It's a bit like "seven". Does seven exist? Not really. You can't point to anything that is "seven" (note: "seven" is not the same as pointing to "seven of something"). As a concept it has no properties. It is a property (of other stuff).

So I'd argue that concepts are just labels (that we made up) - and have no reality in-and-of-themselves outside our minds.

It's particularly obvious with concepts of zero or negative one. Can you have zero (or negative one) of anything? Not really. They are concepts that are useful in a lot of settings as a mental shortcut but they carry no reality with it.

Matter is around whether humans are around or not. The concept of zero isn't. So I'd give matter a clear pass on existence while I#d give concepts a contingent existence (at best).
As for the concept of "non-existence": Since existence is (as per my previous post) a tautology non-existence must therefore be a self contradiction.

And so, concepts which you source from your or "our minds" are only real in "our minds" . Your implication is that concepts which are in the mind are "real" but unreal otherwise ; doesn't this imply that the creation of an object which is "unreal" would also, in some way make the object (mind) unreal ?

In other words are "concepts" and the "mind" of the same nature of sourcefull substance or do they differ and if so, how ?

Imagine nothing. You can't. Imagine stars and galaxies and universes without conscious observers. You cant!

You can imagine them because they existed before sentient life or we wouldn't be there with all the higher elements needed. There is such a thing as the first sentient observer. Before that, nature acted as usual, without the higher complexity participating yet.

However it is true that there is always some observer in the greater sense ie nature interacting with itself. There cant be just one thing alone. Existence creates interaction measurement, geometry.

You cannot imagine nothing however because you just made it into something. You cannot describe something without any properties. Because endless things are yet to be imagined by humans that never existed and what are these then but future development of the current system? Because they can be described, they are something even if not yet realized. They are structures waiting to be put together. They do not exist but will eventually.

A true nothing is irrelevant because it has nothing that can describe it. To be described as empty set the concept of set must exist first!

What is a universe like without conscious observers. What does a universe made of atoms look like. How many dimensions has it? Isn't it obvious three spatial dimensions and one of time absolutely dependent on a mind. What does time mean without a conscious observer. what shape is the earth and what colour is the sun? They are made of atoms. Everything is made of atoms. So then, a universe without consciousness......[insert verbs, adjectives and nouns you can think of].

My point is you can't imagine something without an imagination let alone nothing. Imagine a round, burning ball of fire without the existence of consciousness. Is it round, no. Is it hot , no again.

To save time and waste my own, I'm totally aware of how it seems that the universe created consciousness. I would agree with you on every scientific fact such as the age of the earth relative to the solar system or the to galaxy or the observable universe. How life likely formed and when. Single celled organisms to multi celled. Evolution. Brains and their connection to consciousness. I believe it is just as extreme to hold the view that the universe did create consciousness as it is to believe that reality is not mind dependent.

We may not perceive universe exactly like it is, but the ballpark is there. Our perception is flawed though, at least less consistent than the supposed real state of things. We can penetrate the probability functions, they tell the concept of an "atom" is an approximation, but still better than no estimate at all.

The universe or the like in some form exists without consciousness. Consciousness shows one view, happens to act in the three-dimensional space. Happens to perceive colors, etc.

Attempting to imagine nothing is like something trying to create nothing out of nothing inside something. Which leads to suggestions such as “closely approximated nothing”, “estimated nothing”, and “simulated imaginary nothing”.

And also everyone imagines differently. So you may try to imagine nothing and will have a different experience. It may not be like something trying to create nothing out of nothing inside something to you. But it maybe close. Maybe different so as to be imaginable as far out.

My Sufi tells me that consciousness is a field just like space/time is a field. And we are born into consciousness the same way we are born into space/time. The only difference is that the consciousness field existed before the big bang and space/time did not. When "we" die consciousness does not die, the field simply "collects" the perceptions of that individual just as a black hole "collects" space/time.

A system can't understand itself. It needs to create a model and a model to understand more complicated models. We are the universe. That's what we've done. Created the self and will forever add complex models to try understand more complex models.

My 8th grade English teacher told our class that most of our writing submissions were the metaphorical equivalent of taking the piece of paper, and covering it with a thin film of "organic fertilizer". I can only imagine how he would describe this thread.

See approximately nothing is almost discoverable in threads. We have reports!

Haven’t proven nothing yet, tarnations. At least precious nothing can’t be disproven either. What about precious nothings? How can those exists if nothing can’t exist?

It is a little known fact that the universe exists solely for the purpose of people blathering on about its existence.

FWIW, I decided to torture myself w/ this book, the only one by the author that I've read bec, from what I'd come across about Stenger, the nastier he seemed. And the reader does have to put up w/ his atheist ramblings which, even though they are a given, are still annoying. I'm mentioning this bec he mentions Krauss's 'A Universe From Nothing' and apparently agrees w/ Krauss by writing 'I don't think anything he says disagrees with this book, which was written independently.' I really ought to have left the damn thing on the shelf.



I'll toss in another quote which comes right after he talks about Krauss's work: 'Clearly, no consensus exists on how to define 'nothing.' So there is that.

Maybe, maybe not.

a) Consciousness is a latecomer to the universe. Space and time exist out there in an objective reality independent of the mind or minds. We have evolved to see reality truly because fitness favors the truth.

b) Consciousness is a latecomer to the universe. Space and time exist out there in an objective reality independent of the mind or minds. We have not evolved to see reality truly, as such because fitness does not favor the truth.
Objects have subjective and objective qualities. e.g The redness of an apple is subjective but its mass is not.

c) Consciousness is not a latecomer to the universe. Time and space do not exist independently of the mind, they are but tools of the mind. The universe is the creation of consciousness.

d) Consciousness is not a latecomer to the universe. Time and space do not exist independently of the mind, they are but tools of the mind. The universe is the creation of consciousness, but there is an objective reality beyond observers.


d) Other.

Whats more is we know this in advance but keep discussing age old unsolved problems anyway.

I sorta explained why, At least on my behalf. Nothing is inspiring. It’s not a problem, it’s a solution. An element of creative thinking. That nothing can be anticipated in advance... that cracks me up. Nothing makes me laugh and make jokes. Precious nothing. Hahahaha. That’s a real possessive mind bender.

A blank canvas is a close approximation of nothing.

Grandstanding like this also adds nothing of value.

Maybe it is useful to ask: why is there something rather than something else? It would rule out the "because nothing would be something so its not actually nothing" kind of answer, which strikes me as totally uninteresting.

In any case, even though it is a natural/intuitive question, I can only see two ways of answering, and neither has any alluring mystique, or is likely to give any satisfaction: 1) as a physics problem the answer is complicated math, and undoubtedly inscrutable to almost everyone; and 2) as a metaphysics problem, your guess is as good as anyone else's. I certainly don't know the answer, but neither does Lawrence Krauss, or any serious philosopher of metaphysics, or Deepak Chopra for that matter too.

If it was something else you'd be asking the same question. There is always something else. In fact, you can make a case that the something else also exists; just not here and now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAGnKpE4NCI

But you might be asking the question with a silly accent. This is important.

‘“Isn’t it something?”

https://youtu.be/Chr2Hg5qNl4

No. Why would it? Just because something can be used to formulate abstracts doesn't make that something abstract.

This notion of concepts being separate from real things isn't new, BTW. It's called 'Platonic ideals' in philosophy. (Or if you want to go religious you can go to Buddhism where they ask the question about whether X has "Buddha nature" or not - which is roughly similar in concept and incidentally was posed about the same time...give or take a century)

Well, that's a lot harder than answering why there is something rather than nothing. And there's an entire profession dedicated to trying to figure this out: physicists.