On Explaining Existence by Dean Rickles

Hi Dean,

Your essay is very clear for such an abstract subject (or at least I think I understood parts of it). But I have two questions/comments.

(1) I agree that mathematical systems "exist." But I should think that the only ones of interest would be those which can lead to some kind of awareness. That is, I think the question of existence is somewhat tied up with awareness.

(2) It seems one could imagine existences--with aware beings--which are not based on mathematics. Are you saying that any kind of non-chaos, any kind of awareness, any ability to distinguish "this" from "that" implies mathematics?

Hi Dean, there is [undoubtedly] much thinking behind mathematics; although mathematics requires relatively narrow thinking in comparison with the highest/true form of genius.

In taking [the] mathematics further, one must determine what is the integrated, relational, and "as extensive as possible" significance of/behind the mathematics -- ideally, that is, how mathematics applies to experience in general.

A good example of this is the mathematical union of gravity and electromagnetism/light in a fourth dimnension of space. There is a physical basis/reality behind this. It takes even more genius to describe what this reality is.

Importantly, mathematics demomstrates that the integrated and interactive extensiveness of being and experience (including thought) go hand-in-hand in and with time.

Good luck in your work.

Author Frank Martin DiMeglio

Dear Dr. Rickles,

Congratulations on an excellent essay. I am still reading it carefully, but I disagree with the main idea that it is not possible to be nothing. An empty set is a trivial counter example. You may argue that the notion of a set presupposes some mathematical construct and therefore this is not a truly "nothing", but this is only a semantic argument. If nothingness is impossible/inconsistent, then we should not be able to represented it and use in any proof, (and in particular in proving that there should be something rather than nothing).

But the question remains: why there is something rather than nothing? My take on this is that your 2 ways of answering it (existence is necessary, or bootstrap) are both wrong. The simple answer is that we have something rather than nothing because "something" can be. (You may argue that I am only shifting the discussion towards introducing a first cause, but I am not, and I will address this at the end).

So what is existence? What are its core critical requirements? Those are 3:

1. "universal" logical consistency: meaning the truth value of existence should be universal and not confined to the boundary of an axiomatic system.

2. interaction. Without interaction we are confined to the frozen Platonic word of math

3. infinite complexity. This is necessary to escape a brain in a vat argument.

If you now look carefully at the 3 requirements, we observe that they specify precisely how our physical world is different than the Platonic world of math. But here comes the truly remarkable part: one can extract mathematical consequences from them and prove very important uniqueness results about our universe. (see my essay entry: Heuristic rule for constructing physics axiomatization)

Now it seems that there are 4 classes of "existence": A. complete nothingness, B. the frozen Platonic world of math, C. an universe nursery satisfying only requirements 2 and 3 and D. our universe satisfying requirements 1,2, and 3. Time does not exists in cases A, B, and C, and while in the D case we have standard quantum mechanics, in case C we have split-complex (or hyperbolic) quantum mechanics. (I ran out or room to describe the cosmological ideas in my essay, but there is no first cause because there is no time in hyperbolic quantum mechanics which violates requirement (1) because it violates the von Neumann's uniqueness theorem regarding different representations) I strongly believe we can mathematically prove that our universe is unique: it should have 3 spatial and one time dimension, it should have quantum mechanics, the 4 forces, the elementary particles we observe and their properties, etc. But a new question arises: why is our universe happening only once? This is at odds with a Copernican principle which states that we are in no way special. Here the class ( C ) of existence can potentially come to the rescue IF this speculation will turn out to be true and we will be able to work out the math into proving it.

Thanks for one of the few essays that actually address the ultimate in physics or the ultimate role of it anyways. "Why anything?" seems to be most profound. If physics were to answer this, it will certainly be something ultimate, although you have not much expounded on the role of physics (rather than math) in answering it. Anyways, your discussion of why this is a pseudo-question stops at the surface. Since your essay evidences a serious author behind it, I encourage you to go further, say towards the Robert Nozick or Wittgenstein level and understand so called "category mistakes" [G. Ryle: The Concept of Mind. (1949)]. It is "pseudo" because it only looks like a well formed question. You either split into modalities (possible, existent, necessary) or not. If not, you cannot ask about any of them. If you do, you cannot afterwards mix them up haphazardly like "Either existence is contingent or it is necessary" [page 6]. It is muddleheaded use of terminology.

