[extropy-chat] Nothingness and that Infinite Chain of Causes thingy.

[A B]

Hello,
   
  This is all just speculation on my part.
   
  I've been wondering lately if maybe our Universe is entirely deterministic after all. If everything is "caused", then something must have "caused" the universe to come into existence in the first place. A religious person might appeal to a timeless God. A scientist might appeal to a birth from the Multiverse. But even then, if everything is predetermined then something would still have to "cause" the existence of the Multiverse. Lately I've wondered if the nature of this "first cause" is defined by the nature of absolute Nothingness [I'm not referring to "empty" space, but rather the total absence of *all* things, including space]. I will argue that absolute Nothingness is inherently unstable, and in fact is profoundly volatile. In the case of Nothingness, there is no physics, no dimension, no logic, and *no rules*. There is nothing at all to prevent "Something" arising from "Nothing". So by extension, the birth of "something" is an inexorable result - our universe exists
 because it was spawned from the Multiverse, and the Multiverse exists because it was "forced" into existence by the very nature of Nothingness. The reason that I insist that a Multiverse exists, is based on the observations that our Universe is approximately 15 Billion years old. If Nothingness behaves as I suggest, then the first "something" [the first Universe if you like] should be infinitely (or nearly infinitely) old.
   
  So, if one accepts this explanation for existence, then one doesn't have to abandon the notion that the Universe *is* entirely predetermined after all. It seems to me that the "infinite causal regression problem" can be explained. Of course, one might point out the experimental and theoretical "evidence" that some quantum events seem to suggest that some things truly are "un-caused". But, I would argue back that the seemingly random and "un-caused" quantum events are *at least* somewhat causally linked to the past; they would not exist if our Universe (or some Universe) had never existed to harbor them in the first place. Gotta go.
   
  Best Wishes,
   
  Jeffrey Herrlich
   
   
    



 		
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