Jim Holt: "The weirdness of existence"

[SeattleUte]

The weirdness of existence is a wonderful phrase. I remember feeling it all over, like a physical sensation, as a small child, before all kinds of distracting desires and needs started to intrude my mind. I'd come home from church, and gazing at my hand, realize that nobody, not my parents, not my teachers, nobody, really knew anything. In some ways I was wiser at age 5 than 19.

A British astrophysicist said that pondering the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” could “tear the mind asunder.”

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/20...?smid=pl-share

[wuapinmon]

This is one of my favorite subjects, why anything exists at all. I've often tried to contemplate nothingness, nihilism to the -nth, and my mind shuts down once I picture infinite blackness. Honestly, this probably keeps a kernel of faith alive in my heart more than anything else, the eternal question of why anything actually is.

[Moliere]

http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showth...ighlight=weird

[Commando]

It is totally weird living in this face, piloting around this skin and bone vehicle trying to feel good.

[SeattleUte]

http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showth...ighlight=weird

So one person here thinks existence isn't weird--LAUte. Why am I not surprised.

[falafel]

It is totally weird living in this face, piloting around this skin and bone vehicle trying to feel good.

That sounds like it should go in the song lyrics thread.

[Commando]

That sounds like it should go in the song lyrics thread.

That's off the dome, son!

[Topper]

It might also be weird if nothing existed, so if it's a binary exchange of two weirdnesses the lesser weirdness wins out.

[All-American]

This is one of my favorite subjects, why anything exists at all.

Who says that it does?

[wuapinmon]

Who says that it does?

True, but esse est percipi.

[All-American]

True, but esse est percipi.

I thought it was cogito ergo sum.

[UtahDan]

To be sentient and yet finite is just a difficult state of affairs to grasp. We have come up with infinite ways to cope, but the need to seems near universal.

[CardiacCoug]

Right. I don't find the existence of life or human beings to be that strange, but the existence of the universe is strange and clearly still unexplained.

As far as we understand energy/matter cannot be created or destroyed. So how did energy/matter come into existence in the first place?

[UtahDan]

Right. I don't find the existence of life or human beings to be that strange, but the existence of the universe is strange and clearly still unexplained.

As far as we understand energy/matter cannot be created or destroyed. So how did energy/matter come into existence in the first place?

I don't understand it at all, but don't many physicists now think that energy/matter can just pop into existence?

[Topper]

I don't understand it at all, but don't many physicists now think that energy/matter can just pop into existence?

It would be nice to see if that is correct. Matter and properties are somehow created through the Higgs Boson, the Higgs Field and the Higgs Mechanism.

However, simply "popping" into existence is not the common phraseology, but may reflect the state of the Higgs field upon the "existence" of the Higgs Boson. The Goddamn particle refers to the Higgs Boson, necessary for the creation of matter and perhaps energy and properties.

This clumsy explanation will yield to one better qualified to explain a complex network of theoretical particle physics.

Do you believe the "theory of everything" as inspired by M-Theory, or Kaluza-Klein theory holds the possibility of explaining the existence of everything?