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Dreaded_Anomaly comments on Sean Carroll: Does the Universe Need God? [link] - Less Wrong Discussion
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Yes, that is what I'm saying. "Nothing" means no space, no time, no energy, no particles, no fields, no interactions... not even any "meta-rules," as you put it. Existence is fundamentally the context of everything, regardless of at how many levels we can describe it, or how many forms the rules could or do take. When we discuss phenomena within the context, it can make sense to say "why is there X rather than not X (or Y, or Z...)", but it doesn't make sense to discuss the context itself in that way.
As I think of it, it does make sense to talk about the wider context of the rules, which are the meta-rules, but it does not make sense to demand a context that cannot itself be described within a wider context.
(If a (meta-[meta-{meta-...}])ruleset had a horizontal slice of the meta-tower identical to the other immediately higher and lower slices, then it would provide its own context. Somehow the rules and meta-rules would have to be identical, but it would still have a context, it just wouldn't be a different context. I'm not sure this is possible, but that "possible" world isn't ours anyway. If it were, the rules would be the meta-rules too, and we wouldn't have to look deeper.
I strongly doubt the tower can repeat, e.g. with rules identical to meta-meta-rules, unless they are also equal to the meta-rules and every other level.
The "tower" with rules on the bottom, meta-rules above that, etc. is either repeating or non-repeating, but I don't see how it could have a limited number of floors.)
Regardless, if the rules/first floor is empty (i.e. there are no rules by which anything exists) then the meta-rules/second floor has an occupant (i.e. "there are no rules by which anything exists") so the meta-tower isn't empty.