Exactly. When we say that such and such thing "is possible", what we really mean is "I imagine it may occur". This imagining is not metaphysically significant; it's just a physical phenomenon like any other, and so subject to the same laws of causality. Possibility and choice and freedom are products of the physical mind, and so are completely compatible with a deterministic metaphysical model of the universe.

>Falsifying and censoring data is NOT science, it's lies!

Well if the only science I have access to is that which is published, and the publishing process is worthy of scepticism (which it is), then what difference does it make? The science that I see, I must be sceptical of.

>The scientific method has built in processes (like repeatability and falsifiability) to help eliminate bias.

Has this stopped scientists in the past from falsifying or censoring data to suit their own agenda?

>I’m just not sure that it made sense when you said that it’s possible that there would’ve been nothing, and that makes it beautiful

It didn't make sense at all, because language can't really capture this kind of thing well. But to be fair, I said "the universe might as well not have been" which isn't wrong. There's no reason for the universe to exist, but neither is there any reason for it not to exist. The universe is "unnecessary" in that its existence itself is not a matter of necessity. The universe truly "doesn't need to exist" because "need" implies necessity. But as I've said again and again, Necessity is not necessary. It is (that is, the universe is) unnecessary.

>How can you know that there is nothing outside of our universe, or nothing beyond it?

Because the word "universe" literally means all that exists. If there's something beyond what we call universe, then what we call universe isn't universe at all.

>is it actually possible that the universe would not have been?

Is it possible that Possibility could not have been? ... is what you mean to ask. As I say, language fails.

>How could a particular state of affairs ever emerge from a non-state of affairs, except by random occurrence or necessity?

That is quite literally the Great Question, that no one is qualified to answer. But how could Occurrence itself be a random occurrence? "Randomness" refers to the interaction of possibilities; so how can randomness exist prior to existence and possibility itself?

>So you believe that the existence of the universe itself is a non-determined random occurrence? Because that’s what it sounds like…

Language fails. These words don't really mean much when we're talking about an object of which there is no outside. The universe cannot be said to follow from anything else, because there is nothing before it. Nor can it be said to serve any other purpose than itself, because there is nothing beyond it. The universe is not an occurrence; it is occurrence itself, the entire web of causality.

Things that occur occur necessarily – but does occurrence have to occur? It makes no sense for something to necessarily cause causality itself. Thus I do not believe the universe can be called a necessary phenomenon, even though all that is a part of it necessarily follows.

You have a very narrow idea of fate and belief if you think there's any irony to what I've said. Don't take things so seriously!

No one can ever prove that (A) could have led to (C) rather than (B); nor can one, as it stands, prove that it could only lead to (B); because the only reality we have access to is the one in which (A) indeed did lead to (B). In the absence of cold hard proof, I am left with only intuition and faith.

I do not believe that, if we could rewind time and let it proceed again, anything different would occur. That's the long and short of it. That idea doesn't fill me with existential dread, because it quite literally changes nothing about how I inhabit the world – except that it gives me a poetic sense of contentment and soothes some fears.

>If not my own choice, was it my own action?

Of course! Why wouldn't it be?

No: the elements of the universe follow necessarily from each other, can not be anything other than they are. But the very fact that anything is at all is unnecessary in that there might as well be nothing. The drama follows a necessary path, but the drama itself is an unnecessary phenomenon. There doesn't need to be a universe. But there is. And that's beautiful.

But if nothing matters, then everything matters!

>What a huge nihilist waste of time this universe is.

That's precisely what makes the universe so beautiful: the fact that it is unnecessary.

If you can't find fulfilment in the cosmic game, if you insist that only useful things have value, and things aren't worth caring about unless they mean something – then I pity your view of the world; it seems like a very exhausting way to think.

It doesn't differ really. We are puppets. Is that so bad?

>What meaning would life have other than that of the voyeur?

The word "voyeur" implies the spectating of something of which you are not a part. But we all are part of the cosmic drama. Our roles (and the roles of every atom) may be already written, but it's still our story.

Cringe and utilitarian-brained

Are metaphors lies?