that the following argument is for people who are unwilling or honestly unable to deny this proposition.
- Proposition 2: The most nothingly state of nothing that can ever obtain, is a state of affairs of zero size lacking all properties and contents, except that which is logically necessary.
This actually follows from Proposition 1, combined with the basic meaning of “absolutely nothing.” The most “nothing” nothing you can ever have, is by removing every possible thing that can be removed, until there is nothing left. Which thus includes any quanta of space or time, as well as laws of physics, particles, and so on. But since you can’t “remove” logically necessary things, or have a logically impossible state of affairs, it is logically impossible for any state of nothing to lack that whose existence or occurrence is logically necessary. Which in turn means it is logically impossible for any state of nothing to behave in a logically contradictory way. Because logical contradictions can never obtain. They therefore cannot happen. So they cannot govern what a “nothing” would do.
That gets us down to the most “nothing” nothing that could ever have obtained, by removing things until there are no more things we can remove without creating a logical contradiction. We can remove all durations of time, until time is a dimensionless point, representing “zero” amount of time. That’s what “no time exists” means. We can remove all height and width and depth, until space is a dimensionless point, representing “zero” amount of space, in every direction. We can remove all matter and energy. So, there are no particles, no contents. And we can remove all rules, properties, and laws of physics. Except anything we can prove is logically necessary. If removing something entails a logical contradiction, we can’t remove it. We are stuck with it. There can never have been a state of being that lacked it.
Which means if you still think that’s not “nothing,” but still something (namely, the presence of every logically necessary thing, and the absence of every logical impossibility), then you are admitting that nothing is logically impossible. And down goes any argument you may have that requires the universe to have come from nothing without a god around. Because “nothing” can never have existed: it’s logically impossible. Therefore we no longer need gods to explain why there is something. That there would be something is logically necessary. By your own admission.
I suspect theists won’t go there. And those who do, will have to abandon their argument that without god we can’t explain why there is something and not nothing. Because they will have just conceded it is logically necessarily the case that there will be something, even without gods. The rest will bite the bullet and admit that yes, when they say that in the absence of gods there once must have been a state of nothing (from which nothing, they will insist, could have come), they can only mean the “nothing” I just described: the logically possible nothing; the one that still isn’t totally nothing, because it still must contain every logical necessity. But, they will be happy to note, it contains nothing else. No contents. No quantities of spacetime. No rules. At least that much of nothing is logically possible. It therefore may once have been the state of things.
Of course, we don’t actually know that. There has never been any scientific or logical proof that there had to have ever been a state of nothing; of any kind at all. There may well have always been something. Despite many a hypothesis, we have no conclusive proof, logical or scientific, that existence is not past eternal. Actual infinities and infinite pasts are logically possible and therefore cannot be ruled out. And we have no evidence by which to rule them out. Even the BGV thesis doesn’t. Because it only rules them out under conditions we have no evidence actually obtain. Quantum gravity might tank their theorem just as it did the similar theorem of Hawking and Penrose (see links above). The fact of the matter is we don’t know whether singularities are possible (and on current quantum physics, they are not) or what happens when any universe approaches one, because no present physics can explain or predict what happens at that scale. All bets are off.
But here we are just working out what must necessarily be the case if there was ever a state of total nothing, the most empty nothing logically possible. And that means such a nothing-state will be a hypersphere of zero size in all dimensions, with no contents, and governed by no rules or laws, except the laws of logical necessity. Which is at least a plausible hypothesis. We can ask what predicted observations that hypothesis entails, and how well that accords with what we see. So this is what we shall mean by the word Nothing (capitalized) heretofore.
- Proposition 3: If there was ever Nothing, then nothing governs or dictates what will become of that Nothing, other than what is logically necessary.
This is true by definition, once you accept Proposition 2. So there is no logically consistent way to deny this Proposition without also denying Proposition 2. In fact Proposition 3 is just a restatement of Proposition 2 with respect to the specific absence of “rules” and “properties.” It is logically entailed by that absence, that when there is Nothing, there are also no rules or properties that dictate what will happen to that Nothing or what that Nothing will do.
Which also means the total absence of physical laws. So all cosmology papers arguing for a universe from nothing are invalid for the condition of Nothing, as those papers depend on the existence or operation of certain physical laws or properties. See, for example, this point as made in 1987 by W.B Drees in “Interpretation of The Wave Function of the Universe,” International Journal of Theoretical Physics 26. Only if some such paper proved the physical laws or properties they depend on are logically necessary would they become applicable to Nothing. They could, for instance, someday show how denying that that physical law applies to any state of affairs (even a Nothing-state) entails a logical contradiction. But I am not aware of that having been done.
- Proposition 4: If nothing governs or dictates what will become of Nothing (other than what is logically necessary), then nothing (other than what is logically necessary) prevents anything from happening to that Nothing.
This is again true by definition. It’s what follows with logical necessity from saying nothing governs what happens to Nothing; because Nothing contains nothing, not even rules or properties that would limit what Nothing can do. So you cannot deny Proposition 4 without denying Propositions 1, 2, or 3.
This entails that the assertion ex nihilo nihil, “from nothing, comes [only] nothing,” is false. Because that is a rule, and Nothing contains no rules. No such rule can therefore exist when there is Nothing, so as to govern that Nothing. Therefore it cannot be the case that only nothing comes from Nothing. In fact we cannot even establish that it is likely that only nothing will come from Nothing.
The only way to challenge this is to disprove Proposition 4. And the only way to disprove Proposition 4 is to prove that it is logically necessary that only nothing come from Nothing. I know of no such proof. None has ever been produced. Not even after over two thousand years of philosophy. There is not only no proof that it is necessarily the case that ex nihilo nihil, there is no proof that that’s even an expected outcome.
It won’t do to say “but we don’t see that rule being violated anywhere now,” because we do not observe Nothing anywhere—everywhere there is something (an expanded spacetime, with contents and properties, governed by now-existent physical laws)—so none of our observations apply to Nothing. In fact, as Nothing entails the total absence of “contents and properties and physical laws,” the very reason we do not observe a violation of ex nihilo nihil is that those extant properties and laws now prevent “just anything” from happening. The only nihil we observe is actually a thing: propertied spacetime. And that thing, being existent, now limits what can happen.
Even insofar as we do observe the violation of ex nihilo nihil, indeed all the time now, in the spontaneous creation and destruction of virtual particles resulting from quantum indeterminacy, this is a highly constrained and ordered violation. It’s governed by limits, laws, and rules. You don’t just get rabbits and deathstars popping in and out, much less then sticking around. Yes, there actually is a calculable quantum probability on present physics of a rabbit or a deathstar popping into existence spontaneously; but it’s an absurdly small probability, because what can and can’t happen now is constrained by the possibilities allowed and disallowed by the specific spacetime we inhabit and its qualities. But when there is Nothing, there is no spacetime (much less the specific kind we inhabit) other than a dimensionless point of it, and no governing qualities.
So, indeed, there can be not just Boltzmann brains but a Boltzmann anything on present physics (as I’ve discussed before). But when even the constrains that make such things unlikely don’t exist anymore, all Boltzmann things necessarily become far more probable—not less. An actual Nothing is therefore even more likely to randomly create rabbits and deathstars. This is a logically necessary fact, that follows necessarily from the fact that when there is Nothing, that which keeps the probability of such outcomes low no longer exists, and therefore nothing remains to keep that probability so low. It doesn’t follow that it’s therefore then a likely outcome. It may indeed still be an absurdly low probability (and I dare say surely is). But it will be so only if, and only because, it is logically necessarily so. And not because of any other rules, laws, or physics.
The principle point is that Proposition 4 entails the probability of Nothing spontaneously becoming anything is not zero. It logically cannot be zero. As it only could be if something existed to stop that happening. And by definition nothing exists when there is Nothing to stop that Nothing from becoming something else. And note that whatever then happens will also be totally uncaused, except insofar as it is caused by Nothing itself. Because whatever happens will be uncaused by anything whatever except the logically necessary fact that Nothing cannot limit what comes to exist. As being Nothing, it lacks any forces or constrains to limit what happens.
Of course, what could then come to exist includes time, space, contents, and properties. And indeed this is true even of rabbits and deathstars. By the very definition of those terms, you can’t spontaneously create those things without also creating a spacetime manifold in which they can exist, complete with laws and properties. For instance, an inalienable property of a rabbit is that it has a nonzero width. And for it to be alive requires change (an active metabolism), which requires a nonzero expanse of time. As well as all the laws of physics needed to realize the rabbit and hold it together, from atomic bonds to inverse square laws, even the basic forces and particles of the Standard Model. Otherwise, it would entail a logical contradiction to say anything else that Nothing spontaneously generated could aptly be called “a rabbit.”
Which means, every possible thing that can arise from Nothing—there being no logical fact nor any other thing to prevent it arising—will in effect be a “universe” in the broadest sense. Even just a rabbit, will actually be a rabbit within some “universe” necessary to materialize a rabbit. No matter what other thing you try to describe as a logically possible outcome of a totally random process, it will in effect either be a universe, or logically entail a universe to contain it. Which will of course include really bizarre universes, including static universes with no (or almost no) time, universes with only one dimension, and so on. But it is logically necessarily the case that no thing can exist without the existence of at least one dimension to contain it; otherwise it “never exists” and “exists nowhere,” which by definition means it does not exist (and thus cannot ever have been “produced” to exist). See my discussion of the Argument from Nonlocality for this point.
So everything that can logically possibly come to exist is, or entails (and thus comes with), a universe of some sort.
Which gets us to the next steps in reasoning…
- Proposition 5: Every separate thing that can logically possibly happen when there is Nothing (other than Nothing remaining nothing) entails the appearance of a universe.
As just demonstrated.
And:
- Proposition 6: If there is Nothing, then there is nothing to limit the number of universes that can logically possibly appear.
Unless you can come up with some logical proof showing it is logically necessarily the case that when there is Nothing, only some number n of universes can spontaneously arise. I know of no such proof. Good luck finding one.
- Proposition 7: If nothing (except logical necessity) prevents anything from happening to Nothing, then every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing has an equal probability of occurring.
Every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing is as likely to happen as every other possible thing that can happen. This is a logically necessary truth. So it again cannot be denied without denying Proposition 1. Or, again, Proposition 4, if you want to desperately wrestle again with what it means for Nothing to be ungoverned by any rules about what happens—but you’ll lose every time; because that’s what Nothing logically entails. So the only way out left is to go all the way back to becoming one of those whackadoos who deny Proposition 1. Good luck with that.
In case it’s not obvious, here is why Proposition 7 is logically necessarily the case:
- For any one possible thing that can happen to Nothing to be more probable than another, some rule, property, or power would have to exist to make it so.
- By definition Nothing contains no rules, properties, or powers.
- Therefore, no rule, property, or power would exist to make any one possible thing that can happen to Nothing more probable than another.
- Therefore, no possible thing that can happen to Nothing can be more probable than another.
So accepting Proposition 1, and thus Proposition 2, you must accept Proposition 7. As Proposition 7 merely states what is logically necessarily the case when 1 and 2. And 1 and 2 entail that that which is logically necessarily the case must always obtain whenever there is Nothing.
