Religion
In reply to the discussion: On science, scientism, and the limits of scientific inquiry... [View all]laconicsax
(14,860 posts)Namely, that it's an appeal that "nothing" be declared a fictional space that can be used to make conclusions about reality.
It's the ultimate goal shift--preserving the conclusion by erasing the premises.
If you asked someone 100 years ago if a volume completely devoid of matter and energy would qualify as "nothing," you'd get an affirmative answer and also be told that you can't get something from nothing.
(Similarly, an ordinary vacuum and an empty container would have previously been considered valid definitions.)
The problem is, that each successive acceptable definition of "nothing" has been shown to allow the spontaneous production of something; you can get something from nothing.
What humblebum wants, to preserve the conclusion that you can't get something from nothing, is to remove the premises from the real world, making the argument about the nature of an ad hoc fantasy realm. He's welcome to make all the speculation he wants about all sorts of fictions (that's what this group is for), but if he want's to argue that decades of well-established science (knowledge about the real world) is a lie because it doesn't agree with his preferred fantasies, he's going to have to deal with challenges.