A few miscellaneous remarks since I am at it (please take my blunt criticisms as a compliment: I will not comment if I do not consider an essay quite reasonable):

1) "Reality is mathematical (as evidenced by the effectiveness of mathematics in the sciences). Therefore, there is existence." [page 6]

The "effectiveness" is simply due to the co-evolution of our thinking along with our problems; basically, we keep the useful and toss the useless, the most abstract and thus widely applicable we then call "math". It is also mere PR (Look how effective our stuff is). One could just as well point out how ineffective math is. A completely arbitrary attribution does not evidence anything. The "there is existence", i.e. existence exists constitutes again a category mistake.

2) "We do not have the same kind of problem with the existence of mathematics. Mathematical statements are necessarily true in the sense that if they are true in one world (in the sense of modal logic) then they are true in all worlds" [page 9]. The axiom of choice does not have to be true in all worlds, except in case the statement is to be understood as an empty tautology (all is everything and includes all cases where it is either true or not but not both at once ...). The bare validity of math would be just the same even if no worlds were possible and nobody existed to appreciate it. Everything else is a redefinition of "existence" into something it is not meant to distinguish.

3) The "theory has overtaken experiment in very recent years" [page 2] is over appreciating what happens to be in vogue. Apart from that much of the "overtaking" is speeding in useless directions, it is also not a phenomenon of "very recent years". Just a few examples: Riemann geometry (turned out useful), GRT of black holes (maybe no experiment possible that probes inside the horizon), quaternions/octonions (counter example to your general position, beautiful math probably never finding any widely accepted use in physics).

"The question appears impossible to answer. Any factor introduced to explain why there is something will itself be part of the something to be explained, so it (or anything utilizing it) could not explain all of the something - it could not explain why there is *anything* at all." [Phil. Exp. p. 115]

Very interesting arguments about this issue here!

The problem is indeed circularity/tautology.

If one assumes that we have something rather than nothing because "something" can be, one simply states that "something rather than nothing is possible because it is possible".

If one assumes that something rather than nothing is necessary, one simply states that "something rather than nothing is necessary because it is necessary" (without answering *why* it is necessary).

That something rather than nothing is possible, is evident.

That something rather than nothing is necessary, is only "evident" if one assumes that boolean logics is the one-and-only everlasting truth, eternal and the source of all relations that can be built.

If one assumes that the question about something rather than nothing has no rational answer via logics (human intelligence/mind), the necessity-argument vanishes, but the possibility-argument survives.

If one assumes via logics that logics is limited in the sense that mutually exclusive polarities aren't really mutually exclusive at a deeper level, then both arguments could count, necessity as well as possibility. The melting of these polarities could be done by realizing via logics that each side of the polarities *defines* its counterpart in an entanglement-like fashion. This seems to be logic for me. Now one can conclude out of this line of reasoning that there must be a deeper level that isn't concerned with definitions, its realm is an *undefined* area on which one can project definitions. For me, it seems that such an area could best fit with - vaguely spoken - an area of imagination-like abilities including intentions and emotions. But even this argument has its circularity-problem, because it presupposes the one thing it wants to explain, namely existence of consciousness (to be able to evidently state at all that there is rather something than nothing and "something" is at least possible).

With observers which would live forever and some properties of "observing something" would be an in-built-feature of all particles/matter/fields, the whole problem wouldn't be existent. There would be only transformations from possibilities to actualities (and maybe backwards). There would be only creativity by transforming a problem into its solution. If in this case the problem of "something rather than nothing" doesn't really exist, therefore another "thing" must exist "a priori", namely consciousness and its transformatory power. But this could only be possible if consciousness itself would be self-evident to itself and would realize that itself has created the polarities of something and nothing. So consciousness at its core level must be something that goes deeply beyond "something" and "nothing". It would deal *mainly* with values, not with quantitative proportions like maths.

An axiomatic system sufficiently complex to be useful must contain questions it cannot answer. So? Economics is an empirical disaster as is string theory and its 10^(50,000) acceptable vacua. Both are punctilious interpolations that are revealed to be frauds when extrapolated. The first class of failure requires a contrived construct to fail. The second class of failure merely requires a look. That is an important difference.

Existence might be an automaton whose evolution is contingent upon universal simple rules acting on increasingly complex structures. The bulk is self-evident. Increasing locality is increasingly perverse. Both scales are self-consistent and co-consistent. So?

A gold dubloon is accidently dropped near the center of a long unlit block. A professional manager will amortize the loss. A quality engineer will search at the corners, under four bright streetlights. A decent scientist will get a flashlight and a metal detector, walk into the darkness, find the gold dubloon, and then be discharged for cause - insubordination. Know the fear and do it anyway.