- Proposition 8: If every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing has an equal probability of occurring, then every logically possible number of universes that can appear has an equal probability of occurring.
This is logically entailed by the conjunction of Propositions 6 and 7. So again it cannot be denied without denying, again, Proposition 1.
And this is true regardless of the measure problem. There are lots of different ways you can slice up the “outcome” of a totally random process that’s unlimited in how much can happen—how much “stuff,” and in how many configurations, that can arise. But insofar as the “stuff” that pops out is connected to other stuff, it necessarily causally interacts with it, and that logically entails a single causally interacting “system,” which we can call a “universe” in a relevant sense. But when there is Nothing, nothing exists to make it even likely, much less ensure, that only one such “universe” will randomly materialize.
Of course, even within a single causally interacting “system,” and thus within a single “universe,” it is not necessarily the case that every part of it will have the same contents and properties. Eternal inflation, for example, entails an initial chaotic universe will continue splitting off different bubble universes forever, and every one will have different laws, contents, and properties, insofar as it’s possible to. And this is actually what we usually mean by “universe” now: one of those regions of the whole metaverse that shares a common fundamental physics (the same dimensionality of spacetime, the same fundamental constants, and the same causal history). Other regions may differ, e.g. if we fly far enough in space, maybe a trillion lightyears, we might start to enter a region of the universe where the laws and constants and shape and contents start to change.
However, we needn’t account for this in what follows. If it is the case—in other words, if universes in the broad sense (causally interacting systems) can themselves contain even more universes in the narrow sense (regions of a shared fundamental physics), then what follows, follows with even more certainty. Because then there are even more “universes” to make the point with. You will notice eventually how this simply makes the math even stronger, and gets us to the same conclusion with even greater force. Because all adding this does to the math, is increase how many universes a Nothing will inevitably randomly produce.
The converse is also true. If it is somehow the case that there can’t be disconnected systems, that somehow it is logically impossible for Nothing to produce multiple “universes” in the broad sense, then it must necessarily be the case that it will produce, to the same probability, multiple universes in the narrow sense. Because there is only one possible way left that it could be logically impossible for both (a) Nothing to produce more than one causal system and (b) that system be entirely governed by only one physics, is if this universe we find ourselves in is the only logically possible universe. And if that’s the case, then we don’t need any explanation for it. All fine tuning arguments sink immediately. The probability of any universe existing but this one (given that any universe exists at all) is then zero. And the probability of fine tuning without God is then exactly and fully 100%.
I doubt any theist will bite that bullet. I’m pretty sure all will insist that other universes are logically possible. And if other universes are logically possible, it must necessarily be the case that it is logically possible either for different regions of a universe to exhibit different physics or different universes as closed causal systems to exist (with, ergo, different physics). Therefore, by disjunctive logic, if the second disjunct is ruled impossible (“different universes as closed causal systems can exist”), the first disjunct becomes a logically necessary truth (“different regions of a universe can have different physics”). Even if one were to say “there are infinitely many outcomes logically equivalent to a single universe with a single uniform physics” and “therefore” there are as many such outcomes as any version of multiverse and so “it’s fifty fifty” or “the measurement problem gets you” or whatever, Cantor strikes: as all the infinite such possible universes are already contained in possible multiverses and yet there are infinitely many more multiverses possible which cannot be included in the previous infinite set, the cardinality relation of possible multiverses to possible singleverses is still infinitely more; ergo, the probability of getting “a singleverse” rather than “a multiverse” is infinity to one against.
Therefore, when there are no rules governing how many “universes” can randomly arise from Nothing, there must necessarily be either a random number of universes in the broad sense (causally separated systems) or a random number of universes in the narrow sense (regions of different physics within a single causal system), or both. Including, of course, the possibility that that number, either way, will be zero. Which is what it would mean for Nothing to produce nothing, to remain eternally nothing. Ex nihilo nihil, in other words, is simply describing one possible outcome of a true Nothing: the outcome of there being zero things arising.
But as we just confirmed, there is no rule or law that entails the number of things that will arise uncaused from Nothing is zero. In fact, zero is just one possibility out of countless other possibilities: countless other numbers of things, and thus universes, that can arise. And Proposition 6 entails each possible outcome has the same probability as each other possible outcome. Which means no outcome (such as “zero”) is more likely than any other (such as “one” or “ten billion” or “ten to the power of twenty trillion”). Hence…
- Proposition 9: If when there is Nothing every possible number of universes has an equal probability of occurring, the probability of Nothing remaining nothing equals the ratio of one to n, where n is the largest logically possible number of universes that can occur.
But Proposition 6 entails n is transfinite. There is no maximum possible universes that can arise. This creates difficulties for continuing mathematically here, because no one has fully worked out a mathematics of transfinite probability. We can bypass that problem, however, the same way Archimedes originally did, by adapting the Method of Exhaustion. We’ll get there in a moment.
- Proposition 10: If Nothing produces a random number of universes, nothing exists to prevent the contents of each of those universes from being equally random.
In other words, if it is logically possible for any universe, upon coming into existence, to have a different set of attributes than another, then each possible collection of attributes is as likely as every other. This follows by logical necessity from the absence of anything that would make it otherwise. And Nothing lacks everything, including anything that would make it otherwise. To deny this Proposition therefore requires producing a logical proof that some logical necessity makes it otherwise. Good luck.
The “attributes” of a universe are the fundamentals of that universe, of course; what then contingently follows within that universe will be constrained, governed in its probabilities by those attributes. So we are only talking about fundamental attributes in this premise: fundamental particles and forces; fundamental laws of physics; size, shape, number, and symmetry of dimensions; initial conditions; things like that. The rest will be governed by the limits set within that universe by those attributes.
In truth, pretty much most proponents of the fine tuning argument concede this premise. Their entire argument is based on this assumption: that every possible configuration of fundamental constants is as likely as every other. Were that not the case, then it might be that ours is the most common or likely configuration. And there is certainly no evidence known to us that any other specific configuration is more likely. The argument rather presumes that any other configuration is more likely, on the assumption that every configuration is equally likely and there are so many other configurations possible. That’s actually not known to be true (we actually don’t know for sure that other configurations are possible, or equally likely). But it’s a plausible conjecture I’ll adopt here. Anyone who wishes to challenge it, will need to show some logically necessary reason why it’s not true.
Probability of Something from Nothing
Proposition 8 holds that “when there is Nothing,” then “every possible number of universes that can appear has an equal probability of occurring,” and Proposition 9 holds that therefore “the probability of Nothing remaining nothing equals the ratio of one to n, where n is the largest logically possible number of universes that can appear.” We can therefore calculate limits on how likely it is that something would exist now, given the assumption that once upon a time there was Nothing—not a god or quantum fluctuation or anything else, but literally in fact Nothing.
Assume that only the numbers 0 to 100 exist, and therefore 100 is the largest logically possible number of universes that can appear. In that event, the probability that Nothing would remain Nothing (the probability of ex nihilo nihil) is 100 to 1 against. There being 101 numbers, including the zero, i.e. the continuation of nothing being the condition of there arising zero universes, and only one of those numbers constitutes remaining nothing, then there are 100 times more ways for Nothing to become something, than to remain nothing. And when there is Nothing, there is nothing to stop any of those other ways from materializing, nor does anything exist to cause any one of those ways to be more likely than any of the others.
It is therefore logically necessarily the case that, if we assume there was ever Nothing, the probability of ex nihilo nihil is less than 1%.
Of course, 100 is not the highest number. Go looking, you won’t find a highest number. It is in fact logically necessarily the case that no highest number exists. So really, the probability of ex nihilo nihil is literally infinitesimal—infinity to one against. One might complain that we don’t really know what that means. But it doesn’t matter, because we can graph the probability of ex nihilo nihil by method of exhaustion, and thus see that the probability vanishes to some value unimaginably close to zero.
We therefore do not need God to explain why there is something rather than nothing. There may also be something rather than nothing simply “because there just is.” There isn’t any actual basis for assuming “nothing” is the natural state of anything, or that there has ever really been nothing. We could honestly just as fairly ask why should there be nothing rather than something. No God is needed here. But even if we are to presume that there ever once was Nothing, we still need no further explanation of why then there is something. Because that there would be something is then as certain an outcome as makes all odds.
Formally:
- If Proposition 1, then Proposition 2
- If Proposition 2, then Proposition 3
- If Proposition 3, then Proposition 4
- If Proposition 4 and Proposition 1, then Propositions 5 and 7
- If Proposition 5 and Proposition 1, then Proposition 6
- If Propositions 5, 6, and 7, then Proposition 8
- If Proposition 8, then Proposition 9
- If Proposition 9 and Proposition 1, then the probability that Nothing would produce something is incalculably close to 100% and therefore effectively certain to occur.
Probability of Fine Tuning from Nothing
Such is the case for the simpler question of whether Nothing would give us Something. It certainly will. No god needed. But what about the trickier question? If there was Nothing, how likely is it that it would produce Our Universe, with its particular configuration of fundamental constants? I’ve already discussed how Multiverse Theory answers this question, by rendering observed fine tuning nearly certain to occur by chance alone, simply because there are so many universes (so many rolls of the die) that this one (this roll of the die) is statistically inevitable. And since Nothing entails a Multiverse (given Propositions 6 and 1), we could drop mic right here. But I want to show how strongly this conclusion follows.
Once again. Let’s assume there is no number above 100. We’ll say 99, to keep the math clearer. So that 99 + 0 = 100 possible outcomes. You’ll find that there is therefore logically necessarily a 50% chance the number of universes will be above 49. Owing to Propositions 8 and 1. There will likewise be a 95% chance that the number of universes that arise will be more than 4. Because there are five equally likely numbers, 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 = 1% + 1% + 1% + 1% + 1% = 5% or more simply just 1% x 5. And if there’s a 5% chance to be 4 or less, it’s 95% to be more than 4.
Of course, again, 99 is not the highest number. What if the highest number was 999,999, or just one shy of a million? There will then be a 95% probability that by random chance alone a Nothing will spontaneously produce at least 50,000 universes. Because all numbers are equally likely, and when there are a million numbers, 0 through 49,999 takes up only 5% of the available numbers. The rest of the numbers above that fill out 95% of the remaining odds.
But we know there aren’t only a million numbers. What if the highest number was 10^1,000,000? That’s ten to the power of a million, which is a one followed by a million zeroes. If the highest number is 10^1,000,000, then the probability is 95% that Nothing will generate at least [correction] five times 10^999,998 universes. That’s a five followed by nearly a million zeroes. For the same reason. All the possible numbers from 0 to 5 x (10^999,998) occupy roughly 5% of the possibility space, and all possibilities are equally likely. So if it’s 5% likely to be below that number, it is logically necessarily the case it’s 95% likely to be at least that number or more.
But the highest number is not 10^1,000,000. In fact there is no highest number. But what is logically necessarily the case is this: for any number of universes x that we choose, there is a number of possible universes y such that the probability of Nothing producing x or more universes is 95%. In fact, there is a number of possible universes z such that the probability of Nothing producing x or more universes is 99.999999999%. Or any other probability we want. In other words, we can be effectively certain (to a probability ~100%) that the number of universes Nothing will produce at random, will be larger than any x (when x is any finite number).
