[MD] Philosophy is dead

[plattholden at gmail.com]

On 16 Sep 2010 at 17:18, Steven Peterson wrote:

Hi Platt,

On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 3:36 PM,  <plattholden at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Ham,
>
> Yes, "Something from Nothing" is latest iteration of the "Oops Theory" of how
> the universe came into being. It goes hand in hand with the terms "spontaneous"
> and "emergence" so favored by science types when they have no idea why or how
> something occurred.


It would seem that either at some point something came from nothing or
that something was always around. Which do you think it is?

Hi Steven,

I suppose you can argue that nothing is something. But, that doesn't sit well 
with me because to have a concept of nothing you have to have something, just 
as the concept of a whole presupposes a larger whole, or the concept of one 
presupposes the concept of many. So we find ourselves in the land of paradox. 
The only way out of this rational cul-de-sac that I know of is for one to 
decide which underlying assumption of the many available has the highest 
quality. For me, it's  that something was always around. In other words, I buy 
the scientist's assumption that for every effect there is a cause That at the 
beginning of the universe cause and effect suddenly becomes inoperative to 
Hawkins and some other cosmologists seems to me to be a grand cop out.

But I could be wrong. Maybe the technique Magnus uses to identify underling 
assumptions will reveal that I am. :-) 

Platt