Philbo,
Yes - not only can they, they have been observed doing so. If your particular brand of logic says that this can't happen, it probably means that your starting axioms are wrong.
Okay, point me to just one text or link that demonstrates existence coming from non-existence. My Dad has a large volume of science texts so any popular book you name I can probably reference - or any web link obviously.
But that doesn't mean that you can use logic to specify what your axioms are. You've been busting a gut trying to prove your initial assumptions, when all you can manage is circular reasoning.
You're missing the point. Logic
is axioms. In particular, the truth of the law of non-contradiction (TLNC) is
beyond challenge for one very simple reason:
any attempt to deny it requires using it. ("TLNC is false" is meaningful if and only if the law of non-contradiction cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense - but if this condition is met then the law is
true - and if it is not met then the denial of the law is absurd on its own terms. Now for crying out loud guys, need I say more on this point? You can't challenge the unchallengeable. Forget it and move on!)
So does "existence from non-existence" violate TLNC? Absolutely yes, because there is
nothing for existence to come from:
"from" —used as a function word to indicate the source, cause, agent, or basis (Merriam-Webster)
How can
non-existence be a source, or cause, or agent, or basis??? Suppose you say "Well I don't know but that doesn't rule out anything" - well the trouble is it's not a temporary scientific gap in understanding but a permanent logical gap that is involved in "existence from non-existence".
Even if (and I say 'even if' here to entertain a falsity to show it as a falsity) existence could come from non-existence you couldn't know it because it's inconceivable - no-one can mentally rehearse existence coming from non-existence because we can't think of nothing, of non-existence - there's nothing to think
of. Whenever we think of 'it' we think of 'it' as a special something, a nothing-something, and that's why you guys are willing to entertain the notion of something from nothing - but look,
nothing really is nothing! Let's be honest here. Even to say "nothing is the opposite of something" is true only in that it's the best that beings that cannot think non-being can do; the word "is" doesn't actually apply. We have no other concept, because we can only conceive, that's the point ("conceive" - "to take into one's mind", Merriam-Webster - but we cannot actually take non-existence into our minds nothing because there's literally nothing to take).
There is no experiment that can be
conceived to test the hypothesis of something from nothing - which is one of the reasons why I frankly disbelieve any appeal to quantum physics and await anyone who can point me to a link or quote that demonstrates otherwise. What would 'constitute' 'nothing' 'in' a laboratory? In what 'vessel' would 'it' be 'contained'? Or in abstract mathematics? Remember, the empty set
is a set, and
is contained in all other sets - the mathematician cannot define nothing - there's nothing to define. The linguist and the philosopher cannot conceive of nothing, the scientist can neither conceive of 'it' nor experiment on 'it' (how can you experiment
on nothing?).
Objection - mickeyd, don't you believe God creates out of nothing? Yes, but "God creates something out of nothing" is hardly equivalent to "something out of nothing". And as I've already said, all our talk of God's being and creative actions are necessarily mere analogies - the finite cannot contain the infinite. It's not as if there was once this other thing 'nothing' alongside God; rather, the expression is the best that can be done to say that God did not create out of himself (which would be absurd - whatever is created is time-conditioned contingency so could hardly be the Creator).
This brings us back full circle - either "God creates something out of nothing" or simply "something" - those are the only options.
Cheers,
Mick