It therefore follows that if Nothing, then the probability of Fine Tuning by random chance is ~100%.
No god needed.
Let’s Walk It Through
If you still don’t grasp why, let me walk you the remaining steps so you can get the picture.
Any Fine Tuning Argument for Intelligent Design rests on this assertion:
- There is some configuration of fundamental constants defining Our Universe that, if selected at random from all possible configurations and every possible configuration is as likely as every other, has a probability of being thus selected of P, where P is some really small number—even absurdly small, like 1 in 10^10^23, which is ten to the power of (ten to the power of twenty three), which is basically a one followed by a hundred billion trillion zeroes. A phantasmically small number.
The argument then proceeds that intelligent design is more likely than this. That’s not actually true. The conclusion doesn’t follow even from the premise. When you put evidence back in that this premise leaves out, the conclusion actually reverses; and on present knowledge does so no matter how low P is, since the independent probability of a god is just as comparably small, producing a relative prior probability that’s not appreciably larger than or even as large as there being no god (see the opening section of my chapter on Design in The End of Christianity). The premise is also often quite questionable in its specifics. But it is less questionable in its general point, which I’m here granting for convenience: that P is probably low, even if not “that” low.
Which is why Multiverse Theory solves the matter and is therefore a solid competitor to any Design Theory. If the odds of this universe arising by chance were 1 in 100 and there are 100 randomly configured universes, then the probability our universe would exist by chance is actually closer to 2 in 3. In other words, odds are, it would exist by chance alone. Because the probability of getting zero instances of our universe out of 100 chances would in that case equal 0.99^100, or 99% (the probability on each of those 100 trials of not getting our universe) to the power of 100 (the number of trials). Which equals 0.366 and change. Which means the probability of getting at least one universe like ours is then 1 – 0.366 or 0.634 and change. Roughly 63%. Close to 2 in 3 odds. And if there are 1000 universes, then the probability of there being at least one like ours skyrockets to nearly 100%…in fact 0.99995 and change, or ~99.99%. That being the outcome of 0.99^1000.
If you work it out, you’ll find that if there are 1 in 10^10^23 universes, then the probability that one of them will be ours even if the odds of getting ours are 1 in 10^10^23, will be that same roughly 63%. In other words, even a universe that improbable, is more likely than not going to arise simply by chance, when there are that many randomly configured universes. And indeed, if there are 1 in 10^10^24 universes, the probability that one of them will be ours if the odds of getting ours is 1 in 10^10^23, will in fact be ~100% (roughly the same 99.99%). For exactly the same reason.
Take note therefore. It is logically necessarily the case that:
- There is always some number of universes U whereby, when that many randomly configured universes exist, Our Universe will have a ~100% chance of occurring, for any probability P of Our Universe occurring.
That’s right. Pick any P. Let it be 1 in 10^10^1,000 even. Or 1 in 10^10^10^1,000,000. It doesn’t matter. No matter what improbability you choose, there will still be some number of universes U, on which the probability of Our Universe existing will be ~100% by chance alone.
But we just established something else is logically necessarily the case:
- There is always some number of possible universes z such that the probability of Nothing producing U or more universes is ~100%.
This is because of Propositions 6 and 8 and 1. If therefore the probability of U number of universes is ~100% on chance alone, then the probability of Our Universe existing as a mere result of random chance is ~100%, no matter how improbable Our Universe is on a single selection (no matter, in other words, how absurdly low P is).
For example, suppose again P is 1 in 1000 (or 0.001). If there are 100 universes, thus 100 random tries, the probability of Our Universe existing somewhere in that run will be 1 – 0.999^100 = 0.095 and change, or roughly 9.5%. If there are 1000 universes, then it’s 1 – 0.999^1,000 = 0.63 and change. If there are 10,000 universes, then it’s 1 – 0.999^10,000 = 0.99995 and change. If there are 100,000 universes, then it’s 1 – 0.999^100,000, which is a probability equal to roughly 99.99 followed by over forty more 9’s. That’s about as close to 100% as you can dream of getting. Hence ~100%.
The following graph demonstrates the point:
Here OU means “Our Universe” and P(OU|universe) means the probability of Our Universe existing per universe that exists, i.e. given one universe. The graph shows what happens when the number of universes grows above 1. Very quickly as U rises, P approximates to 100%. Obviously it won’t change direction as U rises further. In other words, there is no logical argument by which you can claim that somewhere farther out on the graph, at some U somewhere in the infinitude of finite numbers that U can be, the graphed line starts to drop again. That’s logically impossible. And you can always build the same graph, for any value of P. Just magnify U by as much as you diminish P. Indeed there is always some U, on which the same curve results for any possible P.
Therefore, it is always the case that given Nothing, the probability of Our Universe existing, its apparent fine tuning and everything, is ~100%. No matter how improbable our Universe’s configuration is.
There is literally no improbability you can assign to our Universe that will change this result.
It is simply logically necessarily the case, that if there was ever actually Nothing, the probability our universe would exist is ~100%. Which actually makes the Nothing Theory a better explanation for our universe’s existence than the God Theory. Because the latter does not explain well much of anything else about our universe (as I explain in detail in my chapter on this in TEC)—it doesn’t even explain well the fine tuning theists obsess over, since a God would have no need of fine tuning! Only godless universes require it. Fine tuning is therefore evidence for atheism, not design. But even apart from that, what we have discovered here is that if we posit that there once was ever Nothing, it follows by logical necessity that our universe will exist, exactly as we see it.
No need then for gods.
You might have noticed another consequence here. Nothing as here defined is unarguably far far simpler than God as an explanatory entity. So if Nothing explains all fine tuning, and even if God also did (even though God doesn’t so well), and nothing else did (which is probably not true, but let’s just pretend), then Starting Spontaneously From Nothing is still more likely the correct explanation of our universe. Because it wins out on Occham’s Razor, explaining all observations to a probability of ~100%, using far fewer assumptions. In fact, almost literally no assumptions at all.
-:-
For further debate on this thesis see:
Koons Cosmology vs. The Problem with Nothing
and
5% of 10^1,000,000 is 5*10^999,998. Not sure how that changes how you want to make that point.
Also, Either God is created, or God doesn’t exist.
That doesn’t necessarily follow. God could “always have existed” (same way existence or the universe or any other cause of these could). Only if the theist commits to the premise that nothing exists that wasn’t either caused or necessary, do they get stuck with your dichotomy. But usually theists commit only to “everything that begins to exist has a cause,” and therefore are not committed to concluding God had a cause, because they maintain God never began to exist (there is a semantic problem with that, a corollary of the Nonlocality problem I mention in my article, but if we grant the distinction, then they evade your dichotomy).
But then they commit special pleading, don’t they (Everything has a beginning, including time itself, but God). In that case, isn’t theirs the burdon of proof to back that special assertion?
Anyways, I’ll edit my blog so that it points to this article, and the caveats you’re making.
Thanks.
Not exactly. They can coherently say “everything that begins to exist has a cause, but not everything that has always existed has a cause” and “God always existed.” They only run into special pleading problems when they try to insist the “always existed” condition can only attach to a god. When really, there is no basis for assuming it can’t be true of all kinds of other things. Including time, existence, the universe, quantum physics, etc.
Yes, but in that case, God was not necessary to create those things (time, existence, the universe, quantum physics…), because they existed alongside with him. So, my conclusion could then be : Either God is created, or doesn’t exist, or doesn’t have to bother creating… 🙂 !
I’m not sure I follow the logic there.
Of course, theists would try to insist God was necessary for those things (implausibly, but that’s a whole separate dispute). But even if they conceded he wasn’t, the trichotomy is false that “either God is created, or doesn’t exist, or doesn’t have to bother creating,” owing to an ambiguity in “doesn’t have to bother.” A theist who has already conceded that time etc. might logically possibly have come about without God (and we are already describing very few theists) would obviously argue that their doing so was nevertheless highly unlikely (or at least, doing so in a way that would produce the universe we observe is highly unlikely), therefore God does “have to bother” creating, to up the odds of the desired outcome, which would be too improbable to expect without his assistance.
Sorry, dr. Carrier, I apologize if I use too colloquial a style that muddles the reading of my reasoning. Which is this :
1. Either God is something, or he is nothing. If he is something, then he must be created by something else (because nothing comes from nothing). If he isn’t created, then he is nothing, i.e. doesn’t exist, per the same reason.
2. You say : “But the theists argue that only things that have a beginning have a cause. God has no beginning, (still the theist speaking here), so he just is.”
3. To which I say : “That’s special pleading. The burdon of proof is now on you (the theist) to back that up.”
4. To which you say : “The theist will argue that God might not be a special case, some other things can have no beginning, e.g. time, quantum physics, etc”
5. To which I reply : “Then God did not need to create them, since they – like him – have no beginning, and just are.”
6. If the theist says that “their doing so is very unlikely”, then we’re back at #3 : special pleading.
7. If the theist says that God DID create them, then obviously they HAVE a beginning, and thus are not like God, and we’re again back at #3.
My point is : the proposition “from nothing comes nothing” is one that comes back to bite the theists ! As your article demonstrates with far more elegance and precision than my blogpost or this reply 🙂 !
Ah. I see where the confusion is. You are confusing factual with modal logic. There is a difference between saying “our hypothesis is that God always existed” and “it is possible God began to exist.” There are ways the theist would fight the latter (they’d be wrong, but that’s besides the point here). But an honest and coherent theist would say yes, we agree it is possible God began to exist, but we are saying the hypothesis that God did not begin to exist explains the evidence better. It is therefore the more probable hypothesis. This is not special pleading. It’s straightforward empirical reasoning. The challenge has to be at the point of contact with the evidence: their claim that their hypothesis explains the evidence “better.”
Likewise, they can concede maybe things like time etc. could have begun without a God, but they argue it’s very unlikely they would (or would do so in the way we observe), but likely if their God hypothesis is true, ergo probably God did it and not something else. Also not special pleading. The reasoning is valid. It falls apart only at the point of contact with the evidence (either background knowledge, e.g. how irrationally complicated they have to make their God hypothesis to fit the evidence, or directly determining evidence, e.g. how vastly the evidence contradicts their hypothesis).
Hence there is no way your step 6 leads to or entails your step 3.
You are confusing logical necessity (“if x, then it is necessarily the case that God must have had a beginning”) with mere modal possibility (“if x, then it is logically possible God had a beginning”). You can’t get non-modal logical entailment from modal possibilities. The move is invalid.
Wow, I have to study up on that… I don’t understand it completely (or rather : I completely don’t understand it 🙂 ) but thanks for pointing me in that direction ! I read up on the modal vs factual logic thing !
Asking “why does God exist” is like asking “what makes water wet?” The analogy is exact: just as water gives wetness to everything else, so does God give being to everything else.
That’s just woo gibberish.
Physics already knows why water is wet. It requires no gods. But it does require photons and atoms. And not all wetness comes from water (there are many other liquids). And all it means to say a person “is wet” is that they have some liquid on them. Not gods on them.
