The Three Hard Questions

Something from Nothing? 

t is difficult to think of something, anything, coming from Nothing. Actually, it is impossible to conceive of Nothing. The mind keeps bouncing around to "void" or "space" or "vacuum". But in reality, each of those is a definable something. About the only way to describe Nothing is by stating what it is not. Nothing is the lack of anything, the absence of everything. However, saying that does not bring a vision to mind, only more questions. And "empty" does not work because something has to be "empty" to be so. "Nothingness" as a concept of an entity composed of Nothing is redundant and merely a softening that adds nothing to the definition. The question then becomes, is there a Nothing? Or can we even ask that question because to do infers that Nothing is a something? Nothing does not provably exist.

Scientists have devoted endless hours to determining how the seeable universe began yet is stymied as to what came before or what is beyond, even if there is a beyond. Was there always something? Ah, enter the God or gods, or supreme being, or intelligent designer, or cosmic consciousness, or a set of laws of nature, or laws of physics, or whatever. So now, in the beginning, whatever the case, we have a chief or chiefs of nothing which is something. The logical conclusion is simply that there has to be and has to have been something that always was. Could that something has been a Mother Universe, infinite and eternal consisting of the properties necessary to create Children Universes?

What is Time?

We don't have a clue. It just is. We see its results all around us in the form of entropy. The farther down the arrow of time we go, the greater the disorder. Scientists theorize that time began with the Big Bang. Since time comprises the past, present, and future, there could not have been a "before the Big Bang" simply because there was no time and "before" is in the past. If there is a "before" and time did not begin with the Big Bang then it follows that the time before the Big Bang was static and a basic element of the Mother Universe. Could the eternal, infinite Mother Universe contain all time from which our puny universe was granted a tine forward-moving slice? Within the "before" there is no arrow of time. Just Time with a capital T. That arrow in our universe came about with the Big Bang. None of this is of any help in discerning what is time. But that should be of little concern. When anything in the known universe is broken down into its most basic form, say the quark, we can go no further. And we can't define it. We can say what it is part of but not what it is. 

I Know I Exist

 How do I know that I exist? The proof of my existence is my consciousness, my awareness of self, and other forms of life and stuff. I know, circular. And awareness is not proof. So, how am I aware? How am I conscious. Could it be that I am imagining it all? Like a very long dream? We know that everybody and everything is made up of atoms, yet through our lenses, the atoms are formed into beings and objects. The atoms are no longer visible. We have constructed the world around us. Have we also constructed our existence? 

The concept that consciousness is a basic ingredient of the universe, intrinsic, part of the universe's design coming out of the Mother Universe, and that it would exist even without there being beings I find ridiculously hubristic. As far as we know, we humans are alone in the universe and possess the highest level of sentience possible. Given how insignificant we are relative to our universe much less to the Mother Universe, I doubt that consciousness would have been another of the basic elements preexisting the Big Bang. And we know that life on Earth did not begin with the Big Bang and that consciousness only seems to have value to life so I conclude that consciousness is evolutionary. The why of consciousness remains in question as I do not certain what value consciousness provides to the living.

A great discussion regarding the types of consciousness we humans possess is in an article, 'If a Robot Is Conscious, Is It Alright to Turn It Off?' at If a Robot Is Conscious, Is It OK to Turn It Off? | RealClearScience

Miscellaneous Observations

 Every moment is in the past. Every experience is in the past. There are only the past and the future.

We're all broken somehow.

Words/phrases to describe most news articles: ponderous, platitudinous, painfully redundant, unprecedented, sophomoric for such an august group, juvenile memes

If time were a human or social construct as some have theorized, the end of humanity would be the end of time. However, we know that the universe is expanding and we can postulate that it will continue to expand with or without us. The matter and antimatter that make up the universe are moving through space thus there are locations where it had been in the past. During expansion the same matter and antimatter do not occupy all positions along the expansion path simultaneously. No, prior positions are no longer occupied. Those prior positions were occupied before current positions. So while traveling through space, matter and antimatter are also traveling through time. Admittedly, an unmeasured time but time nontheless.

And Then They Will Come for You!

 National Review, September 2, 2020 

Portland mayor Ted Wheeler says he will be moving out of his condo to avoid the protests and rioting that have cropped up outside the building in recent days.

October 4, 2020

Antifa mob attacks Starbucks in Seattle

By Thomas Lifson

Virtue signaling and political contributions to progressives haven’t bought any immunity from the mob for Seattle-based Starbucks. The global retail powerhouse offering strong coffee and caloric, caffeine-laced milkshakes has long been among the friendliest allies of progressive politics. Last June, after BLM mobs raged, destroying swaths of Minneapolis and other cities, the chain didn’t merely permit its baristas to wear BLM t-shirts, it actually distributed a quarter million of them to be worn at work. 

Mobocracy 182 Years Ago-Little Has Changed

In 1838, Lincoln quite understood the dangers of mobocracy: 

.. and having been used to no restraint, but dread of punishment, they thus become, absolutely unrestrained.--Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much, as its total annihilation. While, on the other hand, good men, men who love tranquility, who desire to abide by the laws, and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country; seeing their property destroyed; their families insulted, and their lives endangered; their persons injured; and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better; become tired of, and disgusted with, a Government that offers them no protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose. Thus, then, by the operation of this mobocractic spirit, which all must admit, is now abroad in the land, the strongest bulwark of any Government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed--I mean the attachment of the People. Whenever this effect shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision-stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure, and with impunity; depend on it, this Government cannot last. 

Critical Race Theory

 From: https://newdiscourses.com/2020/06/reasons-critical-race-theory-terrible-dealing-racism/

• believes racism is present in every aspect of life, every relationship, and every interaction and therefore has its advocates look for it everywhere  
• relies upon “interest convergence” (white people only give black people opportunities and freedoms when it is also in their own interests) and therefore doesn’t trust any attempt to make racism better
• is against free societies and wants to dismantle them and replace them with something its advocates control
• only treats race issues as “socially constructed groups,” so there are no individuals in Critical Race Theory 
• believes science, reason, and evidence are a “white” way of knowing and that storytelling and lived experience is a “black” alternative, which hurts everyone, especially black people
• rejects all potential alternatives, like colorblindness, as forms of racism, making itself the only allowable game in town (which is totalitarian)
• acts like anyone who disagrees with it must do so for racist and white supremacist reasons, even if those people are black (which is also totalitarian)
• cannot be satisfied, so it becomes a kind of activist black hole that threatens to destroy everything it is introduced into