Hi Jonathan,
You say that if "something and nothing are equivalent," then "the big WHY
question is rendered meaningless."
But isn't the big WHY question equivalent to asking "WHY does the integer
series -100 to +100 exist?" Even though the sum of the integer series is
zero, that doesn't render the question meaningless.
Norman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Colvin" <jcolvin.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 10:20 PM
Subject: RE: WHY DOES ANYTHING EXIST
> Norman wrote: Thanks for your identification of David Pearce - I see he
was
> co-founder (with Nick Bostrom) of the World Transhumanist
> Association. I have a lot of respect for Bostrom's views.
>
> However, it's Pearce's viewpoint about "WHY DOES ANYTHING
> EXIST" that I'm interested in. This viewpoint is expressed
> at http://www.hedweb.com/nihilism/nihilfil.htm His
> conclusion seems to be that everything in the multiverse adds
> up to zero, so there are no loose ends that need explaining.
> Even if true, this doesn't answer the WHY question, however.
>
> If you or others have opinions on WHY, I'd like to hear them.
> I wonder if your opinion will be that no opinion is possible?
Pearce is a little tongue-in-cheek here, I think, but surely Pearce does
answer the *big* "why" question ("why is there something rather than
nothing?"). O is nothing, so if everything adds up to zero, something and
nothing are equivalent, and the big "why" question is rendered meaningless.
All other "why" questions (as in, "why this rather than that?") are answered
by the standard UE (ultimate ensemble), which Pearce seems to assume.
Jonathan Colvin
Received on Tue May 17 2005 - 01:49:55 PDT