would anyone like to try to discuss the seemingly contradictary statement that nothing could possibly exist?

The idea of whether or not to ascribe any existence to empty space has always been a major hurdle in physics. This arrival of quantum mechanics completely changes our notion of a vacuum. All fields - in particular electromagnetic fields - have fluctuations. In other words at any given moment their actual value varies around a constant, mean value. Even a perfect vacuum at absolute zero has fluctuating fields known as "vacuum fluctuations", the mean energy of which corresponds to half the energy of a photon. Also called the Casimir Force, or Casimir Effect. Thus, there is a difference between “real” empty space and “imaginary” empty space. With all of these break throughs in quantum mechanics, we can now go back to better understand Descartes, because now we know that we can actually ascribe some existence to empty space. Can we still really even say "I think, therefore I am?"

Now from a purely metaphysical standpoint and considering that nothing and empty space really are two very different things, the post on this forum about 2+2 not equaling 4 is still very short and I suggest you go read that one. It touches directly on this concept of programmed reality opening a whole new door to non-classical (neo-classical) logic patterns.

all of your comments and thoughts r quite provoking and interesting--i am bound by library computer restrictions as i don't own a computer and now in the summer it is really difficult to get long time intervals as all the computers r full of young people out of school on the computers--doing what--not studies but game playing---anyway yes-descartes said "i think, therefore i am!" but i have always added to it "i think, therefore i am, i think!" this puts a whole new philosophical twist on it---i will get back to respond to everyone on this subject soon as i can get more than the 15 min on this express computer

I can't really comment on QM with any athority at all, as i don't know enough about it, but isn't it possible that the Planck is only a limit of our own understanding, much like atoms were, then sub-particles, then as we delved deeper we came up with the idea of an even smaller scale of String Theory, etc? So is it possible that the space between Planck lengths isn't empty at all?

As for computer programs, again, i'm no expert, so bear with me, but even if you give a NOP command, wouldn't it be true that the program would have to test for the time period it's inactive for? Wouldn't it be a WHILE argument, as in WHILE (T < t+5) {NOP}. Where T is global time, t is the time at the beginning of the command. 5 being the measurement of time you want to pause for.

There are so many possibilities about "nothingness", if we don't have to fit them inside a box of our current understanding, or laws of physics, quantum physics, etc. For example what's to say that our existence itself isn't random moments split by long times of nothingness, but seeming like a flowing timeline because the nothingness isn't experienced.
Much like when someone wakes up from a coma, say after 10 years, still thinking they are the age they were at the time of their accident. In their experience no time has passed, they are unaware of anything that happened outside of their reality.
We could be living in bursts of time, 5 seconds here, 3 hours there, all of the bits in between being filled with nothingness. Within the programmed reality idea, this nothingness could be where the "architect" writes the next bit of code. Like where you play The Sims for two hours, then go to bed, and when you load the game again in the morning, it's at the place where you left it.

check out "the end of time" by julian barbour. his book described exactly your point of view - the the universe is just a sequence of states. the sequence itself is the illusion of time. nothing happens between each state. fits in perfectly with programmed reality and the idea that there is nothing between jiffys nor between Planck lengths.



nothingness is a complex and disturbing concept, no doubt. anything is possible, of course, but the idea that there is nothing between the Planck lengths is sort of fundamental to QM. it is theoretical, because the sizes are about 20 orders of magnitude smaller than anything that we can measure with today's technology. using moore's law, we shouldn't be able to probe those sizes until the year 2200 or so. with respect to the NOPs, no, the computer is not doing any testing during the NOP period. testing implies calculations, which implies clock cycles. a real Von Neuman computer (the kind that we are all familiar with) behaves exactly this way - nothing happening between the clock cycles. that isn't to say that there aren't other computational architectures (quantum computing, analog computing) that behave differently.

thanx 4 the reference jim--will do--great discussion going on here----