[extropy-chat] something rather than nothing

[Mike Dougherty]

On 3/19/07, A B <austriaaugust at yahoo.com> wrote:
> set of fundamental physical laws. But I would maybe
> define "something" as that which is partially known,
> and nothing as that which is partially unknown.

this definition causes a contradiction - any amount of the known about
a thing makes it cease to be no-thing.

> it offers insights into our own Universe. Eg. If
> nothingness is also devoid of time, then why is our
> Universe only 15 billion years old (as the empirical
> evidence suggests)? IOW, if nothingness is devoid of a
> chronology, or a time "flow", then why *isn't* our
> Universe either infinitely old (or nearly so)? With

it is not devoid of time - just that time is an arbitrary dimension
out of which something measurable becomes observable.  There is also
an interpretation that this universe is only a moment, but that it
instantiates with a memory we may interpret as 15 billion years.
Perhaps the universe appears to be this old because that's how long it
takes for stateful information to propogate through the medium that
consciousness inhabits.  Once every action/reaction is resolved, the
event ceases to exist? (inclusive of recursive reaction to reaction,
etc.  possibly the stack is still creating new instances without have
reached the base condition)