Nor is any god needed to give atoms and photons existence. Much less atoms of water or any other liquid. There are many other things that could, and the evidence is already mounting in favor of them and not gods.
Oh right!
Not substantively. But I’ll fix the math.
It seems to me that a weakness in this argument is in that it treats “physical laws” as things that have existence, rather than as simply descriptions. So, there is talk of removing everything including rules and physical laws. There is talk of rules and laws that “govern” the behavior of other entities as if they were some kind of subroutine in a program or a cosmic police force who watch over the state to make sure nothing is doing anything it shouldn’t.
I should think no materialist/physicalist should want to accept such a view of physical laws as, on this view, they don’t seem to be physical or material things and yet have existence! And yet this view is necessary to the argument because it is what makes nothingness + a “law” of “and that state continues forevermore” logically incoherent.
If physical laws are just descriptions then there is nothing incoherent about saying: a state with nothing (no particles, no fields, no space, no time) that stays that way forever. The requirement that the only things left in the nothingness state be things that are logically necessary apply to things in the state, not descriptions of it.
Obviously, there are many other objections one could raise about nothingness arguments. Has that state ever actually obtained? I even agree that no one has logically proved that nothingness has to always remain nothingness. A Nothingness that stays that way doesn’t appear to be logically incoherent though, once we view physical laws as descriptions.
I agree with your premise, but not your conclusion.
Remember, we are addressing the suppositions of theists. They are the ones who maintain rules and laws govern things, like nihilo ex nihil. We physicalists don’t think such things ever exist separately from content at all; they are just necessary outcomes of things like geometry and forces. But that’s a whole dispute that distracts from the point. So I am arguing a fortiori by removing that dispute and just saying “all rules and laws of any kind,” even the theists’ imagined ones; not just what we physicalists think (but those, too, of course).
But that does leave your conclusion, which I think is a good one to raise, but it makes an important mistake people might readily fall into and so should be warned about. The problem is not whether it is coherent to say nothing could remain nothing. The question is: can you show it is logically necessary that it do so? Because when there is Nothing, not even “physicalism” obtains. Though even a “physicalist” description of Nothing gets my same result. Because on Nothing, nothing exists at all to predict what will happen, not even on strict physicalism. So it is no objection to my argument that we can imagine a coherent scenario. That’s already conceded (it’s the zero universe possibility I calculate for). The question is: how often will that imagined scenario obtain, when the condition of Nothing is met? Given that Nothing means the existence of no constraints on that or any other outcome, the answer is as my argument shows: Not often.
A way to put it in physicalist terms is: Nothing is by definition unstable. Physically unstable. Because it contains no constraints to render it likely that it will remain Nothing. So even a straightforward physicalist description of the state entails the conclusion. Even before we add the point that Nothing also lacks all supernatural constraints as well, if such things are even possible; and all other conceivable and inconceivable contingent constraints, too. Only logically necessary constraints exist on Nothing.
And there is no demonstration yet to my knowledge that the one possible coherent condition, of Nothing remaining nothing, necessarily has any likelihood above the infinitesimal one I just calculated. And as necessity is the only constraint on Nothing dictating any probabilities, only such an argument could achieve that conclusion. Even on strict physicalism.
Note: There are some good comments and discussion about this also on my accompanying Facebook post. For example this comment (which trips on different meanings of “exist”/”not exist”). And no doubt more there to follow.
Note only select people can comment on my Facebook posts. Only Facebook Friends, which only select people can gain the privilege of, including Patreon patrons, and certain others (explained here). But you can comment on those Facebook comments here; on my blog, critical posts that are respectful, thoughtful, and productive will usually pass moderation. Comments from Patreon patrons here will even skip moderation and post immediately (if you comment using the same email address you used at Patreon).
Additional Note: Some (so far less interesting) discussion is also ensuing on Twitter in this thread.
Dr.Carrier,
I don’t not much about logic or mathematics, but I think there is a problem with your 7th proposition:
Proposition 7: If nothing (except logical necessity) prevents anything from happening to Nothing, then every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing has an equal probability of occurring.
…in proving your proposition you said:
For anyone possible thing that can happen to Nothing to be more probable than another, some rule, property, or power would have to exist to make it so.
I think it is not true. If there is no rule to make any outcome more probable than the other I think that means that there shouldn’t be any rule that makes probabilities of outcome equal either. therefore I think the probability of any outcome occurring should be completely and totally random. For example probability of a rabbit appearing be 1 in 4016739681761 and probability of the Deathstar occurring 1 in 58475684756183. Is being random a rule, property or power? Is it illogical?
Isn’t it the case? And why?
And if it is, what happens to the rest of the argument?
“If there is no rule to make any outcome more probable than the other I think that means that there shouldn’t be any rule that makes probabilities of outcome equal either.” — Premise 1 ensures it.
“Either A (something makes one probability different than another) or B (all probabilities are equal)” is a proper dichotomy. That means disjunctive logic entails that it is logically necessarily the case that if not A, then B. It would entail a logical contradiction to assert otherwise. Therefore, on Nothing, which by definition entails the lack of A, it is always necessarily the case that B. And logical necessities always obtain, even when there is Nothing (= Premise 1).
(I could also point out that you iterated your own problem: if the probability of x is randomly determined, then there is a probability of that probability, and then must be a probability of that probability of that probability, and so on, ad infinitum; when you keep regressing the probabilities, lacking any basis on Nothing ever to stop, then when you do the math and average them all out into a total probability, it ends up creating equal probabilities, or at least in our computation, on calculus the trend line ends at a limit of equal probabilities. That’s actually a fundamental conclusion of probability theory on which the concept of generating statistics from random sampling depends.)
I don’t know why you put your last paragraph between parenthesis. After reading your first paragraphs, I had the urge to play the devil’s advocate and say : “Hey, you could also say : “Either A (something makes all probabilities equal) or B (one probability is different than another)”, just to smart you out.
But then I read the last paragraph and conceded that this didn’t make any sense.
So, in my opinion, those parenthesis should be removed 🙂 !
Yours is a false disjunct. It violates the Law of Excluded Middle. Because you can have a third condition: “not A, but all probabilities are equal.” In other words, if A in your disjunct is false, it is not necessarily the case that B is true. Hence, false disjunct.
This does not arise for my disjunct, since you can’t have the condition “not B, but all probabilities are equal” nor can you have the condition “neither A nor B,” because we know of no way the absence of any causes of differing probabilities would nevertheless cause differing probabilities; whereas the absence of a cause of differing probabilities would cause the equality of probabilities. Meanwhile every other possibility reduces to B.
This does call out what a critic would need to do though: if it can be shown that it is logically necessarily the case that in the absence of any causes, the probabilities would differ from each other, then you could get somewhere in revising or refuting my argument. But I know of no such demonstration.
BTW, a “something” could make all probabilities equal. That’s actually not excluded by the disjunct I gave (which is nonspecific as to why B would be true; it only entails that if A is false, B must be true). You could have a Nothing that itself makes all probabilities equal, that nevertheless then randomly creates a Something, that also causes all probabilities to be equal. That would be a possible condition of all infinitely many possible conditions. It’s just not relevant because it would have no effect on anything else I argue. The outcome is the same either way.
I found this fascinating. One possible objection that springs to mind concerns temporality. If Nothing has no extension in time, there is no next moment in which any subsequent event could happen; to call Nothing unstable (i.e., unstable over time) appears to presume a temporal extension it lacks by definition. (I have no idea whether this objection is valid, but if I wanted to find a logical “ex nihilo nihil fit,” this is where I would look.)
The condition of “there is no next moment in which any subsequent event could happen” is the condition of Nothing producing zero universes. Hence that was already included in the model. If Nothing produces even one universe, then the condition does not obtain. On that outcome, there is a next moment.
On those outcomes, you would observe Nothing at t = 0 and something at t = 1. In terms of action, the event can be said to occur either over the intervening time (spanning the whole distance from 0 to 1), or instantaneously: the instant there is nothing, time is created, the effect taking zero duration as soon as the cause is in place; which we know is possible, because it happens in all reference frames at the speed of light, where the duration of all events is in fact 0 due to Lorentz transformation.
One could then say that if any universe exists after there having been Nothing, then it is logically necessarily the case that it will contain at least one quantum of time (so there will be a difference between what existed at t = 0 and what existed at t = 1). That might not actually be true (we can envision timeless universes, which are just static spaces), but it may be true if Nothing ever existed; as then there will always be a difference between what’s at t = 0 and t = 1. I’m not very concerned either way. Either the scenario of static timeless universes has probability zero on the existence of Nothing, or it has the same probabilities as all other universes. Neither realization changes any conclusions I reach.
I find your remark deeply interesting, and I’m struggling with it. My gut feeling says that Nothing (in the sense described by dr. Carrier) cannot exist, not even logically. I think someday someone will be able to proof that, either in cosmology, mathematics or logic. And if there’s no logical Nothing, then the whole God premise goes down the drain, because then Something has always existed, and that Something has to be physical (a quantum field, a theoretical “string” or whatever…) to be able to create universes.
But that’s just my gut feeling speaking. Maybe I just ate too much 🙂
I agree. “There Once Was This Nothing State” is only a viable hypothesis because we can’t prove it impossible. That it gets all the results we observe is however an argument for the theory being true. But there may be other theories that get that result far better than any god theory (I’ve described many throughout the years), so we can’t adjudicate between them by reference to observations. If someone someday can prove the Nothing state I describe impossible, they can only have done so by proving something more substantive must necessarily have always existed, and they likely can only have done that by proving some particular thing must necessarily have always existed. Theists of course keep trying to do that with God; and fail. Scientists may one day do it with something like a primordial quantum chaos.
This is sort of almost what Victor Stenger tries to do in Comprehensible Cosmos, but it lacks logical demonstration; as do all physicists’ attempts to prove Something came from nothing: they always mean something more than Nothing, yet don’t give a formal demonstration of why that “something more” would exist in the first place. The only way Nothing would be impossible, is if Something were logically necessary. No one has discovered what that is yet. Or even that there is any such thing.
Someone pointed me to William Lane Craig’s attempt to get around an argument like this: by asserting that Nothing would lack the potential to become something. That very assertion is what is refuted by my article.
Note Craig gives no logical argument for his assertion that no potential would exist in a Nothing. He just asserts it. By contrast I give a logical demonstration that in fact it is logically necessarily the case that Nothing would be full of potentiality. So to get back to his defense would require either (a) proving his assertion is logically necessarily the case, which will require (b) proving one of my numbered premises must necessarily always be false (as his assertion can only be true, when that is the case).
Note also that potentiality is a lot less substantive than actuality. A potential unicorn is pretty much the same as nothing; except the mere future possibility (and a corresponding possibility of a future). It’s much more nothing than an actual unicorn. Hence the issue is: what is the most nothingly nothing that can exist. A nothing that lacked all potentials would either be logically impossible and therefore that kind of nothing can never have been, or it would have to contain something, something that blocked all potentials, which would then be something, not nothing.
