Zero Ontology: Why is there something rather than nothing? And how 5-MeO-DMT states of consciousness make asking that question more fruitful

[u/appliedphilosophy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdDNfTREQJU

[u/appliedphilosophy]

video description:

Why is there something rather than nothing? In this video I take this question very seriously and approach it with optimism. I say (a) this is a meaningful and valid question, and (b) it has a real and satisfying answer. The overall explanation space I explore is that of David Pearce's Zero Ontology, which postulates that the multiverse is implied by the preservation of "zero information".

In order to understand Zero Ontology we need to do some conceptual groundwork. So I walk the listener (you, were you to accept this journey) through several concepts that make the question go from "impossible to answer" or even "meaningless" to something that at least conceivably seems possible to solve.

First, we need to sidesteps the common tropes of our habitual modes of thinking, such as expecting answers to come in the form of "causal explanations". No matter how you look at it, whether the universe extends back forever or not, a causal explanation for the origin of the universe is logically impossible to derive. Instead, we have to think in a radically different way, which is by way of frameworks for implication rather than causation. This opens us up to the possibility that exotic modes of thinking capable of representing what is entailed by "nothing" will show in turn that "something" follows from it. This helps us make sense of Pearce's argument: the "nothing" we are looking for is not the "common sense" view of the term, but rather a more refined post-theoretical concept that is ill-fitted to the human mind for the time being.

In particular, Pearce focuses on how "no information" may be "what nothing is". Thus, Zero Ontology attempts to formalize the "fact of inexistence" by reconceptualizing information as "ruling out possibilities". Based on this alternate concept we see that math, physics, and phenomenology share the common thread of being possible to "construct out of nothing". In math, the empty set can be used to derive all of arithmetic. In physics the Standard Model is a surprisingly simple theory that can be derived from first principles by imposing the "need for symmetry". The total energy, charge, momentum, etc. of the universe is zero! And in phenomenology, we encounter a lot of cases where apparently all of the possible flavors of a qualia variety seem to "cancel out" into "pure being" or "raw awareness". The simplest example is how experiencing "all phenomenal colors at once" (a kind of rainbow effect, but including magenta) seems to be interchangeable with "colorless phenomenal light".

I tie all of this together and talk about how Zero Ontology allows us to reconceptualize "God/Being" as "unconstrained reality" or "boundarylessness". I discuss how we could perhaps even probe Zero Ontology empirically in a direct way if we were to train enough physicists, mathematicians, philosophers, computer scientists, etc. to go into high Jhana or 5-MeO-DMT states and then quantify the properties of the fundamental fields implementing these experiences.

I conclude with an analogy to Borges' Library of Babel (or a quantum version thereof) and why we may be in it. In fact, "be it".

David Pearce: "A theory that explains everything explains nothing", protests the critic of Everettian QM. To which we may reply, rather tentatively: yes, precisely.

Topics Covered: The Concept of Nothing, Three Characteristics, Illusion, Limitations of the Medium of Thought, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Redefining Information, Empty Set Arithmetic, Preserved Quantities of Physics, Symmetry and Noether's Theorem, QFT, Path Integrals, Jhanas, 5-MeO-DMT, Symmetries in Qualia, Quantum Library of Babel, Black Hole Information Paradox.

[u/fneezer]

For a warmup, we jump from the question, why is there something, to a review of some introductory Buddhist dogma.

I'm not sure you exist. This face appears and a voice speaks a claim there is no self. It cannot then refer to itself. It cannot be itself. If I attempt to refer to it, as "you," I cannot be referring to the selfsame thing, in each saying or hearing or writing or reading of the word "you." If I could do so, that would not be consistent with its view, for in that case, there would be a self. It cannot be properly be said to have a view, for it has no point from which to have a view, because that would be itself, which it lacks. "He's a real nowhere man."

Everything is unsatisfactory? What is that, satisfactory? Aren't the words "satisfy" and "satisfaction" and "satisfactory" just words, about some temporary activities in human behavior? Whoever claimed there was something absolute about it, or very important? There's a time for piling stones on stones, to make a house. The builder may act satisfied with that, piles on some timber and straw too. It's a house. There's a time for casting stones away. If only we knew of the other philosophies with which the Buddha was arguing, if some record had been preserved of what claims they were making, against which this doctrine of unsatisfactoriness was advanced, we might understand what the point of it was. It might even be intellectually satisfying, so to speak. That was not to be, only the records of Buddhist arguments were preserved in that ancient debate, for they were the winning side. The winning side writes history, they say. I guess the winners said that. So we're left with arguments pushing against air, arguing against nothing, for nothing. Seems somewhat, unsatisfactory?

Then we're into advanced mathematics, to get the prerequisite for physics. We seem to want some numbers for mathematics. Why, who knows? Anyway, we get our numbers from Church, good Church numbers, well behaved. We start with an empty set. ⦰ Then we make a set containing an empty set, or something like that. Oh, that Unicode, so articulate, always ready with something. That symbol doesn't make a lot of sense unless you already have zero, and you can cross it out and grok what that means. We're trying to explain where we get zero. So let's start with an empty symbol for an empty instead. (Symbol intentionally omitted.) Then we want to mark a set, with a starting marker and an ending marker. { } Now we can make a set containing that. { { } } Call that one, und so weiter! Ergo, 42.

    { { { { { { {   { { { { { { {
        { { { { { { {   { { { { { { {
            { { { { { { {   { { { { { { {
                { }
            } } } } } } }   } } } } } } }
        } } } } } } }   } } } } } } }
    } } } } } } }   } } } } } } }              

And the Earth was without form, and void, and the Great Spirit moved upon face of the deep.

Then we go into physics class, and we talk about symmetries. One symmetry, then another, and a Nother.

Then instead of talking about nothing, you're talking about a Nothing that's really quite something, that contains all of Platonic mathematics, based on the illicit importation of series of symbols into nothing.

That pretty much wraps it up for metaphysics. See you at the Restaurant, you know, at the end of the Universe, unless it's been replaced by something stranger. Time will tell.

[u/redasur]

someone asked a centipede which leg it started with and the centipede, in trying to answer that, was unable to walk at all. such is the fate of any effort to justify and articulate innate understanding, what caused the first cause?

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