You don't have anything unless you risk a contingent unique testable prediction. Libraries bursting with scientific socialism tomes are ample warning that theorists boast promiscuity while empiricists pay child support.

Dear Dean Rickles

I do not really appreciate your lauding my comments and then squeezing around them like a cat around a hot pot of milk.

Your answer is not addressing the issues properly and I will only point out again your main flaw and for the last time:"I didn't split into possible, necessary, existent. Existence was descried as something that can be possible or necessary. When I say existence is necessary I always mean *some kind of existing 'thing'*. We are rather constrained by language here. Of course Wittgenstein and the ordinary language brigade focused squarely on how concepts are used in practice. I thought we'd gotten beyond that straightjacketed form of philosophizing?"

The "straightjacket" is plainly to stick to meaningful terminology. What you are saying is, actually your essay is not about existence, but about some kind of "Rickles-existence". In that case however, you need to make that clear right from the beginning. You disregard what existence, possible, necessary etc actually means, claim that you cannot get into what you are actually writing about on only 10 pages, and then instead spend the valuable space on three or four times at length expounding one of the most silly, empty and misleading statements, namely that math is "unreasonably effective".

I recommend those who address the modality terminology and who want to improve it in the light of for example quantum theory. However, one needs to first understand the issues one desires to improve.

S

Dear Dean Rickles,

I was not complaining about your lauding me but about your use of such strategy to circumvent addressing the issue. I prefer people just get to the point - it is shorter and does not hide the core in PC niceties.

My source, since you are so dependent on big names like Einstein Bohr and Wigner, is I. Kant (for example) and his work on categories, particularly that of modality, which is traditionally split into possibility, existence, and necessity.

Wigner's statement is not only empty and silly but misleading (read: detrimental to research progress), but you may remain hiding behind Wigner, because the views of founding fathers do matter a great deal in religion, and if you are with Wigner, then of course you may do so, because Wigner is of course Wigner and I am no Wigner.

S

Dear Dean,

May I ask you for the clarification of your *main point*?

"If it is necessary then we need a necessary structure to ground this fact. Mathematical structures are of this kind. If reality is mathematical then it must exist. Reality is mathematical (as evidenced by the effectiveness of mathematics in the sciences). . . . Mathematical structures are timeless. . . . In other words, the universe is mathematical because there is existence, and the only reason for there to be existence is that there are mathematical truths."

Aren't mathematical structures *created* by us? As far as I understand the situation, they are not handed to us by any God. In fact, the most basic mathematical structure, the natural numbers, is an encapsulation, or representation, of a sequence of identical consecutive events (Peano axioms). One can argue that without such connection with temporal events, the concept of number, and hence of the mathematical structure, could not have appeared in the first place. So, to produce numbers--the very foundations of our mathematical journey--the least *our* universe must have are the sequences of events. Thus, our experience suggests that to have any 'mathematical structures' (in our current understanding of the term) the universe must have temporal sequences of events. Hence, I do not see how, *relying on the mathematical structures*, we can argue beyond this *minimal requirement on one of the possible universes*.

Hi Dean-

You are stating the interesting issue of existence and suggest that there are two ways to go about answering the questions that you bring up:

But now what if we are puzzled about existence itself? Why is there anything at all? This is really the ultimate question: why is there something when, presumably, there might not have been? There are two ways to go about answering this kind of question:

1. Show that existence is in fact necessary, so that there couldn't possibly have been nothing-in other words, we deny that there might have been nothing, so that the presumption above is seen to be mistaken.

2. We somehow give a 'bootstrap' explanation showing how consistency alone brings reality into being, perhaps via some kind of (non-vicious) explanatory loop.

The questions are answered in the context of Quantum Field Mechanics (QFM), which is described in my essay "Ultimate Possibilities of Physics". QFM originates from A.P. Kirilyuk. I have extended QFM in some areas and provided it with tutorial style explanations on my website.

The issue of existence issues boils down to the existence of two pre-space pre-time physically motivated fields (aka protofields) and their mutual attraction. This configuration is mathematically described as a state equation, also called existence equation.

Refering to your item 1: Existence is a necessary (unavoidable) consequence of the mutually attractive protofield interaction.

Refering to your item 2: Bootstrapping occurs, again, a consequence of attractive protofield interaction, which causes uncessing pulsations, rotation, and random motion of the interacting protofields.

In the essay, protofield attraction is postulated, but its physical need is motivated as follows. Without interaction, any perturbation in a protofield will 'spread out' and thus be unstable. Protofield attraction could potentially ensure that protofield perturbations are 'self-stabilizing'. As shown by the mathematical analysis of the state equation (existence equation), under the assumption of protofield attraction, protofield stabilized pulsating entities can indeed occur and be identified with particles.