P.S. Someone asked about Craig’s claim that a potential requires an actual to “actualize” it. Craig never demonstrates that’s true. It is not logically necessarily true. And since only logically necessary truths are true on Nothing, Craig’s claim is not true about Nothing. When there is Nothing, then it is logically necessarily the case that potentials can exist and be actualized without actualizers. This is the same thing as insisting causes must exist; not when there is Nothing. When there is Nothing, no causal laws exist. So no, causes aren’t needed. “Actualizer” is just a fancy word for cause.
Thus Craig has no argument. He just keeps being inconsistent, acting like Nothing has to obey rules, that it doesn’t have to obey because by definition rules don’t exist when there is Nothing. The only “rules” it will obey are those entailed by logical necessity. And logical necessity entails that when there are no actual things to prevent anything from happening, all potentialities then exist.
So you have to choose: either something actually exists to stop all potentials, or all potentials exist. Only one of those things is more nothing than the other: the one that lacks all actual things. But the moment it loses all actual things, it logically necessarily thereby acquires all potential things.
Hence the most nothing that can exist, the most nothing nothing logically possible, is a nothing that lacks all actual things, but therefore possesses all potential things. Anything else is a “something” that begs explanation why it exists. Whereas no explanation is begged as to why Nothing entails all potentials: it is logically necessary that it would. And we just established all logically necessary things must, by virtue of being logically necessary, exist in any nothing-state. The absence of all actuals, entails the presence of all potentials. Anything else would be a logical contradiction.
This is a slam dunk argument. But one or two questions arise from it :
1. If Nothing contains all potentials, what is the logical method to determine which potentials become actual ?
2. If Nothing logically necessarily entails a potential to become an actual, isn’t that proof that Nothing is logically impossible ?
First, Nothing does not yet entail every potential becomes actual. So unless someone shows that it does (as Max Tegmark tries to but never really succeeds), the premise isn’t even established. Maybe some way exists to do it through transfinite mathematics, but that’s murky. At present, no one has shown this would be the case. Random outcomes, might not be complete (e.g. if there are infinitely many possible outcomes, a random selection of a number of outcomes logically cannot realize all of them, unless somehow transfinite arithmetic would get that result, and I don’t think anyone has ever solved that question—this is similar to Guth’s measure problem I cite in my article).
But more importantly, the conclusion doesn’t follow even from the premise if granted. If Nothing entails all possible things exist, then all possible things exist. As that entails no contradiction (as all contradictory conjunctions would then by definition not exist, only all the possible ones), it is not proof of any logical impossibility at all, much less of a Nothing having caused it.
I don’t pose that Nothing entails that ALL possible things should exist, but that ONE – randomly chosen – should exist. If Nothing entails that at least ONE potential becomes an actual, than Nothing is logically impossible, because at least ONE actual will always exist (and I don’t mean God, I’m an atheist !)
“If Nothing entails that at least ONE potential becomes an actual, than Nothing is logically impossible”
Oh, no. That doesn’t follow either.
First, because one of the random possible outcomes is a continued nothing (the outcome of zero universes, which is as likely to be chosen by chance as any other number of universes). The probability of that is absurdly low. Possibly infinitesimal. But not literally zero.
But second, because you are confusing “there having been Nothing” with “there always being Nothing.” And we are only talking about the former. The former is logically compatible with their ceasing to be nothing, i.e. with there being Nothing at t = 0 and Something at t = 1.
Note to myself concerning my previos remark : you’re probably mixing modal with factual logic yet again !
A Christian tried responding here.
The title alludes to God being a necessary existent. But alas, as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy observes, all Ontological Arguments for God fail:
So that’s a non-starter.
The same Christian also asked why Nothing couldn’t produce universes with gods in them. I actually wrote a whole article on that already years ago. It’s even linked in my article here above, but not in connection with this specific question. So it could easily be missed.
But the bulk of this Christian’s argument is presuppositionalism: “whenever we deal with logical reasoning, we presuppose (hence the name) that there is such a thing as objective logic and that it is accessible to us.” That’s not actually true. I didn’t just assert Premise 1, I gave arguments for Premise 1, and linked to even further arguments directly discussing the ontology of logic and why logically impossible things can never exist. The demonstration never required referencing any god or mind. And no one has ever shown gods or minds are necessary for Premise 1 to be true. In fact, no one has ever shown it’s even possible for Premise 1 to be false!
That’s why presuppositionalism is pure tinfoil hat.
I’m convinced by your argument, so this is a minor side point that I am confused by. It does not affect your argument here and I can’t tell if its just a distinction without a difference anyway.
On the statement “logically impossible things can never exist.” Is it true to say logically impossible things can’t exist because they contain no propositional content? A thing hasn’t actually been communicated because it violates the rules of language. It seems like there is a signal because its in English words but its just the illusion of a signal. I just quickly re-read your section On The Nature of Contradiction in S&G and I can’t tell if there is a difference between what I just said and what you say. You talk about it failing to predict an experience “it describes nothing that can be experienced by the human mind”.
Its not like I disagree with “logically impossible things can never exist” but it seems a strange way to put it because logically impossible things are not things. There is no thing in question, its just words that fail to actually communicate something.
So it seems I am arguing here that a contradictory signal is just noise. Is this actually case or is a contradictory signal more than noise? Also that the law of logic are the rules of language and thus breaking the laws of logic is just failing to communicate something (which makes presuppositionalist arguments incredibly odd to read).
“Is it true to say logically impossible things can’t exist because they contain no propositional content?” (after all “it seems a strange way to put it because logically impossible things are not [even] things”).
That’s a good question. It’s both. Logical contradictions reference nothing, and thus have no actual meaning in any language (each part of a contradiction has meaning; but their conjunction is meaningless). But it’s possible for things to exist that no language can describe, so merely being meaningless is not a sufficient conclusion. It’s enough for most things, since usually all we need know is what a sentence references, and when the answer is “nothing,” we can move on. But there is a deeper question as to why contradictory states of affairs can’t materialize. It’s not enough to say language couldn’t describe it. As arguing from that would be a non sequitur.
This is a question in the ontology of logic: what exactly is it, that makes logical laws describe all actual things too, not just languages. Why, in other words, does the universe obey the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC). It’s easy to show why language always must. But that by itself doesn’t explain why not just language, but even universes, must obey.
I do answer this in SAG but I get more specific and detailed in my response to Reppert (also linked in the article above), under the heading Ontology of Logic. The short of it is this: the only state of being that would be correctly described as not obeying the LNC, is a state of being that contained no distinctions; but distinctions are always possible; even the attempt to assert they are impossible asserts they exist and thus are possible. For there to be something that existed that prevented distinctions from existing, entails distinctions exist: a distinction between the presence and the absence of that something; and if there is nothing preventing distinctions from existing, distinctions always exist: e.g. a distinction exists between distinctions being possible and distinctions being impossible.
In other words, the LNC is simply a description of all universes in which distinctions exist; but even a completely empty universe contains distinctions (between nothing and something; and being the case and not being the case; between possible and impossible; and so on). The LNC is thus just a restatement of a physical fact: distinctions exist. Which is always true, because the moment any state of being obtains, it comes with distinctions.
A contradiction declares a distinction does not exist, that does. It is therefore not referencing any actual thing—but more importantly, it can’t ever reference any actual thing. Because to do so, the distinction the contradiction denies, would have to be absent. But if you are saying there is no distinction, you are also saying the state of being that would contain that distinction doesn’t exist, and therefore you are already asserting that the contradictory state of affairs doesn’t exist.
So in effect, to declare a contradiction, is always declaring a non-existent. It is synonymous. The moment a thing exists, distinctions exist. Ergo contradictions don’t exist, as soon as anything does. And since this is always the case (as soon as distinctions exist, contradictions don’t, because “distinctions exist” and “contradictions don’t exist” are synonymous statements: they mean exactly the same thing), we know violations of the LNC can never exist. The moment something came to be, the LNC would always describe it, by virtue of the fact that that thing’s existence or occurrence entails the existence or occurrence of distinctions, and the LNC simply asserts that when there are distinctions, there are distinctions.
So there is no way to get a contradictory state of affairs to exist. Not any way known to us, at least. Perhaps we are fantastically deceived in all this somehow. But until someone shows a way they can exist (how distinctions can exist yet not exist at the same time), we have no basis for believing they ever can, and thus no basis for believing they ever have.
Thanks for the (as usual) incredibly detailed and thoughtful reply. It is always appreciated!
“But it’s possible for things to exist that no language can describe, so merely being meaningless is not a sufficient conclusion.” So there is a difference and a very interesting one!
Has the idea [entities can exist that are linguistically indescribable] been logically demonstrated? Or is it that we have failed to demonstrate its negation and
therefore they might not be possible, but we don’t yet know if this is the case?
Other questions follow from this, if an entity can exist that is linguistically indescribable, is that the same as saying it is meaningless? How can an entity be meaningless, is that not the property of the map not the territory (a property of the proposition about the entity not a property of the entity itself)?
Further, if it is true that if they can’t actually exist then its not so much the case that the universe obeys the laws of logic, but that any proposition about a universe must obey the laws of logic, otherwise nothing about any universe has been communicated. But I can’t tell if that is simply the same thing as saying its a property of the universe.
I also worry a comments section is probably an inadequate space answer these questions very well!
“Has the idea [entities can exist that are linguistically indescribable] been logically demonstrated?”
Describe the color green.
(Not what things are green. Or what causes us to experience the color green. But what being green consists of. Describe the thing itself, without referencing any green thing or any causes of it.)
You’ll find that the examples abound. Language can only ever reference things we experience in consciousness. It is a code for those things. But those things themselves, cannot be described in any language. If you don’t know what green looks like, no amount of describing it will ever inform you. I can never communicate anything to you that would result in your finally knowing what green looks like. The only way you can ever know, is to just experience it.
Not all experiential qualities are that irreducible. But many are (e.g. describe what cinnamon smells like, to someone who will never smell it; describe what pain feels like, to someone who has never felt it; etc.). There are a lot of things language can never describe. But that’s a limitation of language. Not of reality.
The LNC is different because it describes the components of a system; rather than fails to. It is therefore self-referential. Contradictions don’t fail to have meaning because of a defect of coding systems (e.g. words can only point to, not create experiences); they fail to have meaning because they describe systems that cannot be built without including a component that negates them (a contradiction is the lack of a distinction; but the instant any system is built, distinctions exist; therefore there is no system you can build that will lack distinctions, and therefore there is no system you can build that will violate the LNC).
And this is the value of working out the ontology of logic. Precisely so you can tell the difference between mere coding system limitations, and actual limitations on what can be constructed in the real world apart from language.
First of all, I have no idea where you’re getting the notion that presuppositionalism is God controlling people with his “mind-control rays.” Presuppositionalism is this: interpreting the world without the Bible is like watching a tennis match without knowing what tennis is or understanding what anything the tennis player is saying. You’re going to see some things but make a whole bunch of bogus assumptions. On the other hand,
Second, the ontological argument is logically valid: if it is possible for God to exist, then God does exist. The only way that God could not exist is if it is impossible for God to exist. It puts a higher burden of proof on atheists by requiring not only that God is unlikely (unlikely is still possible) but rather that it is impossible for God to exist. And don’t do the extremely silly thing plenty of other atheists do which is saying “well, I believe the CHRISTIAN God is a contradictory being!” because that’s actually a question of whether Christianity is a faithful representation of to God’s revelation of himself to humanity, not about God’s existence.
