From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Fri Dec 06 2002 - 12:24:39 MST
I'm not sure I agree that it is contradictory to imagine that the universe
might not have existed.
There are really two questions: why does the universe exist? And then,
given that it exists, why does it have the properties that it does?
I assume that even those who say that we can't imagine a nonexistent
universe would agree that we can imagine that the universe might have
been very different from what we see. We could imagine a 2-dimensional
universe, rather than a 3-dimensional one, for example. That's not
logically inconsistent, is it?
And we could imagine a universe which is not capable of sustaining life,
agreed? Obviously we wouldn't evolve in such a universe, but it is
still meaningful to ask why the universe didn't turn out to be that way.
If this is agreed, then we can push the envelope more, and imagine
a 1-dimensional universe. The entire universe is just a line.
And then we can imagine a static universe, one with no time dimension.
And finally, perhaps even a 0-dimensional universe, just a point, static
and changeless. Just that point exists. Not much of a universe, but
at least it's something.
I'd be interested to hear how those who suggest that the universe must
necessarily exist would respond to the possibility that a simple point
would satisfy that requirement. If it does satisfy it, then it doesn't
seem that this explanation for the existence of the universe is very
strong, since requiring just a single point to exist isn't that much
of an explanation for what we see. If just a point isn't enough, I'd
be curious to know where this argument draws the line. What kinds of
universes must self-evidently and "necessarily" exist?
Hal
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