All, My Existence Axiom 'Existence exists because non-existence cannot exist', answers the first fundamental question, namely, 'Why does something rather than nothing exist?'
The second fundamental question is, 'Why does what actually exists exist instead of something else?' Why is our universe as it is instead of being fundamentally different? Our universe is as it is because of what I call 'the Extended Fine Tuning'. This includes the standard fine tuning of physics plus everything else that is necessary to our universe that cannot be derived from something else. The Extended Fine Tuning is what makes our universe what it actually is. The extensions to the standard fine tuning (of which there isn't yet any consensus in physics but which basically consists of the irreducible constants of nature) necessary to explain our universe include things such as the basic laws of logic, the notion of an actual present reality that supports computationally evolving information, and whatever else is irreducibly necessary to explain our universe. So the 2nd fundamental question reduces to 'why is our extended fine tuning the fine tuning that actually exists?' There is actually a rather simple answer to this but to understand it one must be able to escape the constraints of our English syntactical structures, not an easy task for most.... The logic of our linguistic syntax evolved to describe what I call 'The Logic of Things', that is the basic logical constructs that seem to govern our apparent daily interactions with our apparent material environments. And our language does this quite well and quite flexibly. However the syntactical constructs of this logic of things simply do not apply when we try to extend them to the universe as a whole. When this is understood we can proceed with our argument. Now there is only one actual present state of the universe. It is absolute in the sense that whatever it is it is exactly as it is and there is no other actual possibility for what it could be because the actual fact of its existence conclusively falsifies all other possibilities. Once this is understood we must conclude that the actual current state of the universe also conclusively falsifies all other PASTS than the actual past which it evolved out of all the way back to the big bang and fine tuning which also could not have been any different than they actually were. We can always IMAGINE other possible fine tunings, but given the actual current state of the universe these other theoretical possibilities were not really possible at all! This seems to contradict the logic of syntax in which we can reasonably speak of alternate possibilities for daily events. It is reasonable to do so because in the case of daily life we can actually reconstruct different initial conditions for event networks, So the effects of some event can be reasonably considered to have been different if the initial conditions are changed because we can construct and experience an actual scenario in which they are. Thus for daily events we can reasonably speak of alternate initial states. However even here we must be extremely careful in our understanding and application of syntactical logic. Because we can never change an actual event sequence that has actually occurred. What we are doing is always constructing a new one and comparing that to the original rather than actually changing the original which is now unalterable and thus could not have been other than it actually was. Now when we try to apply the logic of things to the original fine tuning we see there can be no possibility whatsoever of actually changing it, and we see that given the current state of the universe in the present moment the original fine tuning is unalterable, and thus it could not have been any different than it actually was even in the most minute detail. In fact that is also true of the entire past which given the current actual present is unalterable and could not have been different in the finest detail. In this sense the actual present completely determines the past that completely determined it in every minute detail down to every quantum event. Thus the entire logical computational structure of past and present is completely determined and unalterable in every minute detail. Not a single iota of it could have been different that it actually was to evolve into the actual present that actually and absolutely exists right now. (Of course the future, and only the future is still subject to the constrained randomness of quantum events because it has never existed and thus is not deterministic.) Thus the actual existence of the present as it actually is conclusively falsifies all other possible pasts back to and including the original extended fine tuning. There is no way we can go back and change the initial conditions, therefore the standard logic of things as embodied in syntactical logic simply does not apply to the fine tuning in the same sense it applies to daily life in which we can change initial conditions to get different results. So when this is understood it effectively precludes all other extended fine tunings than the actual one. Thus is becomes meaningless to even consider the possibility of any other one. Thus the supposed rationale for all sorts of other alternate universes (multiverses and bubble universe) with different initial fine tunings that some misguided cosmologists thought they had to assume goes out the window. They simply didn't understand the limits and non-applicablity of standard syntactical logic to the initial conditions of the universe. This is the answer I propose to the 2nd fundamental question of why what does exist is what exists. The answer is that given the actual current state of the universe there simply is no other possibility. Only what actually exists can exist, and the original Extended Fine Tuning is the only one that actually could have existed. There is also a second compatible answer to this question which I posed in my book as "The Consistency Conjecture" which perhaps is better called "The Extended Fine Tuning Conjecture". This states that the extended fine tuning of our universe is the only fine tuning that results in a logically consistent and logically complete computational universe. Note that part of the Extended Fine Tuning is in fact the basic rules of logic but it is not clear how the constants of nature fit in to the conjecture. It's something that needs to be explored further. Only a computational universe that is logically self-consistent and logically complete can exist since otherwise it would tear itself apart at the inconsistencies and pause at the incompletenesses and thus could not exist. Thus the 'Extended Fine Tuning Conjecture' also proposes an answer for why our fine tuning was the one that actually existed, because it was the only one that could exist to result in a logically consistent and logical complete universe. Edgar -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
