There are philosophical theories, modal realism, and mathematical realism, that propose any set of natural laws and initial conditions describe and cause an independent reality, or alternatively stated that any possible universe or world independently exists in reality.
The account of reality that seemed plausible enough to finally switch me over from theism to atheism is related to mathematical realism. I don’t know its standard name, but I might call it mathematical nihilogenesis: the set of real universes are those describable by continuous lawful evolution from null initial conditions. The motivation in this case is twofold. First, it would come extremely close to a satisfactory explanation of why there is something rather than nothing. Second, it has already been argued that our universe may have zero total energy and may have originated via quantum effects from what Vilenkin describes as a spherical vacuum of zero radius and certain other null properties. That may not be nothingness, but it’s close.
If that were true, it would imply that, in Aristotelian terms, the world is all form and no substance. It could be disproved by discovery of some fundamental thing not fully describable in terms of its relations to other things. If it were conclusively found that universe has probably always had nonzero total energy, that would be a disproof. Some people argue that qualia have precisely the characteristics of a disproof, though I’m going to hold out hope for a reductionist explanation of them. In any case, an all-form world is an extremely Platonic notion. Though I am not a mathematician, I share the sense of many mathematicians that mathematical truths have a kind of necessary Platonic existence, because if abstracta only existed in their physical instantiations, it would feel extremely odd, for example, that we could nevertheless prove various properties of how a physical computer will perform a nonexistent algorithm regardless of the physical principles by which the computer operates.
(Casually paraphrased, here’s a rough explanation of the thought behind “mathematical nihilogenesis”. If mathematical truths have necessary Platonic existence, then it appears some abstract reality exists corresponding to the statement “Given laws X and null properties Y, a universe will pop out without need for a pre-existing substance” for some X and Y. And then since X and Y are indeed given within that abstracta and are sufficient for a universe, there’s a universe, too.)
The account of reality that seemed plausible enough to finally switch me over from theism to atheism is related to mathematical realism. I don’t know its standard name, but I might call it mathematical nihilogenesis: the set of real universes are those describable by continuous lawful evolution from null initial conditions. The motivation in this case is twofold. First, it would come extremely close to a satisfactory explanation of why there is something rather than nothing. Second, it has already been argued that our universe may have zero total energy and may have originated via quantum effects from what Vilenkin describes as a spherical vacuum of zero radius and certain other null properties. That may not be nothingness, but it’s close.
If that were true, it would imply that, in Aristotelian terms, the world is all form and no substance. It could be disproved by discovery of some fundamental thing not fully describable in terms of its relations to other things. If it were conclusively found that universe has probably always had nonzero total energy, that would be a disproof. Some people argue that qualia have precisely the characteristics of a disproof, though I’m going to hold out hope for a reductionist explanation of them. In any case, an all-form world is an extremely Platonic notion. Though I am not a mathematician, I share the sense of many mathematicians that mathematical truths have a kind of necessary Platonic existence, because if abstracta only existed in their physical instantiations, it would feel extremely odd, for example, that we could nevertheless prove various properties of how a physical computer will perform a nonexistent algorithm regardless of the physical principles by which the computer operates.
(Casually paraphrased, here’s a rough explanation of the thought behind “mathematical nihilogenesis”. If mathematical truths have necessary Platonic existence, then it appears some abstract reality exists corresponding to the statement “Given laws X and null properties Y, a universe will pop out without need for a pre-existing substance” for some X and Y. And then since X and Y are indeed given within that abstracta and are sufficient for a universe, there’s a universe, too.)