- Edited
An interesting piece of information theoretic philosophy:
Recently I saw a video on youtube in which a computer scientist made a proposal for answering the question why the machine (the universe and its physics) that he considers as a purely information processing entity, came into existence in the first place. As far as I could interpret his lines of reasoning, he aimed to answer the question, well, “self-evidently” on a pure information processing basis, means by “determining” the initial information we need for understanding how that machine once could at all be started up.
In the following I like to examine the computer scientist's lines of reasoning. I begin with my own reasonings:
Common sense tells us that you can't get something from nothing, at least at the physical level. Otherwise inconsistency creeps in. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Nothing can come out of nothing, not even more of that nothing. Nonetheless it is obviously possible that there can exist a universe.
The quest about nature's necessary or merely possible existence is a metaphysical question, since no theory of everything will be able to provably answer that question. It can only take the needed axioms for its answer as simply given. But that does not mean that this question cannot be examined by the human mind.
There are generally two options to examine the question. One is on the basis of logical thinking, the other is on the basis of illogical thinking. Illogical thinking would lead to the conclusion that everything can be true, can be possible, even its opposite! So we are left with logical thinking.
The computer scientist's lines of reasoning went as follows:
The existence of the universe is obviously possible. For answering the question whether that possibility could not even have played out in reality, one needs something to specify that the universe notwhithstanding its possibility to exist would never had come into existence. In other words, one had to presuppose a certain reason, something additional to what we mean by pure nothing.
Since by definition, nothing cannot entail such a reason – since it then wouldn't be anymore nothing, but something – there is no such logical reason that the universe could never had come into existence.
At first sight this sounds compelling, doesn't it? We may be tempted to conclude from this that we discovered that the universe's existence is not only possible, but moreover logically necessary! But on a second look, it is clear that nothing can also not entail any logical reason for why the universe factually came into existence. So at this stage of affairs we are left again with merely a possibility and not a necessity. Moreover, pure nothing cannot even entail something like a “possibility” for a universe to come into existence.
Now, the scientists further line of arguments goes like this:
Because before the universe came into existence, there are no priors, no “source code” at all but on the other hand the universe is obviously possible, therefore there is no way to have the universe non-existent. Now, this conclusion of the scientist is not consistent for the above mentioned reasons: since the nothing we speak about cannot – by definition – entail any logical reasons for its existence, not even some ghostly possibilities or probabilities, his purely information theoretic approach to explain why information processing is all there can be simply fails.
To understand his arguments better, he proceeds with saying that the universe, before its becoming real, is “undecided”: the universe is both existent and non-existent.
Here now inconsistency creeps in, by attributing to the nothing a dual nature. This argument is based on the truth that something is indeed possible to exist and something is indeed possible to not exist. But that truth does in no way imply that it is also possible for something to at the same time exist and non-exist: The latter is obviously the signature of an inconsistent logical system!
Now, if one nonetheless takes the lines of reasonings of the computer scientist serious, then the universe and its information processing attributes must be an expression of some ghostly “first reason”, termed “inconsistency”.
But again, “inconsistency” is something, it is not nothing, it is a property. Moreover, if reality is on its base level rooted in inconsistency, there is no reason to believe that an exclusively only information processing reality should at all emerge from that! Moreover, there also would be no reason for anything logical to ever exist!
The only reason for this scientist to believe that his information processing paradigm should nonetheless be true is that he defines consistency and inconsistency in pure logical, information theoretic terms. Well, if we agree with that definition, then I am forced to conclude something different from what the scientist believes to have concluded:
I then must conclude that on the basis of pure logical information theoretic terms, reality cannot be rooted in inconsistency, but in logics. This logically leads to the conclusion that what the scientist really deduced with his lines of reasoning, but confused with possibilities and paraconsistent logics, is that there cannot be such a thing as “pure nothing”, there had to be at least consistent “logic” existent to produce an existing universe.
In my opinion this is no wonder, since many things in the universe are understandable and logical. But as I pointed out in my essay, logics also has its limits, especially when it comes to the question why such a thing as logics should at all exist!
The scientist then concludes
“If you haven't any source code to define the universe to begin with, you get a universe! This is an interesting result, just because its possible!”
My answer: No, you must at least presuppose the existence of a consistent logics (means no paraconsistent logics, no inconsistent logics) “at the very beginning” to at all arrive at that illogical conclusion. This logically means that consistent logics is superior to inconsistent logics. And if you agree with that, you additionally had to explain why pure logics, something that we assume to be platonic in nature, is able to produce a dynamical, material world. If you don't agree, you furthermore had to explain why inconsistent logics should logically be superior to a consistent logics and why this should at all lead to an exclusively only information processing nature of reality.
In our minds, we can play around with inconsistent systems. We even can attribute to quantum mechanics to be of that kind of inconsistent nature. But if the latter is true, why does QM produce a consistent classical world? Moreover, why should it exlusively only produce a purely information processing world? And last but not least why then would QM even follow quantum mechanical laws if it would be defined as "fundamental inconsistency which should be able to produce some consistencies"? One cannot logically infere by the fact that our world is obviously possible that therefore "fundamental inconsistency is indeed able to produce some consistencies (our world)".
With these considerations we arrive at the fundamental question what the real relationship should be (if there is at all one) between consistency (mathematics) and inconsistency (illogical noise) for being able to at all produce our universe. That relationship may only be existent in the human mind and QM itself (or any other ground state reality) would be not inconsistent, but simply different from being a mere combination of consistency with inconsistency.
The source of the video can be found at
The relevant discussion begins roughly at minute 42.
I post this because in my essay I say that it is not without risks for human logical thinking to simply accept some ontological or logical "truths", an AI could offer. Since Josha Bach believes that we humans are some sort of prediction and optimization machine too, although a more "naturally" evolved one than AI, I think it is appropriate to examine what his framework says about the metaphysical roots the latter could be based on.