I’ll assume you’re not a Poe.
First of all, I never said anything about God controlling people with his “mind-control rays.” I don’t even use the phrase “mind-control rays.”
So maybe you need to learn how to read words and pay attention to meaning and context, before attempting critiques. The latter is way too advanced a level of reading comprehension for you. You still haven’t even mastered the basics.
You only reveal this further when you try to explain the ontological argument and get it entirely wrong, and even turn it into an absurd joke of itself. You really aren’t good at this.
What I did say was this:
Reading comprehension 101: what is the subject of the pronoun “it” in the above sentence? It’s not people. And “stop” is not the word “control.”
And no, “presuppositionalism” is not a theory of the Bible. At all. It’s a theory about the ontology of logic, that makes no reference to the Bible or any particular religious holy text. That you don’t even know what presuppositionalism is, even further disqualifies you from trying to defend it. Your analogy to tennis fails precisely at the point that “bogus assumptions” can be tested and thus eliminated, producing ever more accurate approximations to correct understanding. That we can do that without a god being anywhere involved, is why presuppositionalism is false.
Meanwhile, there is no logically valid argument to the conclusion “The only way that God could not exist is if it is impossible for God to exist.” No one has ever produced such an argument, in the entire history of the human race. And sensible atheists don’t argue no god can exist because god is contradictory; they only argue contradictory gods can’t exist. And then make evidential arguments against the existence of all remaining gods. In other words, non-contradictory gods probably don’t exist. Contradictory ones, meanwhile, we can dismiss out of hand.
That you don’t even grasp the distinction between logical and evidential arguments, is more evidence you really, really suck at this.
I’m not a Patreon user but I can think of an objection to this argument.
1.) there are infinite possibilities of universes
2.) many of those infinite possible worlds have an infinite amount of beings within them.
3.) if there is an infinite amount of people in a universe, it is many many times more likely that we’d experience existing in that universe than our universe where there is a finite amount of people.
C.) it is much more likely that our universe did not come from nothing.
Or to put it in a thought experiment-
Say you know that when you wake up the next morning, there will be a billion people who wake up in a green box the next morning, and an infinite amount of people who wake up in a red box. What would be more likely?
This theory can explain the existence of our universe, but it also posits an infinite amount of worlds that probability says we would more likely exist in.
That argument is fallacious. It confuses quantity with distribution. It thus violates the law of excluded middle, by equivocating between quantity and density.
Just because there are x number of y’s, does not mean all those y’s will be near each other. This is true even for infinite quantities (e.g. an infinite universe may contain infinite galaxies, yet still contain almost entirely empty space: the separation of galaxies being countless times larger than the diameter of each galaxy).
Your argument also assumes infinitely large universes are far more common than finite universes, and it’s unclear why that would be. Finite universes cannot contain infinite populations. And finite universes would appear to be the most common kind if generated at random, and that by far; not the other way around.
Even if all or most randomly generated universes were infinite in both size and age, you also have to assume they are all able to sustain life at all chronolical eras. But current science finds that’s unlikely: when we randomize parameters, we find most universes have zero or very limited windows available for life, and if you average out at random across all possible universes that we can construct on currently known physics, most universes by far will have small or no windows for life. Even our own will make life impossible within mere billions of years, trillions at most, either way a microscopic moment in an infinite time span.
Your argument is also assuming Boltzmann universes will far outnumber seminal universes, but that’s statistically certain to be false. By far most universes will be like ours: starting small and simple and generating contents through an unfolding of a very small finite set of initial parameters. Universes that pop into existence fully formed, contents and all, are vastly less common owing to selection frequency. There are vastly more ways to get complex outcomes out of simple starts, than to get complex outcomes immediately—it’s the same reason the laws of thermodynamics hold: there are more ways to get a randomly distributed gas, than a perfectly ordered one; so when selecting states at random, most of what you will get by far will be randomly distributed ones, not perfectly ordered ones.
But let’s assume somehow we can prove our universe is a fluke, and that most universes will have infinite size and infinitely long (or infinitely numerous) windows for life (even though that’s contrary to all science and logic), we still won’t expect to be near an infinite population. Because there is no way to show that the distribution of populations will aggregate like that. To the contrary, if we distribute populations at random, they almost never will. Rather, given that we exist, if our universe were selected at random from among all possible configurations, we should expect that this universe will be as near to being incapable of producing life (and thus contain next to no life) as is possible while still being able (and thus doing so); because there are vastly more configurations that satisfy that condition, than satisfy the amazingly perfect configurations that concentrate life (e.g. universes where life immediately arises and thrives on every moon and planet; universes entirely full of breathable air where life can thrive in literally every square inch; and so on). And lo, what we observe is a universe almost entirely hostile to life. Exactly as predicted by random selection. (And notably not as predicted by intelligent design: hence.)
So, no. Selecting universes at random will not produce a lot of universes with concentrated infinite populations in them. To the contrary, most by far will be sparsely populated. So if we find ourselves in one, we should expect to find ourselves in a sparsely populated one. Not one of the extremely rare flukes that is life-abundant (although, notably, that could still happen, which creates a problem for the people who are in one: they will falsely believe in intelligent design!).
Besides the fact that it missis the point of theist, to your knowledge is Krauss’s view from that book an accurate representation of what mainstream cosmologists and theoretical physicist currently think about our universes origins?
It is widely held to be plausible. I don’t know how many cosmologists might think otherwise. But quite a lot of them agree what he’s saying is an entirely plausible hypothesis not ruled out by any present evidence (e.g. see the linked research paper I gave as an example). But no one (not even Krauss) says that that is what happened. There may be an entirely different thing that happened. What he (and cosmologists who do likewise) is doing is just working out what would follow from a given state, given what we so far know. Whether that is the starting state it all came from remains an unanswered empirical question. As even Krauss would concede.
Update: In case it wasn’t obvious from the several references to the fact, the entire argument presented here is only a “so far as we know” argument, because several of its premises are such, i.e. the conclusion necessarily follows “so far as we know,” because it contains premises that are true “so far as we know.”
It’s possible some unknown logical necessity exists, for example, that would negate one of the premises. But being unknown, we cannot claim to know such a thing exists. And so far as we presently know, no such thing exists. Therefore, so far as we presently know, the premises are true. Therefore, so far as we know, the conclusion is necessarily true.
(Once we grant the starting assumption that once there was Nothing, of course. As noted in the article repeatedly, that’s just assumed here to demonstrate what is true if that assumption is correct. It is not a demonstration that that assumption is correct. Because we don’t know that it is: there might always, instead, have been something—which may be something logically necessary, or something contingent that’s extant for no reason or for some currently unknown reason. But what is not known to be true, also cannot be believed to be true.)
Update: It’s been asked whether this Nothing-state would produce gods by random chance. The answer is in some sense yes. But they would exist rarely in scattered universes and would be of limited abilities, possibly not at all supernatural, and the evidence indicates none exist in this universe. So the contingency is moot. Moreover, such gods won’t have caused something to exist from nothing, much less our universe, so their existence is not explanatory of either (hence not relevant to this article’s conclusion).
Thus as I wrote in the article already: “the independent probability of a god is just as comparably small.” The first link is to my discussion years ago of precisely this question in The God Impossible and the third link expands on what happens even if supernatural gods are possible—they must necessarily be extremely rare compared to even biophilic universes lacking them, due to the creationists’ own Argument from Specified Complexity.
If Existence is infinite and is characterized by an indefinite causal order doesn’t this validates the doctrine of Holy Trinity as the Archetype of existence? The writer of the article writes about God without knowing it.
The unborn Father givies birth to the born Logos, these two hypostases share a dynamic, atemporal and everlasting relationship of Life.
If by “Father” you mean an unconscious Nothing, and by Logos you mean an unsupernatural Multiverse, and by Life you mean simply that some kind of life will statistically inevitably arise somewhere in result.
What relation that bears to the Trinity of Christian theology escapes me.
You described in your article with philosophical physics, a primary archetype of Existence with indefinite causal ordrer. This idea is not something new, in fact it has been expressed theologically eons ago with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which in esscense describes a Pattern of existence with indefinite causal order. I actually do not disagree with anything you wrote (although I am not 100% sure that your definition of “nothing” is correct”)
Your main diffrentiation with christian theology resides in the the phenomenon of individual, conscious, identity (Personality). If human personality arises from the primary Pattern of Existence, can it be more advanced than the Patter which it came from? Is the phenomenon of personality disconnected with the Primary Pattern of Existence?
Atheists seem to disconnect personality with the Reality of the universe, that why modern atheistic philosophers (E.g. Sam Harris) promote the idea that the Self is an illusion. If you doubt the existence of God you doubt the existence of the Self, because God is not only the Archetype of Existence but the Archetype of the Self in relation to the whole spectrum of Being.
Nothing you just said makes any sense.
What doesn’t make sense? That God functions as an archetype of the Self in relation to the whole spectrum of Existence? That there are new atheist philosophers who claim that the Self is an illusion? That your idea of an infinite Existence with indefinite causal order has been described theologically eons ago?
I am not sure what your views are but you give me the impression that you see Religion only through the lens of fundamentalism.
Yeah. Everything you just said is weird. And has nothing to do with trinitarian theology anywhere in the history of Christianity, or supports any credible worldview.
soap bubbles…
It doesnt support any credible worldview…man, do you read anything else in your life other than physics and Richard Dawkins?
In the Dogma of the Holy Trinity it is described clearly a primary (meaning it cannot be broken down in more fundamental description) Pattern of existence with indefinite causal order. Have you actually read the teachings of Origen (the first ecclesiastic theologian), the Creed of Gregory of Neocaesarea and the articles of the second ecumenical council?
God as the archetype of the Self and His function in social cohesion is recognized by Jungians psychologists, evolutionary psychologists and sociologists.
Sam Harris and other atheistic thinkers have publicly expressed their opinion that the experience of the Self is an illusion.
Opinions aren’t facts. The self is a construct, a model. It models things that really exist. So it’s only an illusion in the sense that colors are an illusion. Yet colors model things that really do exist, allowing us to navigate the world.
This has grumpf all to do with the other weirdo nonsense you are spinning on about. Nor does it or that have grumpf all to do with the Christian theology of the Trinity.
How can we judge the infinite facts of the Universe without a proper mediator a.k.a. a proper model of the self?
Regarding the similarities that your article has with Trinatarian theology…Are you saying (I am going to oversimplify here) that you cannot see a connection between the idea that “God is the cause of God” and the idea that “the Universe is the cause of the Universe?”.
The main difference that I can observe between the origins of the Universe from the “nothing” that you and some physics propose and the Trinatarian theology, is that it excludes any mention of the phenomenon of individual personality. Hence they conclude that the Universe is apersonal. But a question arise from this philosophical theorem, if in Nothing is included the potentiality for the development of individual personality, which is a given fact since we are having a discussion right now, wouldn’t this suggest that the Primary Pattern of Existence is to some degree…a personal Being?
