Psy-Kosh comments on Rationality Outreach: A Parable - Less Wrong

24 [deleted] 17 March 2011 01:10PM

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Comment author: Psy-Kosh 17 March 2011 11:45:06PM 0 points [-]

What's forbidden about there simply being... nothing? :)

Comment author: Dreaded_Anomaly 17 March 2011 11:49:00PM 0 points [-]

No, the point is that there's nothing forbidden about there being something.

Comment author: Psy-Kosh 18 March 2011 12:05:09AM 1 point [-]

What I meant was, if there's neither anything forbidden about there simply being... nothing, and there being something, what leads to the "something" winning out over the nothing?

ie, even given "everything not forbidden is compulsory", there still seems to be stuff unexplained.

Comment author: Dreaded_Anomaly comment score below threshold [+] (10 children)

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 18 March 2011 12:43:32AM 8 points [-]

Erm... it's harder for me to say this, because of the high-status thing where I've been turned into some kind of giant lumbering elephant who has to keep trying not to step on people, but nonetheless I beg you to stop, reflect, consider what you have just said, and realize that you don't actually know anything about this problem.

Comment author: Dreaded_Anomaly 18 March 2011 12:57:00AM 3 points [-]

Yeah, that was not too helpful.

I will say that at this point, I think we're all talking past each other. That's precisely why I dislike phrasing serious problems in the vague language of meaningless questions. Unfortunately, I seem to have gotten sucked into it anyway. Unless anyone is really interested in dissolving the issue, I'm probably not going to go any further with it here.

Comment author: Dreaded_Anomaly 23 March 2011 07:35:46PM 0 points [-]

Update: I have started a discussion topic related to this issue. It's based on a recent essay by Sean Carroll, who is certainly better versed in cosmology than I am.

Comment author: JGWeissman 23 March 2011 07:48:55PM 0 points [-]

McAllister already explained:

The question "Why does something exist instead of nothing?" is different from "What caused the Universe?". The former question is not asking about causation in time.

The essay you cite is addressing "What caused the Universe?", not the question we are concerned with.

Comment author: Dreaded_Anomaly 23 March 2011 08:09:47PM 0 points [-]

The essay, in my opinion, dissolves that question as well. In any case, it's a more relevant place to have the discussion than a tangent comment thread.

Comment author: JGWeissman 23 March 2011 09:01:00PM 0 points [-]

The essay, in my opinion, dissolves that question as well.

I don't care about your opinion. The parts of the essay you quoted certainly do not dissolve the question "Why does something exist instead of nothing?". If you think it does elsewhere, then quote that part.

In any case, it's a more relevant place to have the discussion than a tangent comment thread.

Until your discussion post at least claims to address the question of "Why does something exist instead of nothing?", I prefer the thread, however tangential, that provides the context of exploring that question.

Comment author: Dreaded_Anomaly 23 March 2011 09:46:16PM 0 points [-]

I see the distinction you're making. I have added a bullet point for the section of the essay which discusses "meta-explanatory accounts"

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 18 March 2011 01:03:44AM 0 points [-]

Is this a Tegmark IV thing where everything possible must exist?

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 18 March 2011 01:10:28AM 6 points [-]

What determines how much of each sort of everything exists?

http://lesswrong.com/lw/py/the_born_probabilities/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/19d/the_anthropic_trilemma/

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 23 March 2011 12:04:23AM * 0 points [-]

Presumably it all exists in all mathematically possible amounts.

ETA: ... whatever that means.

Psy-Kosh comments on Rationality Outreach: A Parable - Less Wrong

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