A Word about Nothing...

[godnotgod]

I call it, depending on the context, ZPE or Dark Energy or Aether or Spirit or Higg's Field or Quantum Vacuum.

OK, but what do THOSE exist within or against?

 

[godnotgod]

sacrificing belief in the next life for word salad......
is not a fair trade

Because you have a shallow understanding, or better yet, because you are simply in denial, all you can do is to call it 'word salad', while clinging to your belief out of fear, beliefs which have no basis in fact.

 

[godnotgod]

What is unknown is unknown and I can accept that it is unknown. [see my signature statement at the bottom of this post]

You contradict yourself with your own signature, by making the claim of Causation, which by your own admission, you have zero knowledge about. You then proceed to create a 'God', which you lack even less knowledge about.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

You could think about nothing in the terms of zero.

You could say zero is something too small to measure; effectively making it zero.

Or

You could say zero is the spot on the number line that is neither positive or negative.

I want to say the 1st one is the objective case, while the 2nd one is subjective. (Unless I am over looking something.)

Therefore objectively nothing is simply something we can't measure.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

What would you call that within which the sub-atomic particles and gravitational waves exist?

Gravitational waves are dynamical alterations to the structure/shape/topology of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold. Sub-atomic particles don't exist, they are at best constructs used to relate theoretical frameworks to particular sorts of experimental outcomes.

 

[godnotgod]

Gravitational waves are dynamical alterations to the structure/shape/topology of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold. Sub-atomic particles don't exist, they are at best constructs used to related theoretical frameworks to particular sorts of experimental outcomes.

So sub-atomic particles as constructs must then exist against the background of consciousness, out of which they emerge. But whether mathematical constructs, or virtual, or real, they must exist against some sort of background. If we say they have 'existence', we have automatically created a field for their existence which, by default, must be non-existence.

 

[godnotgod]

You could think about nothing in the terms of zero.

You could say zero is something too small to measure; effectively making it zero.

Or

You could say zero is the spot on the number line that is neither positive or negative.

I want to say the 1st one is the objective case, while the 2nd one is subjective. (Unless I am over looking something.)

Therefore objectively nothing is simply something we can't measure.

It is immeasurable, period.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I call it, depending on the context, ZPE or Dark Energy or Aether or Spirit or Higg's Field or Quantum Vacuum.

So, a handful of terms taken from popular physics literature that you understand in a manner so far removed from the viewpoint of physicists and other specialists that you equate fundamentally incompatible, contradictory, or utterly unrelated technical notions from theoretical frameworks you aren't familiar with? The quantum vacuum is necessarily distinct from any would-be higgs mechanism, field, boson, etc., as is dark energy. You are equating various formulations/conceptualizations of Dirac's sea with perhaps the most fundamentally opposed notion in high-energy/particle/theoretical physics: the mechanism/field which mathematically allows "matter" particles/fermions to have mass within the standard model. That's without the aether/spirit stuff, which doesn't fit well within renormalizable gauge theories/QFTs, let alone some TOE that might combine general relativity with anything quantum whilst explaining dark energy that cannot be equated with the quantum vacuum.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

It is immeasurable, period.

I am sorry, but are you saying nothing is too big to measure?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

So sub-atomic particles as constructs must then exist against the background of consciousness, out of which they emerge. But whether mathematical constructs, or virtual, or real, they must exist against some sort of background. If we say they have 'existence', we have automatically created a field for their existence which, by default, must be non-existence.

Actually, the fundamental problem with a quantum theory of gravity is that in general relativity (or modern "gravitation" theory), the "background" is a dynamical system. That is, gravitational force in modern physics is the interaction between the background within which physical systems "live" or "evolve" dynamically and this would-be background. Systems' dynamics are determined by the "background" spacetime manifold, which is at the same time constructed by the physical systems' effect upon this background.
Any attempt to quantize gravitation, therefore, must necessarily involve quantizing a force which, in modern physics, is actually the "space" or "background" in which physical systems exist.
Thus, in modern physics, gravitation is both background and itself a physical system, and no background exists nor can exist without the effect of physical systems upon it, nor can there exist any physical system which is not influenced by interaction with this background.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Therefore objectively nothing is simply something we can't measure.

The problem is that most things we posit to exist can't be measured.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

The problem is that most things we posit to exist can't be measured.

I did use that word "objectively" for a reason.

 

[godnotgod]

excerpted from: The Tao of Zen, by Ray Griggs

 

[godnotgod]

I did use that word "objectively" for a reason.

But since '0' is no-thing, it cannot be an object of the mind, and so cannot be understood 'objectively' OR subjectively. It is infinite, and cannot be pointed to as an object of thought or encapsulated via mind. Having said that, it CAN be experienced. (Please see my post #173, above).

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I did use that word "objectively" for a reason.

Yes, but the problem is that "objective"
1) is usually intersubjective and/or involves subjective ontological commitments
2) must necessarily be in some sense beyond measure or measurability because objective implies existence apart from observation, and measure requires observation. Measurement is always subjective.
3) is problematic according to modern physics:
"The notion of Physical Object is Untenable”
D’Ariano, G. M. (2015). It from Qubit. In It From Bit or Bit From It? (pp. 25-35). Springer.

"We now know that the moon is demonstrably not there when nobody looks."
Mermin, N. D. (1981). Quantum mysteries for anyone. The Journal of Philosophy, 78(7), 397-408.

“The only reality is mind and observations”
Henry, R. C. (2005). The mental universe. Nature, 436(7047), 29-29.

“Our external physical reality is a mathematical structure”
Tegmark, M. (2008). The mathematical universe. Foundations of Physics, 38(2), 101-150.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

Yes, but the problem is that "objective"
1) is usually intersubjective and/or involves subjective ontological commitments
2) must necessarily be in some sense beyond measure or measurability because objective implies existence apart from observation, and measure requires observation. Measurement is always subjective.
3) is problematic according to modern physics:
"The notion of Physical Object is Untenable”
D’Ariano, G. M. (2015). It from Qubit. In It From Bit or Bit From It? (pp. 25-35). Springer.

"We now know that the moon is demonstrably not there when nobody looks."
Mermin, N. D. (1981). Quantum mysteries for anyone. The Journal of Philosophy, 78(7), 397-408.

“The only reality is mind and observations”
Henry, R. C. (2005). The mental universe. Nature, 436(7047), 29-29.

“Our external physical reality is a mathematical structure”
Tegmark, M. (2008). The mathematical universe. Foundations of Physics, 38(2), 101-150.

Thanks for the references, but I moved beyond the objective/subjective arguments a long time ago.

 

[godnotgod]

I am sorry, but are you saying nothing is too big to measure?

To say that it is 'too big' is to say that it is measurable, which it is not. It has no size. It is nothing. To possess the characteristic of size, it would necessarily have to be 'something'.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I am sorry, but are you saying nothing is too big to measure?

Actually, it is, in some sense. But only in the sense that if by "nothing" you mean something like 0, then we require infinitely large systems in order to measure any physical property with 0 value. Of course, this is true of any physical property with any value, as exact measurements of any sort require infinitely large measurement systems.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

But since '0' is no-thing, it cannot be an object of the mind, and so cannot be understood 'objectively' OR subjectively. It is infinite, and cannot be pointed to as an object of thought or encapsulated via mind. Having said that, it CAN be experienced. (Please see my post #173, above).

"so cannot be understood"

I don't think it is that hard to understand, but I do think you are trying to make it hard to understand.

 

[godnotgod]

Thanks for the references, but I moved beyond the objective/subjective arguments a long time ago.

If that is the case, then you must have come to the realization that you are none other than the nothing you wish to describe.