Nothing you are saying connects to any actual teaching about the Trinity. Demonstrating you don’t know what you are talking about. And it’s so off topic here I see no point in trying to educate you.
The rest of what you are saying has no logical coherence. What do you mean by “judge”? Why “infinite” facts? Mediator of what? What is a “proper” model of the self? Why is such a model needed to understand facts that aren’t the self, beyond its functional utility in organizing knowledge, and hence exactly the way we are already using it? What on earth are you talking about? It’s gobbledygook.
(O B-V) I’m a sociologist and we never learned that social cohesion had any tie to ‘God as the archetype of the Self.’ Did you go to a Christian college by chance? Maybe, that’s how they teach sociology there.
I love your detailed explanation for how our Universe coming from nothing is far more probable than it coming from a god. But, aren’t both still the most unlikeliest of possibilities? Isn’t it still most likely our Universe came from something such as a previous universe? And, doesn’t this imply our Universe may be an eternal one that continually expands and contracts into singularities and resulting big bangs?
Unknown. On the one hand, that starting with a minimal possible nothing you get to near certainty an infinite multiverse that includes our universe is evidence in favor of that hypothesis. On the other hand, an infinite multiverse that is past eternal is just as likely as one that is future eternal, as objectively (to a POV outside the whole) there is no difference between past and future. And those aren’t the only two hypotheses. Some probability also extends to the multiverse being past eternal but starting with something slightly more substantial than the minimum possible nothing, like a single unit of fundamental quantum vacuum governed by a single simple equation (akin to the Krauss model). All are vastly more likely than arbitrarily complex and unintelligibly timeless superghosts. Cosmological science is the only field that will ever actually answer this question. We can just rank the known possibilities so far.
Are you aware of any article(s) that deal with your ideas presented here? isn’t the idea that anything can happen out of an assumed nothingness kind of new or are you aware of other philosophers holding such an opinion?
A physics-based version of my argument has appeared in Maya Lincoln and Avi Wasser, “Spontaneous Creation of the Universe Ex Nihilo,” in Physics of the Dark Universe 2 (2013): 195–99.
But apart from that, so far as I know, I’m the only one to have noticed this problem with ENN (ex nihilo nihil).
See Koons Cosmology vs. The Problem with Nothing.
I still disagree with you about proposition 7: If nothing (except logical necessity) prevents anything from happening to Nothing, then every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing has an equal probability of occurring.
I bring it up again because there seems to be a possible clearer path to solve the matter. Because you justify the equal probability with the dichtonomy “something makes one probability different than the other” vs. “all probabilities are equal”. IF that was the case you’d be right, but what about a third option “there is no probability at all, i.e. something that makes things more/less/equal probable beyond being just possible”. Then you cannot conclude what you want & need to conclude anymore, both of your supposed dichtonomies could be false. It basically pinpoints to the weakness of your argument: treating probability theory as if it was a branch of (modal) logic which it is not, else Kolmogorov didn’t need his famous axioms to establish it.
Since I agree with you up to proposition 7 I wonder why nihil ex nihilo is still regarded a serious theory. Your arguments convince me. Have you ever read someone who critisized them and what are those arguments. Have you ever considered to write about it in the wikipedia article of “ex nihilo nihil”? That could force a discussion over time.
“There is no probability” means zero probability (and that’s true zero; not infinitesimal, but flat zero), which is synonymous with impossible. So there is no semantic difference between saying that and saying it’s impossible. Thus “it is possible but has a zero probability” is self-contradictory. And logically contradictory states of affairs cannot exist.
Something has to cause a probability to be that kind of zero. Otherwise, by definition, it’s probability is non-zero (it is “possible”). One then merely has to work out what that probability is.
And yes, I have debated my arguments on this with an expert recently: Koons Cosmology vs. The Problem with Nothing.
„There is no probability“ means that the whole „thing“ of probability is absent. You never take that as an option despite the fact that your world with only (modal) logic (= your definition of nothing) does not entail probability. For me this is the crucial part of your argument: can you use probability theory as if it belongs to logic? And the answer has to be No because probability theory is a non-logical concept, it does neither follow from FOL nor modal FOL, you have to postulate the additional idea that things are not only possible but more/less possible which introduces so much thru a back door: numbers (as a metric for more/less) and therefore a world structure that you can describe by numbers.
Have you ever thought to contribute to the article of nihil ex nihilo in wikipedia? Because your argument that when you assume nothing then everything (non-contradictory) is possible and therefore can come into existence seems quite correct and would deserve to be spread. Because one literally does not come across when reading articles about creatio ex nihilo or nihil ex nihilo fit. It seems a really good/sharp idea.
Probability isn’t a “thing.” It is a description of states of affairs. As such it always exists. So it is logically impossible to say it doesn’t.
For example, if you want to maintain a nothing-state has no potentials, you are back to arguing some “thing” exists to constrain or dictate what will happen. Which amounts to just arguing “the probability is 100% that the output will be nothing.” Which is still a probability. Hence: probability describes what you are saying; it is not a Platonic “thing” that exists separately and can be removed from anything and still leave us with meaningful propositions.
Every assertion is an assertion of a probability. “That’s logically impossible” simply means “that has a probability of zero.” “That’s logically necessary” simply means “that has a probability of one.” And everything else, being neither logically impossible nor logically necessary, cannot (for that reason) have a probability of 0 or 1, and therefore must have some other probability.
Of course, the statement “the probability is 100% that the output will be nothing” is false in the absence of any thing to make it true. Which is the actual problem. You can’t just “declare” the probability 100% that the output will be “nothing.” There is no ontological basis for that being true of the system as described.
The same goes for epistemic probability: since you do not know “the probability is 100% that the output will be nothing” (you have no evidence that any “thing” exists to make that the case, as opposed to something else being the case), every other possibility is epistemically as likely to you. That is simply a description of your state of knowledge.
So either you deal with the ontology (where some probability always exists necessarily: one outcome has a 100% probability of occurring or 0% probability, or some other probability as necessitated by the physical description of the system in question) or the epistemology (where some probability always exists necessarily, this time with regard to your being correct to assert one thing over another, as follows necessarily from the information you have).
There is no escaping probability my friend. It describes literally everything.
As to Wikipedia: I don’t edit it. I used to, decades ago. But it became a nightmare; especially when edits are self-interested, as this would be claimed to be, but even when they are not it’s vexation. But you are welcome to edit it as you’d like.
At some point I’ll produce a peer-reviewed article on this, but as that pays zero dollars (journals simply profit off of our uncompensated labor), it’s not high on my priorities list.
But you just assume logic and modal logic along with your nothingness, right? When you do that you cannot use the concept of probability just like you cannot use the concept of possibility/necessity if you’d just assume logic (predicative logic of n-orders). Within (modal) logic the concept of probability cannot be expressed, it needs more assumptions like number theory (natural/integer/rational/real numbers, i.e. a world structure which can be described by numbers which is no gimme) and an ontological stable universe where randomness can be described and not a universe in which under the very same conditions one coin toss has P(Head) = 0.5 but the next one P(Head) = 0.1.
I assume only that logically contradictory states of affairs cannot exist.
Everything else follows.
All words do is describe what follows. They do not magically cause what follows. You are confusing description with fact. I am talking about fact: logically contradictory states of affairs will not exist. Once you grant that as fact, you need merely responsibly describe it to understand what it entails.
“You are confusing description with fact. I am talking about fact: logically contradictory states of affairs will not exist.”
I wonder if the comenter, René, is more a Platonist about mathematical entities. So to them if “nothing” exists numbers can’t exist. Just guessing though – and to be clear this absolutely isn’t my position and agree with the article.
Maybe. But Platonism entails all concepts always exist. So that would be a self-contradictory position for them.
Of course I don’t find Platonism intelligible. But the only thing that matters here is what follows from the facts as described. Because the posit is “nothing exists,” so no assumptions can be added beyond that.
Like “Platonism,” whatever that is supposed to mean or entail.
If someone wishes to add that, they have to present evidence for it being the case beyond what is otherwise stated, and not merely that, but demonstrate it is logically impossible for it to not be the case—otherwise they have to explain how it exists when nothing exists. And then they have to explain how that changes anything. I wish them luck. This would be Nobel Prize winning stuff! I won’t hold my breath.
Hence I am sticking simply to the starting premises: nothing exists (nothing whatsoever) except that whose non-existence would be logically contradictory. If logically contradictory states of affairs cannot exist, then “nothing” entails certain states of affairs. This is my entire argument. They haven’t really addressed this.
The problem seems to be that you superimpose probability theory over your state of nothingness to be able to say something statistically about all the things popping out of nothingness. And you cannot do that since your nothingness only contains tautologies and probability theory is not one them.
IMO you would need to argue: nothingness, then anything can pop out, incl. worlds that fit probability theory and WITHIN THESE WORLDS you could then argue with probabilities.
You are confusing description with fact again.
I am not “imposing” anything. I am simply describing the state of affairs. What follows follows from that state of affairs. Nothing is “imposed” over it.
Probability theory follows with logical necessity from any state of affairs where possible outcomes exist that are not logically necessary outcomes. It is therefore logically impossible for that state of affairs not to be described by probability theory.
Since logically impossible things cannot exist, a “nothing” that is not described by probability theory cannot exist. And we are only interested in nothing-states that could exist. Those are the only ones being discussed here. All others will never have existed, so it doesn’t matter what would happen to them.
In case you don’t grasp this…
Probability theory follows with logical necessity from any condition whereby the certitude of outcome is equally divided among all possibilities. Since P = 1 describes logically necessary outcomes, and P = 0 describes logically impossible outcomes, any outcome that is neither logically impossible nor logically necessary has a probability other than 1 or 0, as a matter of logical necessity.
Furthermore, also as a matter of logical necessity, no one outcome can have any probability higher or lower than any other when nothing exists to produce that outcome.
Therefore it is a logically necessary fact that every possible outcome will, in that state of affairs, have an equal probability of occurring, and everything that that logically entails then follows (which means all of probability theory).
You can prove this by reduction, e.g. if you proposed that nothing will remain nothing, you are de facto saying P(nothing) = 1, which is a logical impossibility (per above), and thus cannot be true in the condition described. Logically impossible things cannot exist. Thus things cannot be simultaneously logically possible and logically impossible, a circumstances that assigning P = 1 to any possible outcome produces. Thus no outcome can be described that way. It’s a logical impossibility.
Since it is logically impossible that every outcome (including “nothing remaining nothing”) has a probability of 1, and it is logically impossible that any outcome (including “nothing remaining nothing”) has a greater or lesser probability that anything else, all probability theory then follows as a logically necessary fact.
The only way to avoid this is to produce a logical proof that “nothing remaining nothing” is logically necessary, i.e. that nothing becoming something is logically impossible. If you cannot produce that proof, then nothing has necessarily a probabilistic outcome. Probability theory is therefore entailed by it, not imposed on it.
