GenesisNemesis

They don't "transcend" the Universe, they are abstract concepts which help us understand reality.

punkforchrist

I'm only asking this question under the paradigm of Oxy's thinking. Whether they do in fact transcend the universe ("transcendence" ought to be defined, as well) is another matter.

Oxymoron

To be honest: I'm not sure. I think my train of thought was that what we might think of as a "universe" (which has been pointed out to be mostly empty space) is misleading. The "multiverse" idea is also a little misleading as if the universe is loosely defined as "everything that exists" then it clearly encompasses everything. Similarly, it's hard to transcend our universe because we can always re-define the term to include whatever we want (laws, god, other universes...) Clearly terminology is being stressed to the max here.

Perhaps - if I can re-engage my idea (which kind of eluded me even whilst I was thinking about it) - the point is an extension of the suggestion that the universe we perceive is naught but a computer simulation created by higher beings. In this case, though, there are no super-aliens. The universe is the emergent behaviour of a simulation built on a set of regularities that cannot fail to exist - ie given that something has to exist, that that something must be bound by those regularities and if they weren't then it wouldn't (or couldn't) exist.

Dante Alighieri

Well, there seem to be various conflations of the term universe. Let's try looking at two major definitions.

1. The physical universe: the collection of all physical reality
2. The philosophical universe: all that exists.

(1) can be further split up into various other parts

(1a): the observable universe
(1b): the multiverse

The multiverse can be split up even further though.

As for (2), under possible world semantics, this is what one would call the actual world.

punkforchrist

Hello Oxymoron,

I agree. The use of the word, "universe," can easily be a factor in the miscommunication of nearly any dialogue, which is why I decided to ask that question. If one wants to define the word as entailing literally everything, including those necessary things that are not extended in space per se, like the mathematical laws you allude to, then I don't see any difficulty in a theist's (or a realist, in general) accepting that definition.

The term, "higher beings," may cause some confusion. Are you in this case simply referring to impersonal laws like the law of non-contradiction?

Could you clarify the above statement, as well? If by "super-aliens," you're saying that there is no intelligent being responsible for the formation of the universe, then of course as a theist I disagree.

So you agree that there are necessary abstract objects? If so, would you claim that they are mind-independent realities?

Essentially, there are three options I can think of regarding these abstract objects:

1. Nominalism - abstract objects are either non-existent, or else contingent.
2. Platonism - abstract objects are necessary, mind-independent realities.
3. Conceptualism - abstract objects are necessary concepts of a mind.

I consider (2) and (3) to be forms of Realism (although semantics may differ between parties). Would you consider your position to be most comparable with Platonism?

Oxymoron

Yo.

The intended usage was "living beings of sufficient technical capability to create a simulation sophisticated enough to define a universe such as ours". This is clearly a vast distance away from where we are currently; then again, it took 9 or 10 billion years for life to emerge here, so the likelihood that if there is another technologically capable species in the (a ?) universe they are a million years ahead of us is pretty decent (all other things being equal).

I guess. Though presumably these "laws" would have to work when there's no living stuff in the universe to point at them. Anthropically: one way or another, the regularities exist because if they didn't we'd not be here to appreciate them. (Appreciation not being comprehension, which is not guaranteed.) The question then of why we find ourselves in a world with regularities is a moot one. But I'd go a bit further and suggest that regularity is much simpler than chaos. Imagine two particles that interact on occasion by some mechanism. To have a different interaction each time requires inner workings. To have the same interaction requires simple innate property. Of course, simplicity is but another requirement so I'm unclear where that might comes from, but to borrow a leaf out of the Intelligent Design community's otherwise worthless ideas, simple equates to more probable. A dice with one 1 and five 6s will overwhelming turn up 6 and requires fewer bits of information to represent it.

There is as much evidence that we're all agents in a computer simulation as there is for an intelligent creator. It seems merely an aesthetic choice which one you select.

Presumably the universe got on just fine before the Earth gelled out of the solar disc, and for it to be able to do so required regularities. How we represent and approximate these regularities in our head is an entirely separate issue.

No, I don't think so. Thinking about this the other night, I realised that (eg) a true circle exists nowhere in nature. "Circles" are our abstract representational tools for approximating a certain type of regularity. Benoit Mandelbrot showed that nature was pointy at most scales, and that the true geometry of the universe was most non-Platonic. The tools we have at our disposal to investigate the universe fall short either through being too limited, or too ideal. That's not to demean them, just a reminder that they are used to build a map, and are not the territory.

s2art

Is this just a variation on the argument that any/all tautology(s) must exist in some sense? That is if the universe can be described as a tautology then the question of something from nothing becomes moot.

Merlin

0=(1+(-1))

James T

I used to think Ex nihilo nihil fit (Nothing comes from nothing) however the universe is a rather significant counter example.

Sarpedon

The idea that there was nothing before the creation of the Universe is a religious idea, not a scientific one. We don't have to explain how something can come from nothing any more than we have to explain how Jesus fed 5,000 people with a basketful of food. Until the religious people prove that at one point something came from nothing, I see no reason to wonder how this could be.