Re: Why is there something instead of nothing?

From: Stephen Paul King <stephenk1.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 18:20:46 -0500

Dear Norman,

    Perhaps because "Nothingness" can not non-exist.

Stephen


----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Hawthorne" <egh.domain.name.hidden>
To: "Norman Samish" <ncsamish.domain.name.hidden>
Cc: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2003 3:19 PM
Subject: Re: Why is there something instead of nothing?


>
>
> Norman Samish wrote:
>
> >...
> >I don't understand how there can be both something and nothing. Perhaps
I
> >don't understand what you mean by "nothing." By "nothing" I mean no
thing,
> >not even empty space.
> >
> >
>
> I think of it this way.
>
> 1. Information (a strange and inappropriately anthropocentric word - it
> should just be called "differences") is the most
> fundamental "thing".
>
> 2. The plenitude, or multiverse (of possible worlds) can be conceived of
> as "the potential for all possible information states"
> or in other words, all possible sets of differences, or in otherwords,
> an infinite length qu-bitstring simultaneously exhibiting
> all of its possible states.
>
> 3. In that conception, "nothing" is just the special state of the
> qu-bitstring in which all of the bits are 0 (or 1 - there are two
> possible nothings, but they are equivalent, since 1 is defined only in
> its opposition to 0 and vice versa.)
> That is, in that conception, "nothing" is a universe in which there is
> no difference, and thus no structure. i.e. That
> state of the bitstring has zero entropy, or zero information. So it is
> truely "nothing."
>
> 4. but that special state of the qu-bitstring is only one of the 2 to
> the power (bitstring-length) simultaneously existing
> information-states of the qu-bitstring. And some of the other sets of
> information-states are our universe (i.e. "something.")
> and similar universes (everything? or at least everything of note.)
>
>
>
Received on Sun Nov 16 2003 - 18:26:35 PST