Therefore there is no way to get a nothing-state that is not described by probability theory.
You wrote: Probability theory follows with logical necessity from any state of affairs where possible outcomes exist that are not logically necessary outcomes. It is therefore logically impossible for that state of affairs not to be described by probability theory.
You just look at the scenario of possible worlds within your state of nothingness that pop out of it or do not eventually, so you can easily count them (and then apply probability calculus). But if there are no rules in nothingness – and therefore no prohibitions – then nothingness can also produce “weird” worlds that exist but cannot be counted or worlds that cease to exist when someone wants to appy probability theory or what if nothingness produces outcomes in a way that violate one of Kolmogorov’s axioms (which are non-logical axioms!!!)? All these outcomes would not be covered by your probability calculation.
Isn’t that a problem for your concept?
There are rules: logic. Everything that’s logically impossible will never exist at or happen to a nothing-state; everything logically necessary will exist at or happen to a nothing-state; and everything logically possible but not necessary will potentially exist at or happen to a nothing-state in whatever way this logically necessarily entails.
Everything then follows.
For example:
“What if nothingness produces outcomes in a way that violate one of Kolmogorov’s axioms.” Well, work it out. That is either logically impossible (it would produce a logical contradiction) and therefore we know it won’t produce any such thing or it is logically possible and Kolmogorov’s axioms are therefore not relevant to determining what happens.
So let’s look at those three axioms:
“The probability of an event is a non-negative real number” simply describes a logically necessary fact: frequencies can only be described with positive integers (it is logically impossible to have a negative probability for the same reason it is logically impossible to be north of the north pole).
“The probability that at least one of the elementary events in the entire sample space will occur is 1” is a tautology and therefore a logically necessary fact (denying it would entail a logical contradiction). Really, this is simply the definition of any possibility space. So, it is logically impossible to have a possibility space for which this is untrue.
The third axiom simply states that the relative distributions of possibilities conform to set theory. Since it is logically impossible to violate any valid set theory, this axiom can also never be false.
So there is no possible world that can violate Kolmogorov’s axioms except worlds that lack the features they describe, e.g. a world with no possibilities would not be described by those axioms; a world with only one possibility would not be described by all of those axioms; etc. But any world with whole singular possibilities will be described by those axioms. Those axioms literally are a description of that fact. So wherever that fact exists, those axioms are true. As shown, a nothing-state is such a fact-state (it includes all possibilities with no condition favoring any).
You can only get around this by trying to describe a state of affairs that violates these axioms. You will fail.
Negative frequencies cannot be given any logically intelligible meaning without simply reducing them back to positive frequencies. Any attempt to have a probability above 1 will likewise produce logical contradictions (your probability array will literally be incoherent), just as trying to say your cup has more volume than it has is a logical contradiction. And any attempt to violate sigma-additivity will violate logic as well (in the same way; it’s just like saying you can add separate sub-volumes within your cup and end up with more volume than your cup has).
Give it a shot.
Hence likewise:
“Nothingness can also produce “weird” worlds that exist but cannot be counted” is logically impossible (if anything is a unique possibility, it automatically has a count of 1).
And “worlds that cease to exist when someone wants to apply probability theory” is too poorly described to evaluate. Without an intelligible causal mechanism, you aren’t articulating any actual logical possibility (see The God Impossible and The Argument from Specified Complexity against Supernaturalism).
Then, as soon as you fix this problem, you’ll end up either with a logical impossibility (and so, a moot point) or a logical possibility with a count of 1 per possible instantiation, just like every other possible universe. Though its absurd initial complexity will logically entail for it a low frequency category (as follows necessarily from combinatorics which follows from permutation theory which follows for any set equipollent to the set of whole numbers: there are always more simpler universes possible, so any random sample of the space will have few such weird worlds); and people (hence, we) will never, by your own definition, observe ourselves in one of those universes, so their frequency is moot anyway.
I will give it a shot.
Assume a world in which the probability for an event is not (describable as) a number. I claim that this world is NOT impossible, i.e. inconsistent, i.e. it does not violate logic (= logical truths). Logical truths are empty, i.e. they do not care about any content (like that a probability has a number attached to it), so it’s obvious that our world does not violate them. That means that your nothingness can produce worlds that are invisible for your kolmogorovian probability-glasses and therefore render it useless.
A number is a word, not a fact. It describes a fact, which is called a quantity. If one possible universe exists, as in it can possibly arise in exclusive distinction to any other, that has a factual quantity of one. It is logically impossible for it to be otherwise.
And logical truths do care about content. A contradiction is a contradiction. And it is a contradiction because of its content. And because of that you can’t have things that are “invisible” to logic.
I’m starting to think you don’t know anything about logic.
A contradiction is NOT a contradiction because of its content but because of its form and its form alone.
I still think a world in which Kolmogorov’s axiom #1 does not apply because a probability cannot be express as a number is possible. Because else it would mean that #1 is a logical truth. I know you think that and I think you are deadwrong. Instead of proving it to you I go practical first: do you really think that Kolmogorov would write logical truths as axioms? No one does that. Have you ever seen the logical truth ~(p & ~p) in the Peano axioms? Axioms – by its definition and use – are non-logical truths. Convinced?
I guess my proof would go roughly like that: axiom #1 is an atomic formula of FOL or higher, call it P. But P cannot be a contradiction by its definition, therefore P is contigent, i.e. there’s a possible world in which P is true (at least the world where P and only P exists). Convinced?
No, René, a contradiction can only be a contradiction because of its content. Form without content is devoid of meaning and therefore cannot contradict anything. There is no content to contradict.
That we can write sentences with variables (where the content can be swapped in and out as needed) must have deceived you into thinking a sentence can have meaning without content. That’s impossible. Meaning is the content; content is the meaning.
So if I wrote “x is ~x” I can only say that’s a contradiction if I allow x to have content (I do not have to specify the content, because this is a structural reference that defines the content once inserted). If I declare “x is ~x and x has no content to be or negate,” then I am no longer uttering a contradiction. I am literally saying nothing whatever.
You seem to have a hard time grasping that words and sentences are just descriptions of things. Words and sentences have no meaning apart from that. So sentences can’t contain contradictions if no content is being asserted or negated.
For example, you still keep confusing numbers (which are invented words) with quantities (the things numbers as words refer to; the content of a number).
Hence, is there a possible world where it can be simultaneously true that half the contents are marbles and two thirds of the contents are not marbles? No.
All Kolmogorov’s axioms follow.
So Kolmogorov‘s axiom #1 where it states that a probability is a real number between 0 and 1 is a logical truth in your book?
Here is what ChatGtp says:
Me: Is Kolmogorov‘s first axiom a logical truth?
AI: No, Kolmogorov’s first axiom of probability is not a logical truth. It is a mathematical definition or postulate that forms the basis for the mathematical theory of probability. The first axiom states that the probability of an event must be a number between 0 and 1, inclusive, where 0 represents that an event is impossible and 1 represents that an event is certain. This axiom serves as a starting point for deriving other properties and concepts in probability theory, but it is not logically deducible from more basic principles of logic.
Me: So one could also assume the negation of Kolmogorov‘s first axiom in some axiomatic system?
AI: Yes, one could assume the negation of Kolmogorov’s first axiom in some axiomatic system, although this would result in a non-standard probability theory that may not satisfy all the desired properties of a standard probability theory.
So obviously the AI agrees with me that Kolmogorov‘s 1st axiom is not in your realm of nothingness-but-logical-truths. But that means that whatever pops out of it cannot necessarily be described by your probability theory.
I don’t think you know what a “logical truism” is. I am not talking about truisms, but descriptions. That the sphere of a circle is a real number follows from what the words “volume” and “sphere” mean. It’s not a “logical truism.” Once you describe what you are talking about, any logical deviation deviates from describing it. Once you are no longer describing the thing you are talking about, you are no longer talking about that thing.
Kolmogorov‘s axioms follow from anything appropriately described. You can no more talk about a probability as an imaginary number than you can talk about a volume as an imaginary number. That simply is to no longer be talking about probabilities or volumes. The logic follows from the description. The description follows from what is described. There is no way to have a sphere, and not have a volume. We don’t need some “axiom” or “truism” to tell us that.
This is what logic is actually doing. You do not seem to comprehend this.
Your conversation with an AI doesn’t even touch on what we are talking about. We are talking about ontology. Your AI conversation is just cribbing a Wikipedia description of an axiomatic system, without any reference to its ontology. AI’s only engage in conversations at 4th grade level. They don’t comprehend anything we are talking about. So you really should know better. You aren’t going to win any argument by citing a 4th grader as an authority.
What makes that axiom true is the mere fact as described. It is a fact (an ontological fact) that when nothing exists, every outcome is possible. It is a fact (an ontological fact) that when nothing exists, no outcome is more or less likely than any other. All of Kolmogorov’s axioms follow from this state of affairs.
Once you describe the facts, the axioms are logically necessary: because they describe that fact; just as a sphere automatically has a volume, purely in consequence of its description. You can’t have a sphere without a volume. Likewise you can’t have an infinite range of equally likely possibilities and have Kolmogorov’s first axiom be false for that series. The two states of affairs contradict each other. So once you accept logically contradictory states cannot exist, them the state you want to exist (an infinite range of equally likely possibilities for which Kolmogorov’s first axiom is false) cannot exist.
Okay this is quite an old post and I reached here after recently reading Feser’s 5 proofs of God. I have been interested in this question for a while and would have loved to learn that ex nihilo nihil does not hold.
But I don’t think proposition 4 holds. “nothing prevents anything from happening to that Nothing.”. Doesn’t this in turn assume a rule: something CAN happen to Nothing?
The post says that “only nothing come from Nothing” doesn’t have a proof. But the fact that nothing happens to Nothing is inherent in the definition of Nothing and thus is logically necessary, no? One would instead have to prove that it is possible that something happens to nothing. What am I missing?
That is addressed in the article. It is logically necessarily one or the other. So removing all barriers to spontaneous transformation logically entails a potentiality of instantiation. You can never have a state of nothing that lacks both, just as you can never have a sphere that lacks a radius.
Potentiality is therefore simply a logically necessary (and hence inalienable) property of all absolute nothing-states.
Another way to think of it is: when nothing ensures that the continuation of nothing has a probability of 100%, then the continuation of nothing logically necessarily cannot have a probability of 100% (unless by random selection, but then its probability is, in odds, infinity to one against).
When nothing chooses what the probability of an outcome is, the probability of that outcome is logically necessarily not special (like an arbitrary, uncaused selection of 100%) but indifferent (hence the consequences of this fact laid out in this article).
This is a metaphysical fact of nothing. It is, quite literally, the consequence of subtracting everything—including all forces that would limit what outcomes can occur (at all, much less to “remaining a stable nothingness”).
Physicists put all this another way:
‘Nothing’ is inherently unstable.
Philosophically we would say:
Instability is a logically necessary (inalienable) property of ‘nothing’, simply by virtue of it lacking any force to maintain its stability, because it is, by definition, the absence of all things—but it can never be the absence of logically necessary things, because that would entail a logical contradiction, and logically contradictory states cannot exist (and thus never will have).