Sincerely,

Ben Baten

1. "Representations of mathematical structures *are* constructed by us. Of course I agree with that. What they represent was not. The structures were around before the first sentient being capable of representing them emerged."

Dean, I don't know what exactly you mean by the last statement. I can accept such existence for some (informational) structure, but this structure can be *radically* different from any of the *currently* known mathematical structures. The latter can be, as was suggested by von Neumann (see the end of his quote on page 2 of my essay), "a *secondary* [formal] language, built on [top of] the *primary* [formal] language". (In fact, in my essay such a possible formalism is discussed.)

2. "There are plenty of possibilities whereby the concept of natural numbers could have emerged. Are you saying that temporal succession is a necessary condition for the emergence of this concept? That doesn't sound like a good thing to be saying."

I don't see at all why it "doesn't sound like a good thing to be saying".

3. "If the sequence of events is there then we have something instantiating the structure."

I agree that there should be some structure instantiating streams of events (and this I discuss in my essay), but, as I mentioned above, the important question, of course, is *which* structure is instantiating them.

Dean, the reason I raised the question in the first place has to do with the following point. Based on the above, we can claim only that *in our universe* there is at least one 'preexisting' formal structure. It is not quite obvious why this situation is also valid for *all* other (possible) universes.

Another short remark to the issue of existence/non-existence:

If one assumes that something rather than nothing is possible, one assumes at the same time that nothing rather than something could also be possible - but actually isn't, because of the evidence that we have for something rather than nothing as an obvious fact. So the question wether there could be nothing instead of something seems to be not very puzzling for me. Because the case of a totally non-existence in the future (maybe by the vanishing of the universe into "non-existence" in some far away future) or even in the past (by arising of "something" out of nothing), one cannot erase the very fact of the possibility of our present existence.

But that does not prove the necessity of existence - or does it? I think it does, because a "possibility" inhabits choices. The possibility of a totally non-existence inhabits the choice of being actual or not, as we see with our actual existence. Therefore, something that inhabits choices cannot be "nothing" at all.

It seems to me, that assuming a totally non-existence to be possible is to deny a subtle detail in the argumentative chain, namely the fact of the existence of our universe and ourselves.

Therefore, the question for me is not, if it is possible that nothing exists, but moreover, where do choices come from - insofar as they cannot come from nothing at all. If they nonetheless could, then everything could come out of nothing and our choices and deductions could be only random exercises, because even contradictions of any kind could come out of nothing and even such contradictions, which could camouflage themselves as consistent lines of reasoning. Therefore, if we believe in rationalism, the necessity of something existent seems obvious for me and Dean Rickles rule of non-contradiction is as necessary as existence seems to be for me.

p.s. In my own essay in the current contest i argue, that not only the rule of non-contradiction is necessary, but also consciousness for the explanation *where* this rule originates from.

Your essay contains important questions but I don't see the responses and real results. What are the limits of physics 'explanatory power? Can physics explain existence itself? These questions do not have responses in your essay. 'Reality is mathematical. Therefore, there is existence.'

It explains nothing. If reality is mathematical then please transform a formula into a material body. Or try to transform a body into a formula. Therefore your approach to EXISTENCE is erroneous. You cannot explain the EXISTENCE using simple logical discussions like 'the only way one can explain existence is to demonstrate that non-existence is a logical impossibility'. The answer for EXISTENCE lies in a deep physics. 'Why is there being?' The answer for this fundamental question lies in the region of nature of space-time: all bodies EXIST IN SPACE. All bodies EXIST IN TIME. To find a sense of EXISTENCE you must explain why a body occupies space and why a body exists in time. The discussions about 'Reality is mathematical' do nothing here.

'why does something exist (rather than nothing)? Please see in my essay the explanation of nothing.

http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Leshan_Leshan.pdf

It is a hole in space-time without extension and duration properties. It is the primal void, it is the fundament of universe and 'being'. Thus a hole in space-time is an example of the non-existence. To explain the existence, please explain first the non-existence (a hole in space-time). After that you can explain why a body have extension and duration properties and it will be the explanation of existence (why is there being?). You cannot explain EXISTENCE without explanation of extension and duration properties. The explanation of EXISTENCE means explanations of extension and duration: why a body exists in space and time?

All discussions about EXISTENCE using mathematical reasons are senseless. Bodies exist in space and time but not in imaginary mathematics.